Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh
One of the points of merging is to enable things like decreasing the penalty (or increasing the bonus) by 2 or more per point spent.
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We can do that without calling the points "Perks", though. As long as we're rewriting the Techniques rules, you can invent Techniques even easier than Average that have a bigger bonus per point. Someone already did that upthread. Though retaining multiple pricing categories for Techniques doesn't meet the goal of reducing complexity or wordcount.
There are times when you'd like to continue to count Techniques as "skill" points rather than "advantages". Consider common rules and houserules about advantage limits, skill point minimums, changes in ease of acquisition or training requirements after game start, style requirements for X points of skill invested to earn Y points of Style Perks, comparing veteran training versus talented newbies, floating skills to other attributes. It's certainly tempting to shrug and say "what's in a name?" But in this case I'd be happier continuing to think of the points as a kind of focused training in skills rather than a micro Talent Advantage. It's not that Kay Fu was born with inherent natural expertise in Elbow Strikes. She just trained more on that move.
Attacking the "more than three Techniques and you might as well just buy the skill" problem will require fractional points. (Or else multiplying all other point costs by 2, 4, 8, 10, 60, whatever, so the smallest unit is still an integer.) But then, this might not be such a problem. If Techniques really are signature moves or areas of special concentration, characters shouldn't have a lot of them for a given skill. You can't be focused on everything, by definition.