fulk

Social class probably also matters. For example, a peasant probably only has access to militia training. A soldier would have access to training in a few specific weapons used by his troop (eg, pike, shortsword, dagger). However, gentry and higher would have the $$ and time to access to more formal and broad training. I keep coming back to the 'fight books' of people like Fiore de Liberi or Achille Marozzo. Marozzo's Opera Nova, for example, includes: sword and shield, sword and dagger, sword, sword and cape, dagger and cape, unarmed against dagger, 2H sword, and pole arms. Including all of those would be a pretty broad Combat Style as noted previously. I think I plan to treat them as several Proficiencies within a Weapon School where you can buy the Weapon School during chargen like a Combat Style but with defaults from the primary to other foci. Then the proficiencies are split out into different Combat Styles for advancement during play. Primary focus: Cut & Thrust -- sword & dagger, sword & buckler, sword & cloak, sword, dagger. Secondary Focus: Sword & Shield -- sword and larger shields (-10%) Tertiary Foci: Longsword (2H swords,-20%); Pole arms (- 30%); Unarmed (-30%) I'm not sure what the Trait would be, but I'd only give a trait for the Primary Combat Style at the start. To gain a Trait for the other Combat Styles you would have to advance them say 10%. So you might advance Longsword 10% and then gain Halfswording as a Trait. F

Talislanta...

Yes. I mostly agree. i think the thing in the end is to modify it for your game. Combat Styles are left fairly open ended for that purpose. RE defaults, I think you also just have to be reasonable. Mounted archery may have nothing to do with your sword and shield skill. No default or perhaps 50% for general aggressiveness and initiative. 50% probably only gives a small bump. If you base is 30% (15 Str, 15 Dex) and you put 15% into your main skill at each step, you'd be 75% in sword and shield. That might give you 37% as a base for mounted archery...a small bump. I think I'd also just default between styles based on the guidelines for defaulting between weapons. But I'm generous. F

I would agree with your overall assessment. Note that Shores of Kortantia gives different types of Combat Styles: Civilian, Militia, and Military. It sort of matches your observations versus military and bandit styles. Civilian styles are mostly one weapon or weapon combo. Militia styles are a couple (spear, shield). Military styles include more weapons (spear, shield, javelin, short sword). I think I'm pretty set on the idea of using broader Combat Styles during chargen but then separating out more specific ones during play. So I might give a medieval knight: lance, sword, mace and shield as a starting combat school and then advance lance & shield, sword & shield, mace & shield separately as individual combat styles. I used to play The Riddle of Steel a bit. TRoS had 'Proficiencies' and 'Weapon Schools'. A proficiency was fairly specific: longsword, cut & thrust, sword & shield. There were defaults between proficiencies, so if you trained in longsword you had some competence with cut & thrust fighting, but your untrained proficiency was limited. TRoS was a dice-pool game, but in percentile terms you might have 80% in longsword, which would default to 60% in cut & thrust, with the caveat that a default couldn't be higher than say 75%. So you might be 120% with a longsword, but still only 75% with a sword and dagger. Multiple proficiencies made up a weapon school. A weapon school had a focus proficiency (eg long sword) and other proficiencies that it also taught (cut & thrust, dagger, pole axe, grappling). Defaults among proficiencies within a Weapon School were lower (you might have longsword as your focus at 80% and default to cut & thrust at 70%). You could then either advance individual proficiencies or the whole weapon school (more slowly). The bonus of advancing the whole weapon school was that it eliminated default maximums because you were assumed to be training with all the weapons, just more focused on the main weapon. So, for example, Achille Marozzo taught what might be called Cut & Thrust (sword, sword & dagger, sword and buckler) as a main focus, but his manuals also include longsword, dagger and polearms. You could advance just cut & thrust proficiency or the whole school (but the whole school cost more). Whatever the specifics, I like the general idea. F

Artesia would be cool too.

Dune would be awesome. True. Mythic Europe would be handy.

I'd vote for: Italian Wars (1500s) period 30-Years War Napoleonic Wars period Penny Dreadful-like setting with all the supernatural. F

Road Warrior or Car Wars Twilight 2000 (2013) Sharpe's Rifles

Personally I would love Warhammer (the 1st edition version of the world). Put that on a kick-starter and I'm in. I do, however, have a love-hate relationship with 'careers'. Already d100-like. I would also suggest Starfrontiers, one of my favorite sci-fi games. Also d100, sort of. Perhaps M-Space already fills this roll for a d100 sci-fi though. I haven't seen it yet.

I have to admit, I always liked the idea of Glorantha but some of the weirder bits are kind of a turnoff. In reality though, it isn't too hard to just ignore ducks and make all the Praxian tribes ride horses. YGMV

brilliant

The best approach to battles really depends on the players and characters role in the battle. If you're just a spear in the shield wall and only responsible for yourself and the guy next to you, then scripted results make sense. The characters really only need interact with their local tactical environment. Their actions may have no effect on the outcome, just their survival. If you're the general, then you probably want to determine the outcome based on your skills etc (and that of your army). One could use a war game approach to let the player make the decisions or a rpg battle approach to use the PCs skills etc. I prefer the latter myself (probably from playing a lot of Pendragon, which has had many different battle systems over the years). There is obviously a range in between such as the above post where the actions of a few intrepid adventurers might swing the tide of the battle through GM narrative if the PCs achieve a goal.

Thanks. I've had RQ6/Mythras for a while, but have never really read deeply into it. The more I read, however, the more I like it. F

Ah. Thanks. I will have to re-read this evening...been a while. F

I do think it would be quite cool to alter the system such that one character has an advantage and the initiative. While you 'hold' the initiative, you get to attack and your opponent can only parry. Win the parry (using opposed resolution rules?) and take back the initiative. You don't necessarily get to attack and parry each round. I've always thought the 'everyone gets to attack' approach seems a bit unrealistic. I'm not real clear on the RQ6/Mythras rules, but if I understand them correctly, this is actually kind of built in with the use of Action Points (AP). Take two characters each with 2 AP. Fighter 1 has a higher strike rank and attacks first. If successful, in most cases, this will force Fighter 2 to parry. As long as Fighter 1 successfully attacks (parried or not), Fighter 2 will run out of AP each round before being able to attack. If Fighter 1 misses or Fighter 2 gets a special, Fighter 2 could then attack. I could have this wrong though. I used to play a bit of The Riddle of Steel, which sort of worked that way (maintaining the initiative until the defender beat you somehow). It meant that a truly superior swordsman could dominate a combat and mostly prevent an opponent from even getting off an attack. There were some ways around that, which were quite deadly if not pulled off. I died a lot... F

I do like the Traits. I think I have Legend somewhere. I'm mostly just mulling in my head how to do the Combat Styles...I think I might go with using broad cultural or profession based styles for chargen (Knight) but then advancing more specific styles (sword & shield) separately once the game starts with default of -20% between the specific styles within the broader one. That way you could develop into a great archer without being a great swordsman but it wouldn't cost more during chargen. I'll probably change my mind when I get home... F

Yes. I think it would apply to 2H swords. Many were quite pointy. It probably also applies to later poleaxes which could be used in a manner similar to a longsword. I think there are two parts: (1) Change reach to M or S (from L). Usable against any opponent. Also what the manuals of that period show. (2) Damage. Personally, I'd prefer a simple approach like just making it an automatic Trait that bumps up your db vs. rigid armor (if you shorten up your grip). All these other ideas work too. Just depends how you want to model it. Main point is that the overall idea seems reasonable.

That is certainly an option. It all depends on what level of detail you prefer in a game. I think that is the point of allowing flexibility in designing the schools. I wouldn't mind a system more like Warhammer (1st or 2nd ed) where you have a Weapon Skill and Ranged Skill and then use 'Traits' to use specific weapons. I've been thinking about this a lot recently. At one level it makes sense to lump a bunch of weapons into a combat style like Knight: lance, broadsword, mace, shield. When trained as a squire, you'd learn all four. However, it is also somewhat unsatisfying because it doesn't really distinguish between similar characters. No one is the great swordsman, superb jouster or killer with a mace. You're good at everything. One thought I had was to mimic Proficiencies and Weapon Schools from The Riddle of Steel. A proficiency would be equivalent to a fairly focused Combat Style such as Sword and Shield or Longsword. Weapon Schools are more like broad combat styles like Knight. The Weapon Schools combine multiple proficiencies (sword & shield, mace & shield, lance) but make one the primary focus and others secondary or tertiary focus applying a penalty. However, they all increase together. So you might have: Medieval Knight Weapon School Primary Combat Style: Sword & Shield (including sword alone) Secondary (-10%): Lance, mass weapon & shield Tertiary (-20%): poleax, dagger, grappling Trait: Mounted Combat. Once could allow the PC to choose the Primary Focus from the main weapons. Just a thought. I think the other route is to just allow the purchase of a broad, culturally relevant Combat Style during chargen, but then split it into rational sections for advancement. So you could buy Militia Bowman: longbow, sword & buckler, dagger at chargen. But then keep track of them separately as Longbow, and Sword and Buckler (letting dagger sit within Sword & Buckler or not). Fulk

Interesting ideas. I think it just depends on preference. At 20% of weapon skill you could end up halving (or more) the AP for full plate. I think I'd prefer just bumping up the db one level (ie, 1d2 to 1d4). I'd rather not have another calculation to do. I do like the idea of tying it to skill though. Adding it as an effect might not be a bad idea either. NT

Yes. ONLY versus an armored opponent (noted in the original description). It isn't about the 'swing' as much as prying open armor joints (as I understand it). So potentially only vs. Plate & Chain or Plate or armor with 4 AP or greater (eg brigandine). Something like that. So no bonus against lighter armors. I think you could still allow the 'choke up' to M or S for other reasons (like your opponent got close to you)...but no increase to damage in those cases.

Ignore armor as a non-critical effect is pretty powerful even with shifting down one level. If your db is 1d2, your damage vs some one in plate would be 1d10 + 1d2 - 8 (for plate) normally but 1d10+1d4 - 8. Ignoring armor but lowering db would be 1d10 - 0. It is broad, but it is what is in his fencing manuals and the weapons were taught together. Another option, would be to just include longsword 2h and longsword 2h vs armor and let the other weapons default as reasonable similar (eg -10%).

I was thinking of starting a game set ~ 15C. I'd like a Combat Style based off of Fiore dei Liberi's teachings: longsword 2h longsword 2h in armor (half-swording) longsword 1h sword 1h poleaxe dagger grappling spear He also has some sections on mounted combat but that could just fall under the other weapons. Half-swording involved shifting one hand to the blade of the sword to provide leverage when trying to use the sword like a can-opener versus armor. As a Trait, I was contemplating: Half-sword: when fighting an armored opponent you can reduce the weapon reach to M or S. Shift Damage Bonus up one level (to represent effectiveness vs armor), or perhaps just +1 damage. Thoughts...

I definitely like the idea of Combat Styes (and the 'defaults' in RQ6/Mythras for weapon similarity). It is a major increase over being the worlds greatest swordsman but helpless with a mace. Certainly historically groups of weapons would have been learned together. For example, many western renaissance fighting manuals teach/show 'plays' for multiple weapons like longsword 2H, sword 1H, dagger, pole axe...etc. The basic concepts and principles for attack and defense were the same. However, I would agree that it seems a little weird that as you get better with a sword you also get better with a bow. How you combine them depends on the detail you want in your campaign, I'd say. If you want one character to be a great bowman and the other to be a great swords man but they are both English yoemen, then just having a Yeoman Combat Style (longbow, sword and buckler, sword, dagger) doesn't really work. If one character is a fighter-type and the others are not, then it may not matter. I'd suggest there are a number of options. (1) Use different styles for each. Longbow might just include longbow and shortbow, while Sword & Buckler might include: sword & buckler, sword, dagger. Costs more skill points but you could just give a few more Skill Points during Chargen to be used exclusively on Combat Styles to make up for the additional cost. (2) Use one Combat Style for Chargen but then allow individual weapons to develop at different rates. Or let missile and melee weapons develop separately after chargen. Kind of like (1). (3) Use one Combat Style but pick a specialty. Yeoman Combat Style: Longbow, sword & buckler, bill, dagger. Pick a specialty, eg longbow. Everything else is -10% to represent your focus. Allows similar characters to use the same Combat Style but have some differences in their approach to things. F

Personally, I'm pretty happy with the BGB. I mean, it has just about everything with multiple levels of complexity. Keep it in print even if just POD. However, if Essentials is supposed to be a stripped down version, then I'd vote for something more along the lines of Dark Ages Cthuhlu w/o hit locations, only one weapon skill (no attack and parry) etc. Something simple. Perhaps one magic system or unified powers type system. Focusing on Glorantha is great, but I would hate to see BRP disappear because it is so useful for so many genre. I wouldn't mind the addition of for 'Talents'-like mechanic to help make characters a bit more unique. Aside from that and a few pet peeves about weapon damage, that is about it.

Very true. I also agree you can't really model everything. In 'reality' many attacks with a single weapon also include a defense. I saw a Renaissance martial arts demonstration recently. One point they made was that if you thrust properly (with a spear or sword), the angle is such that it makes it hard for your opponent to strike back. Your weapon is in his/her way. I'm not sure how you'd do that in RQ. Perhaps defense from RQ2. Perhaps just parry. NT