Ask Simple Question, Get (Hopefully) Simple Answer

[asher]

Wait I thought you couldn’t touch skills and characteristics that your class didn’t offer until the class was maxed out.

[Amanojyaku]

Nope, they're just double cost off-class.

[asher]

Well shit forget everything I’ve said well at least I learned something. You should change the paragraph about free study cause that’s where I was looking and it wasn’t worded very clearly

[GuardianTempest]

For the record, none of us here created the books, that was LawfulNice and he's MIA for years (working on a different system).

[justinsane]

Mar 18, 2023 10:42:50 GMT -6 Amanojyaku said:

[snip](because Blast is fuck you, get hit).

Wait, what? Did I miss something big again? We've been playing Blast as "anyone with less SD than your attack roll in the area gets hit" for ages now.

[Traskus]

It isn’t entirely clear but “if you’re in the blast, fuck you get hit” is a valid reading.

There’s a house rule making a miss/dodge go for half damage in the house rule thread.

[Lestat]

Older versions of DtD didn't have a clearly worded blast, but dodge had a specific subsection. This was removed in later versions as various rules changed. If I wanted to use auto-hit rules I'd either revive some of the baseline evasion dodge had, or create scatter rules.

Dodging Auto-Fire and Area Effect Attacks

Some attacks, such as those made with grenades, flamers, or guns firing on automatic are especially difficult to avoid.

When dodging an area effect weapon (such as a flamer), a successful dodge Test moves the character to the edge of the area of effect, as long as it is no further away than the character's dexterity in meters. If the character would need to move further than this to avoid the attack then the Dodge Test automatically fails.

When dodging fully automatic fire, each raise on the dodge Test negates one ad- ditional hit.

[Amanojyaku]

Mar 18, 2023 14:49:40 GMT -6 asher said:

Well shit forget everything I’ve said well at least I learned something. You should change the paragraph about free study cause that’s where I was looking and it wasn’t worded very clearly

...on review, strike that last, it's been awhile. The thing is you can literally blitz through most caster class levels; you finish the class and can enter Free Study when you've taken the last mandatory feat, not when you meet the prerequisites for the next level. I apparently made a bad habit of marking when I start a new class, but not when I enter Free Study on my character sheets.

Still stands that you can drop starting dots in the desired areas first (and, technically, you do this before picking a class, because you need to meet the prerequisites for it), so you can start your Magic User with respectable Ballistics and Brawl ratings (note that starting both at 3 dots only requires Physical skills secondary, or a Human with it tertiary, while you only need 5 dots in Mental skills to get into Apprentice) without breaking rules. Costs 400xp to finish Apprentice (no, despite what other wits may tell you, Tested is not a mandatory feat), then you can sink the rest into skills again. Which is my bad habit: Assign starting dots exactly as needed to scum into one or two classes without buying more, then blitz the first one to get into Free Study ASAP for the rest.

So yes, I suppose it really is a matter of gaming the system to get what you need; training for combat is just not considered important to psyker flavor.

[coffica]

Long abstract question:
Hi, I've been learning the system and I'm curious about the different payoffs of weaponry vs brawl vs ballistics. This is my read on it so far, but I'm wondering if I'm wildly off the mark about any of these or overlooking anything vital.

=Ballistics vs melee=
-Obviously, ballistics doesn't need to spend actions entering melee or moving between different opponents, which is a big cost of melee styles
--Also obviously less at risk from enemy melee
-Melee can make opportunity attacks, but it's more just a 1-for-1 action trade because you spent a half action to get close, and the enemy can spend a half action on Shift
-Gun katas are more flexible with weapon choice, which matters if you're not multiclassing, and they often give a slight passive bonus early on where sword schools would have a restriction instead
-It looks harder to get Xk3 damage on a ranged weapon without big downsides, unless the custom weapon building rules are in play which make it about even
-The biggest advantage melee has is probably how much easier it is to get extra rolled dice to damage

=Brawl vs Weaponry=
-Brawl and Weaponry seem to have the same damage range (Xk3), since power fist or tiefling claws don't look hard to get
--Unarmed Master seems like it raises the accessible damage cap higher on Brawl than Weaponry but that might still be relatively tricky for a lot of characters to get
-Brawl helps deliver touch spells, while weaponry generally doesn't (and since Ballistics is for ranged spells this is more like a specific disadvantage of Weaponry)
-Brawl has a free +1 fatigue debuff on all its attacks
-Brawl can't parry without stunts, but 1-die stunts seem pretty easy to do on demand
-Brawl can grapple
-Weaponry has access to artifact materials, but Brawling weapons can do that too
-Weaponry has access to more weapon properties than Brawling weapons, but I'm not sure how many of the ones Brawling can't get are good (since brawling can get power field, Reach/Flexible/Volatile are the standouts? The flat TN15 for Shocking/etc seems a bit low against the enemies you want it to work on the most)

On the whole, all the advantages of ballistics feel like they would outweigh melee's damage boost, but well, melee is cooler to me so that's just more curiosity than anything.
But, if I want to be melee with a bit of magic, weapon choice isn't that important to my concept beyond that, so I'm wondering if Brawl generally gives slightly more advantages than Weaponry on the whole.
If not, are there any specific feats, options or rules that give weaponry a strong niche before going too heavy into homebrew?

[Amanojyaku]

If you're only looking at LN's materials, then any character focusing on martial classes is pretty much going to have Weaponry to meet prerequisites; monk levels want Brawl, but nothing else cares. So a Brawl type is going to have to spend extra to get anywhere else, may as well just use the dots you're already forced to buy and dump the other.

Note also that the TNs for Shocking/Toxic/whatever are straight Characteristic tests. Very few ways to roll more than five dice for those, and even then you can still fail at TN 15.

And the custom weapon building rules in Book 2 can't build you anything out of Book 1, they're the single biggest detriment to anything on your list.

[coffica]

Apr 13, 2023 5:12:19 GMT -6 Amanojyaku said:

If you're only looking at LN's materials, then any character focusing on martial classes is pretty much going to have Weaponry to meet prerequisites; monk levels want Brawl, but nothing else cares. So a Brawl type is going to have to spend extra to get anywhere else, may as well just use the dots you're already forced to buy and dump the other.

Note also that the TNs for Shocking/Toxic/whatever are straight Characteristic tests. Very few ways to roll more than five dice for those, and even then you can still fail at TN 15.

And the custom weapon building rules in Book 2 can't build you anything out of Book 1, they're the single biggest detriment to anything on your list.

Thanks for answering!

I hadn't thought of the first point, it's an interesting one, though I wonder if it gets diluted when the forum's homebrew comes in because there are a lot more class tracks that can ignore weaponry. Or is it a general requirement that only Weaponry focused classes can access feats like Swift Attack?
The game I'm in will allow homebrew, but I was just curious about the big picture.

At 5 dice you have a 2% chance of failing TN15, and even at 4 dice you only have a 10% chance, which doesn't seem worth the mod slot - I could see it working well with conditions like Fatigue/Dazzle but that needs extra support.

I'm pretty confused about the third point, which sorts of book 1 weapons should I be looking at?

[Divergent Reality]

All the weapon design rules in book 2 are overpriced compared to book 1. Lets recreate a Daiklave using book 2, you get an ordinary weapon, +1k0 damage twice, +2 pen twice, -1 rarity for ordinary still gives a Very Rare weapon. Compared to the book 1 Daiklave at Rare.

[Amanojyaku]

Apr 13, 2023 9:16:05 GMT -6 coffica said:

I hadn't thought of the first point, it's an interesting one, though I wonder if it gets diluted when the forum's homebrew comes in because there are a lot more class tracks that can ignore weaponry. Or is it a general requirement that only Weaponry focused classes can access feats like Swift Attack?
The game I'm in will allow homebrew, but I was just curious about the big picture.

Think your cause and effect got mixed up here. Most homebrew classes focus on not-Weaponry for melee because LN didn't. There's no "general rule" regarding things like Swift Attack, so much as there's a thing as being "too convenient;" case in point, go catch a skeg at my Sohei class now, and then consider that when first written it was an atrocious conglomerate of feats for facilitating rage fisting. Not good.

At 5 dice you have a 2% chance of failing TN15, and even at 4 dice you only have a 10% chance, which doesn't seem worth the mod slot - I could see it working well with conditions like Fatigue/Dazzle but that needs extra support.

You're more likely to see 3k3 on a raw characteristic test, which would be a 66% success rate. A character's more likely to have WIL at 4+ than CON, because WIL also functions into your ability to tolerate social functions, not get fucked over by magic words, and not have to take a time out in a puddle of salty lemonade (assuming you don't have Fearless or Nerves of Steel like a scrub, anyway). A raw characteristic test will also get fucked over harder by anything forcing on a -1k0 penalty, because you can't keep more than you roll.

I'm pretty confused about the third point, which sorts of book 1 weapons should I be looking at?

DR covered it: You can't recreate anything in Book 1 using the rules in Book 2. You're best served starting from a weapon in Book 1 and using the modifier costs in Book 2 to customize it.

[coffica]

Think your cause and effect got mixed up here. Most homebrew classes focus on not-Weaponry for melee because LN didn't.

I mean more, if a lot of homebrew classes are allowed that give martial options without having Weaponry as a requirement, then the drawback 'Brawl builds can't access other good classes' feels like much less of a problem. Though kind of my fault since I'm moving about a muddy position between homebrew and LN environments with my questions.

Apr 13, 2023 9:21:58 GMT -6 Divergent Reality said:

All the weapon design rules in book 2 are overpriced compared to book 1. Lets recreate a Daiklave using book 2, you get an ordinary weapon, +1k0 damage twice, +2 pen twice, -1 rarity for ordinary still gives a Very Rare weapon. Compared to the book 1 Daiklave at Rare.

Ah, I definitely noticed that for some but didn't check the whole book 1 list.
This sent me on a long tangential trail of thought where I realized that Power Fist was much less of a dominant melee weapon than I thought, since once people can reach 10+ rolled damage dice easily then its innate Xk3 for no downsides is less of a big deal - so now I can see weaponry does have a lot of niches with its properties.

Thanks for your patient answers to what I asked, I'm getting more of a feel for how this fits together now.

[asher]

Kinda a strange question but when you use the spell jaunt to dodge a blast damage attack does it work differently than a regular dodge. May reason for thinking this is because the spell also has movement not just a dodge. Also in setting it make sense cause there’s no in between movement to get caught up in the blast from where you were and to where you jaunted to, you’re just there now. So like if you jaunt far enough and your outside the blast radius you should be completely unharmed and not even take half damage if successful.