Of short swords and light armors

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

What are, in your experience, reasons or rules that push gear versatility,  besides cost and encumbrance, what are the reasons to wear light armor, use short short Swords, daggers or slings. 

Besides "my cult uses this" I feel like there are not many incentives 

Like, there is a strength requirement but is 11. There is an encumbrance req but all Swords are the same. 

There is 2 weapon fighting but you can do it with a broad. 

Once you have broadswords all other weapons feel like gardening tools. 

I really like the idea of having the option to pick but somehow there is not much reason not to pick the one with less sr, more damage, best hp. Same thing happens wirh armors. 

Other games Lock gear based on classes and stuff, I see a soft lock for cults and Cultural bonus but a +5% at character creation is not enough. 

What are the "rules" you use? 

(This is not to punish players for picking the best item, just to add some flavor and give bonus to the ones that pick style over stats)

[French Desperate WindChild]

from a rule perspective ? so few reasons, as you said, cult, if you are very low in one stat but there are little bit more with heavy armor (encumbrance gives penalty

from a roleplaying perspective ? a lot : you want to move faster (armor , weapon), it is too hot to keep a heavy armor, it is less confortable.

 

The only mixed reason (GP + RP) is you are in a city where you must not wear martial gear (but your sword is not so martial, that's part of your status)

 

now what you can do is, as a GM to tell your player that it is abslolutly not confortable to travel in the desert (penalty for the next five days if you don't rest) . That use your sword (or lance or) gives a penalty in this tunnel because is really not enough large etc

 

that's a balance to find between ( not enough rules but easy to play ) and ( good simulation rules but hard/boring to play )

[JustAnotherVingan]

Shortsword not really any reason to prefer it.

I've house ruled a one handed long spear in.

Spears have best SR, axes best damage, swords are best if you want to parry with a weapon.

Maces are poor unless you have a ridiculously high damage bonus.

A full suit of metal armour is a lot of enc. Some of my PCs make do with cuirboulli.

[Shiningbrow]

This is one advantage of Harnmaster (and vaguely mentioned in D&D) - damage types.

However, in open areas, there's not going to be much difference with weapons. But in tight spaces (including a pub brawl), then it's going to be a serious issue.

Other ways around it would be enchantments.

The difference - and I think rightly so - is that once your characters have gotten to that level of skill (about mastery or so - 75%+) it really doesn't make a lot of difference. But characters with lower skills (eg, earlier RQ), that 5 or 10% bonus from culture and cult makes a nice bit of difference.

[JustAnotherVingan]

Impales used to be a reason for using shortswords rather than broadswords but now all specials do some sort of bonus damage and a broadsword user can choose if they want to try for an impale or a slash, and a slash is arguably a better result than an impale.

[David Scott]

My players usually pick relevant stuff to their occupation, culture and cult. Most use the pictures of the pregens as a guide. Many have no armour (if not warriors or weapon users). Warriors usually just use their unit weapons & armour. Others have light armour like a hauberk and a strong hat. As for weapons most pick cultural, so i've a High Llama with a mace, but an esolian LM scribe with a staff and sling. The Storm Bulls have the heavy weapons like broadswords. The Ernaldan Merchant uses an Earth Elemental as their main weapon.

Rules have virtually no impact on their weapon choices (one picked sling over bow as it did more damage and only required a stream bed for more ammo)

[soltakss]

Cost is one factor, lighter armour normally costs less.

Acceptance is another factor, some places, such as Pavis, frown on people wearing heavy armour.

Thieves, and other people who sneak around, are less affected by some lighter armour than others.

 

[Kloster]

With current combat rules, there is no interest using a shortsword vs a broadsword (except for cost 25L vs 50L): ENC is same, SR is higher, HP are lower, base skill is same. With RQ3, you had same armor for broadsword and gladius (10AP). In addition, you also had a lower ENC (0.5 or 1 vs 2.0) and some interesting maneuvers with a higher SR or that ignore SR, with the added advantage of possible impales (with the gladius).

For armor, light armor is cheaper, lighter and has generally a better modifier for 'Move Silently' as heavier armor often include noisy metal parts. In addition, as told by Soltakss, you may have a problem of social acceptance.

[dumuzid]

A big factor at my table is the stealth penalties that stack up with heavy armor.  We favor a lot of stealth and ambush tactics, and going with lighter armor can be very helpful with that.  There's always lead armor if you don't want to trade durability for subtlety, but then you run into the issue of being strong enough to fight effectively under all that lead.

[Karlak One-eye]

We have borrowed the concept of close combat from Dragonquest. Close combat and melee are subsets of hand to hand fighting where “Close” is where the combatants are “corps a corps” or body to body and possibly also rolling around in the floor. In this situation only weapons rated for close combat are useable ( short sword, knife, dagger etc) crucially in DQ both mace and war pick are rated as close weapons. Natural weapon attacks are also rated for “Close” so if a baboon drops out if a tree onto you your broadsword or great axe that are only rated for melee combat cannot be used and you have to draw your dagger to fight whilst fending off claw/claw/bite. This works very well and any experienced fighter will have a plan for dealing with close combat monsters (tigers, bears, feral broo, ghouls etc). Which may be using a short sword, mace or pick as a universal weapon, dual using sword and dagger or relying on your armour to last while you spend 5SR to draw your secondary weapon. There are rules for getting into close (it’s not automatic for intelligent opponents for example) but it provides an in game sensible reason for using weapons that may not be optimal for melee but might keep you alive rolling in the dirt. 

[Beoferret]

Like Karlak say, to make a shortsword more attractive utilize some sort of close combat status. This'll make daggers way more attractive too. Maybe knives/daggers and shortswords attack at full skill % in close combat (0.5 meter?), while broadswords are used at half skill % (if usable at all). I don't know anything about Dragonquest, but GURPS combat rules provide for this kind of thing (weapon reach, that is) and could be easily ported over to RQG, since weapon length is already a part of the game, influencing weapon SR.

With light armor: cost, encumbrance, and desire to be stealthy should all be valid reasons for choosing to wear lighter armor. And not just for the rogue/sneaky-types either. A light warrior (peltast/velite/skirmisher-type of character) will probably want high dodge and maneuverability, both of which could be impinged upon by wearing a heavy cuirass. But that would require using the encumbrance rules! Also, maybe in a chase situation, provide those in heavier armor a disadvantage of some sort - e.g., maybe a CON check to avoid getting winded and losing move points, etc. Or double the SR cost of movement for folks in heavier armor. Potentially simple changes that make picking armor a real choice.  

*as an aside: in terms of armor, I've considered introducing pectorales (aka, "heart guards," small plates covering the center of the chest) that'd a) provide metal armor damage resistance, but only part of the time, and b) still count as light armor, for purposes of stealth, etc.  Maybe say that armor protects against chest strikes on a 1-3 or 1-4 on a d6. It's easier to make this work in GURPS, where you can deliberately target vitals with impaling/pointy weapons (strikes which a pectorale automatically provides protection against.)

 

[Akhôrahil]

There isn’t much you can do about the short sword without rewriting the weapons table. Which would make sense - the old standby in both D&D and BRP, that larger weapons do more damage, isn’t always really realistic. If you check out a cutting competition, what’s used is typically large knives to short swords - Bowie knives and kukris are particularly common. Longer swords are good for the extra reach, but that’s basically it. They’re not better cutters, and they’re typically more fragile, as the length means you have to keep the weight down.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Dr. Devici]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Longer swords are good for the extra reach, but that’s basically it. They’re not better cutters, and they’re typically more fragile, as the length means you have to keep the weight down.

One issue with this is that HP is a compound stat that measures both how durable a weapon is, but also how good it is as deflecting a blow from you. We could reduce the broadsword HP a bit to make the shortsword a more attractive defensive option, but how would we extend that to daggers? Surely a well-made dagger should be pretty durable against receiving damage by our "shorter weapons are sturdier" logic, but do we want them to be the king parrying tool?

If we just try to rewrite the weapon table, we're going to run against the problem that once you settle on a general weapon type, say one-handed swords, there's only 3 "major" variables left to consider with damage, HP, and WSR. HP represents multiple things and is complicated to mess with, and within a single weapon type, WSRs probably aren't going to differ by more than 1 or maybe 2, so it's hard to build an interesting gradient with those.

[HreshtIronBorne]

That's where an argument can be made for AP and HP of an object but, tracking all that can get fiddly unless everyone at the table gets drama out of watching their weapons/shields get battered down and they help keep track. 

 

I think having a "close" fighting distance would do a lot to emphasize the real utility of natural weapons, daggers, and the like in the most elegant way. It also backs up some of the more dangerous elements in the lore of Glorantha without having to give them gross/obnoxious/incongruous powers to let them tackle tough targets. A shortsword should beat a greatsword in a dark Pavis alley or bedchamber. 

[g33k]

I have long HR'ed that long-weapons with very-low SR's have both advantage & disadvantage vs. shorter weapons.

If you have a long weapon, your foe (with a much shorter one) needs to make a successful -- and unparried -- attack just to close the range (it does no damage, it just means they have slipped inside your guard; but if you parry their attack, it means they haven't, and are still at long range (as melee combat considers it)).

By the same token, anyone "inside the guard" that way can attack freely... but you can only parry (not attack-for-damage):  you must make a successful attack just to open the range, which they can try to parry & thwart you (keeping the close range.

The situation is symmetrical around the issue of whose weapon is at the "right" range to bear upon the foe; who needs to change the range, to have the advantage.

In open-field combat, advantage begins with the long weapon.  Someone instead drawing a dagger or shortsword, right next to their foe, will begin with the advantage.

This seems very similar to the "Close Combat" or "corps a corps" rule reported by @Karlak One-eyeabove, in that some weapons just are not usable at some ranges...  I'll need to think about it a bit more.

Edited April 15, 2022 by g33k
typo

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

11 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

from a roleplaying perspective ? a lot : you want to move faster (armor , weapon), it is too hot to keep a heavy armor, it is less confortable.

Faster you mean traveling? Because if they want to do a triple somersault with heavy armor there is no reason not to let them 

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

11 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

Spears have best SR, axes best damage, swords are best if you want to parry with a weapon.

How does this work? Short spear sr 2 and removing Broadswords?

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

11 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

But in tight spaces (including a pub brawl), then it's going to be a serious issue

Is there a rule for this? 

I agree that at the beginning you use the weapon you have more % so culture is important 

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

10 hours ago, David Scott said:

Most use the pictures of the pregens as a guide

That's sort of what we aim too, style over substance

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

Thieves, and other people who sneak around, are less affected by some lighter armour than others.

This is the one that I get to leverage more, the spirit spell silence voids all my efforts 

[g33k]

There comes a point when verisimilitude needs to give way to playability; I suspect some of these issues brush against that "V-vs-P" issue.

DO note that Cultural weapons tend to give a much larger bonus than the mere 5%-10% differences inherent to each weapon.  If your background gives you a +25% on shortsword, and NOTHING on broadsword... well...

Also -- though I don't think it's well-reflected in the RAW -- any medieval recreationist (from SCA or HEMA or etc) will tell you that an entire day spent physically-active (marching, fighting, whatever) in heavy armor is exhausting ...  if your adventurer is, you know, adventuring (hiking, climbing, sneaking, belly-crawling, etc) for a few hours, they should NOT then be entering a combat fresh & 100% fit; they "should" already be facing some sort of fatigue penalties.  Light armor should have lesser (even no) penalties.

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

9 hours ago, dumuzid said:

There's always lead armor i

We got someone using a pair of plate boots but nobody is a fan of lead armor. 

10 hours ago, Kloster said:

some interesting maneuvers with a higher SR or that ignore SR

What do you mean with  higher sr maneuvers?

6 hours ago, Karlak One-eye said:

Close combat and melee are subsets of hand to hand fighting where “Close” is where the combatants are “corps a corps” or body to body and possibly also rolling around in the floor

I like this, a lot, I'm going to look for those rules. Is this related to how Grapple works in RQG?

5 hours ago, Beoferret said:

A light warrior (peltast/velite/skirmisher-type of character) will probably want high dodge and maneuverability, both of which could be impinged upon by wearing a heavy cuirass

This a good alternative I like how that sounds. I don't know if anybody would change 6ap x ~10-15% Dodge though. 

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

They’re not better cutters, and they’re typically more fragile, as the length means you have to keep the weight down.

I see this on the parrying Dagger, is practically better to use anything else to parry. 

2 hours ago, Dr. Device said:

Surely a well-made dagger should be pretty durable against receiving damage by our "shorter weapons are sturdier" logic, but do we want them to be the king parrying tool?

Unless is a bronze age thing I don't get , sword/dagger parry is usually a deflection,is easy to take the other weapon away from you when you hit it with a broad sword  but also is easier to move a dagger around. 

I don't know enough to rewrite/rebalance the weapons table. 

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

tracking all that can get fiddly unless everyone at the table gets drama

No, I agree, let's keep it simple.

 

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

A shortsword should beat a greatsword in a dark Pavis alley or bedchamber. 

I need to read more stories about Pavis then!

 

48 minutes ago, g33k said:

your foe (with a much shorter one) needs to make a successful -- and unparried -- attack just to close the range

Our fights are over the moment someone hits and the other didn't parry. It wouldn't be fair that for a difference of 25L someone goes from having their enemy gushing blood to just getting into the fight. 

I get what you mean though and it's a balance I'm going to ruminate over. 

 

Sorry for all the posts, I just found out how to reply to multiple messages on the same post. 

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

if your adventurer is, you know, adventuring (hiking, climbing, sneaking, belly-crawling, etc) for a few hours, they should NOT then be entering a combat fresh & 100% fit; they "should" already be facing some sort of fatigue penalties.  Light armor should have lesser (even no) penalties.

We sort of "fair play" this and they accept that they have to climb, eat, sleep and "belly-crawl" without armor. 

They get bonus for not breaking immersion and I get to sneak on them unarmed some times. 

[JustAnotherVingan]

31 minutes ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

How does this work? Short spear sr 2 and removing Broadswords?

My house rule of allowing one handed long spear 11 STR/7DEX/SR1/Dam 1D8+1. I'm so used to it I forget its a house rule.

[g33k]

5 minutes ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

We sort of "fair play" this and they accept that they have to climb, eat, sleep and "belly-crawl" without armor. 

They get bonus for not breaking immersion and I get to sneak on them unarmed some times. 

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