Re: on skills

[Steve Ames <steve@ns1.cioe.com>]

Instead of modifying (ie complicating) existing rules, why not make
sword breaking a seperate skill? Say in the description of the skill
that you must use a swordbreaker.

Ditto a 'disarm' skill. But that check shouldn't be against the
strength of the weapon but against the strength and/or weapon skill
of the wielder. A child with a sword is nothing to disarm. A child
swordmaster is going to be more difficult. An adult sword master more
difficult still.

Being able to target a 'part' of a person raises some interesting
questions. In the brethren it was a long standing belief that if 
someone comes at you with a magic item you put a lighning bolt into
that item. With a bit of luck it explodes becoming more dangerous for
the user than the target.

With the redefinition of what constitutes an item (object or person)
this wasn't possible anymore since they we're one item (the magic
item and its wielder). So same way you can't just lightning bolt
someone's sword arm, you couldn't lightning bolt their matrix gem.

Now the swordbreaker says it can target the weapon again. That's
not unheard of, nor is it a special case (there are many spells that
just target someone's posessions). But nor is it part of the standard
weapon skill. It has to be a seperate discipline.

> re: swordbreakers and breaking.  Read the rules, in my original post.
> 	its not very easy to do.  On the average, it will take a 5
> 	die skill check to have a 50/50 chance of breaking a weapon
> 	with a str of 17.

Does that take luck into account? In both its pure and nomadic varients?

					-Steve