H & I Initiative

[SpaceMonkey]

Hi All

I'm about to start an Honor and Intrigue campaign (players have made characters, just need to get the adventure underway), but I was wondering something.

How much would it disrupt the game system if I removed the Brawl stat and replaced it with the Initiative stat of BoL?

I've noticed that as soon as I said swashbuckling game, my players immediately put -1 into Brawl to get as many points for Melee and Parry as possible.

If I implemented Initiative instead, I know this would also be considered a very important stat and as such the players would be a little more thoughtful where they'd put their points.

Any ideas?

[BASHMAN]

Doing this makes Savvy less valuable in combat as it was the Initiative stat. It also devalues combat styles that include grappling or other unarmed strikes. Likewise, when you are in a tavern brawl, there is a definite line between a punching fight and a sword fight. The dandy who is an excellent swordsman who doesn't know how to punch would suddenly be in over his head... but this character cannot exist where Brawl is not used as a combat ability. Everyone who can sword fight is also now an expert boxer; something to consider.

For my own part, I don't know if I'd find Initiative all that useful as a combat ability.

I've also found in my games PCs generally will put a -1 in Ranged before they put it in Brawling.

One final thing; if your PCs are putting -1s in Brawling, teach them a lesson by getting them in a fist fight, getting them in grapples, etc. They will wish they had a better score in it.

If they are in a fist fight and losing and draw steel and kill the other person, that's murder, even if the other person started the fight. They will become fugitives / hung if they do that.

[SpaceMonkey]

I like the way you think

Ok, I'll stick with Brawl and see how it pans out.

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

[The_GIT]

I'm a bit late to this thread. I also considered updating H+I to the BoL Mythic stats with regards to Initiative and Brawl but, as BASHMAN correctly states, it's probably much wiser to leave the game as is - it's balanced and works just fine so why try and fix it?