close combat and ninja

[reff]

something has bothered me since I started writing up the berserk characters. ninja, at AN+5, gives close/ranged combat, black ops, and 2 weapon or ability+weapon. close combat, gives ability or weapon.
so basically, ninja added a weapon modifier.

close combat = ability or weapon
ninja= ability(+weapon) or weapon(+weapon)

now why is it that the cost for adding a weapon or ability modifer is +5 even on close combat? the only limiting factor I can think of is specializations, you can only have 1 for each AN you have in the skill.

I think it would make a lot of sense to have a standard house rule that the ability/weapon modifiers extra on close combat should be at +3 or +4. (even ninja can go below +5 on anyones reasoning with 'not particularly useful' by getting rid of ranged combat and black ops.)

[ranger]

Discount baby!!!
That's all...

[sphynx]

Don't forget that Ninja also gives Concentration.

Ninja is god-awful cheap for what it gives you, but I think that has more to do with a sense of balance. Advantages in the book are to insure a balance is maintained since there's alot of people like me who can min-max to the most awful levels. However, there are good reasons for having the weapon modifier/ability bonus +5, I'll explain through example.

Ninja 5 (15 White Stones)

That's expensive, let's reduce it a bit so that we get it down to it's absolute minimum cost of 8 (15/2 rounded up). That's -3 in disadvantages, so No Improve (easiest -2 available), and -1 for can not split between targets (attack one at a time). So we have a Ninja 5 for 8 white stones.

Close Combat 5 (3 White stones)

Now the advantages/Disadvantages added together can not take the cost below 2 (3/2 rounded up) white stones. +5 for an Ability bonus, and -6 in disadvantages (admittedly, that can really weaken Close Combat, but when 2 weapons are adding dice from the general pool, could easily be worth it). Basically, the best part of having Ninja 5 can be bought at 2 White stones by doing it via Close Combat.

The point being that if it was only a +3 for bonus weapon, you could get the best part of the Ninja Action for only -4 instead of -6. Easy to do as I showed in taking -3 from Ninja.

Sphynx

[reff]

so your point was that it's cheaper? That was kinda the point of my idea. all I'm saying is that a ability of weapon modifer for close combat should at least be at +4 (only for close/ranged combat)beacuse if not there is no point in taking close/ranged combat when you can take ninja (which is far better)

[sphynx]

I'm saying that since Ninja comes with the advantage already, it's not an advantage, so doesn't help in cost reduction.

If you take Ninja of 6, the least it can ever cost is 10 White Stones.

If you Take CloseCombat of 6, regardless of how many advantages you get, the minimum cost you can get it down to is 2 White Stones. So, you could find a way to get CloseCombat 6 with the +5 2-Weapon Bonus, for a grand cost of 2 White Stones.

Not that I would recommend doing that, but doable. The higher you make the 2-weapon bonus cost, the more disadvantagous the Action becomes to save stones. Personally, I think +3 or +4 is fine for a House Rule when dealing purely with CloseCombat. But the reason it won't be my House Rule is the reason I just gave.

Sphynx

[reff]

I didn't realize there was a rule for ammount that disadvantages can decrease the cost of something. could you give me a page ref?

[ranger]

Page 39 - last paragraph near the bottom.

[shigoki]

You still need to take weapon dificulty.

If you have a weapon of 5, and closecombat of 1, you have a penality for attacking with said weapon, plus any other if it's an exotic weapon, unknown weapon, bla, bla.

Thats why you need LoE and specialitys.

[reff]

sphynx said:

I'm saying that since Ninja comes with the advantage already, it's not an advantage, so doesn't help in cost reduction.

If you take Ninja of 6, the least it can ever cost is 10 White Stones.

If you Take CloseCombat of 6, regardless of how many advantages you get, the minimum cost you can get it down to is 2 White Stones. So, you could find a way to get CloseCombat 6 with the +5 2-Weapon Bonus, for a grand cost of 2 White Stones.

Not that I would recommend doing that, but doable. The higher you make the 2-weapon bonus cost, the more disadvantagous the Action becomes to save stones. Personally, I think +3 or +4 is fine for a House Rule when dealing purely with CloseCombat. But the reason it won't be my House Rule is the reason I just gave.

Sphynx

re-reading the rules on this, it seems that you count advantages before you determine the minimum ammount that you can pay for said action. Thus, no problem, as it would have the same problem as ninja.