Barak Shathur

How do people play OpenQuest on Roll20? I haven't found a suitable character sheet. Any advice?

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Well. I thought MW was supposed to be a generic fantasy game.

Unrelated question: what is a “sea axe”? Is it like a viking long axe? I sure hope they don’t mean a seax 😄

The rules regarding parrying are a bit confusing. On the one hand, there is the Att/Def matrix which indicates a binary parrying system, on the other there is discussion of weapon damage being rolled against the parrying weapon's HP. The two are incompatible, how is it supposed to work? (nevermind, I figured it out)

I've started up my BECMI campaign using the Mythras Classic Fantasy Imperative, and it works like a charm! I really recommend giving that a try (shouldn't be too hard to convert from BRP). I think it has some upsides over the earlier version (and it's free by the way). It's seriously some of the most fun I've had in roleplaying in a long time.

When a location is hit by an armour piercing weapon, I halve its AP "on the fly". Couldn't be any simpler. I honestly don't understand this. Maybe we are talking past each other? I still don't understand your argument. When a location is hit by an armour piercing weapon, I simply halve the total AP of that location, no matter how many layers. This is a good point. Since I want to stay as close to RAW as possible, I'm going to steal the Puncturing rule from Mythic Constantinople that you described above for the Military Pick. Thanks for the discussion!

I was comparing scimitars to broadswords and falchions. This is not a valid comparison. Sabres and scimitars are both long, curved swords. Scimitars are strong weapons, at the least on a par with broadswords. But in Mythras, they are simply worse. I happen to find the sabre stats pretty much how I would have designed a scimitar, so I'm using those. What's your problem? This you?

Ok, that worked. I have to quote all three in succession before putting anything in the reply box. What I did before was I quoted something and typed a response, then tried to add more quotes under it. Got it, thanks.

I’m comparing weapons that were roughly contemporaneous. But you know what, Sabre has the perfect stat line for a Scimitar, and in a 10,000 year perspective they’re similar enough that it seems unnecessary to differentiate between them, IMO. I’m gonna call it Sabre/Scimitar and run with that. Thanks!

Aren't scimitars sold a little short in Mythras? Basically an expensive broadsword without Impale. Or an inferior falchion. If you were to boost it, what would you do? I guess it is possible to impale with a scimitar, but it would be a bit boring to make it just an expensive broadsword. One could add a damage point, with the argument that they have very good cutting power, but I don't like the idea of damage creep. Also might make them a bit overpowered. One idea I have is to reduce ENC to 1, like a sabre, the logic being that they are somewhat less clunky to handle than broad or long swords. But that's a little contrived maybe. My ideal solution would be some kind of armour penetration vs soft armour, since they have such cutting power, but that's not a function in the rules. Thoughts? Added: another idea would be some kind of improved bleeding, say a grade more difficult on the endurance test or something. But, that does seem a little too house-ruley maybe. Anyway, am I the only one who finds Mythras scimitars a bit pointless, pun intended :,(

Hold on, I don't need to figure out a new AP value for each piece of armour, only the ones being hit with an armour piercing weapon. It's the same as when using half max damage for the piercing. Except that with my method I know it's always half the AP, which I already have in front of me since I have to take that into account in any case for any armoured hit location that is struck. And then it's to my mind simpler to simply halve them, rather than subtract a value that will vary with the weapon being used. Say there's daggers, military picks and some third armour piercing variant in a fight. I now have to figure out the max damage for each one of those and subtract them from AP every time something gets hit. That's one extra step. I think my method is less labour intensive, at least for me.

Yes, that is what I do when I quote. However, I wanted to quote both you and Raleel, but since you’re on different pages of this thread I can’t. Going back and forth between the pages resets my post and anything written or quoted in it. Sorry to belabour this point, but it struck me that armour penetration as halving AP is simpler also in the sense that it is only one calculation, while basing it on the weapon means two, halving the weapon damage and then subtracting it from AP.

I was responding to this suggestion from Raleel: "I would go for a book that covers that period better - mythic Constantinople. In there we find Puncturing – the weapon has a significant metal spike, usually slightly curved and designed to penetrate stiff armour. Can also apply to ammunition. Ignores a specific number of armour points equal to half the maximum damage capability of the weapon but only against rigid armour. So a puncturing dagger (1d4+1 damage) ignores 3 points of rigid armour. said military pick would then gain 4 points of armor piercing, which would mean he could get through the plate 50% of the time." I should have included the quotation (now I can't figure out how to quote from multiple pages, hence copy/paste).

That's commendable! I only went back halfway, to make sure I wasn't repeating myself 😄 Good question. Maybe all non-natural armour, but magic enhancements are not affected. So a +2 AP gothic plate protects at 6AP when sundered. What makes it simpler is that I, as GM, don't have to consider the individual combatants' weapons, which may vary. Instead I simply halve the armour struck, regardless of weapon. That woulds seem to generate slighly less overhead (to me, at least). I agree that it's more realistic that the damage done varies with the quality of the blow, but on the one hand it means more variety and thus more overhead, on the other I lose the balancing (and somewhat realistic*) aspect of sunder being more effective the heavier the armour is, while producing a relatively modest effect on lighter armour. I never said swords sunder. This is along the lines of what I was thinking too. Not too much heavy armour floating around. My impulse is both to change things that don't seem right to me, and also to limit the amount of house rules to a minimum. This would be my only one in this case. But I guess you're right. I'll follow your advice and feel it out before I change anything. Thanks! * Realistic in the sense that a lighter armoured person can move around a lot more and thus evade some of the impact of a blow, while a more heavily armoured combatant is more static and thus absorbs more of the power)

Necro! I'm getting ready to GM this game, and Sunder still doesn't sit exactly right with me. I would like some opinions on this idea: Sunder as armour penetration in the sense that it ignores half of the AP of the location struck, rather than half the weapon's max damage or a set amount. One upside would be that it might easier to process if it's based on the type of armour rather than the particular weapon (i.e., a sundered articulated plate is always 4AP). Another is that it makes it relatively more useful against heavier armour, so that e.g. swords and spears are potentially better at getting through light armour thanks to their impale effect, while axes and hammers are better against mail and plate. My concern is, does this make sundering weapons too powerful? Especially in the case of two handed weapons, that already do a lot of damage. Looking for feedback.

Fantastic news! I am so starting up a Mystara campaign with this. Looks great.

I actually asked Jason about this in Discord, and he confirmed that armour worn does not count towards ENC. One should use the armour skill penalty instead. I think there was a line to this effect in BGB, but it seems to have fallen out in UGE. It might be nice if it was put in again.

I only watched the part with riveted mail, but damn it was quite impressive. Mail wearers mostly had to worry about blunt trauma and really pointy things. Kind of what I thought.

It's a bit confusing, since there are three separate sections which party overlap, partly contradict each other. But my reading of it is basically this: Long weapons go before other weapons regardless of DEX rank, unless a short or medium weapon user enters close combat by succeeding with a dodge or parry roll instead of attacking, in which case the long weapon user can only attack or parry, not both, and parrying is difficult, while the shorter weapon's attacks are easy. The long weapon user on the other hand can choose to keep shorter weapon users at bay instead of attacking by succeeding with a weapon skill roll. When kept at bay, shorter weapon users have to succeed with dodge or parry roll to get close enough to be able to attack. It's a little unclear to me whether this results in close combat or just that the shorter weapon user can attack normally. If it were me, I would simplify and extend the system like this: 1. At normal melee range, longer weapons go before shorter weapons (long before medium and short, medium before short), but everyone gets to attack. 2. A combatant can alter the distance by succeeding with an opposed roll. The longer weapon uses weapon skill while the shorter weapon uses either dodge or parry. 3. A shorter weapon user can thus enter close combat with a longer weapon user, which functions as above, while a longer weapon user can keep a shorter one at bay. But this all applies to medium vs short weapons as well, which would add some dynamism to short weapons IMO.

Really going out on a limb here because I haven’t watched the whole video (think I saw some of it a while back), but looking at those stats from the perspective of my prior assumptions and SCA experience, one interpretation could be that they in addition to showing the relative efficacy of different matchups display a learning curve, in that the sword and shields gradually catch up to the spears. If neither of the combatants were used to spears it would seem to me that the reach advantage of a spear would be immediately apparent to the wielder, while the sword guy has to learn just how close he has to step in to crowd his opponent and nullify that advantage. From my own experience it’s very counter intuitive and takes some practice. What I see in many of these spear vs sword videos (the above and others) is that the sword guy seldom gets close enough and then the spear guy is able to back off and decide the distance (to his advantage). Added: I think of games I know, BRP does the best job of simulating this dynamic with the closing/close combat rule.

Hey, that’s a brilliant idea!

Part 2. You said "(t)he real advantage from maces and such is that they tend to be a little heavier than cutting weapons with more of the weaight in the head so they tend to have more of an impact." In other words, better at delivering the kind of damage they were designed for (crushing) through the protection offered (mail, designed to stop slashing and piercing) than a sword, whose main mode of damage is cutting rather than crushing (though not exclusively). Ergo, mail is better at stopping sword cuts than mace blows. That's my point. Again, I think the RQIII errata does a decent job of representing this aspect with its rule for crushing weapons vs mail. Which wasn't what you said previously. You said Sword had an advantage vs. Spear. It doesn't. Sword and Shield vs. Spear is a different situation. And all of the fighters are more experienced with sword than with a spear. That showed just how much of an advantage the spear gave. Note that when the spearman also carries a shield (although that negates his reach) or works in a group things shift again. No the historical reality would have a group of spearmen fighting together. Not facing off against swordmen one on one. Plus also historically most people who carry a sword had more experience that those with a spear, since the sword was a more expensive weapon of the upper classes, `who tended to be trained warriors, as opposed to most spear wielders, who were not. And experience is the biggest advantage. Regarding the spear vs sword controversy I'll say this: it depends on whether you're using the spear one or two handed, and whether the sword is paired with another weapon (like a shield). Yes, a two handed spear has a distinct advantage against a single one handed sword, bur so does any two handed weapon since you have more reach and force available. So what the video is saying is "a 2H weapon is superior to a 1H weapon", a point that hardly needs making. However, it's more interesting to compare 2H spear vs sword and shield, or 1H spear and shield vs 1H sword and shield, where the combatants thus are more evenly matched. Who comes out on top? In the video it seems to favour the sword, for the precise reason I give: it's relatively easy to push the spear aside with the shield and then get inside the reach of the tip. An extreme example of this would be the Battle of Pydna, where once the roman legionnaries had got past the sarissas the Macedonians had to drop them and turn to sword fighting, where the romans triumphed since the gladius was longer than the kopis and the romans were generally better trained sword fighters. Now this was massed battle rather than single combat, but you get the point! It's all about the spearman's ability to stop the swordsman as he closes, and it makes a big difference whether gently tapping him suffices, or if he needs to really stab hard enough to wound him. I'd say in the latter case, the spearman gets one shot before the swordsman is inside the tip, at which point it's all over for mr Spear unless he drops it or shoves Mr Sword away (which BRP represents well IMO). And he still should recover and react faster than the swordsman would be able to with the sword. Not sure I understand this statement. How is he able to react faster than the sword guy? Stabbing hard enough to wound forces him to commit to a forward movement, which he then must reverse in order to back pedal, while the sword guy just keeps going forward (provided he parried the spear) That's your claim, but you provide nothing to back it up other than your say so. In real fighting spearmen did backpedal, and they did fend off aggressive attackers. Men hunted with spears, for reasons. And "eventually" could be long after he skewered the swordsman. Have you tried backing up quickly in armour? Sooner or later you're likely to trip since you can't see where you're going, unlike the combatant charging forward. You also have a lot of extra weight, and the helmet often makes you top heavy, making it even harder to keep your balance. It's not impossible but it's much harder than running forward. How am I supposed to "back it up" with anything other than my say-so? Can you prove your points? Yours and mine are all more or less subjective opinions, submitted for everyone to determine which ones seem most valid, based on the arguments presented. @Lloyd Dupont, if you want this back and forth to end you better tell us to shut up, otherwise it will never end! Just speaking from experience here.

Again, my assumption (which proved to be correct) was that the OP was basing his game on BRP specifically. I'm using the term to refer mainly to UGE, since when I posted a light hearted joke about that acronym it was deleted and replaced with a stern admonition to use the term "BRP" solely. So BRP it is (though obviously it applies in most respects equally to BGB). BRP draws on those other games, yes, but makes its own particular synthesis, where the different parts often interact with the whole in different ways than in the original context, wherefore it makes sense to discuss it as a separate system. And since most of the posts I see here refer to BRP in that sense, my assumption has so far been that this (sub)system is the foundation of most discussions unless otherwise stated. Because I was comparing it to BRP. Ok, this will get a bit technical. In RQIII, the most powerful 1H impaling weapons such as broadsword and 1H spear did 1d8+1, leading to an impale roll of 1d8+1 + (max weapon damage, 9)+db, thus 11-18 points of damage (warhammer and scimitar did 1d6+2, i.e. 11-17 points of damage on impale). A devastating hit in other words that will destroy most hit locations, especially if you add DB. In BRP, 1H impaling weapons don't exceed 1d6+1 base damage, so an impale becomes (1d6+1 x 2)+db or 4-14 points, a much more forgiving result (for the opponent), even with DB added. However, in BRP you have half skill to remove a stuck weapon rather than 1/5 as in RQIII. One difference this leads to is that in BRP, shortsword is actually a relatively good weapon (since it impales, unlike broadsword) while in RQIII it is simply a diminutive brother. It seems to me that the highest damage output makes for the best weapon in BRP, since weapon AP is very high and they thus seldom break, and DEX rather than weapon length is determinative for first strike among comparable weapons. And base chance doesn't have much impact since at character creation you can set the skill at 75% regardless. In itself it may not seem like much, but when added to all the other spot rules a GM has to keep track of... it becomes kind of a death by a thousand cuts. At least for me. But an alternative could be to use the mount's DB for all kinds of weapons during a charge, the benefit of a lance being that it strikes before everything else since it's so damn long. I was talking about the mail, not the padding. Padding certainly helps, mail stretched over it not so much. Maybe a teensy weensy bit, but there's no comparison to a rigid plate of any material. Knights in battle used lances against each other a lot. The sword was a side arm that was very versatile against a wide variety of opponents, and also light enough to carry around in civilian dress. Good to have in other words, certainly useful, and as you yourself said a status symbol (not least since it took a lot of skill to make). It's represented a lot (along with the ubiquitious lances) but who knows how common maces really were. Tree limbs would not be so useful against mail, the point of a mace (or warhammer for that deal) is that it concentrates the force into a small striking surface unlike a club. However a mace is not so easy to handle, it is short and top heavy, so to get close enough for it to have any effect on a knight in mail, you probably need to be another knight in mail. I guess we disagree here, unless we're talking mail with a rigid underlayer plus padding, like one of those really stiff gambesons. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this must have been the norm. That would certainly be effective against maces and hammers, which however would still have a greater chance of injuring the wearer on a mailed body part than a broadsword. Why yes. Again, a sword is a more versatile weapon. It's good as a side arm, and maybe your opponent isn't covered head to toe in mail? Maybe you could stab him in the face, chop off a finger or two (or a toe). Not to mention cutting through irritating peasant levies like butter. While as armour got better, the sword became more and more reduntant. It's my perception at least that starting from the 13th century, when more and more plates started appearing over the mail, is when you start to see more variation from the sword, axe, spear combos (e.g. the bizarre choppas of the Maciejowski bible). Ugh...got to go to bed. More later.

This may explain how slashing weapons became (IMO) over powered in RQG, where both slashing and impaling specials do twice damage instead of the above. It seems the developers lifted the slash special (minus the getting stuck part) from RQ2, while downgrading the impale special (making it less special, so to say).