Hey all! I was dinking around with Genesys to come up with a fun character concept and then build their archetype and career from scratch. Not tough to do in Genesys, and it's a lot of fun to flex those creative muscles. In doing so, I realized that my bare-fisted fighter/monk idea inspired by smashing Friar Tuck and Little John together was hamstrung by the lack official talents geared toward unarmed combat. The expanded talent list has a few talents in there that help a lot, but I was underwhelmed by the Flurry of Blows included there. It's listed as a tier 5 talent, which seems like a huge XP investment with not a lot of payout. Once you subtract Soak from your attacks, you need to be swinging (and connecting) quite a few times to do much damage to a Rival or Adversary. So @Archangel3000 (Thanks, buddy! I'm pretty sure you did most of the work!) and I came up with a set of talents to help make fisticuffs a little more fun, flavorful, and flat-out flashy!

I'll include a link to the GM Binder sheet in case anyone would like to use these in their own game:

https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LCDjRA162yUrSG7IxQC

And here they are for easy reference/critique. Let me know what you think!

Oh, and if anyone was interested, the Archetype I came up with was Friar - Br 3, Cun 1, 100xp, 1 rank in Divine, with Forceful Personality. Career was Monk, which is just a slight tweak to the Disciple from RoT. Instead of Melee (Light), take Brawl, and that's it.

Flurry of Blows

Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Maneuver)
Ranked: No
Your character may perform the Flurry of Blows maneuver before rolling their next Brawl skill check. On a successful attack, you may activate the Linked 1 quality.

Flurry of Blows (Improved)

Tier: 4
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Your character must have purchased the Flurry of Blows talent to benefit from this talent. When your character uses the Flurry of Blows talent, they may suffer a number of strain up to their ranks in Brawl to gain Linked quality equal to strain suffered in this way.

Flurry of Blows (Supreme)

Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Your character must have purchased the Flurry of Blows talent to benefit from this talent. When performing the Flurry of blows maneuver, your character may decrease the cost to activate the Linked quality to per level of Linked.

Your talents, with the possible exception of the supreme version, are underpowered compared to what we already have to work with.

Flurry of Blows is a tier 3 talent that is a more limited version of the tier 2 talent Dual Wielder (CRB76). Without any talents, you can already use the two-weapon combat rules to hit with two weapons (even if both weapons are your two fists) for a measly + . Dual Wielder is a manoeuvre that negates that difficulty increase.

Flurry of Blows (Improved) is a tier 4 talent that almost mimics the Rapid Archery talent (tier 3, CRB79) but is worse in almost every way. Rapid Archery is just 2 strain to gain linked equal to your ranks in Ranged. Your improved talent is a 1:1, which you could do Linked 1 for one strain, but at that point why not just use Flurry of Blows (or, better yet, Dual Wielder)? And Linked 3+ costs more strain than Rapid Archery.

My suggestion is to scrap the base version entirely and just use the Dual Wielder talent in its place. Then remove the (Improved) tag and make that one Flurry of Blows, but reduce it a tier and use the verbiage from Rapid Archery. Then downgrade the (Supreme) into the (Improved) version. I'm still not sold on it being a tier 5 talent, so I'd probably drop it a rung to tier 4.

This is wonderful feedback, thank you! ? I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply. I was working Saturday, and then Sunday was Mother's Day so I was focused on family stuff.

In hindsight, I don't know why we thought Flurry needed to be tier 3. If we keep the base talent, Tier 2 makes more sense. I see the argument for not keeping it, though. Dual Wielder does say "next combined combat check," which would include Brawl checks, and sometimes less is more. My thinking in making it a separate talent is that being able to fire two pistols, rapidly fire a bow, or fighting with two melee weapons isn't the same as simply throwing a punch, and getting better at both requires a different kind of focus, training, and experience. What are your feelings?

As for the Improved talent, I see your point. I missed it because I was searching for talents focused on melee/brawl, but the parallel is obvious. I will definitely be changing this.

The Supreme version is the only one I think might be okay as is. It costs nothing to activate and decreases the cost to activate Linked, effectively doubling the number of times you can use Linked per roll, and therefore doubling the amount of damage you can do. Does anyone have any thoughts about the tier of this one, specifically?

I'll try to update the list above later today or tomorrow at the latest. Thanks again for the great feedback!

No worries about the reply time, that's what online forums are for. Asynchronous FTW!

I'd suggest not modifying your original post. If you do anyone who comes in later will be confused that I'm suggesting changing things to how they already are :p

16 minutes ago, lbwoodard said:

My  thinking in making it a separate talent is that being able to fire two pistols, rapidly fire a bow, or fighting  with   two melee  weapons   isn't the same as simply throwing a punch, and getting better at both requires  a different kind of focus, training, and experience. What are your feelings  ?   

Genesys doesn't differentiate minutia like that. A combined check is a combined check, no matter if it's two fists or two pistols. There's no reason to make a new talent that is objectively weaker than an existing one.

18 minutes ago, lbwoodard said:

The Supreme version is the only one I think might be okay as is. It costs nothing to activate and decreases the cost to activate  Linked, effectively doubling the number of times you can use Linked per roll, and therefore doubling the amount of damage you can do. Does anyone have any thoughts about the tier of this one, specifically? 

Like I said above, I'm torn on the tier of the supreme version. Which is a goo indicator that it's in the right place

And I love the advantage-reduction it grants. Super awesome. It reminds me of the flurry power from City of Heroes , if you ever played it.

I would caution against trying to do too many things with multi-attacks which can make for some very extended combat sessions. Multiple hits, such as dual-wielder are about using advantage for extra hit and base damage as opposed to triggering special effects/crits.

I know in theory more attack rolls sound like something you want to do (especially if you are from a D&D background) but you need to deal with every advantage, threat, triumph and despair from each roll.

11 minutes ago, Doomgrin75 said:

I would caution against trying to do too many things with multi-attacks which can make for some very extended combat sessions. Multiple hits, such as dual-wielder are about using advantage for extra hit and base damage as opposed to triggering special effects/crits.

I know in theory more attack rolls sound like something you want to do (especially if you are from a D&D background) but you need to deal with every advantage, threat, triumph and despair from each roll.

Umm, none of the talents talked about require another roll. They are all about the Linked quality and hitting multiple times on one combat check.

6 minutes ago, c__beck said:

Umm, none of the talents talked about require another roll. They are all about the Linked quality and hitting multiple times on one combat check.

I see, interesting

Who you say that stacks with dual-wield?

Edit: though based on the dual-wield vs linked, not much of a difference. One is a combat style the other is a weapon property

22 minutes ago, Doomgrin75 said:

I see, interesting

Who you say that stacks with dual-wield?

Edit: though based on the dual-wield vs linked, not much of a difference. One is a combat style the other is a weapon property

Dual wield just removes the difficulty increase for fighting with two weapons. Mechanically it's nearly identical to Linked 1 (unless you are using two different weapons, of course) and the Dual Wield talents costs a manoeuvre to use.

But if you're Dual Wielding two linked weapons you can get a lot of hits if you roll enough advantages!

So how does this seem to you guys? I changed the wording of Improved to include language from the Linked quality on pg. 88 of the GCRB. Does that make things more clear? Or was the first description better?

Flurry of Blows

Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Maneuver)
Ranked: No
While your character is armed with a brawl weapon (or similar weapon, at your GM’s discretion) they may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. During the next brawl combat check your character makes this turn, the weapon gains the Linked quality with a value equal to their ranks in the Brawl skill.

Flurry of Blows (Improved)

Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Your character must have purchased the Flurry of Blows talent to benefit from this talent. When performing the Flurry of blows maneuver your character may decrease the cost to gain an additional hit from the Linked quality to , and may do so a number of times equal to the attack's Linked rating.

2 hours ago, lbwoodard said:

So how does this seem to you guys? I changed the wording of Improved to include language from the Linked quality on pg. 88 of the GCRB. Does that make things more clear? Or was the first description better?

Flurry of Blows

Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Maneuver)
Ranked: No
While your character is unarmed or armed with a brawl weapon (or similar weapon, at your GM’s discretion) they may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. During the next brawl combat check your character makes this turn, the weapon gains the Linked quality with a value equal to their ranks in the Brawl skill.

Flurry of Blows (Improved)

Tier: 5
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Your character must have purchased the Flurry of Blows talent to benefit from this talent. When performing the Flurry of blows maneuver your character may decrease the cost to gain an additional hit s from the Linked quality by , and may do so a number of times equal to the attack's Linked rating .

I made a couple changes to the verbiage. Let me know what you think.

In the Flurry of Blows talent above, you required that the character be wielding a brawl weapon. If that's what you intended, go ahead and discard the change, but it sounded like you wanted this to work for unarmed combatants, as well.

In Flurry of Blows (Improved) , the Linked quality already provides the limit to the number of times it can be activated, so all you have to do is make it say "additional hits" and you can lose the last part of the sentence.

For the Flurry of Blows talent, I'd replace it with "When making a Brawl combat check". That would mean either an unarmed check or with a Brawl weapon, since unarmed is, technically , a Brawl weapon :p

5 minutes ago, c__beck said:

For the Flurry of Blows talent, I'd replace it with "When making a Brawl combat check". That would mean either an unarmed check or with a Brawl weapon, since unarmed is, technically , a Brawl weapon ?

Well, no... not really. The game differentiates between having something in your hands and having nothing in your hands. If you look at the Pressure Point talent on page 90 of Realms of Terrinoth , you'll find the following verbiage:

Quote

When you character makes an unarmed Brawl check targeting a living opponent...

I don't think the developers have weighed in specifically in Genesys, but in the Star Wars RPG, they stated that Pressure Point's wording states makes it plain that you could not use the talent with a brawl weapon, but only unarmed .

Besides, he's just mimicking the Rapid Archery talent, as you suggested, which reads:

Quote

While your character is armed with a bow (or similar weapon, at your GM’s discretion) they may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. During the next ranged combat check your character makes this turn, the bow gains the Linked quality with a value equal to their ranks in the Ranged skill.

Since the talent is its own maneuver, you don't want to replace the first part with "When making a Brawl combat check," because that's not what the talent does. It affects your next Brawl combat check.

2 hours ago, Simon Retold said:

2 hours ago, c__beck said:

For the Flurry of Blows talent, I'd replace it with "When making a Brawl combat check". That would mean either an unarmed check or with a Brawl weapon, since unarmed is, technically , a Brawl weapon ?

Well, no... not really. The game differentiates between having something in your hands and having nothing in your hands. If you look at the Pressure Point talent on page 90 of Realms of Terrinoth , you'll find the following verbiage:

Quote

When you character makes an unarmed Brawl check targeting a living opponent...

I don't think the developers have weighed in specifically in Genesys, but in the Star Wars RPG, they stated that Pressure Point's wording states makes it plain that you could not use the talent with a brawl weapon, but only unarmed .

Yes but for the Pressure point talent you are only specifying one type of Brawl skill check if you do not care if they have a weapon or not it seems to me that "When making a Brawl combat check" would be the correct way of wording it.

1 hour ago, Fuzzyursa said:

Yes but for the Pressure point talent you are only specifying one type of Brawl skill check if you do not care if they have a weapon or not it seems to me that "When making a Brawl combat check" would be the correct way of wording it.

No, it wouldn’t. Look at the wording for the Rapid Archery talent this one is based on. It specifically calls out “While your character is armed with a bow.” That’s because the talent references “the next ranged combat check your character makes this turn.”

A version of the talent that affects Brawl checks should use similar verbiage. Thus “While your character is unarmed or armed with a Brawl weapon” with the later call out to “the next Brawl combat check your character makes this turn.”

42 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

No, it wouldn’t. Look at the wording for the Rapid Archery talent this one is based on. It specifically calls out “While your character is armed with a bow.” That’s because the talent references “the next ranged combat check your character makes this turn.”

but that is for a specific weapon type on a ranged skill type. For the specified talent we do not care what weapon they are using so long as they are making a brawl check.

10 minutes ago, Fuzzyursa said:

but that is for a specific weapon type on a ranged skill type. For the specified talent we do not care what weapon they are using so long as they are making a brawl check.

But you should care about the verbiage of the talent, because it states how the talent is used. For instance, the Rapid Archery talent refers to being armed with a bow, because the talent is it a maneuver that is performed before the attack. This Flurry of Blows is the same thing, a maneuver that happens before the actual attack, not the actual attack, so you wouldn’t start it off with “When making a Brawl attack.”

7 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

But you should care about the verbiage of the talent, because it states how the talent is used. For instance, the Rapid Archery talent refers to being armed with a bow, because the talent is it a maneuver that is performed before the attack. This Flurry of Blows is the same thing, a maneuver that happens before the actual attack, not the actual attack, so you wouldn’t start it off with “When making a Brawl attack.”

What @Fuzzyursa is meaning is that rapid archery is for bow only , and there are other weapons that can be used with the Ranged skill. Thrown weapons, crossbows, grenades, etc. But Brawl can only be used with unarmed attacks and Brawl weapons. No need to say "when unarmed or armed with a Brawl weapon"—that's the only kinds of weapons you can use with a Brawl check.

So you could say: " You may use this manoeuvre to grant your next Brawl combat check the linked quality with a rating equal to your ranks in Brawl. "

9 minutes ago, c__beck said:

What @Fuzzyursa is meaning is that rapid archery is for bow only , and there are other weapons that can be used with the Ranged skill. Thrown weapons, crossbows, grenades, etc. But Brawl can only be used with unarmed attacks and Brawl weapons. No need to say "when unarmed or armed with a Brawl weapon"—that's the only kinds of weapons you can use with a Brawl check.

So you could say: " You may use this manoeuvre to grant your next Brawl combat check the linked quality with a rating equal to your ranks in Brawl. "

Fair enough, but don’t forget the 2 strain cost.

”You may spend 2 strain to use this maneuver to grant the next Brawl combat check your character makes this turn the Linked quality with a value equal your ranks in the Brawl skill.”

The only issue I see (and I just noticed this) is that the Rapid Archery talent states “the bow gains the Linked quality” rather than the attack itself, but that might just be semantics.

Thank you @c__beck for wording it better.