Re: [HoE] Hand to Hand and Campaign Levels

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.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

I don't have Apocalypse Now, but I assume the wormlings there are 
above-standard?  Normal ones have no armor that I recall...

>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.

As I may have noted, my major concern is more about that single creature per 
adventure of several sessions.  That's typically the climactic encounter of 
those several sessions, and thus has a somewhat greater significance.  
Having a player-character who can't offensively contribute to that 
significant encounter can be, as you can understand, kinda depressing for 
them.

Not to mention the aforementioned, "So how do Templars keep their 
mystique...?" kinda thing.  A little more on this below.

>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!  :-)
>

Well, obviously they should from a "realism" point of view.  The point I was 
trying to make yesterday was, between this and Simon's fate in Boise Horror, 
how would this affect the public's perception of the Templars?  A Templar's 
good rep is based primarily (IMO, but taking the source material's 
references on the topic heavily into account) on 1) their unique nature as 
swordfighters and 2) their healing ability (their other Gifts seem to be too 
subtle).

If as you note the Templars start to be thought of as merely, "Guys who whip 
out AT rockets and are good shots with them against a major threat" 
well...almost any adventurer type can do that!

There are all kinds of ways that Pinnacle and/or individual campaigns can go 
with this.  You could see a schism within the Templars between those who 
stubbornly continue to follow the sword, and "rocket-powered" Templars (my 
player character would fall into the former category, of course ;) ).  How 
would the Wasted West survivors' perception of the Templars change as they 
forego the sword and embrace the AT rocket? :)

I think you sum it up pretty well.  I'm heavily tempted at this point to, 
post-Boise Horror, take my campaign in that direction (rather than allow the 
original Gift suggested) regardless.  And it seems like a reasonable 
evolution of the Templars as threat levels start to escalate.  I just hope 
that _if_ Pinnacle goes with it, they don't just start showing AT-rocket 
wieldin' Templars, but look at some of the ramifications of the Templars 
abandoning the sword as well.

>Jay Kyle


---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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