This has been touched on before in previous threads, but I figured it is worth its own deal. I am of the opinion that between SR's 2 and 3 the developers went a little overboard with trying to balance combat skills. I agree that "Firearms" and "Armed Combat" were both oversimplified, but the current proliferation of skills is a little bit on the ridiculously complex side of things (and often nonsensically so... )

I propose (as others have in the past) a sort of happy medium.

Gun skills as weapon skills would each be divided into three classifications, based primarily on weapon size and similarities in how the weapons are used (not "why", how). The firearm divisions would then be Small Arms (Pistols and SMGs), Long Arms (Rifles, Assault Rifles and Shotguns) and Heavy Weapons (which keep their current classification). Launch weapons would remain a separate skill, but laser weapons would be encorporated into the category that their size most resembles. Melee divisions would be Single-Handed Weapons, Two-Handed Weapons (both of which are self-explanatory) and Whips (which would remain the same).

Other than freeing up skill points for combat-centered characters, are there any game balance issues that this change would alter considerably?
Does anyone have an alternate proposal for consolidating weapon skills that they feel does a better job than this?

I have gone a similar route in the past and was pretty pleased with the results. As far as freeing up points for combat characters, I found that it encouraged people who would normally not select noncombat skills to do so, and in my opinion everyone wins when you have more well rounded characters. I didnt actually apply it to melee skills, so I couldnt tell you how that would pan out, but it seems reasonable to me.

More from a realism standpoint than a gameplay standpoint, I don't like splitting melee skills between single handed and two handed weapons. I think it'd make more sense to split them up by movement styles (eg, fencing would remain quite separate from, say, kendo). Unfortunately, doing so does not lend to a balanced spread of skill categories, which makes that one pretty hard to fix if you're going to go the unification route. Personally, I prefer to diversify skills and simply up the number of available skill points.

As for firearms, should note that the correct classification would be Short Arms, as Small Arms encompasses even GPMGs and antimatériel rifles. I also still feel that while 4 categories is a major step in the right direction, it leaves an amount of unbalance when you compare these to the magical side of things. Perhaps diversifying that slightly would help.

And, bah, Whips still needs a better (and more accurate) name.

Right... short arms... tired...

As for the fencing vs kendo thing... thats what specializations are for. In retrospect, perhaps the melee classification scheme should be light, medium, heavy... and, umm, whips. Then again, that really only reduces the number of melee categories by one...

Blah... can't think right now... other people should do my thinking for me... *nods*

Well, the thing about fencing and kendo is that while both are light and fast, fencing with a rapier or foil is a completely different style of movement from fighting with a katana. Both involve linear strikes, but one's full of quick thrusts and linear advances while the other involves swinging cuts and a very different style of movement. Light, Medium, and Heavy may go some way to alleviating this, but you still end up with European longsword or Chinese broadsword in the same category as kendo and knife fighting in the same category as rapier and maybe even a ninjato (ninja sword). It's for reasons like this that I prefer skill diversification (though, for obvious reasons, melee skills would still need to be reorganized— and if anyone's got ideas on how to do this sensibly, I'm interested).

I dunno. I'd say a Katana and a Sabre are very similar when weilded. They could certainly be in the same category, and specializations would apply of course.

JaronK

Sabers are heavy, curved, one handed slashing weapons, not to be confused with rapiers, which are light, European fencing blades that do most of their damage with light, quick, repeated stabs. Sabers are probably close enough to fall into the same category if you went the L/M/H/W melee weapon skill route, though I must admit that, from personal experience, I still find broad groupings of melee skills exceedingly untasty.

Yeah... I guess I just dont have the same problems as Arethusa does with broader groupings because specializations exist to fulfill the role of skill diversification. Someone who spends equal karma specializing in a particular weapon (such as rapier, longsword, or katana) will be better at that single weapon than someone who buys up the broader skill. Thats good enough for me.

The more I think about it, the more I like the light/medium/heavy/whip classification (even if whip does need a better name...) It makes a certain amount of sense to me, even if specific examples (such as staves) might be difficult to place.

Assuming that L/M/H/W refers to movement styles, staves really fall under Medium. I'd be wary of creating an extreme unbalance, however, as a majority of weapons will make more sense in Medium than anywhere else. I still don't like the idea of knives being in the same category as rapiers.

Anyway, the thing about specializations covering diversification is that rapiers and knives (or katana and broadswords or monowhips and nunchaku— or, hell, even monowhips and traditional bullwhips) have about as much in common as pikes and gladii.

Rapiers and knives are actually quite similar. The footwork, the recognition of enemy feints and the use of your own feints, many of the parries, the target areas of your opponent's body, etc are all the same. A Katana and a Broadsword also have extreame similarities, to the point where after having been trained with a Broadsword, but only having seen a Katana in action, I was able to pick up a katana and weild it with very good proficiency. Sure, some Broadsword moves don't quite work with the Katana, and the reverse is true as well, but overall they are very similar.

The same can be said of flexible weapons. Using my Poi Ball skills I was able to duel weild bullwhips rather easily, and morning stars were also relatively easy to figure out.

JaronK

I still think doing it with specializations would be fine, as far as kendo vs fencing (rapier/foil/epee-style). I fenced in the local club for a couple of years and have a pretty good grasp of the basics of that style of sword play. I'm also familiar with the basics of movement and striking used in kendo, although I've never studied it formally.

Now, I wouldn't give myself a very high edged weapons skill, probably a 2. But at the same time, I know some basics from different styles and that's how I see the general skills working. If I had kept fencing for a couple more years or if I ever get back into it seriously, I may consider myself 'specialized' because of the higher level of training I have in a particular style that I would favor while fighting in the 'real world'. So I might be General Skill 2 (Fencing 3) or something at that point.

Whether we're talking about existing skills or new classifications, that's an illustration of the approach I always take with regard to general/specialized relationships.

Exactly my point. They're not identical, and different skills are appropriate, but that's covered by specialization. A swordsman trained only with a katana for years could likely pick up a sabre and weild it with decent competance without too much trouble with a very small amount of practice.

Stabbing/thrust/slashing weapons, short (dagger size)

Stabbing/thrust weapons, medium (sword length)

Slashing weapons, medium
*I'd throw axes in here on general principles

Blunt weapons, short/medium
*clubs, maces, quarterstaves, etc.

Flail-esque weapons, short/medium
*chains, whips, nunchaku, etc.

Polearms

Granted, most weapons overlap but the division would be allocated based on the primary attack mode of the weapon.

-Siege

My temptation would be just to drop it to armed combat and whips (since they're based on different attributes) and then develop a system akin to the martial arts system for melee combat with fighting styles and specific weapons which fall into each.

Ie, if you had armed combat 5 and escrima 6, you could use a katana with 5 dice or a knife with 6 dice (since it would fall into the weapons covered by escrima).

Truthfully, I don't object overly much to the new division of melee skills.

Granted, I think the given skill points under any creation system needs to be increased given the proliferation of new skill choices, but that's neither here nor there.

-Siege

Well, like many people here I've made my opinion known that I don't like the idea of increasing the number of skills and balancing that by increasing chargen skill points. The big problem that I see with that method is that it does not address how the point system rewards specialization. If someone has 8 points to spend on combat skills he'll likely pick a melee skill and a ranged skill at 4, or if thinking ahead he'd choose one at 5-6 and the other at 2-3. Given 16 points to spend on twice as many more specific weapon skills, he could decide to spread that out, getting 4 points in four different skills. The smart money though tells him to get two skills at 6 and one at 4. The end result is that you're just giving the second person more net skill points: the more specific skills are essentially irrelevant for everyone, because they'll simply ignore the weapons they can't use anyway.

I've talked to people who do weapons training and provide weapons for use in TV/Films, and generally melee weapons are broken into the following: Fencing (knives, rapiers, and other light, thin-bladed weapons), Broadsword (heavier slashing weapons including katana), Staffs (including clubs, rattan sticks, maces, and other things like that), Polearms (long staffs (such as the Chinese bamboo staffs that are up to 3m lone) as well as traditional pikes and other polearms), and Whips/Flails).

The Abstruse One

If increasing the number of skills, karma awards will also have to increase to advance at the same rate; although a slower rate might be desired by some people. If increasing karma to balance out the higher number of skills, then the cost for raising attributes and everything magical will have to be revised.

I'd rather see fewer skills and not more. Again, the approach I favor is to have a lump skill for all melee weapons (melee equivalent of brawling) and then a lot of specific style skills which would cover similar and dissimilar weapons which fit a theme and gives a bonus as well as the opportunity for manuevers.

For instance, the fencing/knife fighting skill might be a style which allows the use of light thrusting blades of various sorts (knives, rapiers, etc) and gives a reduced TN modifier for called shots in melee (to represent the importance of striking vital areas with those weapons) with a disadvantage of some sort as well.

I don't necessarily see a need for increased karma awards.

The karma award should reflect the power level you want in the group -- if you want SEAL Team 6, a higher karma award is appropriate.

If you want street level gangers and thugs, a lower amount would be suitable.

-Siege

Only proportionally increased rewards to what you would normally use, ultimately giving you about the same effect.

Or you could just make skills cheaper to raise. That'd make for a lot less work.

2x for everything other than skills or .5x specifically for skills. Either way, just as simple and gives you the same net effect.

What if you re-tooled the specialization system?

For example you could have general/style/weapon.

So Edged weapons/fencing/rapier would work.

You could have Edged, Clubs, Staff (polearms, staves, etc) and Lashing (whips, flails, chains, etc) as the general.

Then you get into specific styles like the aforementioned Fencing and Kendo. You could even go with general things like slashing, thrusting, jabbing. Then you get to specific weapon.

The base skill would give you proficiency with every weapon of that type. Specific style would grant you martial arts-ish bonuses like +1 dice, -1TN, only +2 to called shots, whatever. Finally, specific weapons would grant you the cheapest karma costs.

You'd pay for the base cost as normal. If you go for a specialized style you would get 1/2 rounded down your general skill for free and then pay like, 0.75 the karma cost for the style. If you further specialized to a specific weapon you'd pay normal specialization costs and it'd be based off the style's skill rating.

[edit] This just came to mind too. You could get away without any sort of re-tooling of the specialization system if you simply select a style. It'd be like brawling in melee. You could get that and be happy, or you can go specific style and be proficient ONLY with those weapons. You'd get to pick martial arts-ish bonuses too, maybe even learning maneuvers or something. Anyways, you'd then you pay normal spec cost for the specific weapon if you choose to do that. I think there's something here, I really do. If nothing else I've just replaced the whips skill with lashing weapons because even if you are beating someone with a flail, lashing still wins the coolness contest. [/edit]


I dunno, its just a thought that I came up with right this minute.

Sounds like house ruling back to second edition, sort of. I remembering reading about a character taking Unarmed Combat, concentrating in Boxing, and specializing in Punching. I don't remember where I read that, but I didn't make it up (I don't think...). Anyway, munchkins are only as much of a problem as GMs let them be.

Could someone explain how the old Skill, Concentration, Specialization rules worked for those of us that started with third?

Wow, if that's from second ed that's pretty creepy because I thought that up on my own and I've never seen a second edition book except in name.

Now I'm sad because I thought I had an original idea.

Well, I think the problem we're seeing here is that the three tier system of SR2 was too broad and allowed for too much leeway. Although I think bringing back the general/concentration/specialization levels with the new skill system might work. But it seems like overkill.

The SR3 general/specialization system is a bit broad in some cases and doesn't quite seem to cover all the bases in some instances. The best way to fix this is to figure out the right balance of general skills. Right now it seems like they went a little overboard.

The problem with melee weapons is that many weapons can be used successfully in many different ways. You can use a broadsword or a sabre or a katana or a big stick as a sword and fight successfully in several styles with it. There's a lot of commonality and finding the right balance is tough.

The same thing exists with firearms. Are smgs/carbine(not that they officially exist)/assault rifles all that different to require a seperate general skill? I don't think so, but then again, I don't have any experience firing any of the above weapons.

I have a lot more experience with melee weapons, and sword fighting styles in particular. I have to comment that I really haven't had much problem with the melee weapons divisions in SR3. I think the firearms need to lose one or two general skills, but I don't really think the melee weapons need much work, even if they seem a little cumbersome at times.