I would suggest that the -1CS for unarmed combat represents a rare instance of a 'hidden loyalty penalty' :) On Thu 16/06/11 9:13 AM , Timothy Pederick pederick@xxxxxxxxx sent: On 16 June 2011 07:04, Chris Neilson wrote: You people all seem to be making this overly complicated :) I love it. Maybe. :-D I think we're really just trying to reduce the chances of having readers write in to us to say, "But shouldn't it work this way?" (That or we're slightly obsessive about the whole thing. Or both...) The way I see it, the "reader loyalty bonus" is that the player gets to compare their old bonuses to the equivalent new Grandmaster bonus and use the best bonus applicable. That's actually a really good way to explain it. As far as I can tell, the best unarmed combat bonus you can get from the Magnakai books is Scion-Kai Weaponmastery which states * "... when in combat without a weapon [Scion-kai] lose only 1 point from their COMBAT SKILL" yet in the Grandmaster series (under Kai no COMBAT SKILL loss when fighting bare-handed" I would guess that the final -1 goes away at Grand Master rank?