I... must be reading this wrong.

Expert at Violence:After making a successful attack test, but

before determining hits, Warrior characters can choose to

substitute their Weapon Skill (for melee) or Ballistic

Skill (for ranged) bonus for the degrees of

success scored on the attack test.

Just like that? No fate point?

So a starting warrior can guarantee getting 4 DoS on every succesful attack? I guess it's not quite as big a deal now that dodge is binary again, but it still seems like an incredibly powerful bonus.

With point buy and cheap characteristic advances it's trivial to start the game with 50 in your preferred combat stat. Baselining your attacks at 5 DoS is insane. What are the chances you'll actually ever roll more than that?

I mean, I'm all for making Warriors good at killing things, but what does every successful attack starting at 5 DoS actually look like?

A dude doing 360 no scope headshots all day, then putting three bullets through someone's eye with his backup stub automatic.

A dude doing 360 no scope headshots all day, then putting three bullets through someone's eye with his backup stub automatic.

I take it back - I'm totally okay with this rule.

A dude doing 360 no scope headshots all day, then putting three bullets through someone's eye with his backup stub automatic.

What was his name, from Ravenor... Nayl

Lol... Sorry, but that was funny. Clearly this needs to be fix, or the battle nun would be a complete bad ass despite being nothing more than a newbie.

No it is funny, but the guy I described above is actually something that would happen in game terms- you can guarantee the extra +2d10 with Accurate weapons or hitting with 3/5 bullets every time you succeed on an attack roll with a starting character. It's clearly in a class of its own when compared to the other combat-oriented role bonuses (Desperado/Assassin), and strong enough that it will probably make the otherwise strong socially-oriented bonuses appear unappealing.

It also has potential issues for FF in terms of expansion content in that it makes anything depending on DoS in combat problematic, because it benefits a Warrior to a much greater extent than anyone else. For example, something similar to the Lasweapon Expertise or Mastery talents from OW: Hammer of the Emperor might be something you'd want to add in a supplement. But doing so would probably be a mistake, because suddenly talents that represent modest combat power increases for someone using an under-appreciated weapon class becomes a huge guaranteed increase in power for a Warrior. Not that this is guaranteed to be a problem, but DoS are a really fundamental system hook on which to hang conditional mechanical bonuses, so if FF wants to maintain some nominal notion of balance it seems like keeping the Warrior role bonus as it is will negatively impact the amount of "reasonable" design space they have.

If the same or a similar role bonus is desired (and it probably should be- it's a good way to do a meaningful mechanical combat bonus that isn't perscriptive in how a Warrior should be fighting, allowing the role to be suitably flexible) it seems to me like it should probably be revised to be triggered by fate point expenditure, or do something like apply half WSB/BSB as extra DoS on successful attack rolls. That later option potentially has issues of its own, but at least means that Warriors will still care about their rolled DoS more than like 10% of the time.