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Old 03-25-2014, 09:42 PM   #1
Infornific
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Default Talents & Martial Arts

I got Power Ups 3: Talents a little while ago and found the take on combat skills in Talents interesting but a bit odd.

First, the idea that a small Talent with combat skills was ok but a large Talent with combat skills was unbalancing. That strikes me as a little odd - a big Talent isn't a whole lot cheaper than DX so a 15 point Talent with all melee combat skills doesn't seem too unbalancing in practice.

Second, the argument against any Talent for a martial arts Talent followed by the Job Training advantage, which in practice sounds awfully similar to a Talent for a martial art - you get a bonus to a bunch of skills for a specific occupation.

So it occurred to me you could create a quasi-Talent for a martial art. The idea is to make it more practical to create characters who are skilled at a style of fighting without having a high DX and consequent talent at all physical skills. Otherwise under the rules as written if you want a character who is skilled at more than a couple of physical skills you're best off buying up DX and just putting a few points into skills.

Here's how it would work.

The Martial Artist Advantage costs one point for each skill included per level, with a minimum cost of 5 points per level. It adds to the skills just like a regular Talent but can be learned after character creation.

It has the following restrictions:

1. The character must be trained in the martial arts style including style familiarity and all skills. As with Job Training, he must put at least one point in every skill in the Advantage before buying the Advantage.
2. The character must buy a Special Training (Martial Artist) perk for every level of the Advantage.
3. The Talent only applies to Techniques and sub-skills used in the relevant martial art. For example, if the style includes Karate but does not generally teach the Jump Kick technique, the skill bonus from Martial Artist does not apply to that Technique.
4. The fighting style is more easily identified – observers have a bonus equal to the level of the advantage to recognize the style used.

The rationalization is that you're learning these skills as part of a single system so there is some synergy. The point cost and limitations came from playing with the idea of Enhancements and Limitations on a Talent:

Cosmic (can be learned) (+50%)
Limitation: Character must be trained in the martial arts style. (-10%)
Limitation: Signature - fighting style is more easily identified (-10%)
Limitation: Only applies to Techniques and subskills used in the relevant martial art (-10%)

Net Modifier would be +20%. For a 5 point Talent that would be a net cost of 6 points - which matches paying for a Perk to have access to the Talent.

Just playing around with ideas here. In practice this could create a reverse problem where it's too cheap to buy up skills but I'm trying to get away from the model where character sink points in only one or two skills.
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