I scheduled to pull my copy of the core rules from under our Christmas tree in just under two weeks.
I have a question about the weirding way.
Is this reflected anywhere in the rules or is all combat pretty much (ish) a level playing field?
If it’s in the rule book, I’ll sit tight.
If it isn’t, how do you all deal with it, if at all?
There is no specific Talent for the Weirding Way, the Bene Gesserit core Talent is Prana-Bindu conditioning which tags off Move & Discipline.
Their other talents revolve around Other Memory & Hyperawareness, which are mainly non-combat information gathering Talents, and the Voice.
You could use talents like Improvised Weapon or To Fight Someone is to Know them (Battle) to represent the sort of abilities that the BG have with the Weirding Way.
For the actual talent we will probably have to wait for the BG sourcebook, which will be a while as Modiphius want to include information from the Sisterhood TV series.
Hmmm, I wondered about this. While I get the reasoning, I think (and this is just me) this is going to eventually cause an imbalance mechanics wise down the track.
The original board game from a million years ago suffered a bit from that.
It is something that is part of the book. I understand why it would be tricky to pull off game wise.
Lynch piked a bit with how he handled it in his flic because (from what I’ve read) he thought it was going to be too hard to portray it on screen so he went with sound.
It’s a shame though that this distinct feature is getting a pass. But that’s just me…
I’m not too worried about a mechanics imbalance. The 2d20 system in general doesn’t give major boosts with its talents. STA has been going for a long time and the new talents and races aren’t that different power level wise to what came before.
As to the Wierding way be left out I must admit I always viewed it mainly as an advanced form of martial arts and didn’t think much of it.
It was powerful in the same way that Paul learnt the art of knife fighting from Duncan and so was able to best Jamis.
But it wasn’t like the sort of ability that Miles Teg got in Heretics where he could move faster than the eye could see and wipe out an entire garrison on his own.
Seems to me that Weirding Way is essentially an extension of the Bene Gesserit body control. Combine their ability with observation of even minute things with their nigh-perfect muscle and nerve control, accurate and powerful martial arts become possible.
To my understanding ‘weirding way’ is really a catch all term for Bene Gesserit skills,
mainly one that outsiders use meaning ‘you can do some weird stuff’.
So in a sense, all the BG abilities are part of that and plenty are in the corebook.
We will look to expand those later on, but we are a bit tied with The Sisterhood on the horizon.
To be sure, the Fremen referred Jessica as Jessica of the Weirding, not just because of her combat skills but because of her ability with the Voice and general knowledge of mystical things. At least this is my read on things.
I’d suggest that if people want to represent these skills in battle better, either alter the existing Prana-Bindu Conditioning to include Battle in addition to Move and Discipline (though this risks the talent being too good perhaps), or add a homebrew “upgrade” talent to this that does the same thing. If the latter idea needs justification, it seems plausible one could be trained in Prana-Bindu but not at martial arts, hence requiring “upgrade talent”.
This gives me plenty to think through. I’m hitting the book again and will definitely be reading the core rules from cover to cover when I get my mits on it, Santa rides a sand worm.
Just a heads up, I might have questions.
Ancient news, but I’m finally getting a moment to go through the forums, and I just wanted to say I like this idea that “Weirding Way [Battle]” could be a Talent that has Prerequisite(s): Hyperawareness; Prana-Bindu Conditioning.
That starts to create a bit of a “tech tree” of Basic and Advanced Talents - which I could see coming up for other groups Talents as well. I don’t know if any of the 2d20 systems have done this yet, or if they want to – but I might in my run.
John Carter does “grades” of talent, from 1-4, with each grade being roughly equivalent to spending one Momentum (ant at character creation you get 5 grades of talents, so you can take 5 grade 1, 2 grads 2 and one grade 1, etc).
There are no prerequisites, but it would be easy enough to tweak that system with them.
Note that page 56 calls it the fremen name for Prana-bindu in combat. But the wording also implies it is not enough to know Prana-bindu…
p56:
The Sisterhood uses prana-bindu control in their unique form of martial arts. Called the “weirding way” by the Fremen (p.71), this hand-to-hand combat style uses prana-bindu training to a devastating level. An experienced member of the Sisterhood can fight with almost superhuman speed and movements. With such minute control over every muscle, only the Emperor’s Sardaukar rival their deadliness.
Based upon that, I’d say it’s actually a trait representing experience.
And Paul and Jessica teach it to many Fremen, but the Fremen still do not equal Paul nor Jessica. Nor do they have the other facets of Prana-Bindu.
Traits also allow for multiple ranks in Dune. I’d say Paul probably has 3 ranks… Jessica the max of 4… and most of the Feydakin might have 1 and no Prana Bindu, but that’s still a BIG advantage in Dune.