Has anyone done any Melee Weapon Talents?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by fartrader

I disagree on the highlighted part. Take a character's melee weapon away if he's only got one, and you'll have a different situation than the character with the "all melee weapons" talent that can pick up anything lying around as a weapon. Not that there isn't any situation where having a second weapon will do you no good whatsoever, but there are situations where it certainly helps more than barely. It's very much worth bumping that up to the 15 point level, if you consider 5 going to reaction bonus alone, then 10 covering "all weapons" seems perfectly reasonable to me, if rather cheap.

I started tinkering with some DF martial arts, and one of the fun concepts that popped out was the weapon-master-of-all with lots of sword space, fast-draw, quick sheathing and dual-wielding. The idea is this: In a fantasy MMO/CRPG, you often get loads of weapons with different enchantments and options, and gobs of enemies who are vulnerable to different things. A character who is a master of many weapons can carry a wide variety of weapons and trade them out based on need. Meet a monster with loads of flexible DR and a vulnerability to crushing damage? Out comes the heavy warhammer. Meet the undead? Out comes a cutting weapon with holy enchantments (or fire).

Most people tend to see the benefits of specialization, but those only apply where one weapon is pretty much as good as another, like in a swashbuckling game where everyone uses rapiers anyway, the difference between rapier, smallsword and saber are marginal enough that you pick one and stick with it. It becomes the center of your style. But in some genres, like DF, having a huge variety of combat options at your disposal is very powerful.

[Railstar]

Possible idea:

Talent (Martial Arts style). Requires Special Exercises Perk for each level.

Essentially covers all the skills within a given martial arts style.

But you must spend the points on a perk for every level of talent.

And you must have enough skill points in the style to buy a style perk.

[Phantasm]

I came up with something some time back that I think should cover much of what the OP was looking for, I think. This talent is for a cinematic swordsman type who is naturally skilled in using swords and similarly balanced weapons (not other types of weapons; swords to axes won't be covered).

Natural Swordsman: Broadsword, Force Sword, Knife, Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, Shortsword, Smallsword, Two-Handed Sword. 10 points per level.
Reaction Bonus: Swordsmen, swashbucklers, swashbuckler wannabes, sword-fighting movie enthusiasts.
Alternative Benefit: +1 per level of the Talent for defending against Feints and Disarm attempts.
Alternative Cost: 9 points per level.


So, thoughts?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

A character who is a master of many weapons can carry a wide variety of weapons and trade them out based on need. Meet a monster with loads of flexible DR and a vulnerability to crushing damage? Out comes the heavy warhammer. Meet the undead? Out comes a cutting weapon with holy enchantments (or fire).

The thing this is missing is an understanding of GURPS mechanics. Consider a character with DX 12 and 32 points in weapon skills. If he picks a single skill to specialize in, he has a skill of 20. Pick 2 and it's skill 16. Pick 4 and it's skill 14.

Skill 20 slaughters skill 16. It's not even close. Sure, you pick up a bit of utility, but you could just use a light club with the broadsword skill and use the extra points you would have put in a secondary weapon into weapon master or striking ST and you'll do just as much damage as you'd do with the different weapon. There are games where the master of multiple weapons is a viable concept, but GURPS isn't one of them.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Natural Swordsman: Broadsword, Force Sword, Knife, Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, Shortsword, Smallsword, Two-Handed Sword. 10 points per level.
Reaction Bonus: Swordsmen, swashbucklers, swashbuckler wannabes, sword-fighting movie enthusiasts.
Alternative Benefit: +1 per level of the Talent for defending against Feints and Disarm attempts.
Alternative Cost: 9 points per level.


So, thoughts?

You're running into some pretty major cross-defaults. After about DX+5 in Broadsword every 4 pts more in Broadsword gets you + 1 to hit with every other weapon on the list.

There's still that DX+2 thing for WM bonuses too and a Weapon talent doesn't help with that. A level of Talent is effectively another level of the base Attribute.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Skill 20 slaughters skill 16. It's not even close.

In a sufficiently long fight I suppose you do about 3.8 times as much damage (on the difference in parry chances with deceptive attack to bring to hit odds equal) but it's not *that* one sided, there's a better than 1 in 4 chance the skill 16 guy will get in the first successful hit, and given that weapons in GURPS inflict a pretty large fraction of human HP, and the rules have effects like stunning built in, the first hit quite often determines who wins a duel. It's actually one of GURPS problems for a lot of settings - you can't be good enough to wade through mooks without turning on some optional cinematic rules.

There are games where the master of multiple weapons is a viable concept, but GURPS isn't one of them.

That's a little overstated. Multiple melee weapons with the same reach maybe. An all-around GURPS fighter probably ought to have at least 4 weapon skills (close combat, melee, close shooting and long range sniping). And additional ones for special niche weapons (Polearm, Lance, Whip, a non-lethal weapon etc.) aren't necessarily stupid investments either.

Basically it comes down to there's not much point in having more than one kind of Sword, or both a Sword and Axe/Mace. But yeah, combat skills are probably a little to narrow - if it has a skill to skill default, it arguably shouldn't be separated in the first place. If there were only a single One Handed Sword skill this argument would probably go away. If things had been left at a single Fencing skill, and you combined Staff/Spear and Polearm/Two Handed Axe too, I'm sure it would.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The thing this is missing is an understanding of GURPS mechanics.

Careful.

Consider a character with DX 12 and 32 points in weapon skills. If he picks a single skill to specialize in, he has a skill of 20. Pick 2 and it's skill 16. Pick 4 and it's skill 14.

Skill 20 slaughters skill 16. It's not even close. Sure, you pick up a bit of utility, but you could just use a light club with the broadsword skill and use the extra points you would have put in a secondary weapon into weapon master or striking ST and you'll do just as much damage as you'd do with the different weapon. There are games where the master of multiple weapons is a viable concept, but GURPS isn't one of them.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Most people tend to see the benefits of specialization, but those only apply where one weapon is pretty much as good as another, like in a swashbuckling game where everyone uses rapiers anyway, the difference between rapier, smallsword and saber are marginal enough that you pick one and stick with it. It becomes the center of your style.

You might give me the benefit of the doubt and assume I know what the hell I'm talking about.

You're correct, but only in certain genres. If your genre features duels between skilled characters, then that's true. In fact, in such a genre, it's almost never worthwhile to switch weapons except, possibly, once, long enough to figure out how to defeat that single opponent. That's what you typically see in a martial arts genre.

Dungeon Fantasy is not in the martial arts genre. It does not pit skilled opponents against skilled opponents. It usually pits waves of inept-but-weird opponents against a handful of very competent PCs. A goblin doesn't much care if you have skill 14, 16, 20, or 30. The only real benefit to enormous skill against goblins is that you can rapid strike more often to take more of them out. But if you face an opponent that completely defeats your chosen weapon, you're pretty much hosed. A fencer vs a skeleton, for example, is going to have problems regardless of his skill. A fencer against an opponent who is completely immune to steel is in serious trouble. Worse, many of these fights tend to juggle opponents: A fire-vulnerable homogenous blob monster AND a mess of archer skeletons AND a regenerating, silver-vulnerable werewolf. You can move to face the opponent that best suits you, but the GM is doing the same thing, and trying to bring the bad guys that will screw you over the most to the fore.

But none of these characters really rely on enormous defense to defeat you. You don't need skill 20 to make a feint followed by a Deceptive Attack at -6. You need the right tool for the job. A flaming axe for the blob, a mace for the skeletons, a silver sword for the werewolf. The ability to rapidly switch through weapons is valuable under these sort of circumstances.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice for this to be a little more viable, but even if you had a 5 point talent that covered every melee weapon in the game, the specialist will always be superior in a duel, because 4 points is less than 5 points, and he can do things like take Weapon Bond and focus on techniques. The melee generalist can't do anything like that. He has some interesting utility, but in a duel, that never matters, because once you've changed to adapt to your opponent, he's unlikely to change to counter you (though a fight between two generalists would be awesome, like a shape-shifting fight between wizards) and just bring his towering skill to bear against you ("I have a rapier!" "Then I draw my flail!" "That's great, man, I hope my skill of 30 is enough to let me deal with parrying that thing. Oh wait, it is."). And that's true of any game that has generalists vs specialists (even in D&D 4.0, since the specialist could spend feats on his preferred weapon).

Finally, your argument could be generalized to GURPS as a whole. The guy who spends all of his points in stealth and stabbing is pretty much the best stealth-stabber in the game, but the guy who invests a ton of points in DX and then spreads out to include archery, acrobatics, lock-picking, dancing and fast-draw as well as swords and stealth has a wider variety of possibilities before him, even though the stealth-stabber will always beat him at stealth-stabbing. The premise here is the same: The melee generalist can shift tactics to match a shifting battleground, which is often viable in a game that throws the exotic critters at you that DF does.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's a little overstated. Multiple melee weapons with the same reach maybe. An all-around GURPS fighter probably ought to have at least 4 weapon skills (close combat, melee, close shooting and long range sniping).

True, but those aren't melee weapons. Taking advantage of the various sword defaults is probably your easiest way to manage both close and melee.

However, my point was more about master of multiple weapons. It's often useful to have small numbers of points in some backup weapons, but you're usually much much worse with them than you are with your primary weapon.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

It usually pits waves of inept-but-weird opponents against a handful of very competent PCs. A goblin doesn't much care if you have skill 14, 16, 20, or 30. The only real benefit to enormous skill against goblins is that you can rapid strike more often to take more of them out.

And you have a better parry so you can avoid being taken out more. A skill 20 rapid striking will land 1.8 hits per turn, a skill 16 will land 1.0 hits, and the difference between a parry of 13 and 11 is substantial.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

But if you face an opponent that completely defeats your chosen weapon, you're pretty much hosed.

Which is why you have a light club that you can use with the broadsword skill.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice for this to be a little more viable, but even if you had a 5 point talent that covered every melee weapon in the game, the specialist will always be superior in a duel

Which is why I'm saying that it's fine to have such a talent.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Finally, your argument could be generalized to GURPS as a whole. The guy who spends all of his points in stealth and stabbing is pretty much the best stealth-stabber in the game, but the guy who invests a ton of points in DX and then spreads out to include archery, acrobatics, lock-picking, dancing and fast-draw as well as swords and stealth has a wider variety of possibilities before him, even though the stealth-stabber will always beat him at stealth-stabbing.

The problem is that melee weapons simply aren't all that distinct from another, and you can get pretty much everything you want from sword skill. If you want cutting or impaling damage, use a sword. If you want crushing damage, use a balanced light club. If you want fire damage, well, gotta default over to shortsword skill to use a torch. You might want to throw some points at shortsword so you can actually use things like its knife default. There's even some reach weapon options under broadsword. Axe/Mace skill, with its choice of axe, pick, and hammer, offers almost as broad utility.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Anthony

However, my point was more about master of multiple weapons. It's often useful to have small numbers of points in some backup weapons, but you're usually much much worse with them than you are with your primary weapon.

Not necessarily.

Let's say you have 10 weapons you like. Oh, Broadsword, Knife, Archery, Staff, Polearm, Axe/Mace, Two-Handed Sword, Flail, Kusari and Judo. Now, to "master" them, we buy DX. Lots of DX. We put 1 point in each skill (for 10 points) and every 20 points spent on DX improves all ten skill by 1 point. We'd actually be better off raising those skills by another point for 2 points each (20), and then each level of DX is roughly equal to purchasing each one for an additional +1 skill, except that it also benefits every other physical skill you have and makes you faster besides. I think it's worth raising a single skill (perhaps broadsword) to 4, and making that your "go-to" weapon when weapon choice doesn't matter.

This is how DX-based characters tend to work. Generalists are totally possible in GURPS, to the point where under certain circumstances, investment in skill is basically a waste of your time (Mages are a classic example). This kind of character not only has more flexibility in weapon choice than the specialist, he has greater facility in physical skills in general (that is, he'll be better with shields, dancing, stealth, and several cinematic skills). I'd even argue this is the basic bread-and-butter of your typical DF Martial Artist, as they have a package that effectively grants them acrobatics, judo, karate, a throwing weapon skill, and two melee weapons. But that's because they have DX of 16, and rarely spend more than 2-4 points in a physical skill unless they REALLY want to specialize.