Dragon Warriors
http://www.libraryofhiabuor.net/forum/

Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield
http://www.libraryofhiabuor.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=336
Page 3 of 3

Author:  Starkad [ Fri Mar 09, 2018 9:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Quote:
The matter is there are plenty of knights in plate armour around Mercania.

I would have thought that rather unlikely. The usual Mercanian is a barbarian - which limits them to chainmail armour.

Quote:
...or personally I would never carry this weapon as a pc.

It depends who, or what, you are fighting. Spears (either 2d4 or 2d3) would be excellent against lightly armoured opponents. You can always drop the spear and pull out a heavier weapon if you see a heavily armoured warrior approaching...
(Spears also make great poles for checking depth of water, etc.)

Author:  hermes421 [ Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Starkad wrote:
Quote:
The matter is there are plenty of knights in plate armour around Mercania.

I would have thought that rather unlikely. The usual Mercanian is a barbarian - which limits them to chainmail armour.

When I said "around" , I meant about the countries by the borders :) (Albion, Chaubrette...) .
Even against a chainmail armour, I would prefer a sword, ;) .
Definitely I like your idea of 2d4 : 4 with a bonus of initiative for a long spear using 2 hands. But I actually think 2d4 :3 is more viable and balanced for a short spear (especially if they carry only one main weapon).

Have a good week-end

Author:  Starkad [ Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Quote:
When I said "around" , I meant about the countries by the borders

Oh, I see (my mistake).

It depends on your world, I suppose. Personally, I limit the availability of plate armour - it's expensive and difficult to make. Only the better off knights (and Player Character knights) are likely to have any. Chain mail is more common.
(In the richer, more "advanced" lands around the Coradian Sea, plate will be more widely available.)

Quote:
Even against a chainmail armour, I would prefer a sword

That's fine. Again, it depends on the character: if you have +1 Armour By-pass due to a very high Strength, then the spear ignores all armour up to hard leather (and will usually get through ring mail too)...

A magic spear (with +1, +2 bonus) starts to become very interesting indeed. ;)

Quote:
But I actually think 2d4 :3 is more viable and balanced for a short spear (especially if they carry only one main weapon).

Possibly. It would certainly fit in with the relative difference given to a sword and a shortsword - (d8, 4) and (d8, 3) respectively.

Quote:
Have a good week-end

Merci. Vous aussi.

Author:  Starkad [ Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

I've been thinking about this over the last couple of days, and think I will stay with (2d3, 3) for a short, one-handed spear.

Why? I've been looking at lots of pictures of late medieval combat (tapestries, woodcuts, etc.) and note that in almost all of them the spear was used in both hands (while, at the same time, armour has improved). It seems that the one-handed spear was fine when most of your opponents were fairly lightly armoured, but fell out of favour as armour improved.*
* I may be wrong here, but that's what the images appear to convey.

Also, in game terms, if you make the short spear a (2d4, 3) weapon, why would anyone in their right mind use a shortsword? A shortsword would be much more expensive to make, harder to train to use and, against most opponents (i.e. those with AF3 or less), would actually be an inferior weapon. The increase to 2d4 ABP appears quite high for a one-handed weapon.
Comparing the short spear (2d3, 3) to a mace (d6, 4), the short spear becomes better than the mace against opponents with AF2 or less, but the mace wins in terms of damage inflicted.

Acoma says:
Quote:
I think 2d4 and 2d3 for Great Spear and Standard Spear respectively are good...

...and now I agree.

As Hermes421 says...
Quote:
Even against a chainmail armour, I would prefer a sword

...and perhaps that's as it should be. In a vaguely "heroic" game the sword retains a certain mystique and it's good that it is not overshadowed by the spear.

I will retain the +4 Combat Initiative I give to great spears (otherwise they are a little weak as a two-handed weapon),* but will give only +1 to the short spear as it does not extend all that far (not that much further than an extended sword, for example).
* Compared to greatsword (d10, 5) or battle-axe (d8, 6).

In my games, all weapons break on a "fumble",* but swords and greatswords are dropped instead. This gives swords another little edge over other weapons and is inspired from Greg Stafford's KAP game - so you might not want it in your own games.
* A roll of 20 is not a fumble: it is a miss and a potential fumble. A fumble occurs when an individual rolls a 20, then rolls over their Rank + Reflexes on a second d20 roll. An attack roll of 20 followed by another 20 is always a fumble. This is one of my own house rules.

Author:  Acoma [ Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Starkad wrote:

In my games, all weapons break on a "fumble",* but swords and greatswords are dropped instead. This gives swords another little edge over other weapons and is inspired from Greg Stafford's KAP game - so you might not want it in your own games.
* A roll of 20 is not a fumble: it is a miss and a potential fumble. A fumble occurs when an individual rolls a 20, then rolls over their Rank + Reflexes on a second d20 roll. An attack roll of 20 followed by another 20 is always a fumble. This is one of my own house rules.


You seem to have a lot of good house rules for realistic combat. Do you have a website somewhere?

Author:  Starkad [ Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Quote:
You seem to have a lot of good house rules for realistic combat

The term "good" is subjective, of course. ;) I've never gone for realism. I've made changes where forced to do so by players and circumstance, but my self-imposed limit is that all my "house rules" could be stripped away and the basic game would then reappear unchanged. Basically, they're just "add-ons"...

Quote:
Do you have a website somewhere?

No.

I have a FB group where some of my stuff is posted... But it's subject to the limitations presented by FB itself (whether the site can bother showing you all the posts, that kind of thing). Anyone is welcome to join - although I have to "approve" them (which tends to depend on whether I've bothered looking at FB that day)... By keeping it that way, it avoids people's DW posts contaminating their normal newsfeed.

The group is called "Advanced Dragon Warriors." I don't really like the name, but couldn't think of anything better at the time.

Note that my Combat Rules (like a lot of my DW stuff, in fact) are undergoing revision, so things might change...

Author:  wimlach [ Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Just a note - I actually think the weapon stats in original DW are a bit rubbish - they have weapons specifically designed to defeat armour (ball and chain) having low armour bypass and high damage.

If using vanilla rules, I always used to swap the stats of Morning Star & Sword, Mace and Shortsword, Battleaxe and Two-handed Sword.

Though I eventually dropped the AB+Damage and just went for a single die roll, from which armour was deducted to get the final wound (armour penetrating weapons halved the opponents AF). In that system a sword did d8 damage, a shortsword d6. A spear did d6 one handed, and d8 two-handed. So a spear was slightly more flexible than a shortsword in that it could be used two-handed for some extra damage, but it had a penalty in that it was 2 enc to carry, while a shortsword was only 1. You could also sheath a shortsword, but a spear had to be kept in hand.

Author:  Kharille [ Sun Mar 11, 2018 4:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

I totally agree with that. I'm sure bladed weapons are more severe on an unarmoured opponent. But perhaps 2ed could'e been remade to reflect actual combat in that respect. Perhaps some bonus to 'reflexes' for spear and halberd wielders. At least for those engaged in combat at least.

Author:  Starkad [ Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercanian Barbarians often favour a spear and shield

Quote:
Though I eventually dropped the AB+Damage and just went for a single die roll, from which armour was deducted to get the final wound...

That's actually a system I would prefer. It's how the game works in WFRPS and King Arthur Pendragon; it allows for a greater flexibility in developing armour. Most weapons do the same damage, based on the Attributes of the wielder (with a modifier if it's a small weapon or a two-handed weapon).

Page 3 of 3 All times are UTC
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
https://www.phpbb.com/