Would you like a Melee Fighting Talent?

[AlexanderHowl]

It happens with the broadsword>shortsword>knife chain of defaults (Knife at DX+10 [36], Shortsword at DX+10 [16], and Broadsword at DX+10 [8] actually ends up being the most efficient distribution) as you gain so many combat skills by paying an extra 24 CP. If a character improves one of the central three skills, it improves all 10 skills, making it very CP efficient.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It happens with the broadsword>shortsword>knife chain of defaults (Knife at DX+10 [36], Shortsword at DX+10 [16], and Broadsword at DX+10 [8] actually ends up being the most efficient distribution)

Um... that's 60 points. For the same cost you can get Shortsword@DX+13[52], Knife@DX+10[4], Broadsword@DX+12[4]

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

The more I've studied various weapons and unarmed forms, the more I've seen similarities rather than differences.

Nice to hear, this kind of experience is where I'm coming from with my initial thoughts, too... One essential point for me, talking about similarities with different weapons or unarmed, is the similar body movement in general. People look too much at the arms and hands, forgetting that the biggest amount of movement in a single combat maneuver is done by the whole body and there are many similarities to be found here.

Originally Posted by Gigermann

Interesting thought: If all melee weapons did default to each other, you could look at the average default across the board, and would effectively have a "base melee skill," which might be useful for other applications.

That's the way I'm thinking about, too..! (Just a different mechanical approach for the start...)

A generic fighting skill or a fighting talent could be quite useful in different situations. In case of a talent I would use it as a bonus to attributes or other skills.

For instance you could use your fighting talent as a bonus to a perception roll to easier perceive the rough level of melee fighting skill of another person by looking at their movement. An interesting addition to the talent could also be that, having the talent yourself, you would be recognized easier as a fighter, if you are not acting to hide that (which can be good or bad for you, depending on the situation). It would fit to the real world experience of most martial artists that many people (even untrained) recognize your different body language after several years of training.

Moreover I'd like to include it for combat related "will" checks, e.g. to compare the resoluteness of two dueling fighters, in a quick contest to maybe give the better guy a little bonus or something like that. Yet another usage idea could be as a bonus for a weapon based intimidation... (you surely look like you're capable of doing it)

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Melee combat munchkins max out a single skill and leave everything else at minimal or zero points, and their reaction to a 15 point talent would be "for that many points, I can buy +1 DX and -0.25 basic speed".

+1

I'd also say 15 CP would really be too much to be useful. But maybe something in the range of 8-10 CP for a talent like that would be more appropriate, it was just the first suggestion for a discussion ;)

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Kax

....any combat talent that affects all skills that's cheaper than 15 pt./lvl is munchkin-cheap, or less than 10 pt./lvl if it's only defaults.

I'm with Kax on this - 5pts per level seems astonishingly cheap to me. I'd call it 15pts/level; maybe someone could convince me to go with 10 - but 5pts for a +1 to all melee skills really seems far, far too cheap to me.

Of course it depends on the campaign, but I think that for any campaign in which melee fighting is going play a large part (which, in my experience, describes a pretty fair proportion of campaigns out there!) then charging just 5 pts for a +1 to one of the core activities of the game, in all situations, is going to cause problems. Talents are priced high for a reason! Raising 29 skills simultaneously, plus getting a benefit to reaction rolls among certain folks, plus getting faster learning times; all of this is worth far more than 5 pts. I mean, for most characters it costs 4 pts to raise just their primary melee skill - so 5 pts to raise all melee skills is exceedingly cheap by comparison.

Now, it's true that all those 29 skills are based on the same attribute, DX, which I suppose is a case for going down to 10pts/level (though this would be to ignore the the reaction bonus and the learning bonus). But to my mind it's not really accurate to say that the skills are mutually redundant since they're all used in the same situation. I would say that the situations are significantly different: Broadsword is really useful if there's a broadsword around; the situation is different if you're trying to defend your life when there's no sword anywhere nearby, but you can grab a spear.

My litmus test is "If I were making a melee-focused character, would this be an absolute no-brainer?" And at 5 pts, the answer is "yes!" I'd be a fool to invest more than 4 pts in any single combat skill, and I'd also be a fool to buy up DX very far at all - I'm definitely better off putting all those pts in Melee Talent.

I worry that this would make DX significantly less useful by comparison (and incidentally nerf High-DX character concepts, who would be paying a lot more for their weapon skills, in effect). I also worry that it would mean that all melee-focused PCs become very similar - in many (most?) campaigns, different people specialize in different melee weapons (often it's a core part of the character concept!), and there's also a differnece between fighters who rely on high basic DX, and fighters with a more modest DX who have really invested points in their skills. I worry that with Melee Talent at 5 (even 8) pts per level, you'll end up with a lt of very similar builds, the only relevant difference being how many levels of "Melee Talent" the various melee fighters have bought.

I don't mean to pooh-pooh the idea completely; for some campaigns, I can see a case for some sort of "Melee Talent" as a way to help differentiate between the medium-DX weapon master archetype and the high-DX acrobat/assassin/thief archetype, at least at low point values (at high point values, I think Weapon Master already does that job pretty well). I just think it needs to be 15pts/level - maybe 10, if we're intent on ditching the reaction bonus etc (though honestly I'd be a bit reluctant to do that, since that's not really the way Talents work in GURPS more generally - ditch those, and in a way you're just creating a new base "melee" stat, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Joe

Now, it's true that all those 29 skills are based on the same attribute, DX, which I suppose is a case for going down to 10pts/level (though this would be to ignore the the reaction bonus and the learning bonus).

I always forget about those features of talent because I hate that they exist. Talent should just be +1/level to a list of skills and do nothing else; if you want it to add to reactions, include appropriate influence skills in the list.

[lwcamp]

The basic idea makes sense to me. First, as others have mentioned, I see a lot of overlap between the techniques of the various fighting skills, so it just makes sense for a master of, say, spear fighting to be able to pick up a broadsword and do pretty good with it.

The other reason I like the idea is that if you are really good with, say, that spear, also being good with a broadsword is not all that much additional utility. I mean, they both basically do the same thing (kill people), and you can really only use one at a time*. So if you've already spent, say, 40 points to be awesome at skewering people with a spear, is it really worth another 40 points to be able to do basically the same thing but with a different tool?

You could do something similar with a grappling talent, for basically the same reasons. It would give its bonus to Judo, Sumo, Wresting, and any grappling uses of Brawling.

Luke

* Barring specialist exotic builds - but if you go that route you could just use two spears anyway, so the same points still hold.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Joe

I'm with Kax on this - 5pts per level seems astonishingly cheap to me. I'd call it 15pts/level; maybe someone could convince me to go with 10 - but 5pts for a +1 to all melee skills really seems far, far too cheap to me.

That's why my suggestion is just to only allow it to apply to defaults.

Talents are priced high for a reason!

Yeah, but that point, maybe Talents are overpriced?

(Hint, they are.)

I worry that this would make DX significantly less useful by comparison (and incidentally nerf High-DX character concepts, who would be paying a lot more for their weapon skills, in effect).

It wouldn't. There is too much that DX does.

It would make ye olde "Klutz until he picks up a weapon" trope characters possible. So it has that going for it.

I also worry that it would mean that all melee-focused PCs become very similar - in many (most?) campaigns, different people specialize in different melee weapons (often it's a core part of the character concept!), and there's also a differnece between fighters who rely on high basic DX, and fighters with a more modest DX who have really invested points in their skills.

Not really. It would mean almost every warrior would be highly competent with whatever weapon they picked up, but you'd still see everyone being a specialist in one weapon (unless you make the mistake of allowing unlimited Talent levels, but then that's a whole nother thing).



I mean, I'm against it in general, but it wouldn't "break the game".

[Joe]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I mean, I'm against it in general, but it wouldn't "break the game".

It would break everything! Just suggesting it has ruined GURPS for all of us! (Just kidding...)

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That's why my suggestion is just to only allow it to apply to defaults.

Yup, I quite like that suggestion. Certainly makes more sense price-wise.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Yeah, but that point, maybe Talents are overpriced?
(Hint, they are.)

I'm with you here, too - 15 pt talents do usually seem pretty dear by comparison with just raising basic attributes, except in special cases. Though it's worth maybe giving a shout-out here to Power-Ups: Talents, which has some great things to say about this.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

It would make ye olde "Klutz until he picks up a weapon" trope characters possible. So it has that going for it.

True

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I always forget about those features of talent because I hate that they exist. Talent should just be +1/level to a list of skills and do nothing else; if you want it to add to reactions, include appropriate influence skills in the list.

I feel a bit that way myself, to be honest - I'm also one of the people who feel that it would be more intuitive to run Talents as a simple bonus to skill, and price out the reaction bonus and the enhanced learning on their own, if you want them. But we're talking about adding a new Talent to the system, and I guess I just assumed we were thinking of running it according the the existing Talent rules (though perhaps I ought to have paid more attention to the OP's interesting suggestion that the proposed "Melee Talent" require points invested in particular skills, which is already a departure here).

Obviously house rules can be full of little exceptions and special cases, and that works fine for many people, but in general terms I think it's best to try to use as much of the existing system as possible, and to maximize compatibility between new house rules and existing rules. That's why I'm a bit wary of introducing a new "Talent" that behaves differently to the way that all the other talents behave (different because it requires skill prerequisites, or different because it adds to default use rather than normal use, or different because it omits the usual side benefits of talent - or all three). Now, we could certainly decide to run the whole Talents sub-system differently, but that's perhaps a broader conversation.

I guess I just imagine explaining to my players: "Well, first you buy your basic attribute, then you buy up skills based on it. But you can also get a Talent, which adds to certain kinds of skills, though not Combat skills, since the standard system doesn't allow that. But I have a house rule that allows "Melee Talent," which behaves a little bit like the other Talents, except that it's a special case in the following three respects...." Totally viable for players who like mechanics; not great for my players who just want to play. Especially when I also have to explain all the other elements of the system (and maybe other house rules...). I guess that's why I put a high value on simplicity and compatibility with existing rules ("parsimony," if you like).

Originally Posted by Anthony

Talent should just be +1/level to a list of skills and do nothing else; if you want it to add to reactions, include appropriate influence skills in the list.

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 - i.e., only when dealing with people in a special position to notice and admire your talent. This isn't a big deal, but I thought I'd point it out in passing, just for the sake of the conversation. I think we may be basically in agreement about the big stuff!

I should note that I don't mean to be down on the basic idea. It's an interesting thought experiment.