> of 4 or my boast of 5w augmented by my Muscular physique 17). If, on
> the other hand it is too high it becomes much to powerful ("I'll
> augment my close combat by yelling out my name and linneage,
> frightening my foes when they realise who they are facing - my Close
> Combat is 17 and my Glory is 4w3 so i'll go for a +8, with only a 5%
> chance of not making it...)
Actually, I'm not *wholly* opposed to the example above.
As it happens, both Glory and Honour in LOT5R, and the HW scaling system, are in fact hidden 1-100 systems, LOT5R banded in 10's and HW banded in 20's. So it would be quite easy to take a character of "glory rank 2 plus 5 boxes" as Glory 5W.
On the down side, as you say, the balance gets thrown in a hurry. Logically, I would have to grant the Emperor Glory 10/20W4 as the pinnacle of society. Then the Kuge class overall would have to have at least, say, W4. The Buke would have to have between W and W3 and the Bonge under one mastery. That makes sense as a scale, but means that samurai-caste characters (read: all of them) appear with at least one and possibly multiple Glory masteries at start of play. Realistic, but innapropriate for the scales at which HW is balanced.
There are, however, a number of combat feats which DO employ honour or glory as an augment - in LOT5R terms they add bonuses by honour rank or similar effect. So there is precedent for the "+8 from 4W3" augment, or effects of that scale. However, to make this a special case requires the tacit agreement that Glory is not under normal circumstances available for augmenting combat, only when permitted by some special technique. (OTOH, it would be quite appropriate for most social rolls...)
Anyway, this has I think opened up a can of worms. On reflection, I see little in the way of social interaction in HW. We have Relationships insitutionalised on the charsheet now, and this is a great advance. But while we are measuring our characters relationship/commitment to others, we are not really measuring the perception that others have of the character.
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