Question about Ancient WPs & combat

[green.nova343]

Sorry if this has come up before, but I did a quick search of the forum & didn't see anything about it.

For HU (any edition), as well as any of the non-Ninjas & Superspies games, I understand that you get the WP bonuses from an Ancient WP skill, plus any applicable PP or OCC bonuses (or even the Fencing skill). But what about your HTH training? Do the strike/party/entangle bonuses apply with the WP skill? Or is it like N&SS, where you need the Weapon Kata to stack your HTH bonuses?

[Daniel Stoker]

Yes you do get your HtH bonuses too.


Daniel Stoker

[green.nova343]

Yes you do get your HtH bonuses too.


Daniel Stoker

Is there somewhere this is mentioned in the book, or even in the GM Guide? Just for clarity's sake.

EDIT: Also, not that I don't believe you owe as. That's how I used to handle it, myself. But the more I look at it, the more it seems to give the chance for a HU2 character to be able to outfight a N&S character if weapons are involved.

[Daniel Stoker]

Page 61 Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition:

...
The result is hand to hand combat bonuses to strike and parry whenever that particular weapon is used. All bunces are accumulative.
...

Unlike with modern weapon proficiencies which specifically states on page 75:

...
This skill provides special bonuses to stroke when you uset hat weapon. Do not add this stroke bonus to your characters's hand to hand combat skills, it applies only to the use of modern weapons - i.e. all types of funs, rocket launchers, energy rifles and so on. The bow and arros is consisdered an "ancient" type of weapon.
...

Daniel Stoker

[drewkitty ~..~]

In HU the Bonuses stack looks like the following...

>any from the char's Race<+<any from the Power Cat.>+PP+WP (+from a WP that specificly says it adds to the 1st WP)

In most of the other settings it looks like this....

>any from the char's Race<+<any from the Character Class (PCC/OCC/RCC)>+PP+WP (+from a WP that specificly says it adds to the 1st WP)
---------
There are people that will disagree with the above in that they say to stack in any other WP that the char's weapon would also fall into, instead of just using one.

[green.nova343]

Thought it might be something like that.

Interestingly enough, if you're using the older HU Revised/BTS1 W.P. skills, it turns out that N&S characters without Weapon Katas can actually keep up with or surpass them in capability, mainly because the N&S W.P. skills have much higher bonuses. We're talking in some cases nearly double the strike/parry bonuses just in the W.P. skill, which kind of offsets the lack of HTH bonuses being applied. Once weapon katas allow the HTH bonuses in, you can get some super-high bonuses (IIRC, when you hit 15th level in Pao Pat Mei Kung Fu, you end up with something like +10 to strike/+8 to parry with a Large Sword if you have the weapon kata, & that's before any P.P. bonuses get applied...not to mention their +3 for Leap attacks).

HU2/BTS2/Shadow Chronicles/Rifts Unlimited change it up a bit. Their W.P. skill bonuses are much higher than the old BTS1/HUr ones (although not quite as high as N&S); they still can be edged out by a N&S character with a weapon kata, but it's a much closer margin (usually a +1 or +2 tops).

Thanks for the info, though.