[Worldbuilding] Talent - Combat Techniques

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Disclaimer: I am the GM. :)

Fluff:

Humanity is the creation of the Gods and the Demons working together to create soldiers for their armies in their battles against the Dragons and the Dragonborn Races. The creators had time, as the Dragons were not aware of their actions, but a certain urgency as the Dragons were extinguishing the existing population of Gods and the Demons at a relatively rapid pace.

In particular, they had to make their creations capable of fighting the Elves. Elves -- being unaging and possessed of perfect memories -- that have had literally thousands of years of training, experience and improvement in their fighting skills ...

They didn't have that much time. So they created shortcuts.

Mechanic:

Talent 4, "Combat Techniques" [60]
-- Reaction Bonus: None. [-10]
... my understanding is that this reduces the technique penalty for any given technique by four. If this doesn't do that, what trait or combination of traits would do that?

Abuse this. I'm aware its' a powerful trait. Assume I have all of the books and am using (opt in via perks rather than enabled for everyone) a good number of the cinematic options.

What breaks? What combinations should I be wary of?

Better (more efficient; least bookkeeping) ways of getting the desired result?

[Gef]

A talent for the skills themselves accomplishes the same thing. There's a recommendation in the description of talents against a hypothetical "Weapon Talent." I first took this to mean that combat skills were forbidden in talents, though it broke nothing as far as I can tell. At Sir Pudding's prompting, I reread that line carefully and noted that it occurred in context of discussing how broad a talent could be, not what skills could go in it. -GEF

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Gef

A talent for the skills themselves accomplishes the same thing. There's a recommendation in the description of talents against a hypothetical "Weapon Talent." I first took this to mean that combat skills were forbidden in talents, though it broke nothing as far as I can tell. At Sir Pudding's prompting, I reread that line carefully and noted that it occurred in context of discussing how broad a talent could be, not what skills could go in it. -GEF

I appear to have been unclear. :)

Talent 4 , "Combat Skills"
... gives Combat Skill at (Attribute + Talent 4 + Points)
... which allows you to use the Techniques for Combat Skills at (Combat Skill - Technique Penalty).

Talent 4, "Combat Techniques"
... gives each Technique at (Combat Skill - Technique Penalty + Talent 4 + Points), and applies individually to every possible technique for Combat Skills
... in effect every technique that has a technique penalty of -4 or less is usable without penalty and potentially at a bonus.

Talent (Combat Technique) stacks with itself on the same roll. Talent (Combat Skill) doesn't stack. Which is why I'm curious as to what it breaks to Talent the techniques rather than the skill (and, thereby, what a reasonable pricing would be for the effect).

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Talent (Combat Technique) stacks with itself on the same roll. Talent (Combat Skill) doesn't stack. Which is why I'm curious as to what it breaks to Talent the techniques rather than the skill (and, thereby, what a reasonable pricing would be for the effect).

Unfortunately I don't believe that's true. You've got a Talent that only gives a bonus when using Techniques (don't forget to add that limitation, otherwise it should affect base skill use otherwise). Talents don't double dip on skills, if both skills A and B are part of the same talent, and A defaults from B you only add the talent bonus to A once. Thus there's no reason for a combined technique to add the Talent twice, you determine defaults first then add the Talent's bonus on at the end.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

Unfortunately I don't believe that's true. You've got a Talent that only gives a bonus when using Techniques (don't forget to add that limitation, otherwise it should affect base skill use otherwise). Talents don't double dip on skills, if both skills A and B are part of the same talent, and A defaults from B you only add the talent bonus to A once. Thus there's no reason for a combined technique to add the Talent twice, you determine defaults first then add the Talent's bonus on at the end.

If untrue, then, how do I model the desired effect?

I could assign racial skill in each and every single technique that exists in the game buying off the technique penalty (up to a certain value) for each one ... they are not required to have any skill at all (able to use techniques off a default skill) in the relevant combat skill (of which they have every technique for every combat skill in every possible combination) ... but that strikes me as rather inelegant, requires a massive amount of writing stuff out and would increase the point value of every Human in the setting every time someone invented a new technique. The last is especially undesirable.

Talent appeared to be the best way to model the desired result. (Humans can pull complicated combinations of combat techniques without skill penalty and without requiring any training in the combat skill.)

[Gnomasz]

Still, one skill can gain bonuses from multiple overlapping Talents, so IMHO the way with two talents should work (if it were only one Talent, then it would be like Dinadon said).

And i think it's not overpowered for it's cost. Just remember, that techniques have caps (usually at skill level), so, for example, Knee Strike won't get +4 from Techniques Talent, but only +1 to reduce all penalties.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Gnomasz

Still, one skill can gain bonuses from multiple overlapping Talents, so IMHO the way with two talents should work (if it were only one Talent, then it would be like Dinadon said).

And i think it's not overpowered for it's cost. Just remember, that techniques have caps (usually at skill level), so, for example, Knee Strike won't get +4 from Techniques Talent, but only +1 to reduce all penalties.

Hmm. Let me give an example to confirm my understanding.

Example:

Maneuver Declared. Combat Skill 12-. TechniqueA -4, TechniqueB -2, TechniqueC -6, ..., ..., ...
-- With OriginalTalent4: Combat Skill 10-. (TechniqueA -0, TechniqueB -0, TechniqueC -2; assuming all techniques cap at Skill.)
-- With CorrectedTalent4: Combat Skill 4-. (TechniqueA -0, TechniqueB -2, TechniqueC -6; assuming all techniques cap at Skill.)

OriginalTalent4 behavior is the desired behavior. CorrectedTalent4 is undesired behavior. If my original understanding is incorrect, how do I model the desired behavior?

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Talent 4, "Combat Techniques" [60]
-- Reaction Bonus: None. [-10]

Not commenting on the other issues, but not giving a Reaction Bonus isn't worth a point break on this talent, especially not one so big.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Not commenting on the other issues, but not giving a Reaction Bonus isn't worth a point break on this talent, especially not one so big.

I figured the change as Reputation -4 (Large Class of People, *1/2) [-10] to negate the Reputation +4 (Large Class of People, *1/2) [10] incorporated into the Talent 4 [60] pricing.

But! I will keep your suggestion in mind as things develop. Who knows, I may decide to toss the idea and pick an entirely different way to even the playing field between a 20-something Human and a 4k-something Elf. :)

[Gnomasz]

"Does not provide reaction bonus" should be about -10% on Talents IMHO (IIRC, even Kromm mentioned it somewhere).

And for "DesiredTalent4" I would doble cost of normal Talent and just tried it out(tryed? Where's my dictionary, when it's needed?) in play. No abusive use comes to my mind, and for so much points, it has to be powerful!