Can the Duelist Academy advantage only be taken once? By default, advantages can only be taken once unless they explicitly say otherwise, and Duelist Academy doesn't, but there's this: "If you purchase this Advantage again, you gain an additional Dueling Style."
So which is it?
I never considered that duelist academy could only be taken once. That wouldn't make any sense. I mean, it makes sense that you'd only ever take a single dueling STYLE once, but this edition really wants duelists to have 3-4 styles under their belt in the end.
IIRC, there is another Advantage in the source books that lets you buy additional duelist styles at a discount once you have duelist. I believe it's in H&V or PN, so check there first.
So going by the Heroes and Villains sourcebook, you can only buy the Duelist Academy once, as that sets you up with the Duelist Maneuvers as well as Style Bonus of your choice.
If you want ot learn additional styles, you'll need the 3pt Advantage Learned Duelist from the back of Heroes and Villains, which enables your Hero to learn additional Duelist Style, but doesn't indicate if you can only take this Advantage once or can take it multiple times. There's also a 2pt Advantage in Nations of Theah: Volume 1 that once per round lets you swap between two Duelist styles that you know at the cost of a Hero Point, so it does sound like learning more than one Duelist style is a thing.
As for how many Duelist styles you can learn, going strictly but how things are written, you can learn up to two: One from taking Duelist Academy, and a second from taking Learned Duelist. Personally, I'd allow a PC to take Learned Duelist multiple times, although with many styles requring weapon combinations to get their style bonus that don't always play well with one another, I'm not sure how much of an actual advantage knowing several different style bonuses would really be.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
I think it stated on Heroes and Villains that you have to choose your style at start of combat. As you cannot switch them on round by round.. And it costs Hero Point, I think the additional styles should be 2 point advantage not 3 point.
I would also remove the ridiculous additional point cost when upgrading from partial duelist advantage to full duelist. It is just ridiculous in 7th sea 2nd edition.
Upgrading from Student of Combat to Duelist Academy is only 3 points, which in terms of Story (either personal or adventure) is a pittance; most adventures should be worth a 2 or 3 point reward individually. And depending on your GM, it may well be possible to blaze through a 3 step Hero Story in single session.
Also note the Advantage that lets you swap styles in the middle of a round does require a Hero Point. And depending on what styles are chosen, the benefit of being able to do so could be significant. For instance, starting off with Ambrogia to be able to use Finesse+Wits+Weaponry to determine your Risk Pool, then spending a second Hero Point (as well as swapping to a heavy weapon) to switch to Sabat and employ all those extra Raises for a Sabat Gambit. Or Leegstra + Mirelli (heavy weapons in both hands), using Leegstra early to pour on the damage before swapping to Mirelli for defense (generally by using Bash + Mirelli's Revision to effectively Bash again) to keep your opponents from doing much damage to you while chipping away at them. There's also that Avalon style in Nations of Theah that lets you deal unavoidable damage and can be used with any weapon, so why not take that as an added style (it can be used with any weapon), so start with that so that your opening attack can't have the damage reduced, and then swap to another style if necessary, such as Aldana to employ the Aldana Ruse for an even bigger damage; or start with Aldana, use the Aldana Ruse, then swap to the Avalon style and deal damage equal to Panache+Athletics that your opponent can't avoid or reduce?
Being that Duelists already catch a lot of flak for being incredibly powerful, being akin to mid- to high-level wizards in D&D games, they don't need any help being more effective.
There's also the matter that quite frankly, mastering a dueling style is something that frequently takes years of practice and study, and that adding brand new styles to one's repertoire isn't done at the drop of a hat.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
Hey man,
I got curious with your answer. What is this "avalon" style that you mention? It is not in the basic 2ed core rulebook.