|
Interesting how attempts to provide medieval type systems ignore modern facts. Yes, men may be bigger and stronger in most cases, which I would figure translates into slighlty higher CON and STR, but women tend to have shown in the tests run by the military to have much higher stamina/endurance and dexterity. Stamina/endurance isn't exactly a common attribute for games, but could be provided as a bonus to something like the concentration/skill/spell points used in many to allow special actions or spell casting, this mean that even if they can't attack as hard, they might be able to fight longer without resting. And DEX, tends to make it both easier to hit stuff, harder to 'be' hit and even for some guilds can increase the number of times you do hit. The nature of the combat used may change, making strength dependent things less practical, but that doesn't mean women can't have a major advantage in some other fashion. Equality isn't about perfectly identical abilities, its about getting to the same result, albet in a different way. So they can't swing a huge club as well, just don't let them have something small, lightweight and fast, or you won't have a chance to even start swinging the club. "That" is how things should be balanced, not some artificial equality.
As for all the chivalry, etc. Someone, I don't remember who, made the point in an article a number of year ago that the heroes are the 'abnormal' ones in society. One does not expect them to act exactly like the general populace, any more than someone would have expected Bonecia, from Scottish history to knit a tea cozey while the Romans where invading, instead of sacking London.
|