I tried to search this out, but didn't see any specific comments. It seems clear enough that you can use lightsaber forms to use different ability scores when making an attack with an ancient sword. What do you guys think about using the different ability score for damage instead of brawn? A strict reading seems to imply that RAW has you still using brawn for the damage, though an argument that 'When making a Lightsaber skill check, the character may use XXXX instead of Brawn" could include all elements of the check, including damage.

I don't feel like it would be particularly broken, but I could also be missing problems. I could also be easily missing a dev response that addresses the question. What do you guys think? Both about the reading of the RAW rule and the non-issue of house ruling it?

Problem there is that you open a Pandora's Box for instances when a PC uses a talent that lets them swap out the standard characteristic for any one skill check. By letting the Form Technique talents replace Brawn for damage as well as the combat check, you open the door for a PC saying that their substitution talent would let them swap out Brawn when attacking with any melee weapon.

An Ancient Sword isn't meant to be a super-useful weapon; if anything it's there to give starting PCs a weapon that uses the Lightsaber skill but isn't nearly as obvious in use as a training lightsaber is.

Lightsabers don't require Brawn to push the blade through anything...it's pure energy, so it's all about how you control the blade. Ancient swords, however, are just metal blades, so require strength (no matter how sharp) to do significant damage.

The main problem is that it's a melee weapon, and so you're houseruling will be favoring it too much over other melee weapons. Form is about control, not necessarily about raw damage.

Also consider that Brawn controls all of two non-combat skills, so you'd be overbalancing the characteristics that govern several skills each. And now your skill monkeys with high Intellect or Cunning will be tearing it up with a cheap sword that they can basically take anywhere with them because it's less illegal than a common blaster.

Lastly, keep in mind that if you're controlling the lightsaber with your Willpower or Presence, it does still figure into damage, but indirectly. The better your dice pool, the more Success you'll be rolling on average, and thus the more damage you do. So it does affect your damage output, but just doesn't contribute to how hard you hit on average.

25 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

Lightsabers don't require Brawn to push the blade through anything...it's pure energy, so it's all about how you control the blade. Ancient swords, however, are just metal blades, so require strength (no matter how sharp) to do significant damage.

Skill is actually more important than strength in fencing. The quality of the hit is more important than the strength of the hit. It is super easy to do lethal damage with minimal force with a Rapier and similar thrust weapons. I really don't get the myth of brawn as primary characteristic for sword fighting. Speed, Agility even Intelligence could be just as valid characteristics to use and using those characteristics for damage would be fine.

Nonetheless the rules seem suggest using brawn for damage in any case with the ancient sword. The damage code of the ancient sword is not using your lightsaber skill and thus the substitution of the base characteristics for the skill is rather irrelevant for the damage code of the weapon. On top of that you are getting your damage from agility via ataru (etc) already in form of a potentially better dice bool anyway, just like you pointed out.

45 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Skill is actually more important than strength in fencing. The quality of the hit is more important than the strength of the hit. It is super easy to do lethal damage with minimal force with a Rapier and similar thrust weapons. I really don't get the myth of brawn as primary characteristic for sword fighting. Speed, Agility even Intelligence could be just as valid characteristics to use and using those characteristics for damage would be fine.

Sure, but fencing is one specific form of sword art, and is more akin to sport than it is to actual combat, with all its rules and points. So for lightsaber styles that are especially akin to fencing (lookin' at you, Makashi!), this is certainly an apt comparison.

But it's also important to note that characteristics are an abstraction, and nobody in real life performs a task using just their "brawn" or just their "intellect." But the mechanics divide things into compartments, so that we can just have fun playing the game in a system that usually makes enough sense to play without your nose stuck in the rulebook and since they are abstractions, you can narrate them how you like: a strong warrior slicing through his opponents with precision and grace, or a hulking brute smashing his oversized blade into their skulls. Both are the same dice pool, both have the same mechanical result. But "high Brawn rating" doesn't have to mean "unskilled."

And yes, speed is always important in any form of combat. But strength gives you speed. Strength allows you to hit with force, not just grace, and it's force that will stop a foe or drive him back. A stronger melee combatant will simply have an easier time against an equally-skilled, but weaker, melee combatant.

TL;DR: So I guess what I'm saying is that, fencing aside, Brawn makes sense to me

I am not talking about electro wiping aka sport fencing, when I write fencing I mean the art to kill people with pointy and/or sharp things.

Sidesword, montante, rapier, saber, langesschwert, etc, there is not a single sword art that is not fencing and they rarely ever rely on strength. Now hammer and other blunt weapons are a different topic, but even those have certain technique aspects and strength comes into play mainly against heavy armor.

BTW, raw speed is … less of a deal than efficiency in motion. Furthermore you can train your muscles for strength and you can train your muscles for speed, but those are different trainings maxing out either will limit the other. But that is too much realism for my taste for RPGs as well, and I am just mentioning it because I like to point out misconceptions.

Lastly, armed combat is different from unarmed. If all things equal, sure the stronger guy will win, but the significant stronger person will lose most battles against even a slightly more skilled person in a sword fight. You need a base strength to hold and strike properly your weapon, endurance training will make sure that you last longer, but in the end your actual fencing skill is what makes and breaks a sword fight with deadly weapons. Sport fencing is out, because the hits here are purely reaction based and are indeed very often, very harmless, that is really the sports and rules side of modern fencing, not really related to practical skills which were actual used for self-defense, duels or even war.

With all that said, brawn, agility, cunning, int, etc all make sense to me, so I like the way the handled the different styles in this RPG.

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

Sidesword, montante, rapier, saber, langesschwert, etc, there is not a single sword art that is not fencing and they rarely ever rely on strength. Now hammer and other blunt weapons are a different topic, but even those have certain technique aspects and strength comes into play mainly against heavy armor.

BTW, raw speed is … less of a deal than efficiency in motion. Furthermore you can train your muscles for strength and you can train your muscles for speed, but those are different trainings maxing out either will limit the other. But that is too much realism for my taste for RPGs as well, and I am just mentioning it because I like to point out misconceptions.

Yeah, sure, I get you. A high Brawn rating can make for a more effective melee combatant than is realistic.

It can be really easy for us geeks to geek out...latch onto some technical aspect and muddy the waters with "realism" or technicalities I do that way too much; it makes me a horrible teacher.

But yeah I agree; the characteristics make sense to me, too. They are a good enough vehicle for fun and immersive roleplaying.

5 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

The main problem is that it's a melee weapon, and so you're houseruling will be favoring it too much over other melee weapons. Form is about control, not necessarily about raw damage.

Also consider that Brawn controls all of two non-combat skills, so you'd be overbalancing the characteristics that govern several skills each. And now your skill monkeys with high Intellect or Cunning will be tearing it up with a cheap sword that they can basically take anywhere with them because it's less illegal than a common blaster.

I tend to ignore 'Realism!' based rulings in my RPGs (Seriously, the game is about space wizards and walking carpets), but there may a good point here to unpack. I'm tending to instinctually value brawn over other characteristics as it governs more than just skills - it governs 3 combat skills, 2 non-combat skills, as well as encumbrance, wounds, soak, and related combat damage. In comparison, agility governs 3 combat skills and 4 non-combat skills. Cunning governs 5 non-combat skills. Intelligence covers 11 non-combat skills. Presence overs 4 non-combat skills. Will covers 3 non-combat skills and strain. I'd rather not compare which of the non-combat skills is most useful, as that is highly subjective.

We see right away why presence can be considered less useful - it governs fewer skills than any except for Will, which governs strain. So lets imagine an engaged-range presence character, as compared with a brawn one. Is it really so broken to allow the presence character to do more damage (at most 6 more damage per attack, likely 2-4 more damage), when each point of additional damage is essentially being paid for by 1 soak, 1 wound, and 1 encumbrance? It may be equivalent, given that if a PC takes a hit it means the party is already struggling. Damage output tends to be the best defense in the games I've watched.

This might not be fair, as the other skills offer a great deal more. Trading soak/wounds/encumbrance for strain is much less of a hit. Similarly, allowing Agility to sub in allows for an engaged/[longer-ranged] switch hitter to get a lot more utility. On the other hand, the truly high-damage output characters tend to be using more than just their ability scores to bring high damage - stuff like deadly accuracy and feral strength. That'll require more combat-focused trees that don't necessarily synergize well with most skill-monkey trees. Making the comparison even more iffy is that the talents we're discussing mean that the character is heading towards lightsaber combat, in which case the ability-based damage will only matter for ~150xp of the character's life.

I'll agree that the biggest issue is that this devalues brawn-focused characters. However, is that damage really why a high brawn character works? Imho, the soak and wounds is what generally makes these guys awesome (nothing like soak 10 or higher to feel invulnerable, especially once you can nab some cortosis armor).

5 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Sidesword, montante, rapier, saber, langesschwert, etc, there is not a single sword art that is not fencing and they rarely ever rely on strength. Now hammer and other blunt weapons are a different topic, but even those have certain technique aspects and strength comes into play mainly against heavy armor.

Spoken like someone that's never swung a Highlands claymore (which a few of my SCA mates have jokingly referred to as a "heavy club with an edge") or a broadsword. While there is some degree of 'agility' involved, those weapons are very reliant upon brute force to do their thing, partly because those suckers are heavy (the claymore especially). Same concept too with a katana (though it's not as heavy) and it's larger cousin the no-dachi; speed and hand-eye coordination are helpful, but you're not doing a whole lot unless you've got upper body strength to put into the force of your swing.

Even using 'fencing' weapons such as the rapier or sidesword that relied more on speed/finesse still have need of muscle strength, both for endurance purposes (a proper rapier is heavier than most people realize) and to do more than lightly poke or scratch your opponent.

I'd like to point out even without digging too deep into the whole 'realism' debate, by nature of the design, a character who invests heavily into Presence isn't normally going to be particularly strong (i.e. have a high Brawn).

Talents like Makashi Technique are unique because they are, fundamentally, magic . The user is channeling that aspect of their self (Presence, Cunning, etc.) into their fighting style , and relying on the incredibly dangerous and powerful weapons they wield to do the 'heavy lifting' aspect of fighting. The ancient sword, by contrast, while used in a manner similar to lightsabers, is still just a mundane.

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Spoken like someone that's never swung a Highlands claymore (which a few of my SCA mates have jokingly referred to as a "heavy club with an edge") or a broadsword. While there is some degree of 'agility' involved, those weapons are very reliant upon brute force to do their thing, partly because those suckers are heavy (the claymore especially). Same concept too with a katana (though it's not as heavy) and it's larger cousin the no-dachi; speed and hand-eye coordination are helpful, but you're not doing a whole lot unless you've got upper body strength to put into the force of your swing.

Even using 'fencing' weapons such as the rapier or sidesword that relied more on speed/finesse still have need of muscle strength, both for endurance purposes (a proper rapier is heavier than most people realize) and to do more than lightly poke or scratch your opponent.

Actually, broadswords usually come in similar sizes to sideswords and can be used in the same way, those are the ones I was refering too. Maybe I should have been more precise and referred to them as basket-hilt swords.

Now for the highland claymores, I indeed had not used one, it was not in the list either, because I only had things in that list that I have used myself. That list includes montante / spadone and german langes schwert. A good light sidesword comes at literally just iirc 600g (training versions a little heavier), my prefered more sturdy training sidesword is still just 1.4kg (blunt, so heavier than a sharp version of it), a good feather for two-handed training can be in the same 1.5kg range and so are long swords. Sharp versions can be even lighter. In all honesty, most swords are surprisingly light, they can wear your down during training still easily when unused to them, but the strength requirements are quit on the low side, usually endurance is the bigger factor for newcomers. And most will complain a day after their training more about the pain in the legs from the unused stand and footwork. ;-)

Lastly, claymore can refer to shorter, lighter, one-handed swords as well, but that is just me nitpicking ;-)

7 hours ago, Blackbird888 said:

I'd like to point out even without digging too deep into the whole 'realism' debate, by nature of the design, a character who invests heavily into Presence isn't normally going to be particularly strong (i.e. have a high Brawn).

Talents like Makashi Technique are unique because they are, fundamentally, magic . The user is channeling that aspect of their self (Presence, Cunning, etc.) into their fighting style , and relying on the incredibly dangerous and powerful weapons they wield to do the 'heavy lifting' aspect of fighting. The ancient sword, by contrast, while used in a manner similar to lightsabers, is still just a mundane.

No magic in makashi, just a style which relies on presence for feints and controlling the combat. If magic would be involved the makshi style would be a force talent, but it is actually avaible to everyone including droids to learn.
Same with all the other saber forms, though there are talents which require indeed force use and those are marked as force talents.

Not much to add here, I have some similar experience with swords as Seapocalypse describes, but Claymore is just a word for sword, rather than a specific type of sword I thought? Like katana.

As for the form talents themselves, I can't see them as anything magical. Presence in Makashi seems like it would be using force of personality to come off as imposing and intimidating to an opponent, make them think you're better than they, and they don't have a chance. Cunning uses trickery and out of the box thinking, intellect as knowing just how to move your weapon and to what point in space for best effect and wisdom knowing how and when to strike or defend.

You definitely can bring presence to bear in a fight. Years ago in LARP I used to win duels by skill, but after not doing it for years I can still beat (some) superior opponents by appearing confident and knowing how a good fighter looks!

5 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

No magic in makashi, just a style which relies on presence for feints and controlling the combat. If magic would be involved the makshi style would be a force talent, but it is actually avaible to everyone including droids to learn.
Same with all the other saber forms, though there are talents which require indeed force use and those are marked as force talents.

I have no idea what you're on about. Every "[Form] Technique" talent is a Force talent.

1 hour ago, Blackbird888 said:

I have no idea what you're on about. Every "[Form] Technique" talent is a Force talent.

****, you are right. It makes so sense whatsoever, but you are right. OMG.