I can well imagine why you are looking at this change, Close Combat feels too cheap - what player isn't going to invest 1 hero point here per scenario given the opportunity (Answer: an extreme purist roleplayer, Orlanth bless them)
There is a balance problem to such a change though - you have to give some incentive to players who concentrate on one weapon skill to invest in the broad combat skill else what I guess the rationale behind the Close Combat group falls apart. I presume the rationale is that someone who is great at hacking people up with a sword is still going to be much better than a novice if forced to use an axe. The current system supports that rationale - perhaps even too much.
You might investigate some requirement that no weapon bonus over Close Combat may be more than that Close Combat value (i.e. the best weapon is at most twice the close combat skill), or some such. Though this starts introducing quirky little rules to an otherwise clean system.
That, or I suppose try Close Combat being an always usable augmentation to any individual close combat skill (all of which are tracked separately), even when another mundane augmentation is also used, and similarly for Ranged combat, while also being a good skill for judging odds, skills of enemies, etc.
-- Kevin Blackburn Kevin_at_...
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