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The Ancient Weapons Master instructs you to determine Education as normal, then drop a Skill Program in exchange for the special training you receive from the Category. You also choose between being Melee Focused or Ranged Focused by default, but can choose to give up all your Secondary Skills and half of your Skill Programs in order to choose both specializations.
My questions are as follows:

1. Since you cannot select WP Skills as Scholastic or Secondary Skills, do you get them automatically based on your above choice? I asked because as an archer, you gain a strike bonus that states it is in addition to any gained from WP Archery, which implies that you can have the skill.
2. Is it reasonable to extrapolate from what is written regarding duel specialization and allow the combat style of the Pysical Category to be taken as a second specialization? In other words, is it reasonable to lose all Secondary Skills and half your Skill Programs in order to have Archery Style and the Hand to Hand combat of the Physical Training character? You wouldn't get the 3 special attacks of the Physical Training character, but you would get the body conditioning and associated HtH.
This would allow for characters such as Oliver Queen (from the tv show, not the comics).
2a. Is this in keeping with the spirit of the game or is it straying too much? It seems to me that the bonuses would be comparable to a character who was both melee and ranged, just trading weapons for unarmed.
Thoughts?

I don't have the books in front of me, but I would think the Ancient Weapons Master would have his weapon skills given to him as part of the category and not have to pick them as secondary skills. After all, isn't that why you have to drop your skill programs in the first place? I don't think it gives you Archery bonuses only to let you select the skill again and stack bonuses. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. That said, losing half your skill programs does seem a bit of an extreme cost to have this skill category when other categories only have you drop one skill program.

When determining Education, you drop ONE Program and do not select WP Skills. You only lose HALF your Programs and ALL your Secondary if you want the bonuses of both specializations.
Where WP Skills are concerned, it says not to take any, but then states that the archery strike bonuses are "in addition to those gained from WP Archery." This is why I ask if it is assumed that you have those WP granted, simulated, or if the "in addition to" line should be ignored.

Sounds like the category was poorly written.

I give the WPs, mainly based on so much is given up. It is a judgement call.

RockJock wrote:I give the WPs, mainly based on so much is given up. It is a judgement call.

That was my assumption.
Now what about the question of using Physical Training as a secondary combat option? In other words, instead of selecting both melee and ranged specializations, take one of those and the hand to hand combat of the Physical Training Category. You give up all secondary and half Scholastic just as you would if you were duel specialized (because you are), but your second specialization is unarmed. It feels reasonable to me, but I wanted the community commentary to weigh in.

I would let you take a regular hth as skills, but I would probably say no to stealing PT hth. The reason I would say no is more because it is one of the few things the PT has that is kinda unique to it.

RockJock wrote:I would let you take a regular hth as skills, but I would probably say no to stealing PT hth. The reason I would say no is more because it is one of the few things the PT has that is kinda unique to it.

That's a fair assessment. I have no plans to build such a character, but as I was rereading PU2 the thought came to mind and I figured I would get the community impressions. Thanks.

the new rifter has new PT stuff in it

zerombr wrote:the new rifter has new PT stuff in it

Awesome! I'm a few issues behind on the Rifter, but I'm excited to catch up.