I have had warriors in my campaign, but none of them have had extreme SB so their MLs only landed on 70-80 in spears or so which is fine by me (60-70 in the other weapon skills). So if I tell them that they can't increase spears more, it is fine by them, they increase another weapon skill (that is below 70), or initiative, dodge or better their other skills which are by far more difficult to increase than weapon skills.

The only time I have had characters with extreme attributes, they have been craftsmen.

Although I have had thoughts trying the 60 DRs method instead of the 5 OPs, then the players could do what they want.

Edit: I have (a bunch of years back) used the truncation method and it does the job well.

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
Fenhorn's Hârnpage

I had a character a few days ago who had an 18 SB with sunsigns, and therefore a rating of 90%. Can't remember what, but something multiplied the SB by x5.

Human with 17 rolls in str and dex, +4 str due to weight (merely 220 lbs) and Angberillious sunsign.

Broadsword/Falchion (SB=20+3=23) 4SB+1OP = 5*23 = OML 115
Mace (SB=20) 5SB+1OP = 6*20 = OML 120

Perfectly reasonable. IM first campoaign with my friends from High School "Brennan" started with 105, I think, in Broadsword. If he'd insisted on putting another OP It would have only count for 1/2 SB but I didn't penalize him for the first OP. He started play recognized as one of the best young swordsmen among the new generation of knights but knowing that Osrin was an expert horseman and jouster.

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I once had a player with a character that had STR 18 and END 18. He also had a DEX of 15 or so, but this was in the 90s and in that campaign we randomly selected the occupation (5 rolls, select one) and he became a Timberwright (he thought that was suitable). This was HM1 so it didn't matter what occupation he would have gotten, there are no extreme starting OMLs in HM1.

I have not been blessed (or cursed) with players with extreme physical attributes. The only attributes that has been 18 was in one campaign, someone had EYE 18 and another character had HRG 18. There was a standard joke around the table...
PC1 (HRG 18): Sch, I hear something.
PC2 (EYE 18): Yes, I can see that.

When it comes to starting OMLs, I must say that HMG has a better system, sorry that I don't like the game system so much.
I (a lot of years ago now) used a mixture of HM versions. In that mix I used the HMG occupation list (and the skill list). But nowadays I want to concentrate on the game and the story and not on rules so much so I play HM3 (pure).

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
Fenhorn's Hârnpage

Justified. But can you really say the same about the same starting scores with a peasant? Or is this highly unlikely given the OMLs?

Well a peasent wouldn't have access to the weapons, and would start with a lower OML. Given the same starting scores though he'd be looking at 4x23=92 and 5*20=100.

Unless he joined a military group and got some field combat experience I think preventing the application of option points - or only giving reduced benefit (tuncating in some way) might be justified. OTOH his max MLs at 5*SB+40 would be 155 and 140 - even at base OML (3*SB) he'd open sword at 69! he's more than 60 points from his max - barely started in his skill development. If he did have some justifiable reason to say he could have employed the option points fully there is no particular need to limit him to barely his OML. Same for club.

I'd restrict the weapons he had access to. Club and falchion as opposed to mace and broadsword but his OML I don't see limiting if he has reasonable ability to practice. A freakishly strong and gifted peasent might well be a surprisingly challenging opponent to a trainned knight of average ability.


With an open-ended success system I'm not limited to treating all EMLs >95 as effectively the same and with SB5+40 there is pleanty of development room for the character to continue to improve. By all other measures the character is barely begun in improving his skills and it makes little sense to restrict his development.

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Militia gives a Spear and Roundshield of 4xSB each. Adding an option point makes it 5xSB.

With sufficiently high stats and sign, an 18 SB could be obtained similar to the knight mentioned above. 5x18 is of course 90 ML, so yes, it is certainly obtainable.

Although for a while now I have used (St+Dex+Ag)/3 for all hand to hand weapons. This not only keeps down SB's a bit as an 18 in everything is extremely rare, it also is more realisitic IMO, even if you are strong, if you are very agile or dextrous challenged, you won't be real effective

Sunsigns I do a bit different to - after the skillsbases are figured, the sunsign mods add or subtract their mod from the final ML - and add/subtract 2x the bonus from the maximums.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

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Considering Falchion/shield is a more effective weapon combination with HM rules than broadsword/shield, I'd say the peasant is in pretty good stead

The only types using clubs IMC are the lowest of the peasantry - Of course they are as likely to have a grainflail, Falcastra or staff, and probably don't have a shield.

I don't restrict broadswords to nobility only - but they are not the most effective weapon anyway. Pretty well any reasonably well off soldier (Yeoman, man at arms, etc.) will have a decent sidearm is addition to their spear.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Which by the same reasoning though should prevent him from getting the weapon master bonus: +1 OML in other weapons just because of an 80+ ML in a weapon he has just openned.

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I would hate to say "just opened" regarding weapon skills.

For example, a military "period of training" in HM3 is 4 years. And with this they get an ML of 4-6x SB, depending upon type of military (from militia to knight).

I agree here with Mac though on too high of starting ML's -HMG uses OML+SB, which would generate anywhere from an OML of 3xSB to 5xSB, depending upon weapon type.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....