Weapon Master Gradient
 

I'm running a game for a new player (my wife) and we're advancing quickly up to a plateau where things will slow down.

I'd like to break Weapon Master into component parts. This is for two reasons:

1) Since my wife's nearest previous experience to RPGs is improv exercises for High School theater, I'm trying to introduce new rules, and new maneuver options slowly. Introducing all the rule changes weapon master would give her at once might be problematic. This probably isn't really a significant issue, but she's gotten used to dodge being a better choice after she's parried successfully and we haven't even discussed rapid strike as an option.

2) Developing Weapon Master in play seems like it should involve gaining things slowly, rather than all at once. So the reduced penalty to parry comes first, then the rapid strike, then the damage, then everything else.

If you were going to break Weapon Master into a leveled advantage, how would you do it points-wise?

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

How about
Weapon Master (Parry bonus only, -75%) [5]
Weapon Master (Parry and rapid strike bonus only, -50%) [10]
Weapon Master (Most benefits, -25%)] [15]
Weapon Master (Single Weapon) [20]

I wouldn't sweat the points too closely and I would require that after someone takes the first level of the advantage, they have to spend all additional earned points on it until they have the full 20 point version.

This isn't an endorsement of those values for a general purpose game, but only a solution to address the particular issues you're having in your game.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

PK was kind enough to answer a question similar to this for me a few years ago. I never DID get to run that Wuxia game, but man I'd still like to....

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=72321

Hope it Helps,
Nymdok

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

Just a reminder, Weapon Master gives bonus damage (+4 with ST 13 swing) and more attacks (through reduced rapid strike penalties). It does not give better DR to deal with a similarly enhanced opponent. It does give better odds of parrying multiple attacks, but how do you deal with the first one?

A couple of ways. The obvious is to go for Defensive Attacks, because you can soak the damage penalty from your bonus damage. The second is optional and hidden at the back of the book under Chambara rules: Get +3 on retreat with any weapon, just like Karate and fencing, and get Acrobatic defense bonus just like with Dodge, and get multiple retreats (and multiple Acrobatic defenses) per turn, at accumulating penalties.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

In my game, I split Weapon Master into the following 1/4 levels costing 5 points each, to encourage PCs to take Weapon Master for a particular weapon gradually. Since my players were not experienced in 4e, I did not allow them to take Weapon Master at character creation.

1/4 Halve multiple parry penalty
2/4 Add +1 damage per die
3/4 Halve rapid strike penalty
4/4 Add another +1 damage per die, and get access to a small number of cinematic skills.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

WM grants access to a fairly large number of Cinematic Skills and canonically, Mundane Background which forbids possessing any Cinematic Skills is worth 10pts.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

P.K. in the link above points out that cinematic skills are a 0 point feature for Weapon Master, as the cost doesn't change if there are no cinematic skills allowed.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

Note that this is WM for a particular weapon only, so the skills available are somewhat limited canonically. (I further limit the cinematic skills to ones that match the theme of the weapon)

It's not really worth it to split Cinematic Skill access as its own level, so I made it part of the last 1/4 of the WM. It should encourage fighter PCs to eventually pay the full 20 points for the WM. I think it also make sense flavor wise that you need to fully "master" your weapon before expand into cinematic skills.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

If you check MA p.48 you will see that while TBAM potentially grants access to 19 Cinematic Skills WM can give 10 and the only one that couldn't be used with a Melee Weapon is Zen Archery.

With both Ads the greater limit is in which Skills are associated with what style.

"Somewhat limited" isn't as potentially misleading as "only a few" but I wouldn't want the idea to spread that WM could only give you 2 or 3 Cinematic Skills. Weapon Masters can be very powerful and flexible in such Skills.

Re: Weapon Master Gradient
 

Thanks for the clarification. I did not mean that a single weapon MA should only grant access to a few cinematic skills. That's just how I am doing it in my current game, which affected how I split the WM in to 4 levels.