I think I've finally settled on the replacements for the combat skills. No more weapon-type restricted skills, tho as will become clear I haven't gone all out in this. The new skills apply to all possible attack types:
Control (ST): Decreases the THC penalty for making consecutive attacks within one turn, and in the case of burst attacks, subsequent rounds fired.
Maneuvering (AG): increases your dodge bonus from hexes moved, and decreases the THC penalty for attacking while moving.
Marksmanship (PE): determines how accurate an attack is. While most important for long range attacks, even punches can benefit from a certain amount of pinpoint precision.
Concentration (PE): Determines the dodge bonus you receive from unused AP's, and the THC bonus from attacking without moving (which includes rotating to adjust your aim) for consecutive turns.
Finesse (LU): Influences the result of a damage roll, and the frequency of status effects (e.g. knockouts) and armor piercing.
You'll now also have several other skills to use during combat:
Leadership(CH): Decreases the amount of upkeep needed to maintain team mate morale, ensuring they don't sit out tough fights hiding in cover, or lose heart after a bullet grazes precariously past their private (
tuluse so I was thinking of making near miss barks affect morale, rather than thc or AP).
Stealth(AG): If a combatant can't see who he's aiming at, he can't hit him (in fact, they won't even be drawn on the map, like in the fog of war effect of the HD mod, though I might only have it apply in combat mode by default), so spending additional AP's to enter sneak mode even in the midst of battle could be useful.
Traps/Explosives(PE): While you'll of course usually want to set traps before combat begins, you could, if unseen by the enemy (say, because you're sneaking), place traps during as well. Also affects the likelihood of timed grenades going off when intended (and shortfused ones not going off in your hands of course).
First Aid(PE): As long as you have enough "permanent" health left, you can use the First Aid skill during combat to heal HP's and even crippling effects during combat.
Nearly all other skills will have an indirect effect on combat, such as Science(IN) and Repair(IN) reducing the upkeep costs for equipment to avoid most kinds of critical failures, etc.
Now, I hear you ask, "Jim, dear friend, isn't Finesse precariously much like a damage stat, and Marksmanship an accuracy stat?"
No, no, no dear friend, I'd say. First, due to the way it works Finesse only yields good results for attacks with wide damage ranges. In practice, this means using precision weaponry (e.g. laser weapons) in a precise way (e.g. hitting a hard to hit bodypart such as the eyes only increases the max damage of an attack, widening the range). If you were to use a very unfinessed attack, such as a sledgehammer to the torso, which could have a minimal damage range of, say, 30-32, then the difference between min and maxed out Finesse would at most be 2 damage. Second, due to the way the new simulated bullet paths work, each attack takes the shape of a cone: because this cone is of course narrowest right in front of the attacker, even an extremely poor marksman can hit a fully static target right in front of him most of the time. So, high marksmanship will be mostly useful for snipers trying to hit far away targets (or melee characters who want to reliably hit hard to hit bodyparts on (static) targets).
Next, I hear you ask "but won't these types of combat skills make Skills overshadow Attributes completely?"
For two reasons, I'd say no: (1) Attributes will have a far greater effect on the starting value of skills associated with them, and, more importantly (2), each attribute has an effect closely associated to each combat skill related to it:
PE: While you could max out Marksmanship to shoot the testicles off a mosquito at 40 yards, you still need PE to be able to
see that mosquito so you can attack him to begin with.
LU: Luck affects the frequency of critical failures, and the delicate precision attacks best suited for Finesse are those that can critically fail most often (relatively little can go wrong while hitting someone on the chest with a club).
ST: while you could max out Control to limit the penalties of recoil, you'll still need the high carry weight that comes with ST (which only applies to equipped items now) to be able to wield heavy weapons which most suffer from recoil (e.g. the heavy Bozar sniper gun, or the minigun) effectively. In the case of melee it additionally affects the damage output for (mainly blunt) attacks.
AG: While you could max out maneuvering to get the most out of each hex moved, you still need AG to give you the most hexes to move.
Finally, I hear you murmur "Hmm, this whole every stat potentially useful thing does strike me as being awefully Sawyerist."
While I agree with his detractors that the outcome of Sawyerist balance seems too homogeneously bland, I find nothing wrong with the
theory of every stat being potentially useful to every build. I believe that the key to making such a move not ending up bland is by still making each stat significantly tailored to a specific combat situation. For example, while I severely dislike the idea of a uniform damage stat, such as Might in PoE, because it seems to homogenize every type of attack, regardless of the situation, I do like the Finesse idea because it only results in the best outcome
if the player uses precision attacks, meaning the player still has to try and play according to the strengths of his character.
So what I hope to achieve is some kind of compromise between the old weapon-type skills and weapon-independent skills. Yes, Marksmanship is better suited to sniper rifles, Finesse to laser weapons, Control to burst weapons, etc. But what I want to achieve is that unlike with the old combat stats of FO (and those of other crpg's with weapon-type based combat stats) you don't get pigeonholed into using a specific type of weapon, which doesn't result in any interesting tactical decisions whatsoever in my opinion. The player couldn't use these stats to support his preferred playstyle, but just his preferred weapon choice, which I think is far less interesting. So what I want is that the player still has the option throughout the game to use a weapon that doesn't perhaps fully supports his build effectively. E.g. a Control build can use non-burst weapons, but should still try and attack as often as possible in a turn, a Marksman can still use a short-range weapon, he just needs to play to the strength of his precision to hit a specific bodypart, etc.
Hopefully these new skills will allow for a wide variety of builds such as a Control+ Maneuvering run and gunner, a Concentration+ Marksmanship long range sniper, a Finesse+ Marksmanship limbs crippler, a Control+Concentration static heavy gunner, a Finesse+ Maneuvering run and slicer etc.
), as in that like with movement, the action points for firing weapons carried in your different hand slots is also separated (though of course like with movement also with a significant THC penalty).
I want to change the formula to 15+IN*2 or even 20+IN*2, which given the fact that there's no more skill perks or skill bonusses from books, should result in you increasing in skill about as fast as in the original in practice.
