[.11] Discussing The Impact of Applying Weapon Skill XP to Martial Or Stealth Skills

Bruvah M.

Bruvah M.

Novice
Throughout the playtests, what would have changed if the experience points used to purchase Weapon Skills applied to the accrual of Martial or Stealth XP?

The reason why I bring this idea forward is because of a concern I had brought to me during the first Utah playtest. Some newer players felt that Weapon Skills were a tax upon their characters. In one case, 21 points (out of 25) of a players build was spent buying all the Weapon Skills they needed to play a specific character concept.

What are the thoughts of the community on this idea? For? Against? I don’t believe I have enough experience with this newer system to properly form an opinion. So, I figured I’d ask you guys and bring it to the attention of ARC.
 
I play a character with absolutely no Weapon Skills at all; that being said, I disagree that they're a "Skill Tax" of any kind. Alliance is set up in such a way that you start off with only a handful of Skills, and you gain more quite quickly for the first year or so before it slows to a more reasonable pace; by that point, you should, in theory, have the groundwork laid to simply start fleshing out your Skills and finalizing whatever concept you have for the character. If you want to play a "Weapon Master", it's better to buy maybe One or Two Handed Master and some Critical/Back Attacks to start than it is to just buy Weapon Master out of your initial 25 XP, and then work on Weapon Master over the next few games while you're still getting large amounts of XP. I realise this isn't entirely feasible during a playtest, but now I'm curious what character concept they went with that they felt the need to spend so much XP on Weapon Skills, to the exclusion of other things that might have been part of it down the line.
 
A longbow and a short sword. It required One Handed-Edged, Archery, Florentine and Two Weapons. I’ll respond more later
 
Prior to the addition the .11 packet with the addition of weapon strikes, we proposed a change to do this. The other owners were uninterested.

A lot has changed since then.

That being ARC doesn't generally take up stuff owners are uninterested in with out a really really compelling reason.

If you're interested in a change like this, you'd need to get some owners on board to push it through.

Did you put this in the feedback form you filled out when you played your playtest? It wasn't one of the things that had many comments at all.
 
Sadly, the Utah Chapter didnt get on board with the playtests until after the feedback form deadline. So all of the feedback we have only benefits the Utah staff. At least the players get a period where they can test stuff out and get familiar.
 
Starting archery w/ shortsword is really quite expensive. I'm not saying it shouldn't be, but its basically the worst case for starting build. But it is also a super thematic feeling build to play.

Actually answering the question he asked, there are a couple problems. One problem with including weapon skills is its not clear if should be in fighter or rogue*. And even if you were generous and let it be selectable (like earth vs celestial), it would just enable another problem. Whichever one it might be placed in, it'll make getting your skills easier (which I know is the point for starting players), but it'll also mean it'll make those defenses more available to people who are not focusing in the header. The scholar-with-a-shield build would be quite close to being able to buy a parry/evade/dodge. The big fighter who has weapon master + style master + bow would qualify to buy an extra parry & slay. So this change sort of inflates the availability of per use skills for basically everyone who uses a weapon, not just starting fighters & rogues. It could also make capstone abilities reachable sooner for the hybrid classes.

I'm not saying those changes are bad, but it is a change. And it'd open up some options to high level folks that they don't currently have.

(* - There could be a longer design question about if we should split the weapon skills/styles across rogue & fighter, but I'm pretty sure that'd be deeply unpopular with fighters as it'd almost certainly imply some skills where they are cheapest for fighter should instead be cheapest for rogue.)
 
So.

I disagree that Weapons should be a martial skill, for the following reasons:

1) In the Alliance world, Fighters and Rogues have equivalent reliance on weapons, which is why they’re the same cost for both. Fighters do get a discount on Styles, but styles are primarily defensive, so that makes sense. But because Weapons are equal for both, you can’t really argue that one should get it for XP and not the other. NOTHING SHOULD GIVE BOTH STEALTH AND MARTIAL XP BECAUSE SYSTEM NIGHTMARE.

2) Casters use weapons too! While we don’t get all the neat skills that make them burly, the unlimited application of even light damage is extremely useful.

3) Because of #1 and #2, I feel that Weapons should remain Trade skills. I also feel they should cost the same for all classes equally. I realize that this is a bit of a departure from D&D mentality, but there are definitely realistic differences between D&D/similar tabletops and Alliance.

4) Thus, I propose that Styles should count as Martial XP, but all Weapons should be cheap for everyone. Maybe Weapon Master could be Martial, though.
 
Alkalin3 said:
They're not "Trade Skills" they're "Weapon Skills" which is very pedantic and doesn't change any of your points, since nothing uses xp out of that category. I know this only because of loading stuff into the CMA.
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Nerrrrrrd!!

<3
 
Applying that xp to martial or stealth counts seems backwards to me, as the classes that would gain the most benefit are those who the exp costs are scaled to represent being least talented at weapons work, the Scholars and Artisans.

I would, if we were to change it, rather simply assign weapon skills by class at creation or something similar and let people expand on those via xp.
 
Muir said:
I would, if we were to change it, rather simply assign weapon skills by class at creation or something similar and let people expand on those via xp.
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I don't see how this could work with fluid classing. Either you have to "forget" how to use some weapons and suddenly get proficiency with others, or you're forced to spend xp on a package deal in the event you ever change classes.
 
Pretty easily, you get base competency from class at character creation, classing over later simply changes costs for adding more. Record it on the character the same way we record Wylderkin racials.
 
Muir said:
Pretty easily, you get base competency from class at character creation, classing over later simply changes costs for adding more. Record it on the character the same way we record Wylderkin racials.
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Nah. Then everyone would simply pick whatever class gave them the best weapon at character creation, and would immediately fluid for their second game to whatever class they really wanted to play. That would feel cheesy as heck, but I’d do it, too.
 
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Hi!

As a point of reference, I'm the the Utah Playtest Coordinator and have been encouraging our chapter's players to post here.

At the end of the 3 playtests I will be bundling all of our player's feedback into a comprehensive report for the Utah Owner.

Once Paul (p.richard, above) havehave able to look through it and make additions or edits I'll be sending a streamlined version to the national Alliance Rules Committee (ARC) ofr their own reading pleasure.

Even though we're running Game Days + an Overnight and not a Weekend Event, & won't bebusong officialofeeedback forms, I think discussions like these and the contents of the Summary Doc could prove helpful to internal and community deliberations. So thanks for posting.

P.S. If liking it wasn't enough indication I pretty much (as usual) agree with Draven.
 
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