Combat styles meta idea

[Deleriad]

Had a thought earlier. One of the things that throws people is that some combat styles are simply better than others. On a strictly gamist front you could say something like:

Combat styles 'cost' 1 IR to learn for each weapon or mode of weapon use they contain. By mode I mean one-handed, two-handed and thrown.

You can add more weapons to a combat style by simply spending additional IRs.

That way you can have cultural combat styles (Barbarian, Praxian Nomad)
Professional combat styles (Highwayman, mercenary)
Cult Combat Styles (Sun Dome Templar, Urox fanatic) etc
Personal Combat Styles (whatever combination of weapons strike your fancy).

This allows you to have PCs with flavourful combat styles and wildly different selections of weapons without feeling that everything has to be made up and keeping a certain gamist element of balance.

In char gen gaining a combat style gains you 2 weapons in that style. +10% in a style can be used either as a straight +10% or to add up to 2 new weapon to the styles.

At the moment that looks like it would work quite smoothly.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

It sort of misses the point of Combat styles though, which is that the trained warrior is equally at home with all his weapons. Just as the Attack and Parry skills were merged into a single weapon skill, separate weapon skills are merged into a combat style. Given that IR's a fixed resource you don't want to effectively reducew the number available...

 

[Deleriad]

It sort of misses the point of Combat styles though, which is that the trained warrior is equally at home with all his weapons. Just as the Attack and Parry skills were merged into a single weapon skill, separate weapon skills are merged into a combat style. Given that IR's a fixed resource you don't want to effectively reducew the number available...

Well using the rules for cha gen as they stand, a PC usually ends up with 2-4 different combat styles and if they want to learn a new weapon, needs to learn a new style. So you might end up with sword & shield, dagger, spear & shield and bow for example.

Because that isn't an awful lot different from learning separate skills for sword, spear, shield, dagger & bow, you start getting "umbrella" styles. E.g. Mercenary (sword, spear, dagger, shield & crossbow).

On the basis that learning the combat style Farmboy (club, sling) is probably easier than learning Mercenary (5 weapons) and some players get grumbly when farmboy 'costs' the same as mercenary then one solution is to say that 'buying' a combat style gets you the first two weapons for free and after that each new weapon costs 1 IR.

This would also allow a PC to pick up a weapon they've never used before, declare that they learned it back in mercenary school and add it to their combat style by spending 1 IR. Could be done in the middle of a session if required.

In cha gen terms, then you can read the mercenary entry (which is something like any 3 combat styles at +10%) as 1 combat style containing up to 6 weapons at +10%.

 

[Greg Smith]

That is a good idea.

I am one of the 'grumbly' ones. :lol:

 

[Simulacrum]

On the basis that learning the combat style Farmboy (club, sling) is probably easier than learning Mercenary (5 weapons) and some players get grumbly when farmboy 'costs' the same as mercenary then one solution is to say that 'buying' a combat style gets you the first two weapons for free and after that each new weapon costs 1 IR.

This would also allow a PC to pick up a weapon they've never used before, declare that they learned it back in mercenary school and add it to their combat style by spending 1 IR. Could be done in the middle of a session if required.

In cha gen terms, then you can read the mercenary entry (which is something like any 3 combat styles at +10%) as 1 combat style containing up to 6 weapons at +10%.

Nice idea. In Age of Treason I had to wor through the choice and level of combat styles and came up with something similar - general types of weapon (sidearm, spear etc) within which those whihc are culturally relevant come within the single style, but more "exotic" versions can be added later by spending IRs. Certain weapons which are highly exotic or culturally unfamiliar come as a single weapon style if someone really wants one (e.g. ball and chain).