In message <20031122084819.33048.qmail_at_...> =?iso-8859-1?q?Jane=20Williams?= writes:
> --- Bryan <bethexton_at_...> wrote:
>
>> Actually, if you look at the ability to succeed against a default
>> resistance, the starting heroes aren't too tough.
>> Where this can be hard to reconcile is with glorious write ups. It
>> is easy to say "Archie is known as the hero of the battle of Blood
>> Hill, where he siezed Arkat's spear and was awarded Heort's
>> armring." However, really, he is more at the level of .. a newly minted
>> journeyman).....lots of potential, some decent skills, but really no
>> hot shot yet.
>
>One way I've handled this is to say that she fought gloriously in
>such-and-such a battle, but the injuries she took there now slow her
>in combat. So in the past she may have had multiple masteries in combat,
>but now she's back down to a basic 5W or so. You *could* take the scars
>and slowness as a Flaw, but just balancing one against the other and
>dropping the combat skill to the one the rules allow is easier.
>
>Or maybe she fought in a great battle, then went back to her spinning
>and weaving for a few years, and has lost her edge. Just don't assume
>that change in the past has always meant skills improving.
Or it was just a fluke embroidered by the bards into great heroism.
I had a similar problem explaining why a political character had such
low relationships when the backstory indicated they should have been
much higher. I explain it away by the fact that she's far from home
and distance makes it difficult to use them.
It's just a matter of finding a plausible explanation for the
discrepancy.
--
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/