Has anyone done any Melee Weapon Talents?

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There are three common situations: characters have no weapons at all, characters have their choice of light weapons, characters have their choice of all weapons. IME it's rather rare to have access to only the 'wrong' type of weapon.

If a character with Swords 15 loses his sword in melee combat due to either a critical failure or a critical success via his enemies defense, picking up an Axe from a dead foe isn't going to help much: if the sword character is DX 10, then his axe swinging will be at Skill 5. However, someone with DX 10 and 4 levels of all melee weapons will be able to swing an axe at skill 10. Yes, it costs 20pts to do that, but in a setting and campaign where melee combat is heavily expected, the utility of being able to use any weapon, untrained, is a huge deal. Being able to snatch a fallen enemies better weapon is a big deal for a poor adventurer: a fine axe doesn't help a swordsman, but a natural master of weapons can easily swing one, and even a single point into the skill will pay big dividends.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

If a character with Swords 15 loses his sword in melee combat due to either a critical failure .

If someone with Swords-15 has 20pts just lying around he should buy DX+1 before a Weapons Talent. That doubles his crit successes and halves his crit failures as well as aiding every DX-based skill he ahs or that defaults to DX plus other good stuff.

.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

If a character with Swords 15 loses his sword in melee combat due to either a critical failure or a critical success via his enemies defense, picking up an Axe from a dead foe isn't going to help much

I don't recall ever seeing an equivalent situation come up in a game, though I can't say for certain that it has never come up. It requires you to (a) lose your weapon (rare), (b) not have a backup weapon, (c) be unable retrieve your normal weapon (unless it's broken, this will usually be easier than retrieving an enemy weapon), and (d) have an enemy weapon in a location you can safely reach (this is rare, because enemy bodies tend to be located in the middle of enemies, and grabbing something on the ground in the middle of a group of foes is a somewhat elaborate form of suicide).

Also, this still costs a lot. If you have DX 10 and buy sword-15 normally, it will cost 20 points. With the talent, it costs 24 points, plus points for the other weapon types you know (1 for skill 13; figure around 30 points for general mastery), and even a 2 point skill difference is enough to be worth significant effort to acquire a better choice of weapons. Given the other things you can do with 10 points, that's actually a pretty iffy choice.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If someone with Swords-15 has 20pts just lying around he should buy DX+1 before a Weapons Talent. That doubles his crit successes and halves his crit failures as well as aiding every DX-based skill he ahs or that defaults to DX plus other good stuff.

.

Huh? 20pts in a weapons talent would give him effective DX 14 for skill purposes, which would give him Sword-19, compared to Sword 16 if he bought DX. So his parry is an impressive 12, compared to 11(and closer to being 13 than that 11 is to being 12), he gets to default all melee weapons at skill 9, compared to skill 6(big deal, as skill 9 only crit fails on 17 and 18, while skill 6 can crit fail on 16, 17 or 18). DX is certainly great, but if we're just talking about the efficacy of getting high weapon skills, 5pts/level talents are where it's at. You also get a reaction bonus and shorter training times, so you'll always be able to increase skill faster than a non talented hack.

Are there other reasons to buy DX? Sure, but if 5pts/level all weapons talent is out there, "increasing skill with melee weapons" is not one of those reasons. Well, it is once you max out the talent.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I don't recall ever seeing an equivalent situation come up in a game, though I can't say for certain that it has never come up. It requires you to (a) lose your weapon (rare), (b) not have a backup weapon, (c) be unable retrieve your normal weapon (unless it's broken, this will usually be easier than retrieving an enemy weapon), and (d) have an enemy weapon in a location you can safely reach (this is rare, because enemy bodies tend to be located in the middle of enemies, and grabbing something on the ground in the middle of a group of foes is a somewhat elaborate form of suicide).

Also, this still costs a lot. If you have DX 10 and buy sword-15 normally, it will cost 20 points. With the talent, it costs 24 points, plus points for the other weapon types you know (1 for skill 13; figure around 30 points for general mastery), and even a 2 point skill difference is enough to be worth significant effort to acquire a better choice of weapons. Given the other things you can do with 10 points, that's actually a pretty iffy choice.

Hmm, that's odd. It came up all the time in every low-tech game I've run or been part of. Cheap swords and weapons were really common, which mean breakages were also common, and high skill defenders frequently had crits when defending that would disarm an opponent. Everyone with a warhamemr or pick has always had problems with stuck weapons, and fantastic monsters immune to different weapons have shown up.

[Jasonft]

Something where the PC is a swordsman descended from a long line of swordsmen or a clan long known for such with a Talent for a given type of sword could work. Personally I would only allow *one* weapon skill within the Talent - others would be things like Acrobatics, Tactics, and whatever else your clan/ line is known specifically to be very good at.

People in a Three Musketeers type setting with lots of rival sword academies could also justify having a Talent including Sword skill. I would hope the GM forces you to roleplay devotion to your school/ studies if this Talent is allowed. Letting just anyone have it bends the rules way too much. An Unusual Background might be required to balance things out.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Jasonft

Something where the PC is a swordsman descended from a long line of swordsmen or a clan long known for such with a Talent for a given type of sword could work. Personally I would only allow *one* weapon skill within the Talent - others would be things like Acrobatics, Tactics, and whatever else your clan/ line is known specifically to be very good at.

People in a Three Musketeers type setting with lots of rival sword academies could also justify having a Talent including Sword skill. I would hope the GM forces you to roleplay devotion to your school/ studies if this Talent is allowed. Letting just anyone have it bends the rules way too much. An Unusual Background might be required to balance things out.

This is what I started doing as well, generally speaking. I would make talents like "True Roman", "Savage German", "Steppe Nomad" or the like, that would lump in what I thought were skills that would all relate to those archetypes.

So "True Roman" would be Broadsword, Shortsword, Spear, Thrown Spear, Shield(Buckler), Wrestling, History(roman Republic), Law(Roman Republic), and Public Speaking(IDHMBWM, so I can't remember what the splits on points costs for talents were? 5 or less is 5pts, 10 or less is 10pt, and more than 10 is 15pts? ) and the reaction bonus applies to Romans and Italians, people who admire Romans. "Savage German" would be Spear, Thrown Spear, Axe/mace, Shield(Buckler), Knife, Stealth, Survival(Woodlands), and Camoflage, for example.

I'm not against Weapon Talents, I just do not like the idea of making them 5pts cheap.

[Infornific]

We had a similar discussion a few months ago here. The focus was on Talents for a given martial art rather than combat skills but the logic was similar. You might take a look at that.

My own personal take is that combat skills in Talents make sense in certain situations:

1. To represent overall training in a combat system or systems. This allows a character to be a master at Knightly Combat (for example) without having a super high DX *cough* Selmy Barristan *cough*.

2. To represent general experience in combat - this would be something like the 15 point Experienced Talent Icelander has suggested.

Whether a 5 point Talent with combat skills is unbalancing depends on both genre and skills use. In a realistic modern or futuristic campaign, unarmed combat is a niche area so a 5 point Talent boosting an unarmed martial arts style is not necessarily unbalancing. It might be in other genres.

[Dustin]

I've been considering a houserule that, for melee skills which default to DX, you can substitute your best weapon skill in place of DX, but only for default purposes (no buying up from that level).

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I might do it differently. Say, a talent for Stealth, Climbing, Shortsword and Knife, and another for Broadsword, Two-handed sword, Stealth and Intimidation?

From Dungeon Fantasy 3, we have:

Pickaxe Penchant: Axe/Mace, Forced Entry, Prospecting, Thrown Weapon (Axe/Mace), and Two-Handed Axe/Mace. Requires Dwarf.

Forest Guardian: Bow, Camouflage, Fast-Draw (Arrow), Stealth, and Survival. Requires Elf.

Halfling Marksmanship: Bow, Sling, Throwing, Thrown Weapon (Dart, Knife, and Stick). Requires Halfling.

There's other talents, but it looks like one or two weapons with some supporting skills, totaling 5 or so.