>On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, David Cake wrote:
>
>> In contrast, the fighting styles solution of HW seems to be a
>> good compromise - you want to use a weapon style that you have
>> practiced with, definitely, but the consequences of not doing so are
>> reasonable.
>> Cheers
>> David
>
>I still feel that having generic Close Combat cost 3 HP and subskills be
>raisable at 1HP/lvl solves many problems.
And creates many....
>If the character is supposed to be a shinobi (ninja) competent with any
>melee weapon she picks up, then just raise CC
And be quickly (over the course of perhaps half a dozen sessions) transformed into being incompetent with any melee weapon she picks up, as other warriors specialise, thus screwing characters who want to make their warriors interesting to describe and play, and rewarding those who minimax.
The problem is (as I explained in an earlier message), that whereas Sword Help can be reasonably assumed to be roughly a third as useful as a full Combat affinity (which can be used for Ranged Combat, magic combat, Shielding, perhaps some other stuff), thats not the case with Close Combat. Because the majority of the time you engage in combat using weapons of your choice, so specialising in weapon is very very clearly the minmaxers choice.
So, bring in the rule and either
a) campaigns become filled with people specialising in single
weapons, game balance remains the same, much change only to mess
around some peoples games and reward minimaxers
or
b) we put some sort of small cap on such bonuses, everyone raises
their bonuses to the max, and we are pretty much are back where we
started, only now we have two layers of confusion - is it your
specialist weapon, and what are the improv penalties on top of losing
the specialist bonus?
>If it's your average heortling CC 15, you can fairly easily raise a
>subskill to a reasonable level,
>
>Spear & Shield +5 (20)
>
>without the character suddenly becoming a virtuoso with every
>sort of hurting implement.
Which is a feature why? You have a big problem, institute bigger improvisation penalties. Thats a much better fix, because people who don't think the system is broken can just ignore it. Frankly, I think the opposite problem (a character who is avirtuoso with some particular form of combat being suddenly useless when it is removed) is a far bigger problem in game play (of games where it is enforced, like RQ for example - never bothered you that your master swordsman was utterly incompetent with a roughly sword shaped club?), and being able to, as narrator, largely ignore the question of weapon skill in some situations is very much a good thing. Being able to run bar room brawls without having to worry about whether breaking the bottle changes it from a light club to a dagger, possibly drastically changing the skill of the wielder, for example.
And frankly, most of what my limited experience and reading tells me is that combat skill is transferable - much combat skill is training reflexes, learning when it is safe to strike and not, alertness, footwork, and all that stuff that doesn't have all that much to do with the nature of the object in your hand. Many people who actually learn weapons train with a variety, and are much more dangerous with a weapon they have just picked up than a beginner. In other words, HW is more or less right and RQ is wrong. All of which really doesn't matter, because HW is about narrative not simulation, so not worrying about such details is probably better for the majority of narratives (and if it really bothers you, higher improv penalties is a simple fix).
Cheers David
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