Fwurg

[Brend]

Request for Comment

The tier I Tràkata trickery and deception style.

[Chriz]

I Like this style since it has some nice unique moves.

In my opinion the pass the blade maneuver is a bit overpowered since you can freely distribute the 2 dots over your offense. I think this borders on the same problem as the old DCA rules, you have no clue what you will receive as enemy and it is possible to stack them both on the same ring or choose 2 rings.

The same could be said for the unbalancing block. Since you can choose the advantage that is removed the maneuver is pretty strong.

I like this style the most since it has new options and new ideas but I think the effects might have to be restricted a bit.

[Elmer]

First some few things I noticed: The prerequisite: jedi is a little strange. I think a sith should be able to learn this style as well, but simply choose other styles first. (Count Dooku is a typical calculated dude who might use this style.)

why are tonfa handles not allowed? These handles are great for deceptive strikes in my opinion. As you can use the hilts as well for an attack.

Pass the blades gives you 4 dots extra on attack (manoeuvre included), this is quite a lot, because this can be a total of +6 dots when it is combined with a offensive DCA. (Although you do get a -2 penalty on your defence)

What I miss is the link between the description and the manoeuvres. The description is about deceptiveness and de- and reactivation of the sabers. But I miss this deception in the manoeuvres, especially the de-activation part.

[Brend]

First off: "While the term Jedi is technically only true for those force users associated with the Jedi Order, the rules use this term interchangeably with Force User." (quoted from Jedi Rules).

That being said. We agreed that there is little fluff with the manoeuvres. This is mainly because no other style has this, and we wanted to get out at least four styles today. (Off-topic: we think that it is beneficial if more fluff is available on ALL manoeuvres, even those of already approved styles. However, we don't want to lock in the fluff, as we want to encourage stunting!)

Let me explain the idea behind the manoeuvres (stolen from Wookiepedia on Tràkata):

Pass the Blade: The duelist deactivated his blade as he attacks, bypassing the opponent's block before igniting it into the hapless foe.

Unbalancing Block: The duelist caught the opponent's blade with his own before momentarily deactivating it, causing the opponent to stumble and leave himself open.

As to the Tonfa handles: The style you see now grew from a daggers/shorts only style, with a heavy focus on stabbing. The prohibition of Tonfa handles stems from this, as we couldn't imagine the benefit of Tonfa handles to this style of combat. However, as we relaxed the requirements on the weapon used, we could conside Tonfa handles again.

Keep in mind, that I (Brend) have a specific Tonfa style in mind, as Tonfa's have great stunting potential and allow for all kinds of twirly attacks that don't fit in Tràkata...

[Elmer]

ah, the style is much clearer to me now, and I understand how tonfa handles do not match in this style. I agree that the fluff should not lock the options to much, but I think the fluff as you described it here would do fine.

And saw that all styles has 'jedi' as prerequisite, my fault.

[Mercury]

The style looks good and I like the description.

I agree on the point raised by Elmer regarding the 4 extra dots on attack.

First off, I would require that this manoeuvre only work for an offensive direct combat action - otherwise you can sneak an offensive bonus past an opponent while avoiding the proper posting order regarding offensive bonuses since you're using it with a defensive direct combat action.

Secondly, I'd reduce the total bonus to +1 extra dot and lock it on the ring you are actually using the Offensive Direct Combat action on. This clearly limits the power, but I think the usability of the manoeuvre justifies that.

Finally, I'd put the +2 base bonus on Cutting, not piercing. When using the pass the blade trick, you are not making a piercing attack, but a cutting one. You are trying to get past a block after all and nobody blocks a piercing attack.

Unbalanced block states "on any other ring" this should be "on any ring" I think. I'd also require that your block is actually unbalanced, i.e. your score on all three defensive rings is higher (not equal) to your opponents attack - this kind of trickery is dangerous after all and to do it you need to be able to properly catch the enemies blade and safely let it go.

I like Deceptive Whirlwind. I might drop the deflecting bonus, but its not necessary to do so.

[Brend]

Finally, I'd put the +2 base bonus on Cutting, not piercing. When using the pass the blade trick, you are not making a piercing attack, but a cutting one. You are trying to get past a block after all and nobody blocks a piercing attack.

I see how you need to get a block first; but turning on your saber once you passed the block will almost always be a piercing attack I think. You don't have the extra swingroom, and just pointing the 'business end' of an extending saber toward the enemy sounds very much like a piercing attack.

[Mercury]

Interesting! I see it more as a single swing, where you reboot the lightsaber halfway during the swing to avoid it being blocked.

[Brend]

That'd work as well; So many options for cool stunts :P

I'll go over the remarks around 15:30, together with RemcoSwenker. We hope to get these styles approved and done before the end of the lightsaber championship (so we have some weeks to go :P)

[Brend]

We updated Tràkata.

Pass the Blade: "Description: When using Pass the Blade to execute an offensive Direct Combat Action, the Direct Combat Action gives +3 instead of the normal +2, however, you take a -1 on blocking and deflecting."

We couldn't decide between cutting and piercing, so we decided to split the bonus over the two rings. This slightly lowers the single-focus power of the style, but this wasn't a focussed style anyway. This neatly captures both Mercury's and our interpretation of Pass the Blade, and leaves the use open to the practicioner.

Unbalancing Block: "When you successfully block a melee attack of an opponent with a higher Blocking score than the attack, and you are not brought off-balance, the opponent loses an advantage action of your choice."

We first changed it to Mercury's proposal to try it on for size. However, we feel that the usefulness of his unbalancing block might prove to be very low, as you basically need to dominate the fight to use it. Furthermore, if you have to expend a DCA to get all your rings high enough, then your action cancels their action (i.e. their action used to create the advantage), something that could already be done without a special manoeuvre (and without the condition that you perfectly defend).

So, we changed it to requiring that your blocking must be higher, to represent the control over the block, and you can't do this if you are brought off-balance, as that would be too dangerous.


We could remove the deflecting bonus from Deceptive Whirlwind to compensate for the more powerful Unbalancing Block... We would like opinions.

[Mercury]

I'm happy with the Pass the Blade adjustments, but I think Unbalanced Block needs some work. Adjusting Deceptive Whirlwind doesn't seem to me to be an acceptable balancing factor for Unbalanced Block.

I think the Unbalanced Block is ironically unbalanced in its new incarnation. Idea: what if you require that no defensive rings are passed, and Block be higher? Additionally, I'd move the defensive points from Block to Dodge and Deflect so the styles bonuses don't make it too easy to pass the Unbalanced Block requirements.

You get a free action to remove an advantage action out of the manoeuvre which cannot fail, so that's pretty powerful stuff. I say this should justify a difficult conditional.

[Brend]

You get a free action to remove an advantage action out of the manoeuvre which cannot fail, so that's pretty powerful stuff. I say this should justify a difficult conditional.

You only get this free action if you completely dominate the fight. Being higher on all rings bascially means the other can't touch you, and removing his advantages is going to be a piece of cake. If you can't do this, you need to DCA yourself into a better defence, which means spending an action to remove an advantage (though with a better difficulty, possibly).

Moving all points out of block basically makes Tràkata into a Dodge&Deflect style, as the other manoeuvres boost these two rings as well... That's not what we envision (though there is a slight focus on Dodge, for the 'not being there' flavour).

A compromise:

Unbalancing Block: "Description: When you successfully block a melee attack of an opponent with a higher Blocking score than the attack, and no other ring is overcome, the opponent loses an advantage action of your choice. As usual, the advantage action is till in effect until the round is ended."

As an additional modification, we could change 'the opponent loses an advantage action of your choice' into 'the opponent loses an advantage action of his choice'. That would effectively limit the use of the manoeuvre, and can easily be explained, as the opponent tries to recover from the trick and has to decide what advantage to surrender.

Otherwise, I am afraid we're not going to get to a compromise, as we seem to have vastly differing idea's on when this maneouvre can actually be employed in a combat.

[Mercury]

I think leaving the decision to the opponent is reasonable. Let's try it that way.

I do hereby reserve the right that I get to say "I told you so" if it turns out we need to look at this again at a later time due to it being unbalanced after all, but for now I think this'll do.

[Brend]

Updated Unbalancing Block: the opponent gets to choose which advantage to give up.

We could always lower the blocking bonus to +1 if need be.

For now, let's see how this pans out ^_^