Encumbrance and skills

[Rasputin]

How can I get GCA to reflect the encumbrance penalty in skills that it affects (i.e., Climbing, fencing weapons, fencing parry)?

[Armin]

You can create a trait that applies the bonus. Either as an attribute so it's always there, or a disad or something that you can add to certain characters. As a disad, it might be in the data file like this:

[Disads]
Apply Encumbrance to Skills, 0, 
  gives(_
         =-char::enclevel to (_
                    SK:Sword!, 
                    "SKCAT:Combat/Weapons - Melee Combat"_
             )_
        )

I don't have my book handy, but you'd just need to adjust the items getting the bonus, shown here using some quickie sample items in the () after the 'to' part. You'll want to keep all the bonus receiving items listed within the parens as in my example, as this ensures that the bonus is applied to all the items, but no more than once to any of them. That way you can use overlapping groups or categories, whatever your preference is, with relative safety against multiple hits of the penalty.

The gives() is the important part, and is the same whether you create an attribute or any other trait to apply the penalty.

[Rasputin]

Would this show as a conditional bonus? And how do I handle the fencing parry?

What I'm looking to do is to enforce the book penalties from encumbrance to the skills that take these penalties RAW—Climbing, Judo, Karate, Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, Smallsword, Stealth—as well as a few other ones as a house rule, like Acrobatics and Swimming. I might even steal something from D&D 3.5 and have double encumbrance for Swimming. (As most of this is RAW, I'm surprised GCA doesn't handle this out of the virtual box.) In the weapon section, encumbrance modifies the striking skill number for Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, and Smallsword, as well as derived Parry from the base skill score. Say, if my group's swashbuckler with Rapier-18 and Parry (Rapier)-14F (Combat Reflexes and Enhanced Parry boosting that from 12F) has moderate encumbrance, in the skills section, there will be a note for the conditional modifier of -2, and in the weapons section, the Skill will be 16 and the Parry will be 12F. Will the above fix handle this?

[Armin]

The bonus given in my example is always on; for a conditional bonus you'd use conditional() instead of gives(), and a 'when' clause.

I can provide what you need for all your questions, but I don't have time to write it up right now. I'll try to come back soon with the writeup, but it'll probably be tomorrow at the earliest, and may be later in the week.

[Armin]

Okay, I managed to squeeze this in before I leave for the day. Here's what I've got, as an Attribute:

[Stats]
Encumbrance Effects, basevalue(1), display(No), 
	gives(_
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Climbing,
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Judo,
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Karate,
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Stealth,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Rapier::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Rapier::parryscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Saber::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Saber::parryscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Smallsword::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Smallsword::parryscore_
	),
	conditional(_
		=-char::enclevel to "SK:Main-Gauche" when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Rapier when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Saber when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Smallsword when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Large Knife::skillscore when "used as Main-Gauche in combat",
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Large Knife::parryscore when "used as Main-Gauche in combat",
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Small Knife::skillscore when "used as Main-Gauche in combat",
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Small Knife::parryscore when "used as Main-Gauche in combat"_
	)

The gives() gives outright, direct penalties to the Climbing, Judo, Karate, and Stealth.

It also gives direct penalties to the levels listed for skill and parry in the attack tables for Rapier, Saber, and Smallsword. Unfortunately, Main-Gauche isn't actually a weapon we can target, since it usually uses a knife.

The conditional() block adds a conditional penalty, which basically just notes that the penalty should apply in certain circumstances. We use this to note the penalties that will apply on the Main-Gaucher, Rapier, Saber, and Smallsword skills. We also use this to note the penalty for the Large Knife and Small Knife equipment items, but that often won't be shown in any useful fashion.

So, Main-Gauche is a problem, because it's a special skill that uses a Knife, so there's not really a way that I can see to target it universally for a penalty or not; you can't really tell from a 'meta' point of view if it's a Main-Gauche or not. It will probably require creating a modifier that can be applied when it's primary use is as Main-Gauche.

Remember, if you use this, add it to your custom data file, and any existing characters that use it will need to Resync Attributes to get it applied.

[Rasputin]

Thanks! I'll be sure to try this when I get home. Luckily, our swashbuckler doesn't use a main-gauche.

[Rasputin]

It seems to work. Ideally, I'd like the weapon penalties to show up in the Melee Attacks list, but this does work for the Skills list. I worry that applying the penalty to combat skills not as a conditional will lower the skill for calculating Parry, to which there is also a Parry penalty, so it would get implemented twice.

Edit: Ah, I know why it wasn't showing up in the weapon list: the character has a light rapier. Added it (and a few others) to the data file.

Another Edit: Though now it double-dips the Parry penalty. At Light Encumbrance, Rapier-18 and Parry-14, his Parry should be 13, not 12.

[Armin]

Ah, my notes said the parry score on the table was calculated from scratch using the skill used, but it's actually being calculated based on the adjusted score of the skill used, so the value after the encumbrance penalty.

That's annoying. I'll have to adjust things. I'll be back a bit later.

[Armin]

Okay, sorry for the initial mistake. It should be a simple matter of halving the encumbrance penalty to parryscore, to account for the fact that it's being based on adjusted skillscore. I needed to check so that things rounded the right way.

This should fix the double dipping, I believe:

[Stats]
Encumbrance Effects, basevalue(1), display(No), 
	gives(_
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Climbing,
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Stealth,
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Karate::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Karate::parryscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Rapier::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel\2 to EQ:Rapier::parryscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Saber::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel\2 to EQ:Saber::parryscore,
		=-char::enclevel to EQ:Smallsword::skillscore,
		=-char::enclevel\2 to EQ:Smallsword::parryscore_
	),
	conditional(_
		=-char::enclevel to "SK:Main-Gauche" when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Rapier when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Saber when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Smallsword when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Karate when "striking or parrying",
		=-char::enclevel to SK:Judo when "striking or parrying"_
	)

The \ for division instead of / in the code is to ensure integer division, so it drops the fraction automatically, which in this case rounds things the way we need it to in order to compensate for having halved the skillscore already before applying our penalty.

Assuming I ran my test cases correctly, that should fix up the double dipping issue.

(I also removed the conditional to the Knife equipment item, as it's basically redundant to any note to the Main-Gauche skill, and is more annoying if it actually shows up anywhere. You can keep it if you prefer.)

[Armin]

Hmm, I had a thought this morning, and it looks like my solution above is not actually doing the job correctly. I'll have to adjust it again.