> >> In a medium power campaign, a warrior starts
> >>with a Weapon 17 (giving a ^3), but the player could choose to
start
> >>with Weapon 1W (giving a ^4 -- a 2H sword, perhaps) or a Weapon 5w
> >>(giving a ^5 -- an enchanted weapon).
> >
> > And it would be a big waste of points! They have spent their
> >biggest ability in a way that is BOTH inefficient AND boring!
>
> And again, SO WHAT? If you don't WANT to spend the HP, or assign the
> Rating, no-one is forcing you.
I would much rather have rules that encourage people to do this kind of thing (specify magic and mythic items in their character description) rather than rules that significantly weaken characters that do so. The 'nobody is forcing you to waste your points' argument is IMHO spurious. If newcomers to the game trust in the system to be at least moderately fair and specify magic items in their character description without realising the consequences, they're going to get mightily pissed off when they realise how expensive, limited and weak the benefits they gain realy are.
> ...And besides, boring TO WHOM? Anyone who
> wants to spend the HP can do so, anyone who doesn't keeps the same
> equipment they started with. It's no more a 'waste of points' than
ANY
> narrow ability, and exactly the same as spending them on an
> 'important' item - by spending the points, it BECOMES 'important'.
Buy you can already do this, and you get _much_ better bang for your buck with the current rules. I see no reason to prefer the proposed option.
As i have said before, this is probably fixable using modified rules for buying up equipment, but pretending that it's not a problem in the first place, and that it makes sense to spend 5 HP on a 'Broadsword' ability to get a ^1 edge when using it, is IMHO daft.
This is a classic case of a mistake many players new to HW sem to make. i spend a lot of time explaining to poeple why taking abilities that are only ever used to augment one other ability are pointless. You're always better off raising the main ability, of which the secondary ability is realy just a subset anyway.
I am , in principle, against the idea of AD&D +1 swords. However the magic rules in HW don't just give generic +1s. Each magical feat used to give an augment is slightly different from each other such feat, and this should manifest in the game/world. If anything, Broadswords with a high 'Be A Broadsword' ability are mere generic +x weapons. At least the magic, rituals and enchantments already in the game have a bit of character.
Simon Hibbs
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