How equipment modifiers work is a function of the system. The system is just an engine, and engine that's designed to accomodate all levels of play. Jane is right. The "norm" is very dependent in context, both here and in the standard usage of the word.
> Would you deny that, so far, the standard character of HW is the
Heortling
> fyrdman (in all his incarnations)?
>
> And that the standard foe of the standard character is the Enemy
> (Tarsh/Dara Happan...) Soldier?
In the sourcebooks so far, yes. But that doesn't mean that it's the norm for the system.
The real problem, however, when we take off the "combat" blinders and look at the larger scope of "equipment". What's "normal" for first aid? What's normal for riding a horse? The list goes on. That's a whole lot of normals. The best base point is "nada". You can then work from there. There's also a psychological element here, too. It's very dissatisfying to pick up a dagger and have a minus.
> If your campaign's focus is on Ducks, they you should renormalize
everything
> on them. It's a characteristic of HW, that you have to scale
everything on
> the characters anyway. There are no absolute values (and this is
_good_ IMO,
> I guess you don't agree, though).
No, but having a sliding scale for everything makes it very hard to have things from two different campaigns meet. So, you have one campaign in which the norm is iron swords and armor. One of those warriors puts in an appearance in your stickpickers campaign. Now you have to start adjusting everything for the warrior. God help you if you have equipment that isn't a simple bonus and has a rating.
Hero Wars/HeroQuest was designed for a variety of power levels. Not having a concrete, easily identified base point for the entire spectrum gets in the way.
Mike Ryan
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