Unarmed combat skills for armed fighters

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

In more detail, what we have now is:

UC I - IQ 10 - costs 2 - min DX 13, +1 dmg
UC II - IQ 12 - costs 2 - min DX 14, +2 dmg, shield rush
UC III- IQ 14 - costs 2 - min DX 14, +3 dmg, shield rush +1d, bare defend
UC IV - IQ 14 - costs 2 - min DX 15, as above, eyes behind, bare defend +1d
UC V - IQ 14 - costs 3 - min DX 16, as above, +1d to be hit, drop weapon

It seems to me that levels I through III are restrained and don't seem unrealistic or particularly exciting, and your proposed new costs seem like an improvement for them, to me.

However, UC IV and V add some abilities that weapon-using fighters don't get, and that feel slightly super/magical, which are interesting but feel a bit off to me. And why can't you be a master fighter using weapons? Or armor?

WOw, I like this analysis and idea so much. There is indeed a sequence of simple bonuses leading to amazing epic abilities. So could there be a similar progression of armed combat skills?

One could imagine a sequence of duelist kinds of skills, small increments to damage, leading to eyes behind, +1D to hit

Likewise a sequence of barbarian skills, emphasising ST, and perhaps leading to damage increments, warrior/veteran resistance, sweeping blow advantages, etc

There would need to be some tuning of course, as Steve has made the UC I-III sequence achievable for a starting character. Armed expertise might occur more slowly.

For me this would address a few things.
Most important, it would give heroes a path for becoming more heroic even with attribute caps. It would also even out wizards with heroes (possibly). Three, it just sounds really fun!

[zot]

Originally Posted by RobW

WOw, I like this analysis and idea so much. There is indeed a sequence of simple bonuses leading to amazing epic abilities. So could there be a similar progression of armed combat skills?

One could imagine a sequence of duelist kinds of skills, small increments to damage, leading to eyes behind, +1D to hit

Likewise a sequence of barbarian skills, emphasising ST, and perhaps leading to damage increments, warrior/veteran resistance, sweeping blow advantages, etc

There would need to be some tuning of course, as Steve has made the UC I-III sequence achievable for a starting character. Armed expertise might occur more slowly.

For me this would address a few things.
Most important, it would give heroes a path for becoming more heroic even with attribute caps. It would also even out wizards with heroes (possibly). Three, it just sounds really fun!

That does sound cool. I hope there's a way to do it that doesn't make the UC talents a poor choice, though.

[Skarg]

As I posted to Ty on the UC thread, I think part of the puzzle may be to (as part of tweaking the HTH initiation rules), give UC talents an effect on how well you can initiate HTH, and/or deny someone stabbing you with a dagger in HTH. Not sure about the details, but currently anyone has a 2/3 chance to get into HTH with anyone else, and it seems like a natural effect UC talents should have, and also a balance point between UC fighters and armed fighters. Fighters want to deny HTH, UC fighters want to get them in HTH, fighters probably should have some level of UC to be competent against UC tricks... or something along those lines. (I need to get back to work at the moment, so no time to design a real proposal.)