>Believe me, I do understand your point, but I wholeheartedly disagree with
>your assertion that the weapon and armor ranks are unimportant, even at
>higher ability levels. Heck, if that is the case, why even augment
>weapons, abilities, or armor?
Because at higher skill levels, players get larger augments through their magic.? A mere +1 advantage becomes too insignificant to worry about then and keeping track of them becomes as much fun as keeping track of the fatigue points of the Crimson Bat in RQ3 combat.
>However, the internal consistency of the rules is not being maintained
>when you say that it doesn't matter if a character uses one sword or two.
I never said it doesn't matter. I said it ceases to be significant once the skill levels reached are high. As for maintaining the internal consistency, I don't see why it has to impede game fun.
>Again, if this were the case, the rules would not differentiate between
>using a shield and not using a shield in combat (I realize it is only a
>puny 1 point edge, but most of us are not Beatpot).
Consider a humakti with 1W2 in his combat affinity. To get an edge of +8, he only has to defeat a resistance of 20. Since anything he rolls is bumped up twice, he has a very good chance of getting it. A +1 edge isn't worth bothering about in such circumstances.
>I'm not sure how powerful your player's characters are in the game you
>run, but I can assure you that a few ranks and edges make a HUGE
>difference for our PCs.
So? I never said they were unimportant at low skill levels. All I simply pointed out was that if you feel that some mechanics should be used to shore up the difference between two sword fighting and other forms of close combat, then you will face a problem when the heroes get to be of high skill level where counting out mundane armour ranks tend to be a distraction.
>Finally, if one really does outgrow the need for the meagre bonuses that
>weapons and armor provide, then why would Beatpot bother to pick up a
>cleaver at all when he was facing down the Lunar army?
Because that was the only weapon available and he didn't want to use his bare hands?
>Why would Miyamoto Musashi use two swords in combat?
Because that's his best way of fighting?
Your problem is here is that you are relying on the mechanics to stipulate how heroes should fight, whereas the more important thing in Hero Wars is to rely on narrative and descriptive elements.
--Peter Metcalfe
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