Re: [HoE] Hand to Hand and Campaign Levels

[VCVet@aol.com]

In a message dated 05/05/2000 8:26:18 AM Central Daylight Time, 
crow_steve@hotmail.com writes:

<< I kinda asked this yesterday, but do folks think that a Templar's 
_primary_ 
 reliance on a sword is unreasonable?  This certainly seems to be a big part 
 of their reputation, to judge from the published background material.  Sure, 
 nobody thinks that if there's a raptor hovering 50' above them that Templars 
 have to die gloriously rather than switch to a sword!  But one gets the 
 impression that a sword is what Templars _primarily_ use with a gun as 
 backup.  Not switch to a gun every time they run into a Lurker... >>
Steve, here's my input:
In my campaign, the standard AV runs around 2, although such things as 
Lurkers (seen once in 2 years of play) have higher AV, they are an anomaly.  
We do use the hit locations, so against the wormlings in Apocolypse Now, the 
Temp was able to either do called shots to the weak point or hope to hit it 
randomly (although against their fightin of 6 it was a tough HTH fight.  They 
have yet to run into powered armor, and automatons are rare (although BH 
aren't).  The fearmonger at the end of an adventure may be tougher, but 
that's a single creature per adventure of several sessions.
I happen to agree with the PEG way of doing HTH vs armor.  Something with AV 
4 and higher is like hacking at a small tree, birck house, etc.  Especially 
at the higher levels, the material being attacked is as strong or stronger as 
the sword in use.  Attacking a suit of power armor, light armored vehicle, 
etc. with a sword, especially for a mega-brute PC (read high STR), most 
likely results in a shattered sword. 
Sure, the sword is the symbol of the Templars.  I think that they're smart 
enough to realize that a sword vs a Lurker (made of metal as hard as the 
sword) is a losing proposition.  Maybe in the Judgement Day module of High 
Noon you'll see blocks of squires/men-at-arms with ranged weapons to deal 
with such, but I think for now the smart Temp puts down her sword and whips 
out the AT rocket!  :-)

Jay Kyle