[MA] What's the virtue of using spears with Staff skill?

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by Maz

You are reading "it's intended use" from an example and dismissing the rest of the text. If the onyl intention with the skill was to allow to use none-fencing weapons with fencing skill then it wouldn't make sense to include several lines about how it would work with other weapons (silly or not).

No, I'm reading its intended use from ten examples: its sum-total four appearances in styles - Escrima, Krabi Krabong and (twice) in Dragon-Man Kung Fu - in every instance applying to using a sword or stick with a fencing skill; its conspicuous absence from Chinese Horse-Cutter Fighting, Chinese Spear-Fighting, Glaive Fighting, Naginatajutsu and Sojutsu, all of which teach Staff skill for fighting with spears or polearms; and the "Switching Skills" passage.

Understand, I agree that the perk as written has much, much broader scope, and is a little ambiguous to boot; and I agree that it's uncertain how it should relate to the use of spears with Staff skill. But the fact that it never accompanies the Staff skill in the many styles where the skill appears, and Kromm's earlier post in this thread, give me some guidance here in interpreting the perk. And it is an interpretation; I several times use phrases like "as near as I can tell" to try and press home that this is my take on a set of rules which appear to be inexhaustive.

However, while pains have been taken to make the perk as broad as possible for players, GMs and future supplement writers to make use of, its application in the book is fairly specific. It really only serves to a) transfer bonuses normally enjoyed by one weapon to another (and all I can think of are the fencing bonuses and the staff bonus) and b) save on buying multiple skills (and the styles in Martial Arts seem to avoid this, preferring just to cover the skill bases). Just buying a skill with WA to use a different weapon is slightly pointless.

And it only ever appears in styles that use fencing skills for non-fencing weapons; the spear and polearm styles neglect it, and p. 104 suggests a reason for this.

But allow me to rephrase if it helps. Here's my basic take on why WA (Spear to Staff) doesn't appear.

1. WA allows you to use Weapon A with the skill for Weapon B as though Weapon A were Weapon B, transferring bonuses across.
2. WA (Staff to Spear) would therefore involve stabbing with a staff, using Spear skill. This is RAW legal - although I still think the weapon charts and style skill lists suggest that these are considered profoundly different techniques - but not particularly valuable, since you can thrust with a staff using Staff skill anyway.
3. WA (Spear to Staff) would involve bashing people upside the head with the side of a spear, or thrusting with the butt of the spear, using the Staff skill. This is RAW legal, but pointless, since you can legally use the Staff skill to do this without the WA perk.

So your question - like mine - is how to transfer the +2 bonus. Your choices (or your GM's choices, if you're a player) are:

1. No problems. All staves and polearms gain the +2 bonus when used with Staff skill. In spite of what it says in the weapon charts, the bonus reflects the skill used more than the weapon's design.

2. It's free with spears, but you need the WA perk to get it with polearms.

3. It's free with spears, but impossible with polearms.

It looks (and unfortunately it was not made explicitly clear in MA) as though 2. is RAW, but I prefer 1.

Originally Posted by Maz

This is not in the rules. True, Staffs are not listed under Spear, but then, neither are Spear listed under staff. you can't just assume one can be used without also assuming it works the other way around.

I don't wish to turn this into some kind of "you're wrong"/"no, you're wrong" slinging match, because I feel that would be rude and boring to everyone else, but I beg to differ. The absence of spear and polearms from the Staff entry in the Basic Set aside, a range of spears and polearms do appear under Staff in Martial Arts. But even there, staffs still don't appear under Spear. I note that they do appear under Two-Handed Sword.

If you require the rules to state everything that each skill doesn't cover, it could get unweildy very quickly.