The Efficiency Paradox

[torchdragon]

Disclaimer: By trade, I am an engineer. My mind has been tooled into a device for solving problems by deconstruction, analysis, and experiment. I inherently look for reasoning and logical consistency and this has colored my various interactions with several dozen RPG systems.

Potentially the largest issue that my play group ran into with 7th Sea is the combat system and its implementation of swordsman knacks. The crux of the argument essentially boils down to the fact that the swordsman knacks are not as efficient at removing opponents from combat as straight Attack(Weapon) rolls.

When I say efficient, I'm looking broadly across the dice mechanics required for the multitude of "additional effects" exposed by the swordsman knacks themselves. One specific catch point is TNs to hit, but I'll probably make an entire thread simply for that mechanical discussion on its own. Due to the risks of not hitting, the skill level of the opponent invalidating most Active Defense options at higher levels, and various gotchas in the numbers, we were never able to consistently look at the Swordsman knacks as viable combat options.

On top of that, the idea of "death isn't default" crept in to make Dramatic Wounds ending a character's resistance a far more accessible option. "Oh, well, if just stabbing the guy isn't going to out right kill him, then we'll just start stabbing." No need to mess around with keeping someone alive, just Attack(Weapon) until they can't stand.

In the other direction were the character points being expended to gain access to Swordsman schools. If you were looking to simply have a large Attack/Parry/Footwork pool, your character points were better spent padding out your combat skills while also leaving you more points to populate other skills and knacks at a greater degree, and to throw in another Trait point.

The flavor of the world says that we SHOULD be Tagging people but my play group never found the mechanical reason to do so. This will end up being the repeated theme of any of my posts dealing with the system... We love the world, but the mechanics aren't firing right. We love the Role Playing but we're not sold on the Game.

Thoughts?

[Black Jack Rackham]

Good points all of them, and mechanically, you are correct some of the combat doesn't make sense. And that's the problem. 7th Sea isn't a great system for its ability to replicate real-world events. GURPS, BRP and even HERO System all do a far better job 'looking right.'

Where 7th Sea beats them is the ability to make a dramatic story come alive. Combat is much quicker and far more forgiving of 'taking a chance' than any of the real-world replicating RPGs ever will. Swing from a chandelier while playing GURPS? Not on your life, my character will fall and break his damn fool neck. Playing 7th Sea? Oh HECK YEA! AND I'm going to parry the cardinal's guard trying to stab me on the way across!

Now lets talk a bit about the Swordsman Knacks. You are correct that you can get by with just Attack/Parry and that will make you an efficient fighter. There are some knacks which obviously help (Riposte, Stop Thrust, Beat, Corps-a-Corps, etc.) increase your direct fighting ability (Riposte lets you both use an active parry AND attack as one action, as does Stop Thrust, Beat stops your opponent from using an active defense, Corps-a-Corps knocks them to the ground where they are rediculously easy to hit). But some don't intuitively make a lot of sense. Tagging for one. BUT what they lack in efficiency they more than make up for in STYLE! This game isn't about killing the most opponents, its about Saving the Day, Winning the Contest, Rescuing the Woman, in short being a HERO.

Tagging lets you forego doing little bits of damage over time to taunt, humiliate and poke fun at your opponent THEN saving it all up for one big attack which puts him/her down for the count.

I'm betting your players have done a lot of D&D-esque kill the monster, take his stuff kind of adventuring? That's negatively colored their perception of this game.

Here's my recommendation. Go watch The Three Musketeers (preferrably the Disney version which is more apt for this exercise), Pirates of the Carribean (there's only one), The Man in the Iron Mask (specifically anything Porthos says and the charge at the end), and Cutthroat Island*

While watching notice the important fights, not the ones against the heaps of goons who die after one hit, but the ones against the BAD GUY. Now imagine trying to replicate that fight. Those heavy mechanics RPGs just fall short don't they?

That's 7th Sea

*EDIT: Dear GOD I forgot The Mask of Zorro watch that too

[Black Jack Rackham]

And let me add to this now that I've had a bit to think about this. You are missing a very important part of 7th Sea that (at least in my opinion) the other games simply don't cover at all. That is NOT COMBAT. I got to this thinking by way of starting an example about combat. I wanted to see if someone who just bought up Attack/Parry knacks could handily beat a swordsman trying to up all their own knacks (assuming equal xp)

Then it occured to me that the "focused on my attack/parry" guy was ignoring the non combat knacks which are so very VERY important to 7th Sea. Fights are really the icing on the cake of the adventure rather than the main course

Mark

[torchdragon]

Perfect. We're right on the mark for Stage 2 of this discussion (of which I've never actually gotten a good resolution to).

The play group consists of people who have seen a ton of swashbuckling, from The Mask of Zorro to The Pirate Movie. One of the crew is the lighting director at one of our local stage theaters. So as far as source material is concerned, we're all good there. In fact, I remember a wonderful combat situation that involved one of the PC's man servants providing a hulking bible as ammunition to pitch at the fleeing villain while another PC surfed down a gorgeous banister to tackle the fiend.

Flavor OOZES from this world and the system non stop and again, that's why we LOVE it and is why the combat is so painful in our eyes. The system seems disrupt accessing that flavor on a mechanical level. We understand that combat isn't THE point of the game but combat is A point of swashbuckling. The main issue seems to be that spending points on combat knacks outside of Attack/Parry/Footwork seems to be "a waste." In fact, the non-swordsman previously mentioned had loads more non-combat knacks to work with because he didn't spend his character points on a Swordsman school.

Now, that all said, we don't play 7th Sea because we're looking for an accurate pirate era combat simulator. But we also can't just ignore a rules set that doesn't seem to work out internally.

I have come up with a lot of math and mechanical discourse about all of the Swordsman Knacks. Things like Riposte won't work most of the time because the chances of exceeding a TN attack that hit your passive isn't very likely as generally speaking, exceeding your opponents attack roll is unlikely even with a whole die pool, let alone half a die pool. So while you may have this opportunity in the rules, it doesn't really show up in the dice.

I've even gone so far as to come up with a revised combat system to replace the stock rules and it required modification to almost everything regarding combat.

So here we are... You say "go for the style!" and I respond "I want to but the dice won't let me!" I'm looking for two things in this thread:

A: Is there some massive mechanical thing I'm missing from the system? Some Rosetta stone rule that makes it all slide together mechanically?

B: Ignoring mechanics entirely, how specifically are you setting up encounters that make all the non-efficient choices worth taking? There was an immense difficulty working with the group to present serious choices (again, entirely in combat) that were "better" than just knocking out everyone, tying them up, and proceding with the flair and mockery.

Welcome to what is now a multi-year struggle to figure out how to love ALL of 7th Sea at once.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Things like Riposte won't work most of the time because the chances of exceeding a TN attack that hit your passive isn't very likely as generally speaking, exceeding your opponents attack roll is unlikely even with a whole die pool, let alone half a die pool. So while you may have this opportunity in the rules, it doesn't really show up in the dice.

And this, I'd argue is where those awesome DD from your Tagging come into play. You've been dueling with Count Deville for some time now, showing him your superiority by slapping him in the face with your blade, cutting his belt buckle off (allowing his pants to drop to the floor), etc. And Finally, the Count has had enough, he attacks despite the warning that you are a far superior swordsman, and the strike looks to end your career (and perhaps your life) but in a flash, using his blade as a guide, your blade finds its way up and through his defenses piercing his shoulder clean through. His blade clatters to the floor...

In mechanical terms you had perhaps 3-4 DD saved up and you have lets say 4's in all relevent knacks/traits. So normally you are rolling 6k4 for your parry and attack. BUT you have a 4 in Riposte and you split them even so you have 8k4. Lets say you add in 1DD that's 9k5 (which is quite impressive actually) for your parry. If you still fail you can still add in one or even both of the remaining DD. But just for arguments sake lets say you make it (cause really your odds of hitting a 40 are nearly 60%). Now its time for a hit and you're rolling the remaining DD with this for a grand total of 10k6 (where your chance to hit 60 is nearly 50%) or 10k8 if you had 4 DD(with a 40% chance to hit 60) so you take raises for extra damage...

And if we make you a master of a specific school (take my favorite Aldana) you are going to see some serious increases. Lets say this went on for a round and you have the 4 DD. You have one action left and you are a master swordsman so 4 Wits, 4 Finesse, 5 in Parry, Attack, and Riposte PLUS you have your Wits in unkept Focus Dice (we'll assume 4). Parry ends up being 6k4 plus say half of the Riposte dice rounded down(2) + half the focus dice (2), for 10k4 before you add in the DD (and because you've reached the top of the dice in hand each DD adds 2 to the kept dice) Remember you can always add the DD after youve rolled but before the GM says success or failure so if you happen to roll well, you can just move on (but for the sake of our discussion lets use 1 DD for 10k8). Now the attack with added raises 6k4 + 3 Riposte dice + 2 Focus Dice + 3 DD or 10k10+30. I'm pretty sure I can seriously hurt Count Deville with one shot.

A: Is there some massive mechanical thing I'm missing from the system? Some Rosetta stone rule that makes it all slide together mechanically?

B: Ignoring mechanics entirely, how specifically are you setting up encounters that make all the non-efficient choices worth taking? There was an immense difficulty working with the group to present serious choices (again, entirely in combat) that were "better" than just knocking out everyone, tying them up, and proceding with the flair and mockery.

Answers

A: I hope my discussion above shows at least one version of how the additives work together.

B: The non efficient choices are another way to earn DD. I want to see you act a certain way, so I reward that when I see it.

But if you want to see a more specific example, stop on by any of my games (or heck, sit in) I promise you'll see what I mean.

[Rebecca Iavelli]

While Mark is the expert here, reguarding the way the dice are used, I was wondering, could you give us some samples of the type of characters your group has been playing, post their character sheets, so that we can see exactly what knacks and other things they are working with, so that he could give you some examples with the characters you have.

Personally I find that way a bit easier, than just creating a sceanario for the explantion, because then I can see how what I picked out works for my character, and if it should be something they need or not. Because while I've played 7th Sea for quite a while now, the explaination he gave above, while very good, bogged me down in the reading of it with all the numbers. (Sorry Mark, I did understand it, but had to read it a couple of times to make sure). While having something solid like the characters to look at, see what they have, and how to use them together makes it easier, to me, than trying to do it off an imanginary sceanario, and maybe it might work better for you too. (You ok with that Mark?)

[Sister Sonya]

You say "go for the style!" and I respond "I want to but the dice won't let me!"

My undergraduate degree is in what now would be called Materials Science, so I understand your context.

Not to seem to gang up on you, I would suggest that you have the statement backwards. I would say, "Make the dice work for you, to get the style you want for your character."

My character in the "Crimson Valor", a 7th Sea campaign under different management but also at Origins and GenCon, has the following "Sword School": The students of the Halfdansson style of fighting use harpoons in a vicious manner. They thrust their weapons deeply into their victim and then grab another harpoon. It is difficult for an enemy to fight effectively while impaled upon a long, barbed object...

So instead of tagging your opponent in order accumulate DD to effect a coup-de-grace, the idea is to make it harder and harder for your opponent to hit you and easier for you to hit him. It's a different style of humiliation. In theory, if your enemy has enough harpoons sticking out of him, his TN to be hit could drop as low as 5 and it could become nearly impossible for him to hit you- both as long as they stick in him.

This character, though, isn't maxed out in harpoon or attack knacks. He has a Wits of 6 and has Composer 5. He composes ditties for and about the ladies, but also for friends... and to enemies.

You can only hack-and-slash for a while before a game begins to get stale: I began playing D&D in 1975 and can't imagine playing it now. 7th Sea, however, gives clever people the raw material to be able to create the kind of character that they want to play.

[torchdragon]

combat example snip

Are we under the assumption that the Hero and Villain are equal in XP? If we are, then you can't use the argument that their stats and skills are going to line up to be the same.

"he attacks despite the warning..." This is unfortunately the only time that it seemed appropriate to use the Swordsman knacks. After you know that you clearly out class someone, you can use the skills to "play" with them until you decide to end the fight. Specifically, to me, that's just not fun. Being in danger is what makes the choices important. If my opponent isn't a threat then the sense of challenge disappears and there's no feeling of accomplishment.

Starting Characters:

Aldana Swordsman
Brawn 1
Finesse 2
Wits 2
Resolve 1
Panache 2
(16 hp)

Aldana Swordsman School (25 hp)
Feint 1
Riposte 1
Tagging 1
Exploit Weakness 1
+1k0 Initiative
Advantage: Swordsman Guild

Courtier (Dancing 1, Etiquette 1, Fashion 1, Oratory 1)
Fencing (Attack 3, Parry 3) (4 hp)

= 45 hp spent

El Generico
Brawn 1
Finesse 3
Wits 3
Resolve 1
Panache 2
(32 hp)

Courtier (Dancing 1, Etiquette 1, Fashion 1, Oratory 1) (2 hp)
Fencing (Attack 3, Parry 3) (6 hp)

= 40 hp spent

Versus Each other

Aldana Attack: 5k2, 37% TN 20
Aldana Parry: 5k2, 20% TN25
Aldana Riposte: 4k2 / 4k2, +1k0 to either, 29% / 37% TN 20
Aldana Passive TN: 20
Aldana Actions: 2

Generico Attack: 6k3, 82% TN 20
Generico Parry: 6k3, 52% TN 25
Generico Passive TN: 20
Generico Actions: 2

So here we have two starting characters that have spent roughly 40% of their points directly on combat skills. Allowing for 60% of their points to go into everything else. Note that I had to spend the extra 4hp on Attack and Parry or else the Aldana rolls would be even worse off, and so the Aldana is spending 45 points instead of 40.

Parry value is assuming you'll need to roll higher than your TN and the next number up on my Probability Chart is 25. Expect significant drop off if the roll value to hit you was higher than 25.

There is no question here who wins a sword fight and I don't see how any amount of style is going to help this. Riposte becomes essentially unusable. You're not going to realistically hit the active defense if you try, which now puts you at 1 action vs Generico's 2 actions. So going to a Swordsman school makes you a worse sword fighter out of the gate. So you want to buy up Riposte at creation? That's an additional 6hp because swordsman knacks are Advance Knacks. The extra 3 dice still leaves you keeping two so your probability will increase at maximum 7k2 which gives you a 49% chance to parry and 29% chance to Attack TN 20 with no raises. I don't see how the player is being offered fun choices by this setup. You're specifically spending hero points to do your "thing" worse than someone who doesn't.

So we fast forward a couple years...

Aldana has spent:
70xp Wits 4, Finesse 4
18xp Riposte 4
16xp Attack 4, Parry 4

Generico has spent:
40xp Wits 4, Finesse 4
16xp Attack 4, Parry 4

Without even looking at Tagging as an option, Generico has a 48xp lead on Aldana. Adding in spending points on Tagging further increases the initial costs and experience lag. 48 xp means Generico could have a Finesse of 5, Panache 3, Parry 5

Aldana attack: 8k4, 72% TN 30
Aldana parry: 8k4, 72% TN 30
Alanda Riposte: 6k4 / 6k4, +4k0,(Parry: 52% min , 84% max), (Attack: 52% min, 84% max)
Aldana Passive TN: 25
Aldana Actions: 2

Generico Attack: 9k5, 99% TN 25
Generico Parry: 9k4, 55% TN 35
Generico Passive TN: 30
Generico Actions: 3

Now these are going off of the minimums. If this were the case, then the Riposte numbers would line up relatively well and Aldana definitely has more of a shot here. The problem is, Riposte won't be looking at a TN 25. Its going to be looking more at a rolled TN 40 which drops the percentages to min 18%, max 30%.

To bring Tagging into this, you'd need to spend another 18hp from rank 1 -> 4, or 6hp + 8xp to be at rank 4. Which gives you a 72% chance to gain a drama die per action, meaning 2 rounds of just tagging. All the while, Generico has probably just hit you 6 times and done damage. Without spending any HP/XP on brawn, you're failing every wound check and a resolve of 1 means you're down in 2 hits.

Now, obviously you wouldn't want to be running around with a Resolve or Brawn of 1, but that just serves to exacerbate the XP spending situation. And in order to get your Master Level technique you need to get 4 knacks to Rank 5, including the dubiously useful Exploit Weakness, which on its own is another 28xp.
So yes, if you compare characters that have almost a 100xp spread, the one with the 100xp bonus is going to have his way with the lesser xp character. And if it takes getting your character all the way maxed out before your skills themselves become useful, I can't see that anything but problematic.

So, you bring in Drama Dice to help level the playing field, but the problem is, Generico is going to have access to Drama dice as well and maybe he knows you'll want to riposte so he uses his drama dice to make sure you never parry.

Now, the thing is, most of all of these mechanical issues with the skills actually trip up around the Passive/Active TN mechanic and most of my revamp experiments went to fiddling with that. The other majority of issues came from Panache being so heavy handed with Actions. The two of them together on top of the Knack mechanics leads me to believe that either I'm missing something entirely or that there are some flaws with the design.

In my mind, the non-efficient choices are incredibly dangerous to use and have a very low reward for the amount of risk required. And if the situation is so one sided, it doesn't feel good for me to be a part of it. I want my character to feel empowered in some way. Knowing that the only reason I'm alive is because I'm allowed to be is disheartening.

When I'm watching sword fighting sequences, there are times where the partners are sizing each other up and testing each other. But like in real world sparring (as per my kung fu experience), you are still actually attempting to land a hit on your partner. If you're not, neither of you are actually testing each other's skills. Now, this is not to say that I'm trying to dumb down the system so that people only take Attack/Parry. I don't want to. I want to see fun combat options, but as an engineer and an armchair game designer I also need to see the math work out as well.

But if you want to see a more specific example, stop on by any of my games (or heck, sit in) I promise you'll see what I mean.

If I were easily able to get to where you were playing, I would love to. Hence my question on Google Hangouts. Unfortunately, Mass is a minimum 6 hour drive for me.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Yup, as you’ve set up the scenario, it’d work out exactly as you’ve described. But there are a couple of things you didn’t take into consideration which makes your scenario incorrect. I’ve never seen anyone spend just 40% of their points on combat. What really ends up happening is that they spend 80% on Traits because even a cursory glance at the rules shows you that Traits are the most efficient use of your points (it is a rare exception to see a character with a single “1” and I’ve never seen one with more than that). Now the exception to the 80% rule is the Trait/Knack maximums. With Hero Points you are never allowed to buy up your Trait more than twice (meaning 3 max for most traits and 4 for the bonus based on nationality). The rule of “+2 levels” also applies to knacks so with their remaining points, they start buying Skills/Knacks. The ‘go to’ knacks are Footwork, Parry, and Balance, so everyone makes sure they have all those at 3 (because we know the GM is gonna force you to fight aboard ship, or on top of a run-away carriage, etc.)

So in practice, the Swordsman with a School and the one without tend to be pretty close in terms of fighting capability (their particular nationality bonus, if they maxed it, would be the only difference, but again, I’ve rarely seen anyone begin a game with a “4”, after all 100 points is really not all that much) at the end of Character Creation (the non-swordschool swordsman tends to have more varied skills and probably a few advanced knacks because, hey, why not?)

Then what happens is either they begin working on maxing out Traits (because, again, it’s the best use of your points) or raising the primary combat knacks (Attack, Parry, Footwork, Balance) to max to ensure they can hit/not get hit.

Again, given they get the same amount of xp, they tend to stay at about the same capability (more or less).

Once all that is done, the swordschool swordsman finally gets around to cranking up their swordschool knacks (and coincidentally, adds in the other cool stuff they get for mastery level), while the non-swordschool swordsman starts increasing some of their non-combat capabilities.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, if your players don’t find any reason to have swordschools, that’s ok, but I think they’ll find they have more fun with them.

[torchdragon]

What really ends up happening is that they spend 80% on Traits because even a cursory glance at the rules shows you that Traits are the most efficient use of your points

This would be another aspect of the system I find flawed. I was specifically avoiding dumping all the points into Traits on the basis that I wanted to have two templates that allow for rounded characters that aren't simply a pile of Traits.

The overall point is that you can spend similarly on a non-sword school character and simply get more than what is offered by spending extra points on sword school options given the math behind the swordsman knacks. What you're spending on sword school knacks doesn't really give you a mechanical edge until you've reached a large accumulation of XP, and even then their use is deniable.

We did 3 campaigns and we had a wide variety of Schools in all 3. Consistently, the unfun portion of the campaigns were dealing with the rules of the Swordsman schools.

Once I get my notes collected, I can provide the "alpha" set of rules I used for redesigning the combat system. What I was specifically looking at was removing the Ative Defense TN entirely and moving Panache from a set number of actions to a way of "buying" actions via accumulated raises/offsets with Panache points. It allowed for a much lower barrier of entry to using the skills as well as given Swordsmen an actual advantage in combat over simply rolling Attack(Weapon).

[Black Jack Rackham]

This would be another aspect of the system I find flawed. I was specifically avoiding dumping all the points into Traits on the basis that I wanted to have two templates that allow for rounded characters that aren't simply a pile of Traits.

What I wouldn't give to see characters built on what's thematically appropriate vs. what's gonna give me the most dice!!!111!!!

The overall point is that you can spend similarly on a non-sword school character and simply get more than what is offered by spending extra points on sword school options given the math behind the swordsman knacks. What you're spending on sword school knacks doesn't really give you a mechanical edge until you've reached a large accumulation of XP, and even then their use is deniable.

Agreed. The only thing evening them up is arbitrary stat caps.

We did 3 campaigns and we had a wide variety of Schools in all 3. Consistently, the unfun portion of the campaigns were dealing with the rules of the Swordsman schools.

I think the only thing you can really do is get real experienced playing a particular school (I am good at Aldana but if you threw me a Kjemper character I'd be lost).

Once I get my notes collected, I can provide the "alpha" set of rules I used for redesigning the combat system. What I was specifically looking at was removing the Ative Defense TN entirely and moving Panache from a set number of actions to a way of "buying" actions via accumulated raises/offsets with Panache points. It allowed for a much lower barrier of entry to using the skills as well as given Swordsmen an actual advantage in combat over simply rolling Attack(Weapon).

I would love to see that when you get it done.

Another thing you might consider is checking out/bringing this over to Revenants Forum. Admittedly, most of us here are there too (I'm the moderator for Revs, the Owner here) but there's a few folks who are much better at the mechanics than I am.

We've been discussing on and off the idea of a 2nd Ed 7th Sea forever. You might get some ideas from some of the older threads.

[torchdragon]

Never say 7th Sea 2e! Never! Don't you dare toy with my heart like that! A man can only wait so long before having to move on! *runs wailing into the dark, damp night*

[salamanca]

The trick to effective use of swordsman knacks lies in the handful of abilities that benefit from another knack that has been used prior to the action. Tagging for a single attack does nothing for you. Tagging for several actions builds a nice stockpile for one attack. Riposte without a held action is worthless but can finish a duel to first blood (where it really is a key ability). Pommel strike and corps a corps do nothing on their own but if your partners hold an action and have a pile of tagging dice handy, reducing the opponent's TN for that one phase will finish things. The point is that the mechanics benefit from a diverse group that can mix and match knacks. The swash comes from creattive description. The valor participants here are lethal when we are together because we have a variety of knacks, high stats and understand the best order to use our knacks. If we switched characters to new schools and styles we would likely flounder a bit until we found a new combo to exploit. The knacks are often about softening up an opponent or working around a particular hang up with an opponent. My character for altamira is looking at relying on active defence rolls while the rest of the team does the beating. Feint and beat will decimate me. If Mark plans for that, it takes points from other places but adds threats to every player who won't get a chance to avoid a hit. It's all about use ans synergy.

[torchdragon]

The point is that the mechanics benefit from a diverse group that can mix and match knacks. The swash comes from creattive description.

And my contention with the issue, as per discussion above, is that it feels like the Swordsman schools are a solution looking for a problem. Mechanically speaking only, it is never points effective to go with a Swordsman school. The math works out better for almost all situations to simply buy up (Parry/Attack/Footwork)/Traits.

It sounds like you've found creative ways to make the system work, but in my mind it still doesn't fit together. How do any of these swordsman schools continue to exist if they require the cooperation of rival schools to Voltron together in order to be effective? Again, I love the flavor, but I can't see the justification of the rules set.

[Black Jack Rackham]

A bit off-topic, but torchdragon have you ever checked out All For One: Regime Diabolique? It uses the Ubiquity system (same as Hollow Earth Expedition). It might have more of (what I think) you're looking for.

Mark

EDIT: their website http://www.tripleacegames.com/AllForOne.php

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, think of the swordsman that just buys up the stuff he needs as a hack and slasher type of guy. He is not refined in the methods of how he attacks or works with the sword, just a common bandit type. He can get by hacking and slashing his way through fights, but someday will meet up with someone else who can out hack and slash him. It may just be another hack and slasher that out does him, but that then is what they are hack and slashers, period.

Then you have the man who studies under a swords school, and learns the ways to use a sword properly, to learn to use less energy to get the most results out of his "hack and slaying", to "dance his blade" with anothers in a dance so turning the "hack and slay" into a refined dance, each motion leads to the next in a smooth flowing rythem.

In reality, there were both types of swordsmen in the world, and more often than not, the one with the better schooling would beat out the one without, unless of course the one without got lucky, or was just overpowering in his might, but definately it would not be from his knowledge of how or where to strike to disarm or damage, as a school teaches.

Think of that when you think of Swordsmen schools. They are there for the flavor also, to have a particular pattern that is played out in the sword dance, as it is in real life, under he different types of swordschools.
The schools have to have the rules, to have their "pattern" played out, while the "hack and slayer" has no pattern, and more than often will just be using brute strength to try to overcome his rival, occationally luck and his brains, if he is smart.

But the thing about the game swordfights is that all of it is based on the luck of the dice rolls, and with the swordschools giving you extra dice to use, for things done during the fight, the person with the highest rolls is normally going to win. That is one reason to use the swordschools instead of just buying the traits.

[torchdragon]

But the thing about the game swordfights is that all of it is based on the luck of the dice rolls, and with the swordschools giving you extra dice to use, for things done during the fight, the person with the highest rolls is normally going to win. That is one reason to use the swordschools instead of just buying the traits.

The problem is that you don't get extra dice and the luck is against you as per mathematics displayed above. If you've spent out on traits directly for Attack/Finesse, you will generally make an active defense near impossible for a similarly XP'd character. If you tag, you will take damage for every tag that you gain. Your extra dice will become crippled incredibly quickly. Even more so if you don't have a matching Panache.

The Swordsman knacks make rolls more difficult with promise of a mediocre return given the chosen knack.

Beat: Finesse + Beat / TN+(5 * Opponent's Brawn) - One of the better Knacks due to its simplicity and cost, generally speaking you'll be seeing a 2+ Brawn, so your TN is 10+ higher to force the opponent to not make an Active Defense. With Active Defense being a raw (Defense Knack) + Wits roll, their chances of making the roll are slim to begin with.

The problem with Beat is that it crosses over into the Active Defense problem. I can choose to make a more difficult roll in order to hit my opponent. Or I can raise an equal number of times for Damage bonuses and still have a very similar effect. Say my opponent uses Parry 3 to defend with a Wits of 3, roll 6k3 to AD.
I have a Finesse 3, Attack 3, I'm rolling 6k3 as well. My opponent's Passive Defense is TN20.

I have 3 choices, A: I can make no raises, B: I can make a number of raises for Damage, or C: I can make a number of raises to deny his Active Defense.

A: Base TN to hit is 20, rolling 6k3, 82% chance of landing it.
B: 1 raise = 52%, 2 raises = 31%, not very good odds past one raise
C: Most likely requiring 2 raiess, so 31% chance at best to hit with a Beat.

What are my opponents choices?

A: Have to use 6k3 to roll over the opponent's attack roll, this could be easy (20TN, barely hit) or not worth it (30TN, opponent rolled over what he needed). Sacrificing an action to have a 31% chance to block an attack doesn't seem like a good idea, you're now on the back foot AND you only have a 31% chance to succeed.

B: As per A, except your Active Defense is a base of being harder to defend against if the attack landed. You're in no better position and your opponent is rolling more damage against you.

C: As per A and B, except the attacker isn't getting the benefit of rolling more dice for damage.

This seems to be the classic issue with the Swordsman knacks. At best, the Apprentice level bonuses for the Swordsman school will negate offhand penalties and do not give you "more dice" to execute any of the maneuvers.

Bind: Does not require "extra TN", only works against Fencing weapons, denies your opponent access to his main weapon. I like Bind, it actually feels like a benefit. Its draw backs are that it loses to brute strength and that feels right and makes sense.

Corp-a-Corp: Arguably the BEST knack in the game. No additional TN to roll and trades a small amount of damage for a HUGE swing in the state of the combat. I like this one as well.

Disarm: Problematic in my mind as per the Passive Defense/Active Defense/Raise Issue above. This requires your opponent to make a tactical mistake before you're allowed to use it and depending on how their points were spent, they probably have a better attack pool than your disarm pool because you're spending more points on more knacks to fill out your Swordsman school.

Double-parry: Active Defense problem, an opponent hitting you is likely to make your Active Defense roll far too risky.

Feint: As per Beat's discussion, but even worse off because generally speaking Wits is a HUGELY desired trait so the chances of landing a Feint are even lower than Beat.

Lunge: Situational at best. At most, it saves you Raising twice for damage at the trade off of being murdered the phase that you use it. If your opponent has a held action, you can't lunge or you'll be brutalised for it. If he doesn't, why not raise if you can hit it anyway, and deny them use of their active defense?

Riposte: All of the arguments from Beat with the additional meta arguments from earlier in the thread. Active Defenses are hard to make at all and now you're doing it with a reduced die pool.

Tagging: See earlier argument as to how this ends up being a losing situation.

So out of the mechanical options of the Swordsman Knacks alone, two of them are viable, the rest seem to me as to be mostly unusable (due to Active Defense).

Again, the style is not the issue. I get the style and what's preventing me from creatively describing my attacks with no raises, no special knacks, or raising for damage? Nothing. I can creatively describe to similar levels as I could with the knacks. So it comes down to the question of why would I bother with the Swordsman Schools? Outside of Corps-a-corps and Bind, I'm making my rolls harder for little or no benefit.

To reiterate, the issue in my mind is the disconnect between the perception of how Swordsman schools interact with the world and how they mechanically act with the world. Yes, someone who dedicates the better part of their adolescent life (or a solid montage scene) should be more spectacular with a blade. Yes, someone who has spent time training with the mysterious master in the dusty basement of the inn should come out with more flair than the knuckle dragging street tough. The problem is that the rules don't make this so. The mechanics of the techniques make the Knacks more difficult to pull off against even the knuckle draggers.

So on a high level, I see my choices as A: spend a lot of extra points to be able to access a small amount of extra knacks that are more difficult to use while also limiting the other non combat skills I have access to or B: Just buy Traits/Parry/Attack/Footwork AND buy all of the other skills that I can have to make my character more well rounded.

A bit off-topic, but torchdragon have you ever checked out All For One: Regime Diabolique? It uses the Ubiquity system (same as Hollow Earth Expedition). It might have more of (what I think) you're looking for.

Taking a look.

Also, found my notes on the revised combat system but there are a bunch of holes in them from spotty note taking during the play test so I need to wire some murky bits back together.