I’m in the process of burning up a character for BWG as I intend to run the game in the near future and I’d like to clarify what “Appropriate Weapons” means.
As I’ve read it I’ve taken it to mean any Martial skill excluding Training skills. So for the Marine lifepath I’ve picked Brawling and Cudgel.
It is permissible to select a Martial skill that isn’t a weapon as part of Appropriate Weapons?
Additional Questions:
I’ve had a look in the index for swimming and drowning are there any rules that cover this?
You can’t pick a Skill training for Apr. Weapon. Even taking multiple weapon skills from that 1 entry wouldn’t be fair game for me. 1 Weapon skill should be appropriate enough.
Being conservative is a good idea here, but it is Appropriate WeaponS. 2-4 seems sensible. Really you want to define a couple of most-used weapons for that kind of LP – e.g. for Bandit I might pick Knives, Cudgel, Staff, and maybe Bow.
The main power-level bump here comes not so much from offering multiple weapons from one LP – fighting skills aren’t quite like social skills, where breadth is very useful – but from having a mix of melee and ranged in one lifepath, or from offering the hardest-hitting weapons, like Polearm.
Trainings are definitely off the table.
Generally I assume Brawling is a separate skill from weapons as well.
Each appropriate weapon skill should cost a skill point to open, Right? so it just means theyre LP skills instead of General. I think that’s the intention of the broad term Appropriate Weapons.
I’ve always thought that Appropriate Weapons covers as many weapons skills as are, well, appropriate. Some lowly soldiers might only be trained in Spears, or maybe Axes. More elite infantry might pick up Polearms and Bows. A heavy cavalryman could have Swords, but Hammers are also appropriate. Knights can be trained in just about anything. Bandit types are likely to learn Knives and Cudgels and maybe Spears, but Swords would be rare.
It also leaves room to fit things into your campaign. Maybe you want swords to be common, or rare. Maybe in your game those who join a Military Order are all trained in Knives because they’re sacred to the Bloody Gods.
It does mean only weapons, though. And despite the fact that you can bash someone with a shield, no, Shield Training isn’t appropriate.
Swimming = Forte test; cool beans. I noticed that Perception is used for spotting stuff that isn’t hidden and the Observation skill is used for spotting stuff that is hidden so that makes sense.
Appropriate Weapons; I totally agree that the Training (2 point) skills are off the list.
You’ll have to convince me more about Brawling however. The Marine lifepath doesn’t get Brawling as a skill yet has Bruiser as the required trait (a call-on for Brawling) so in this case I’d allow Brawling as an “Appropriate Weapon.”
Martial skills that have Brawling as a FoRK are Axe, Boxing*, Cudgel, Knives, Staff and Sword so I’d be tempted to allow any Lifepath that can justify one of those skills to take Brawling as an Appropriate Weapon.
*Boxing is called out as a Martial Art and I’d want a very good explanation as to why someone would think it should be included as an Appropriate Weapon.
This I feel is a bit too much. Consider, like, Courtier (IIRC they get Sword, but that may be just me remembering Revised) or Criminal (Knives, no Brawling).
A courtly and urbane noble might learn swordsmanship for settling disputes and the occasional bit of self-defense on the rough and faction-ridden streets of the fantasy-Renaissance capital. Now, a fight’s a fight, so that courtier’s Sword skill is srs bsns, not just flourishing your sword around ineffectually. But Sword forking in Brawling isn’t just using Sword and getting a bonus die. It’s throwing elbows, breaking fingers, and just generally getting dirty above and beyond what’s involved in sword-to-sword combat. Is that really going to be common for a courtier?
I think Brawling for a marine does fit, though. Although it might just be assuming you’ll get it from a previous LP (I don’t have the book here right this second to check).
I would also test Speed for most swimming tests. Praion mentioned Forte for swimming and not drowning. Speed can be used for most physical actions that don’t fall under another skill. Forte is good for physical tests that eventually wear you down.
Appropriate Weapons does have a skill description entry, you know.
Brawling is not a weapon skill, and for Marine the presumption is that you have gained it from Sailor or Mercenary Captain. It is possible to go through Pirate and not get the skill, but that’s on the player to spend a general skill point.
</sarcasm>Oh! Golly gosh I didn’t see that Appropriate Weapons had a skill description.</sarcasm>
I did ask a question about clarifying if it would be permissible to include Brawling as an Appropriate Weapon and indeed the lifepaths that the character I burnt took are: Son of a Gun, Pirate, Marine and First Mate.
If that is your ruling then I’d dump the character and make something else that didn’t have Appropriate Weapons listed in any of the lifepaths.
Alex_P
Yes, I agree that it would not be appropriate for a Courtier to have Brawling as part of Appropriate Weapons… not that Appropriate Weapons are listed for Courtier. But I totally agree that only skills that make sense should be allowed.
Marines aren’t actually trained in Brawling, formally. They’re trained with weapons. They often come from backgrounds that involve brawling, but there are exceptions.
BW lifepaths are all about ending up in weird places with weird talent sets with weird holes in them, figuring out how it happened, and making do. That said, it would be okay to make Brawling an Appropriate Weapon. It’s not the intent, but it won’t cause problems.
You’re right, Yinn. Erm, Scout LP is probably a better example, then. I wouldn’t give a scout character Brawling. I would give a foot soldier Brawling, and they have that listed separately from “Appropriate Weapons.”
stormsweeper & Luke
Please accept an apology for my sarcasm.
In all honesty I read stormsweeper’s post as a “read the F’ing manual” rather than the honest information dump that it was. I shall endeavour to post with a clear mind in the future.
Agreed
That kind of makes sense. Yet I’m still perplexed as the talent of Bruiser is written explicitly for a marine and describes them brawling all the time yet they do not have the skill. It’s almost as if Brawling would be a requirement to take the Marine LP
BW lifepaths are puzzle pieces. You can make them fit perfectly, or you can leave weird holes and odd dangly bits to fill in later. Imagine the story of your character who has refrained from Brawling his whole life, but suddenly finds he has quite the talent for it. You could easily do that in play.
That line was mostly in response to the question of how many skills can you take with it, not your post. I was posting from my phone so quoting is somewhat impractical.
FWIW, minor tweaks to lifepath skill lists are usually fine. Like, at one point my wife made a noblewoman and said it didn’t make sense culturally for Young Ladies not to have Sewing. Ditto in the 11th-century game we’re doing now, it makes sense for Squire-type LPs for a few cultures to have Bow instead of Crossbow. Magyar warrior-nobility, for instance.
In your case, I wouldn’t really feel at all wrong adding Brawling to either Marine or Pirate.
But, yeah, the gaps are often purposeful. The best example is how most of the newbie sorcerer LPs don’t get Sorcery. You’ve gotta work up to that.
And the other side, equally important, is when LPs don’t have skills that are virtually central because most of the normal routes to them include that skill. If you’re coming to that LP from a funny angle you’re either going to do it poorly or you’re going to have to have picked up the necessarily talents elsewhere along the way, i.e. with general points.
