Question: Skill Forcus vs. Weapon Mastery

[tonyg]

I was doing a little mini-maxing with CODA and came across this (in part due to some other question's I've read on the boards recently).

I got to thinking-Jjust how high a modifer can someone get to thier combat rolls in CODA?

If someone took Skill Focus they could take:
Traditional Klingon Weapons +2
or Traditional Klingon Weapons (Bat'leth) +4

This makes it superior to Weapon Mastery except for the fact that some Professional Abilities require Weapon Mastery.

Toss in Trait Upgrade and the bonus double to +8.

Grab Weapon Mastery on top of that and we are at +11 before counting in Professional Abilties or Attribute Modifers.


Maybe Skill Focus shoudn't be permitted with combat skills?

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by tonyg
Maybe Skill Focus shoudn't be permitted with combat skills?

That would be my vote. There are several Traits already in existence that remove the need for OCmbat-related Skill Foci. I believe that was also the intent of the designers, as you will notcie that all of the examples given are non-combat skills.

[tonyg]

Doug,

Unforntualey, Chapter 7 seems to go out of it's way to state that edges and flaws do stack (see "Combining Edges and Flaws" page 130).

[Doug Burke]

tony,

I never said they couldn't stack. I was saying that the intent, as far as I can tell, was that Skill Focus was meant to enhance non-combat skills. My judgement was based on the examples given for Skill Focus and the fact that such Traits as Blunt Attack, Dead Aim, Defensive Attack, Deliberate Attack, Martial Artisat, Quick Draw, Quick Shot, Throw Weapon, Two-hnaded Fighting, and Weapon Mastery exist to modify combat.

But, as always, that's my opinion. Ross or Don may contradict me at a later date.

As a Narrator, I wouldn't allow combat-based Skill Foci, but that's me. If you want to allow it, go for it. As long as you're having fun, right?

[tonyg]

Like I posted. I was just going over the rules and thinking of just how high the bonuses could go. It's one of the ways dicover what can and can't be done witha game and how easily. I'm not so worried from a campaign standpoint, just wondering if it was intentionalfor the two abilities to stack, or something that was never intended.

Personally I'd probably run it the same way as you. Not so much becuase of the very high bonuses, but becuase there isn't an equvalent to Weapon Mastery for the non-combat skills.

I think in future it would probably be better to get rid of Weapon Mastery for Skill Focus (Specific Weapon) just to keep the combat and non-combat skills consistient.

But that jut my attempt to make things logical-my ears must be getting pointy.