I use the following house rules for raising abilities:
The cost to raise a "mundane" ability one level = number of masteries
(minimum of 1).
The cost to raise a "three-point" ability (such as an affinity) = "mundane"
ability cost +1 (which leads to a minimum of 2).
The cost to raise an entire keyword = 5 x number of masteries (minimum of
5). If the keyword contains fewer than 5 abilities, change the "5" to the
number of abilities.
I retroactively applied these costs to my HW home game. The lower initial cost to raise affinities results in players raising them more often. I now consider Close Combat and Ranged Combat to be keywords. If I was starting a new game--besides probably trying to use a system more compatible with HQ--I'd probably put the weapon skills back into the appropriate keywords.
I give out 1 HP at the beginning of each session and 5 HP at the end of each session, we only play 1/month, we've played a little fewer than 30 sessions, and some characters have an ability in the low w2 range, with a couple of abilities approaching w2.
Aside: I've considered changing abilities to 10 levels per mastery instead of 20, but have decided to wait for HQ. If I used 10 levels per mastery, I'd halve HP awards and still use a d20 (as a 2 x d10 with only 1 and 20 being criticals). This would solve the problem I have in my infrequently meeting game where characters don't increase in ability fast enough over years of play (from a player perspective). I know that there are other ways to address this (such as arbitrary fast forwarding), but I'd like a way that preserves my season-by-season or week-by-week pace of adventures.
Thanks,
Andy
At 01:28 PM 11/29/2002 +0000, Graham Robinson wrote:
> >For comparison, tbe longest gaming campaign I have ever been in ran to
> >about 35 sessions, and the longest I've ever succeeded in running was
> >about 30. So being 'restricted' to 50 ain't going to worry me :-)
>
>Worries the heck out of me, but then I'm already well past 50 sessions. I'd
>advise anyone hoping for a long campaign to throw in a house rule of '1hp
>for each mastery in a skill'. That'll get you to 1W2 and being a mover and
>shaker pretty quick, but stop you reaching the point where only Orlanth and
>Rufelza themselves are a challenge. Wish I had placed that rule from the
>start. Instead, we opted for a voluntary 10W3 ceiling (unless you heroquest
>for better) which I don't like, but the players feel is fairer.
>
>It isn't the W3 and W4 characters that worry me, its the W6 and W7 that I
>could have in a couple of years time...
>
>Cheers,
>Graham
>
>--
>Graham Robinson
>graham_at_...
>
>Albion Software Engineering Ltd.
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