>From: David Dunham <david_at_...>
>
>I'm of the school of thought that heroes aren't
>defined by their equipment -- several Viking
>heroes were proficient with a number of weapons.
>And you yourself say the guards are "overproud"
>of their weapons -- a +10 benefit seems like
>their pride is justified!
Not sure if you're fer it or agin it here, David. I actually agree that the substantiveness of weapon bonuses are largely fictituous in terms of how they affect each other. Especially in terms of quality. That is, what does it matter if your bronze sword breaks as it penetrates my lung? Or that you had a better constructed sheild as I evade it and put my spear in your unarmored face? The skill of the user is far more important to questions of victory and defeat. And, from another POV of the game as dramatic engine, then weapons are probably even less of a consideration in most cases. So these things all argue for small bonuses.
However...
In this case it *is* apparenlty a big deal, dramatically. In fact I think you could make a whole campaign that revolved around the fact of two factions, one with metal, one without. Further, while from a purely mechanical comparison, skill is more important than weapon quality and such, what's also important is morale. If you feel a foe is armed or armored in superior fashion, it may in fact be your skill that suffers as you let this fear take you over.
If you wanted to get really into this fact, rate the armor and such, and have it "attack" the opponent's bravery before hand to see if the character takes an "injury" to his confidence (and, therefore weapon skill) in the situation at hand. That'd probably be the most "accurate" way of handling this sort of thing.
But barring wanting to go into that sort of detail, I think that simply making an assumption about the level of trouble that this morale effect has, and putting it in as a situational modifier. One that maybe gets removed the first time somebody with a flint spear kills somebody in metal armor.
>The equipment bonuses in HQ are small. I think
>it's obvious that a hunter with a knife is more
>dangerous than one without.
I'll reiterate my philosophy on this, for kicks. If you have "Knife Fighting" ability, and try to use it with bare hands, what happens? Improv penalty, right? Probably a -10 or -15? What happens if your opponent is attacking with a knife, and you're defending with bare hands? You get an improv penalty, right? Or do you just give the guy with the knife a +1?
If you try to cook without a pan...improv penalty, right? You don't "lose" a +3 for the pan, right (or a +5 for a really big pan)? Having the right equipment for the ability in question gets to to +0. The question of how different abilities inter-relate is one of improv penalties.
The system already gives you a neccessary check to using abilities in inappropriate situations without the proper equipment. It also gives you a system to indicate superior equipment - you take it as an ability and augment with it. If you have flat bonuses, these tend to make the augments seem small in comparison (unless the object has some really high ability rating).
Worse, what if we're fighting, you with dagger, and me with longsword, but we're in a hole? Sure we can give you a situational bonus, or me a penalty, but then we're also going to include the standard bonuses? Seems odd. Why not just consider the nature of the situation as a whole, and apply one modifier to the appropriate party?
I find the equipment bonuses superfluous.
Mike
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