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 Post subject: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 10:38 am 
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The weapons in DW tend to be simple and samey affairs, where it doesn't matter how you use them, it makes no difference to their performance. Your basic broadsword is always (d8,4). There's no reason to choose a mace when a morning star is superior in every respect etc.

However in reality most weapons could be used several ways. To make combat more fun and less of a grind, perhaps future rules could reflect that.

Some suggestions are as follows:
Broadsword: Slashing: (d6,5) Thrusting (d8,3) pommel-strike (d3,3-tight combat)
Halberd: Chopping: (D8,6) Thrusting (D10,4) and hammering (2d4,5)
Morning Star: (D8,5) reduces attacker's Defence by 2 and defender's Defence by 1.
Mace: (d8,4)


In the above, the sword loses some of its preeminence but is a little more versatile now. The mace is now definitely better than the sword in general but less versatile. The Morning star is more powerful but more tricky to use, which offsets its lethality. The Halberd is a wonderful jack of all trades (just as it was reputed to be in reality). Furthermore by giving weapons more variety this way it encourages players to immerse themselves more into the battle and not leave it as a repetitive roll-fest.

Consider the following:

GM: Sir Gryphon, your adversary [a wodewose wearing king centipede scales hidden under his shaggy poncho] has drawn himself up to his full height and is bellowing a challenge in his guttural native language and swinging a mighty axe around his head to goad you.
Jake: What kind of armour is he wearing?
GM: It seems to be some kind of animal hide. Nothing more.
Jake: I attack with my sword.
Battle ensues. Sir Gryphon lands several solid slashing hits on the wodewose and is rolling well on the d6, but the GM advises that it doesn't seem to be getting through
Jake: He must have some kind of magic armour. I will stab him.
Sir Gryphon hits and rolls an 8 for the stabbing attack
GM: The wild man cries out in pain and fury and a jet of blood shoots down your sword blade. Now he's livid!


Battle continues...


Thoughts?

Cheers,

-Kyle


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 Post subject: Re: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 2:18 pm 
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Some similar mechanic operates in Mount & Blade Warband, an amazing computer game that calculates things like the speed of your mount and impact with a lance. Striking with the blunt edge of a spikey hammer polearm or thrusting with the same thing. It would be good. I always think its cool if cumbersome to describe how you take someone down with your weapons. I'm a fan of pulling people into swords, not striking with them but that's if I make it into movies.

I was thinking of starting a thread on how we should distinguish between two handed swords and halberds. Otherwise, it just seems the halberd is cheaper.

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 Post subject: Re: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 7:55 pm 
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It sounds quite complicated...

I like the idea of bringing more of the narrative into combat - combat should be more than just a sequence of dice that get rolled as the players in this are little more than inefficient spreadsheet formulae generating random numbers and spitting out results. However, having lots of different notations for each weapon will just result in more looking-up-of-rules and fumbling to select the right die.

As with roleplaying guile and conviction (in another thread), you could provide bonuses to hit, armour bypass and\or damage based on the narrative the player uses to describe their character's actions. A character describes, for example, how they use scenery to distract their opponent (bonus to hit) or describes how they take advantage of a weakness in their enemy's defence, maybe from something you mentioned in your own narrative when describing the NPCs' actions (bonus to armour bypass), and so on.

But then I'm all for narrative-heavy role-playing, which I appreciate isn't for everyone. But does anyone really like rolling a load of dice? Such a random element removes the skill and tactical play from the game (although used correctly, they can also introduce tension and doubt to key events in the character's story).

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 Post subject: Re: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 10:33 pm 
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Cobwebbed Dragon wrote:
But does anyone really like rolling a load of dice? Such a random element removes the skill and tactical play from the game


Are you suggesting removing the existing combat rules from the game?

Cheers,

-Kyle


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 Post subject: Re: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 11:05 pm 
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WodenKrait wrote:
Are you suggesting removing the existing combat rules from the game?

I don't run through the minutiae of every combat, just the ones that deserve that level of focus. It can take a long time to hack through a room full of skeletons when you're rolling every hit, whereas the real fun comes when you have to fight the cult leaders themselves! I would just narrate the battle with the skeletons, or roll a few dice to deal with the skeletons as a group, but focus on all the tense detail as the cult leader and his lieutenant trade blows with whichever party members are still standing.

As for speeding up combat, I'd roll the armour bypass die with the attack roll, and I'd just give anyone with a shield a +2 Defence bonus to each attack (it's one less die to roll).

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 Post subject: Re: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 11:58 pm 
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+2 to DEFENCE, just like using Main Gauche. I think that works fine. Especially when that one in 6 doesn't represent anything except random luck rather than the skill of wielding arms. Wasn't that my idea on the yahoogroups?

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 Post subject: Re: Multipurpose weapons
PostPosted: Sat Jan 31, 2015 9:07 am 
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For some reason, this post is showing as written by Wodenkrait, but it's actually Cobwebbed Dragon that's posted this. Curious...

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Quote:
I would just narrate the battle with the skeletons, or roll a few dice to deal with the skeletons as a group,

An interesting idea, but how would you do this? Do you have a simple way to roll up big combats quickly? Some games have a way of resolving encounters with 'brute squads' (or 'extras' or 'spear carriers', which are basically 'spear carriers' that the players should have no difficulty with but which have to be there to satisfy certain dramatic conventions about these kinds of encounters. Also, how feeble does an enemy need to be (and in what numbers) before you decide it is not worth using any rules at all to resolve the encounter and just describe the whole thing? Are your players satisfied with this kind of thing? In the past mine have balked when I've done similar things, calling it playing on rails (some have actually made train noises...)


If they're just mooks of no value to the story other than a bit of exciting 'filler' for the characters, then if the players were in the mood to roll dice, I'd just implement a one-hit, one-kill system. You're right that you have to read the mood of the players - sometimes they're in the mood for a lot of dice rolling and sometimes they just want to get on with the story; it's your job as GM to give them what they want :).

Quote:
Quote:
but focus on all the tense detail as the cult leader and his lieutenant trade blows with whichever party members are still standing.

Without being arbitrary, how would you determine how long the players are taking to mow down the skeletons so they can get to the meat of the encounter? If the cult leader decides to flee (for instance) it will be important to determine fairly how quickly the players can get past the pests and catch up with him.

If the combat serves a purpose (in this case to slow down the party to give the cult leaders time to escape), then I'd absolutely play through each round. I'd only 'skip' the encounter if it was just flavour for the adventure as a whole.

Quote:
Quote:
As for speeding up combat, I'd roll the armour bypass die with the attack roll, and I'd just give anyone with a shield a +2 Defence bonus to each attack (it's one less die to roll).

Makes sense. Also makes a +3 enchanted shield an impressive possession! Do you provide a bigger bonus for Expert Parry, or for different kinds of shields?

Yup, any +3 magical item is a considerable boon to a character, which is why I reserve handing those kinds of rewards out for the truly auspicious adventures. And even then, they may not be exactly what they seem...

As for Expert Parry, I don't use the 'standard' Knight Skills of the Mighty, but have something similar: Shield Mastery, which confers +3 Defence instead of +2 Defence when using a shield. And i don't complicate the game with lots of different types of shield.


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