Proficiency And You: How Does It Work Ic

[MonMarty]

Proficiency has been out for two days now, and we're already seeing players love the new customization. For the intellect and culture Proficiencies, it offers a much wider and more creative approach to character design. While the rules are still being ironed out properly here and there, the system is pretty stable as is right now, which leads us to cover one last subject that caused some controversy: How to interpret the combat related proficiency. A lot of players are under the impression that Proficiency = higher = wins, while this is not the case at all. This thread will give an explanation of how Combat Proficiency works.

Combat Proficiency is dictated by a number of case rules:

• I have 0 proficiency: You cannot wield or use this weapon in any productive or skilled way.
• I have some proficiency: You know how to wield this weapon and use it just like an average joe.
• I have high proficiency: You know how to wield this weapon very well and are experienced.
• I have max proficiency: You know how to wield this weapon extremely well, and know all techniques.

Notice how in all cases of the above, it never specifies "You can", but rather uses "You know". This is the crux of Combat Proficiency: Combat related Proficiencies dictate:

• Knowledge of Technique
• Knowledge of Combos
• Knowledge of Moves
• Knowledge of Handling
• Knowledge of Weaknesses
• Knowledge of Strenghts

Proficiency purely dictates how much a person knows about handling for example a Longsword when they have high Proficiency. Whether or not they can, or how much damage each swing actually does, or how fast it is, is entirely related to:

• How old they are.
• What their Body Build is.
• What gender they are.
• Whether they are sick or impaired.
• Whether they have lost a hand or arm.
• Any of these factors related to their foe.
• Whether or not they are under the influence of substances.

Then there is also other factors to consider whether or not an attack actually strikes down a foe:

• What is the Proficiency in the same weapon for the other person? Can they recognize your technique and counter it?
• What is the Proficiency in the weapon of the other person? Is their weapon a natural counter or weakness?
• What is their Acrobatics Proficiency? Can they dodge?

Some Examples:

• A 50 year old with 50 points in X weapon might still lose from a 30 year old with 30 points in that weapon, purely because they are at their physical peak in youth, and the 50 year old has already declined.
• A 20 year old with 10 points in a counter weapon might beat a 30 year old with 30 points in a single weapon, purely because it is a counter.
• In both above cases, the older one simply has a better technique and grasp knowledge of how to use the weapon, but their actual capacity to use the weapon is different.

As you can see, Combat Proficiencies are not related to whether or not one person's attack does more damage than another, or whether a Combat Proficiency wins a combat fight immediately. There are so many factors related to combat that Proficiency is purely used as a measure of experience and knowledge, which the roleplayers are then allowed to translate into in-roleplay activities in whatever way they can personally agree upon.