Advanced Martial Arts

[GM Craig]

Does all that make sense? Or should the style skill start at the attribute?

[Nightshade]

I am really torn on this one and I think it depends on just how much you want to make this a custom house rule. 

Part of me says that it should start at the base value for the attribute, especially in the case of Nightshade who has trained his whole life to perfect his skills...so he should be able to consistently make his skill checks for the abilities in his style.  Part of me says that it should be like other advanced skills that start out at 1D, because when you are first learning a style you won't be a master of it, no matter how strong or dexterous you are, you just haven't had the time to learn all the abilities.  Maybe it sounds dumb or is unrealistic to try to pair game rules with real life scenarios, but to make an example, if you take a gymnast (who is very flexible and dexterous) and put them in a Tae Kwon Do tournament against a black belt who may not be as dexterous but has years of training in the techniques, then the black belt will win every time.

So I would personally like to see a ruling done on a case by case basis, based on story background, but I understand if that is too much hassle for a rule that is supposed to cover a wide variety of applications.  If we have to pick one of my options above, as much as I would like the first, I think the second (treating it like any other advanced skill) will be more generally applicable and therefore more fair.

[GM Craig]

Let's start at the base attribute for now, and see how it goes.

[Nightshade]

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying...that would make Nightshade's skill in Way of the Shadow 6D+1...is that correct?

[GM Craig]

Well, no. You would need to rejigger the CP expenditures. Instead of starting at 1D, you start at whatever your STR attribute was, and buy pips up from there. If you bought 2D+2, that's 7 CP, right? You get those CP's back, and start the increases from 3D. So, Way of the Shadow 3D+1 costs 3 CP, and up from there.

[GM Craig]

Sorry this has been confusing. Breaking new ground sometimes requires retracing steps.

[Nightshade]

Ah, that's clear now.

[Trax]

My only concern with starting at the base stat would be if this advanced skill applies to both offense and defense, you're getting a big bonus to not 1, but 2 skills for the price of increasing one.

In Trax's case, spending 3cp would give him 3D+1 in the advanced skill and then that 3D+1 would get added to his brawling and parry skills.  Assuming I drop both specializations down to 5D (recovering 15cps) to qualify for advanced stuff, and add even 3 cps to said advanced stuff he'll instantly go from rolling 5D (base skill) to 8D+1 (base skill plus advanced skill) for both attacks and parries.  Yes no?

[GM Craig]

Hmmm.

How about this - if the advanced skill is based off Strength, then you add it to basic attacks, but not defence. If the base skill is based on Dex, then you add it to parry rolls, but not attacks.

How does that sound? It gives a clearer demark between offensive and defensive styles.

[Nightshade]

Sorry, I have discovered another wrinkle...for simplicity's sake you let me combine my previous skills under the old system into the skill under the new system (thank you), but if we are going to switch over to this and refund/buy new skills then I would have spent a total of 27 cps on the skill...which I calculate as follows, please let me know if you concur with this math.

The combined skill before spending Horuz CPs for upgrades was 2D+2
So each skill was 1D+1 under the old system.
So spent 10 CP x2 to get each skill at 1D
Then spent 1 CP x2 to get an extra pip under each skill
Then spent 5 CP under the new system to get to the current 3D+1 skill level.

Total of 27 CP

[Nightshade]

Hmmm.

How about this - if the advanced skill is based off Strength, then you add it to basic attacks, but not defence. If the base skill is based on Dex, then you add it to parry rolls, but not attacks.

How does that sound? It gives a clearer demark between offensive and defensive styles.

That could work, but what of the situation when I am just blocking but not using any advanced moves to do so?  Are you saying we need to declare each style as offensive or defensive?  Because I understood it to mean you look at each individual move within a style to determine if that move would be STR or DEX based and then apply or don't apply as needed.

Okay, I may have just confused myself, so let me try to clarify...are you saying that I would declare Way of the Shadow to be an offensive style, so I add the advanced bonus to my attack rolls but not defense rolls?

[GM Craig]

The combined skill before spending Horuz CPs for upgrades was 2D+2
So each skill was 1D+1 under the old system.
So spent 10 CP x2 to get each skill at 1D
Then spent 1 CP x2 to get an extra pip under each skill
Then spent 5 CP under the new system to get to the current 3D+1 skill level.

Total of 27 CP

The math looks correct.

[GM Craig]

That could work, but what of the situation when I am just blocking but not using any advanced moves to do so?  Are you saying we need to declare each style as offensive or defensive?  Because I understood it to mean you look at each individual move within a style to determine if that move would be STR or DEX based and then apply or don't apply as needed.

Okay, I may have just confused myself, so let me try to clarify...are you saying that I would declare Way of the Shadow to be an offensive style, so I add the advanced bonus to my attack rolls but not defense rolls?

It was always my intention to allow different styles that were based on DEX or STR. Though, looking back, maybe that wasn't clear...

[Nightshade]

I understand what you are saying and I think that it makes sense for the most part, and maybe I am again throwing too much actual world influence in here, but I see say the Shinobi martial art being about dexterity and fluidity of motion, but still being more of an offensive, first strike type style, whereas say a Judo style would be also based on dexterity but much more defensive in nature.

On the flip side, I can see Echani being a strength based offensive style while Teras Kasi might be a strength based defensive style.

All of this to say it may be easier to delineate a style as offensive or defensive as opposed to saying it is Dex or Str based, and just leave the skill itself where the base rules put it under STR.  Then you can decide if the advanced skill applies to attack or defense based on the ideology of the style.

[GM Craig]

The details of the style are in your choice of moves. But I think delineating STR-based offence and DEX-based defence skill combining, while admittedly crude, makes some intuitive sense. The alternative is a conditional association where a style is associated with either defence or offence.

I suppose that could fly, but it's a little much for me to wrap my head around at the moment. For the sake of simplicity, if the skill of based on STR, you add your style dice to standard attacks. If it's associated with DEX, you add your dice to standard brawling parry.

We can look at again it later.