Could this be used as a defense in the sense of "ignore puny attacker"?
As a Narrator, could you then give an attacker a major edge - on the order of a bump-up - because said Giant is practically impossible to miss?
Oh yeah - in regards the Oscar Wilde vs. Berserk Troll, I would treat the skills much like I would have treated them in RQ. I.e. Oscar wants to use his Rapier Wit 15w3 as an attack or defense? Sure, go ahead and declare it.
Then I, as the evil narrator get to determine
a) the chance of Oscar even speaking a tongue that the Troll could
understand sufficiently to make instant sense of - i.e. a native or
near-native level of speech.
b) probably grant the troll the use of his Berserk as a defense versus
(i.e. to ignore) the Rapier Wit. If Oscar's using Rapier Wit as a
defense, he'd have to initially win a simple contest to even have his
rapier wit APPLY. If not, he'd be considered not defending.
As a narrator, I would probably strongly suggest that Oscar use his Wit to give him an edge while he was dodging or something (a, above, would still apply, tho) - but even WITH Rapier Wit 15w3, Oscar would be rather stupid to rely on it to save his life.
In regards the somewhat fanciful nature of HW combat, I'm finding
myself roughly agreeing with Michael Cule. I prefer a more
simulationist combat, rather than a "movielike" combat. But I think
that with enough tweaking, the HW combat rules could be made to suit
even grognards.
For example, one might apply the rule that AP losses MUST be taken as
wounds. I think that would lead to a "wearing down" of combatants that
feels more realistic. Possibly requiring a minimum bid of 5 or even 6
AP would FORCE combats to be more nasty, brutish, and short. Forcing
each combatant to accumulate d6 AP's in "fatigue" (used as a penalty
for any subsequent contest without rest) for each bid might do the
same, so even a winning combatant of a long fight WOULD seek to rest
and recouperate.
These are top-of-the-head suggestions, feel free to demolish. I'm just thinking that I like the AP mechanic fundamentally, and that it will only take some tweaking to get it to result in outcomes that make sense to me.
My $.02.
Powered by hypermail