Would you like a Melee Fighting Talent?

[Plane]

+1 to DX (Aspected: Combat Only, -20%) [16] ?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Joe

A really minor point in passing: to my mind including influence skills in the Talent wouldn't be a great way to get the same effect - then you'd get a bonus to an Influence skill in all situations, when what you're really after is a bonus to reactions in a small sub-set of situations.

Have the bonus to Savoir-Faire (Specific).

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Joe

..., the only relevant difference being how many levels of "Melee Talent" the various melee fighters have bought.

Nope, big misunderstanding! My thought was definitely to restrict the levels, at max. to 3 levels like I wrote it.

Moreover, as has been said before, if you want to min-max your char, it's still the most effective way to raise only one single weapon skill - though, of course, then you'll suck in case you lose your weapon and don't have an equal replacement, but still that's what many people do as it is the shortest path to high stats.

But after thinking about the first feedback, I agree that a price for that should be higher than 5/lvl, though maybe 10/lvl would still be a lot as there is so much redundancy between these skills and raising DX is also reachable at 20 cp. For me it feels like "8 CP" or something in that region. For 10 CP, personally as a GM I'd give some extra benefits to still make it interesting for players and not overpriced.

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Plane

+1 to DX (Aspected: Combat Only, -20%) [16] ?

Very interesting approach, nice! But for my taste it's still too expensive, if we could further drop that to 12-14 CP, it would really be cool... :)

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

So, it would go like this? (written in the style of Power-Ups: Talents)

Melee Dabbler [10/level]
Benefits all melee fighting skills that exist in the character’s culture, but only for the purpose of default use, and raising them from default. Brawling starts at DX-3 at Level 1, but other no-default skills don’t improve. Melee Dabbler also doesn’t benefit Combat Art, Fast-Draw, Garrote, or Lance. Melee Dabbler comes in 3 levels.

Prerequisites: Level 1 requires you to have spent at least 8 CP in at least two different melee fighting skills. Level 2 requires you to have spent at least 16 CP in at least four different melee fighting skills. Level 3 requires you to have spent at least 24 CP in at least six different melee fighting skills.
Reaction Bonus: Anyone in a position to witness the breadth of your fighting skills.
Alternative Benefit: +1 per level to Will for intimidation with a melee weapon and when rolling a Quick Contest of Will against an opponent in combat.
Alternative Cost: 12/level.

[evileeyore]

I think I'm going to go with ...


Fighting Man 4 points/lvl (5 levels max)

Each level of Fighting Man raises defaults on all combat skills by +1, the default cannot exceed the base Attribute. The fifth level raises the bonus to +6.

And then...

Veteran Fighting Man 15 points

You may use your highest combat skill in place of any Attribute when rolling for a combat skill at default.




I'm not not 100% sure on the cost of VFM, it might need to be 20.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I think I'm going to go with ...


Fighting Man 4 points/lvl (5 levels max)

Each level of Fighting Man raises defaults on all combat skills by +1, the default cannot exceed the base Attribute. The fifth level raises the bonus to +6.

And then...

Veteran Fighting Man 15 points

You may use your highest combat skill in place of any Attribute when rolling for a combat skill at default.




I'm not not 100% sure on the cost of VFM, it might need to be 20.

I could probably spend 1 pt each on 5 different Skills and raise all the Defaults that might be in question by 4 pts each. I wouldn't take any of the proposed versions.

Maybe if someone wanted to make this a Perk of some kind. You could already take the RAW Dabbler Perk and raise 8 Defaulrs by 1 pt. Or 4 Defaults by 2 and so on.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I could probably spend 1 pt each on 5 different Skills and raise all the Defaults that might be in question by 4 pts each. I wouldn't take any of the proposed versions.

Maybe if someone wanted to make this a Perk of some kind. You could already take the RAW Dabbler Perk and raise 8 Defaulrs by 1 pt. Or 4 Defaults by 2 and so on.

Wot Fred sed.

Folks keep worrying that this is too good of a deal in terms of theorycraft, but we also need to consider "would anyone consider this a good deal during PC build/advancement?"

Anything that purely reduces default penalties has to be competitive with just slapping some CP in the skill or stat, and anything that raises the defaulted from value needs to be competitive with just raising the stat.

[Black Leviathan]

I'm normally pretty fussy about customizing talents. I've seen it go way out of hand, and the idea of it fills me with apprehension just because it seems like a way to build a monster,but it's not so terrifying when I think about it. If we assume talents fall like so:

Talent: Reaper (15/level) Skills: Knife, Shortsword, Broadsword, Two-handed Sword, Axe/Mace, Two-handed Axe/Mace, Chain, Polearm, Spear, any of the other melees I'm forgetting.

Talent: Pugilist (10/level) Skills: Brawling, Boxing, Karate, Judo, Wrestling, Yada yada.

At the point of greatest efficiency in this talent you're paying for a free level of 3-4 Melee skills or 2-3 Unarmed skills. While you get a lot more skill levels for the cost these skills tend to all overlap in application and many have default to one-another that are already very useful.

There is some real world precedent for having talent at unarmed fighting or armed fighting, arm length, build, fast-twitch muscle fiber, hand-eye coordination, "killer instinct". Unquestionably fighting is measurably easier for some people so there's little argument for how a talent wouldn't be appropriate.

The Talent provides a way to create a young "natural" with the sword or unarmed combat that is able to have high levels in fighting skills that don't consume max skill points for someone of young years and doesn't require a gigantic dexterity.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by martinl

Anything that purely reduces default penalties has to be competitive with just slapping some CP in the skill or stat, and anything that raises the defaulted from value needs to be competitive with just raising the stat.

Which is why I made my version "all combat skills that have a default."

Sure, if you're literally never going to ever use up any other combat skil than the 2-6 you've tossed points into, then throwing down another 4/lvl "just in case" would feel wrong. But if your fighters keep running into magical weapons they aren't skilled in... or the Weapon Dissolving Monster keeps eating your favorite weapons (and the scrub mobs carry weird ones)...

20 points to have anything you pick or punch/kick with be at DX doesn't sound bad. Or 15 points to have them all default off of your Two-Handed Sword 30 skill...