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I think there is a good reason why in almost all martial arts where strength is important the athletes are organized in classes based on their weight (= body mass) for the competitions, and why it is considered unfair to put a light weight athlete against a heavy weight athlete.

True, but I would hesitate to accept a fictional character as an example, I could easily write a story about someone with SIZ 3 and STR 20.

The alternative to the generic weapon names and descriptions, which are indeed more confusing than useful for historical settings, would probably be something like the Oakeshott Typology, but I doubt that gamers would like such a scientific approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakeshott_typology

You could try to find a copy of this article written by Barton Hacker, perhaps through your library. I think it would be a good start for any research into this subject: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3103204 You could also ask the users of the Military History forum of SinoDefence, they are probably the best "panel of experts" immediately available: http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/

From my experience, no, the advantages and disadvantages tend to balance out. For example, in my view a serious disadvantage of a two hand sword is the com- paratively high mass, and therefore comparatively high inertia, which usually leads to a somewhat slow fighting style, while someone with one hand sword and shield can attack with both in quick succession, which usually results in a faster fighting style.

If you are used to fight with a one hand weapon (e.g. longsword) or with a one hand weapon and a small parry weapon (e.g. rapier and dagger), but not trained in the use of a shield, that d****d thing also gets in the way of all the "unarmed martial arts" elements of your style which use the "off hand", and which are far more important in a realistic fight than most people tend to believe.

Your first wish is granted, Loretta.

It seems more plausible to me, because otherwise techniques where the secon- dary weapon is a dedicated parry weapon, like fighting with sword and shield or fencing with rapier and dagger, would not work in any remotely realistic way, es- pecially when there are two or more opponents.

Your warrior with a Sword skill of 50 % uses the sword to parry an attack. Now a second parry with the sword would be at - 30 %, giving him only a 20 % chan- ce to parry the second attack. However, he also has his shield and his Shield skill of 30 %, so he can use the shield to parry that second attack, with a chan- ce that is 10 % better than the one he would now have with the sword. It seems to me that this does improve his defence.

True, but then you would either have to replace the stats with other values used for all tasks which are not covered by skills (e.g. lifting things, etc.), or your skill list would have to become a bit longer because of additional skills required to co- ver such tasks. I am not sure whether this would be much of an improvement.

At least the stats could easily be reduced to one Physical stat and one Mental stat, and all other really necessary values based upon them. The only real prob- lem I would see is that the characters could become too much alike.

According to page 261, the Burden of the armour can be used with the optional fatigue system, and according to page 219 the character loses two to four times the normal loss of fatigue points per combat round of activity when he suffers stifling heat or freezing cold. Combined this could probably be seen as a rule for the "armour and heat problem".

In the German Midgard RPG a character needs a minimum attribute to be allowed to learn a skill (e.g. a Dexterity of 61+ to be able to learn Climb), and the attri- bute also determines the maximum skill level the character can reach. It works quite well, but it adds another layer of complexity to the character generation, because it also influences possible background skills, professions and character types, and I am not certain whether this is worth it.

... or who later, much too late, turns out to have been Nemesis in disguise ...

It will depend on the style of the campaign, but if it is close to the "feeling" of the Greek myths and heroic tales, this also influences the consequences of an unwise use of a divine blessing - a character who uses it against the (not al- ways obvious) interests of the deity who gave him the blessing has probably earned himself a few centuries of cruel torture. There would also be many other dangers, acts which are always punished by the deities, like comparing someone with a deity, entering a deity's sacred place, kil- ling one of a deity's sacred animals, and so on and on.

And they usually have at least one enemy among the deities who wants them dead, uses his or her powers to make life miserable for them, and often also succeeds in killing them. The more heroic the hero is, the higher is the probabi- lity that one of the deities will begin to dislike what he does, and therefore be- gin to plot his downfall. For example, Ajax - mentioned some posts earlier - an- gered Athena, who had him shipwrecked, and when he survived this and boas- ted that even she did not manage to kill him, Poseidon made him drown ...

Yes, just imagine a life size "Trojan" horse made of paper mache and hollow, a person with an average strength could easily throw it. On the other hand, a ve- ry much smaller statue of a horse made of solid gold could be much too heavy to throw, even for a much stronger person.

It seems seneschal never really got over it ...

I very much think so. For example, with an average human Strength of 10.5 and the average SIZ of a horse of 26 this seems very plausible, as throwing horses is a comparatively rare pastime. However, this system uses SIZ for volume as well as mass, and therefore tends to break down whenever volume and mass of an object are not closely related, for example when a large object is very light or a small object is very heavy. This is why I would prefer to make a mental "reality check" before I apply the rule and replace the rule with common sense whenever its result seems weird.

Well, nothing wrong with her thorax, I think.

From the project's webpage: By the way, there was also a late distant relative of the linothorax, the Gambeson, although in this case the layers of linen were quilted toge- ther instead of glued together: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson

At least not any version I know. The early version only had the rule for a critical hit mentioned above, later versions also have an optional rule for special success and fumble, but as far as I am aware of it the differences between the weapon types (for example crushing, slashing, impaling, etc.) do not exist in Call of Cthul- hu.

Homer already used "Linothorax" (λινοθώρηξ), and so did others of the ancient authors. Edit.: I looked it up in an online translation of the Iliad to see whether any other inter- pretation would be possible, but the text is very clear: http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html Other translations of the Iliad are identical, Homer definitely wrote about a thorax / breastplate made of linen.

"Lino ..." means "made of linen", and I would be very surprised if the ancient Greek authors would have fumbled their mother tongue rolls.

I am not aware of this. The only relevant rule I know of is that all firearms and all melee weapons with a point can cause critical hits on 1/5 or less of the cha- racter's skill with the weapon, leading to double damage (and a melee weapon has to be removed from the target's body next round without additional dama- ge).