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-   -   Please explain to me Martial Arts styles' optional traits (https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=174796)

RyanW 09-08-2021 11:58 AM

Re: Please explain to me Martial Arts styles' optional traits
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil Masters (Post 2395675)
It's a little more complex than that. (a) It's never worth buying up any techniques before you have at least 2 points in the underlying skill, and usually 4. (b) It may be worth buying two or even three Hard techniques if you want to raise them by more than +1 and the underlying skill already has four or more points invested in it.

Techniques that buy off potentially stacking penalties also alter the math. If you want to specialize in close combat counterattacks while sitting...

Rupert 09-08-2021 11:36 PM

Re: Please explain to me Martial Arts styles' optional traits
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 2395552)
Note that most techniques are Hard, and it costs 2 points to buy the first +1. So raising two of them costs 4 points. But for 4 points you could get +1 to the underlying skill and thus to ALL the techniques that default from it.

You can efficiently buy one Hard technique, or one Hard and one Average, or three Average. Raising one Hard technique gives you a distinctive specialization as a character, which seems about right.

You can efficiently raise two or three Hard techniques as long as you raise them both by at least +2 and you use them almost every time you use the skill. Also, if one of the techniques is harder than the other(s) raising it until it matches the penalties of the rest and then switching to raising the overall skill can be efficient even though you have 'too many' techniques.

To me techniques are clearly intended to be for that one (or maybe two) thing(s) that a character does with a skill that stands out from their overall level of skill. Thus they shouldn't be cheap enough that a character can (and should) have many of them for each skill. Aside from anything else, that encourages enormously fiddly character builds.


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