Martial Skills

[Kvar Driftweaver]

Martial Skills

Seem to get it much harder than magic skills, not in lore (a lore I readily appreciate), but in practice.

A general weapon type, let us say the longsword, in reality gives someone a basic understanding of fighting with all sword types.

I understand I am new and people will say raaaaghhh how dare you , but well there it is. I’ve been around so many systems and designed so many, it is just throwing an observation out there.

Fully understand magic carries consequences, but I can drop my blade, picking up a blade almost the same in size or shape, and not know a thing about using it. Whereas with magic your utility is broadened beyond any measure of that.

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Edit - Reflecting on this I guess I am proposing a general melee or forms skill, in addition to the others, though that was not my intent

[Xalet]

I'm slightly meatheadish, so I might not be on the mark here, but basically what you're saying is that the martial skills are too narrow? I'm just trying to make sure I'm on the right page, because if so I might be agreeing with you.

[Kvar Driftweaver]

Exactly , I edited the post with an addition above as I was reading it through, it was a leftover discussion from chat that we were having.

Would fighting forms help as an idea? If so that would open up a heck of a thing to design, and be pretty awesome as a lore or skill edit. Forms might offer someone some familiarity that covers a few weapon groups, falling into a familiar style. Again just off the top of my head, throwing ideas out. A faction might have their own forms for instance, you could only learn if you joined the knights for instance or another group.

[Xalet]

Ok good, yeah that's what I thought you meant. Sometimes (to myself, in the shower and stuff) I thought it would be beneficial to have weapons work kind of like 'unarmed combat'. You have your unarmed combat, which encompasses the idea of...fighting unarmed, but then you can gain Lore's for specific styles or movements. Sometimes I thought to myself it might be useful to have a skill "Swords" and then gain Lore's like "Longsword", "Broadsword", "Greatsword", etc.

I think (and I can't be alone in this) that the biggest instance of narrowing would be if you're in a fight and your character has 80 points in "Knife", and you get disarmed so you pull your "Kukri" and whoop up on your attacker. If then a mod came along and said "Hey, you have 0 points in "Kukri", you can't do any of that stuff you mentioned" I could clearly see an agruement of the player saying, "Oh c'mon! They're both tiny dagger-like melee weapons, and I've got eighty points in knife, I'm like a knife juggernaut. I've invented entire knife styles. I'm credited in a book on knives!".

I recognize there's a lot of counter arguments that might say "kukris are nothing like knives!" but for the sake of reducing potential tedium and redundency and instead focusing on the role-play over the mechanics, I would hope a mod would use their judgement and allow the player to use the kukri with their knife skill.

[Kvar Driftweaver]

100% spot on That is what I am thinking about too when I talk about this.

I know some might say stats should be guidelines and such, but well forms did cross my mind as a nice addition of lore, or some kind of group weapon skill offering some kind of basic benefit. I suggest the first as factions could then further offer a nice little extra development for characters, customising their own bit of martial lore, that they shaped themselves. Either way, you might lose your favourite weapon but then at least you wouldn't be a complete novice in using something almost the same in style etc.

[Carsten]

I may somewhat agree to this, but I think each weapon is its own skill for a gameplay reason. To get, let's say Reimancy, to 100 you need to take a lot of risks, you risk your sanity every time you try to use the skill. There are no risks like this in swordfighting, and so it is much easier to learn. From a gameplay point of view, it makes sense to try and balance the skill system a bit like this.

[Rage]

I don't follow the argument. How is learning a new weapon skill/unarmed combat style different from learning a new magic skill? Just because a mage is Expert in Reimancy doesn't mean they start out competent in, say, Auristics. And Kukris are different from knives. I'd still say the player overplayed their PC's skill in this case. But my opinion would be different if they used one of the other straight-bladed daggers listed in the price list instead of a bent-blade Kukri. That's just how the game is designed. OOC-wise, it's for balance. I find myself having a more enjoyable time in my RP when I play along with the rules rather than try to go around it. Of course, that's just me.

[Xalet]

I'm going to do some searching in the forums, but I have a feeling this discussion must have come up before, and I'm sure there's been some good input on it.

Allowing a person to use a "longsword" with their broadsword skill doesn't really change the lethality (much, I'm sure some could say 'well, a longsword is better against this type of opponent, while a broadsword is better against this type of opponent') or the nature of the martial character that the skill is apart of. By our creative community standards, it's not like a longsword rolls a D8 while a broadsword rolls a D10, so really it's just (at least mostly) cosmetic. It would be like your fireball looking like an arrow instead of a ball or something.

The statement about going around the rules just seems overly harsh. Throwing a javelin with your longsword skill (an example much more akin to using Auristics when you are a Reimancer) seems like going around the rules, using a kukri with your knife skill just seems like getting a little more weapon flavor for the time you spent Rping your weapons.

[Kvar Driftweaver]

Rage - If you'll find someone who plays more -to- the rules more than me, introduce me and I'll ask them for tips. I try to play to the lore and rules every time I write, the closer I can get to the lore the happier I am. That doesn't mean surely that things can't be asked, or chatted about.

As to why - Several reasons really, the most obvious, if I have been swinging a warhammer through 200 fights, taking years doing it, being trained by weapon masters. Someone hands me a mace, I am back to being a novice again , no idea of what the heck I am doing.

Magic is great, and makes sense, the example you gave cannot be answered as it is perfect in regards to magic, just not martial styles with much in common.

[Sighard]

The difference in weapons is not purely cosmetic, however. You give the example of difference between a longsword and broadsword. They are incredibly different in usage of practicality and weight. Whereas the broadsword was genrally a lighter sword intended for slashing, the longsword was a heavier, two handed weapon that was noted for its ability to thrust and sometimes slash. I could not see someone whose used a broadsword all of their life able to effectively use a longsword because there are different mechanics to the blade. The natural tendency of the broadsword user would be to employ a broadsword style to a longsword which may end up screwing them over. While the degrees of difference when comparing any two weapons vary, they exist, and justify separate skills.

Therefore, I suggest that these cases should be handled on an individual basis instead of trying to reform the entire skill system to accomodate the fact that some weapons are very similar to each other in usage. The beauty of a text-based roleplaying environment is that there is flexibility when considering the mechanics of the world and we can incorporate such common sense things into our writing.