Chris, I believe the phrase "Add 2 to the number picked" literally means "add 2 to the number picked". :)
That is taken in conjunction with any other rules sentence that tells you to add (or subtract) any other amount.
The process is commutative (if I remembered that mathematical term correctly?), i.e. it does not matter what order you add or subtract them in.
In any situation where you are adding or subtracting things to a total before a combat, you might have over half a dozen bonuses to tot up.
You seem to be thinking of it like it was a line out of assembler code or something like that, rather than English.
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Neilson
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 1:02 AM To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [projectaon] Re: Mentora bonus On Thu, 2011-06-30 at 15:22 -0700, Jonathan Blake wrote:
On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:19 PM, David Davis <feline1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:> I dismiss it out of hand! > Since Weaponmastery (with a Bow) already gives +3 on the RNT,> this bizarrely literal over-interpretation of the wording would mean > that> upon reaching the rank of Mentora, your bonus reduced to +2! I think the idea is that this bonus applies only for Mentoras who haven't yet mastered the Bow, so for them, this +2 would actually be a boost up. But once they do master the Bow, they only go up to +3, not +5.
Before you can decide on this, I think what you need to clarify is the wording "add 2 to the number picked", as this is really the root of the issue. David has taken it as gospel that the phrase means you are to add the bonus along with any other bonus that can apply to the number picked (and even in this case this interpretation is still a valid one). The fact is that taken literally, the phrase does NOT mean this at all (hence why this interpretation was offered in the first place). This isnt an issue of whether or not this interpretation works gameplay wise if the phrase is interpreted literally (it does), its not a case of "more accurate" meaning it *has* to apply to the WM-with-bow bonus (the bonus could be skills/techniques learned that would make you more accurate than someone proficient with the bow but not more accurate than someone who mastered a bow), its not even a case of whether or not this interpretation is under powered (there are other bonuses - even at higher Kai Ranks - that have less gameplay impact eg a really powerful bonus that only comes into play very seldom). What it comes down to is that the phrase "add 2 to the number picked" can be interpreted in (at least) 2 ways: 1) literally: add 2 to *the number picked* (and not the total you may have from other bonuses) 2) add (an additional) 2 to the number picked I would imagine the easiest/most space efficient solution would be to footnote the Mentora bonus with something like "it is unclear if this bonus was designed to stack with WM-with-bow bonus, see section X of the Readers' Handbook for differing viewpoints" Likewise, replace the Grand Weaponmastery footnote with "it is unclear if this bonus is a typographical mistake and should be +5 and how the Mentora WM bonus interacts with this, see section Y of the Readers' Handbook" and outline the various options there. Reason being that the footnote in GWM is freaken HUGE attempting to outline all the various interpretations and how they interact with all the other interpretations. based on my interpretation of the Mentora WM bonus I am going to rule out over half of them out-of-hand (David - with a different interpretation - is also going to rule out the other half). It would make much more sense to have a brief footnote "this is unclear" or "we recommend interpretation X" and refer the reader to the Readers' Handbook which already has a section on the comparison between different disputed interpretations. ~~~~~~ Manage your subscription at //www.freelists.org/list/projectaon ~~~~~~ Manage your subscription at //www.freelists.org/list/projectaon
