Originally Posted by RobW
Well, I disagree that RAW are so clear on this whole topic of Shrewd Sha-Ken. There have been several ideas explored, I'll go through my responses below. But first, just to emphasise, I would be very happy to play in a game that ruled against me on all of these points. Well maybe one possible exception below.
First, it isn't clear to me that expertise/mastery does not apply to sha-ken. I see the argument, and I do agree a sha-ken isn't a perfect fit for the idea of a "hand weapon". But for me the context here is saying these skills don't apply to missile weapons, eg it says, see the Missile Weapons skill (and doesn't mention the Thrown Weapons skill as another exception). For me then, this is a houserule, one I like because it would also apply to boomerangs, whips, and bolas which I am worried might also generate shrewdness problems. But still houserule rather than clear RAW.
Does the fact that aimed shots are explicitly limited to 1 sha-ken mean that shrewd sha-ken attacks are limited to 1 sha-ken? I would say clearly not. There's nothing in the rules linking aimed and shrewd attacks in this way. As you say, a transitive law of sane rulings might suggest this, but that's not the same as being contrary to the rules. Would I happy to play in your game if this was your ruling? Absolutely.
I am not at all convinced that shrewd "blows" does not apply to shrewd "throws" (eg a master axeman throwing his axe). In fact, I'd be disappointed if official guidance goes this way. For normal weapons, there doesn't seem much potential for abuse here, and there can be lots of risk-reward fun.
The idea that you can throw but can't ready multiple sha-ken. It's clever, but to me this feels like a loophole rather than intent in the rules. For example, on page 107 there is a list of the allowed ready weapons, and 12 sha-ken is not listed. In this list, the most you can ready is two 1-handed weapons. So does this mean SJ's intent is that you could throw 12 sha-ken if only you could ready them, but too bad because you can't? No, it is not stated but implicit in the rules that you can ready 12 sha-ken. But if I can ready 12 sha-ken in advance of the attack, can I ready 13, 14, 25? 100? Then throw them 12 at a time? There's nothing inthe rules about the maximum number of ready sha-ken. All in all, for me, the simplest thing is to say the rules intend that 12 sha-ken counts as a ready weapon. A house rule that said you can't ready (or throw!) 12 sha-ken sounds appealing to me, but again not so clear to me this is what the rules say.
My feeling -- and I freely admit it is nothing more than a feeling -- is that otherwise, it is such a subtle and easy to miss point that SJ would include a spiffy sentence about how you can throw 12 but then get ready to spend 12 turns reloading. And then maybe he would have included a rule for high DX helping you reload sha-ken faster, like for bows and crossbows. Anyway, do I agree that readying 12 sha-ken in a turn seems impossible and leads to awful outcomes? Yes! I just think this is unlikely to be against RAW.
I think that's all the proposals. So for me, shrewd MNSH are clearly plausible within RAW. There's a lot of good ways to houserule them out of existence, and the only one I would regret is disallowing shrewd throws altogether.
OMG I can't believe I spent such an amount of effort on this topic. Lost, I am lost....!
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