Proficiencies and armor

[ShaneNINE]

Some questions:

1. Are you only supposed to put points in more than one melee proficiency? I understand that if you put points in one proficiency you can then put more points in another one and gain the benefit of building on the default, but that's like picking a primary proficiency and then filterning points down to the secondary proficiencies. That's not the same as having two or more primary proficiencies, right? If you had two primaries, they'd feed off each other in a never ending loop of default modifiers:

I put 6 in Sword & Shield. That gives me -2 on Dagger so I put 2 in that to get Dagger 6. And that gets me -4 on Sword & Shield. See my confusion?

2. What do you use for fighting with a sword, but no shield? Greatsword/Longsword? Or do you just use your Sword & Shield CP (great Hârn site called Swordsandshields, BTW)?

3. What's your Missile Pool if you don't put any points into a Missile Proficiency? Does it just equal your Aim then?

4. How come a byrnie and hauberk don't affect your CP? These things are heavy!

Thanks.

[Jake Norwood]

Some questions:

1. Are you only supposed to put points in more than one melee proficiency? I understand that if you put points in one proficiency you can then put more points in another one and gain the benefit of building on the default, but that's like picking a primary proficiency and then filterning points down to the secondary proficiencies. That's not the same as having two or more primary proficiencies, right? If you had two primaries, they'd feed off each other in a never ending loop of default modifiers:

I put 6 in Sword & Shield. That gives me -2 on Dagger so I put 2 in that to get Dagger 6. And that gets me -4 on Sword & Shield. See my confusion?

What the heck. I feel like answering questions today. When using defaults to calculate a new proficiency, just use the best one and leave it at that. As someone that asctually trains in this stuff, everything you pick up flows into everything else. The traditional idea of individual weapon skills is completely bupkiss.
So you put 6 in Sword and shield, which gives you a starting point for your dagger of 4 (6-2=4). You put 2 prof. points into that and you get 6. Now you have 6 in dagger and 6 in sword/shield. Keep the best one and leave it simple. If you decided to then pick up Wrestling (S/S-4, Dagger-1) you would be better off defaulting from dagger and starting with a 5, not the 2 that sword and sheild would give you.

Understand about the TROS system--we don't care if you're good at lots of weapons. The system doesn't want to hold that back. "To hell with balance," remember? Good.

2. What do you use for fighting with a sword, but no shield? Greatsword/Longsword? Or do you just use your Sword & Shield CP (great Hârn site called Swordsandshields, BTW)?

Either. What weapon are you using? "arming sword" was never studied independently. You learned it with a shield. BUT, if you didn't have a shield, you still knew how to use the sword, it's just that certain maneuvers aren't available w/o a shield.

3. What's your Missile Pool if you don't put any points into a Missile Proficiency? Does it just equal your Aim then?

Yup.

4. How come a byrnie and hauberk don't affect your CP? These things are heavy!

CP loss is an issue of movement hindrance (which, in truth, is a wee bit overdone in TROS, but that's another issue). A hauberk has all of its mass on your torso, where it isn't going to effect your ability to wield a sword in any significant way. It would probably affect the wearer's fatigue, but I didn't want there to be any more paperwork than was really needed!

Jake

[Clinton R. Nixon]

My simple fix for the 'what do I default from?' issue isn't official or from the book in any way, but you might like it.

Remember how, when assigning attributes, one had to be highest? That is, you had one stat that no other one can be the same as or higher? I do the same thing with proficiency pools - you choose one that will be highest, and default everything from that. So, if you choose Sword and Shield, and raise it to 8, you can put a point in Dagger to raise it to 7, but can't raise it any higher (without putting more points in Sword and Shield.)

Of course, you can default from your other proficiencies, but your primary proficiency never defaults from anything.

Did that make any sense?

[ShaneNINE]

Based on the replies the general rule of thumb seems to be:

Use the defaults from your primary proficiency unless you've put points into another proficiency which has a better default.

Using Jake's example:

So you put 6 in Sword and shield, which gives you a starting point for your dagger of 4 (6-2=4). You put 2 prof. points into that and you get 6. Now you have 6 in dagger and 6 in sword/shield. Keep the best one and leave it simple. If you decided to then pick up Wrestling (S/S-4, Dagger-1) you would be better off defaulting from dagger and starting with a 5, not the 2 that sword and sheild would give you.

If, however, I hadn't put 2 points in Dagger, then I'd have to take the S/S -4 default for Wrestling.

Got it. Thanks!