Javelin - 1H Spear or Thrown?

[PhilHibbs]

For the cultures that get "Javelin" as a skill, should this be a melee skill or a ranged skill? Or do you get a single skill in both, melee and ranged javelin, which can then be used at half chance for either another 1h spear or another thrown weapon like Dart?

Also, "Battle Axe" - does this give a single skill with this weapon used either 1-handed or 2-handed, which can then be used at half chance for any other 1H or 2H axe?

If so, how do you account for Battle Axe having two different base chances for 1H or 2H use?

I think you have to choose at character creation time which one you get.

For Javelin, maybe the order the skills are listed gives a clue, in that melee are listed first, then missile, for everyone except Bison Rider the Javelin skill is either after or an alternative to a ranged weapon. I think I will go for Javelin always being ranged.

Edited June 20, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

Javelin skill has always been defined as thrown spear. When you use a Javelin in melee you use the 1H spear skill. You used to be able to tell this because Javelin skill was listed on the missile weapons table, while 1H spear skillw as listed on the melee weapons table. 

[PhilHibbs]

8 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Javelin skill has always been defined as thrown spear. When you use a Javelin in melee you use the 1H spear skill. You used to be able to tell this because Javelin skill was listed on the missile weapons table, while 1H spear skillw as listed on the melee weapons table. 

There is no "1H Spear" skill now, it's a category. You have a skill in a specific weapon, which gives you half chance in other weapons in the same category.

Edited June 20, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

Yes, but is there a Javelin listed on the melee weapons table. In previous editions there wasn't, and Javelin referred to a thrown spear. Also check the weapon descriptions, wherever they might be.

Edited June 20, 2018 by Atgxtg

[PhilHibbs]

I know, that's precisely my problem! The culture says "Javelin +10", without qualifying it as 1H or thrown, likewise Battle Axe without qualifying 1H or 2H.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is that there is no such thing as Javelin as a melee weapon, it is a short spear. So any Javelin skill mentioned must be a Missile skill.  

Edited June 20, 2018 by Atgxtg

[PhilHibbs]

15 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is that there is no such thing as Javelin as a melee weapon, it is a short spear. So any Javelin skill mentioned must be a Missile skill.  

And what I am trying to say is, yes there is. It's listed as both.

[Atgxtg]

Oh. That's not good. 

[PhilHibbs]

Why? There have always been weapons that can be used in different ways with different skills. Short Spear, Long Spear, Bastard Sword, Battle Axe, Heavy Mace could all be used 1H or 2H. Having something that can be thrown or used 1H is no different. It's only a problem to me because I am trying to automate the population of my character creation spreadsheet.

[Atgxtg]

11 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Why? There have always been weapons that can be used in different ways with different skills. Short Spear, Long Spear, Bastard Sword, Battle Axe, Heavy Mace could all be used 1H or 2H. Having something that can be thrown or used 1H is no different. It's only a problem to me because I am trying to automate the population of my character creation spreadsheet.

Because before a Javelin was a short spear and vice versa. Now, I guess, they are two different weapons, which combined with RQ2's seperate skill for every weapon, is going to lead to a lot of situations like the ones you are bringing up. I get the feeling that we are going to spend the next couple of years finding and refixing all the bugs in RQ2 that Chaosium already fixed decades ago.

I wish I had picked up Steve Perrin's copy og RQ2 on eBay a few years back. There's probably a lot of stuff in the margins that we will all be interested in. 

[PhilHibbs]

10 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Because before a Javelin was a short spear and vice versa. Now, I guess, they are two different weapons, which combined with RQ2's seperate skill for every weapon, is going to lead to a lot of situations like the ones you are bringing up. I get the feeling that we are going to spend the next couple of years finding and refixing all the bugs in RQ2 that Chaosium already fixed decades ago.

I don't think there's ever been an edition where a Short Spear and a Javelin were the same thing. The RQG definition of a Javelin (usable 1H or thrown with different skill) matches RQ3, not RQ2, although RQ3 had different damage ratings but RQG has the same. RQ3 also had separate skills for every weapon. RQG allows weapons in the same category to be used at half chance, which I think is ok. I don't see what fix has been lost.

Edited June 20, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

14 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't think there's ever been an edition where a Short Spear and a Javelin were the same thing. 

They were in RQ2. I'd probably have to dig into Wryms Footnotes to find it, but the question was raised, and the answer was that a javelin was a short spear, and if someone threw a short spear it was a javelin. 

 

So now they are separate, but you need to determine if the skill granted was Javelin (melee) or (Javelin) missile. Not to mention Battle Axe (1H) and Battle Axe (2H) or  if Batle Axe skill works for both. Right?

[PhilHibbs]

1 minute ago, Atgxtg said:

They were in RQ2. I'd probably have to dig into Wryms Footnotes to find it, but the question was raised, and the answer was that a javelin was a short spear, and if someone threw a short spear it was a javelin. 

So now they are separate, but you need to determine if the skill granted was Javelin (melee) or (Javelin) missile. Not to mention Battle Axe (1H) and Battle Axe (2H) or  if Batle Axe skill works for both. Right?

Ah, I was just referencing RQ2.

I'm fairly sure, re-reading the rules, that you would have a specific thrown, 1H, or 2H skill with any of these weapons, and that the Javelin skill given by cultures are all thrown.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah the skill was, but the weapon was a short spear. If I recall correctly the question was either "can I throw a spear?" or "If attacked in melee can I stab with a javelin, and what are it's stats?" or some such. It's probably the reason why they have javelin melee stats in RQ3. 

I'd assume that any Javelin skill give would be thrown as well. It makes more sense. It also why defining the skill as Thrown Javelin would help, or going back to Spear= Melee, Javelin = Missile.

 

Hmm, it might be in the RQ Companion. I'll check. 

[PhilHibbs]

Heh, just flicked through the Companion myself. I wonder if Rick, while moving Chaosium's offices, found a box full of "what would you like to see in the next Companion" pages that were torn out and posted in.

[Atgxtg]

LOL! Probably packed in with the submissions for Questworld. 

 

The RQ Companion makes me kinda sad. When I got it, I had no idea that it was really the last RQ2 book. Or that the AH deal was going to stop the flow of new Glorantha/Dragon Pass material (mostly reprints) for quite some time. 

[Madrona]

I think you guys overthink this.

If something says, "You gain battleaxe' and there's two things in battleaxe, the simple solution is, "Well it does not specify which, therefore I gain both of them."

If something says Javelin, and there's a thrown and one handed javelin. YOU GAIN BOTH OF THEM. If not specified you gain both. If your GM has a problem with that, ask them which one they want you to get.

[Atgxtg]

Sounds good to me.

[PhilHibbs]

Yeah, I'd have no problem with that. I think for the purposes of my spreadsheet I'll just call Javelin a ranged weapon, if the player or GM wants to take the 1H version as well then they can just add it in themselves.

[trystero]

2 hours ago, Madrona said:

If something says, "You gain battleaxe' and there's two things in battleaxe, the simple solution is, "Well it does not specify which, therefore I gain both of them."

If something says Javelin, and there's a thrown and one handed javelin. YOU GAIN BOTH OF THEM. If not specified you gain both. If your GM has a problem with that, ask them which one they want you to get.

Fair enough, but the Vasana's Saga sidebar on p. 62 suggests that this is not the design intent. Vasana is a Sartarite, and gets Battle Axe +10% per the Sartar homeland cultural skill bonuses table on p. 60; the sidebar on p. 62 shows this as "1H Axe (Battle Axe) 20%", with no corresponding "2H Axe (Battle Axe) 15%" entry. Similarly, the fact that "Javelin +10%" is listed after "Composite Bow +10% or Sling +10%" in the Sartar homeland bonuses table—and that "1H Spear +10%" is listed separately—suggests that this bonus is only intended to be applied to ranged use.

Even then, there's a question left open: is this +10% bonus meant to apply only to the Javelin (Javelin) skill, or can it be applied to any skill in the Javelin category? Can a Sartarite start with +10% to Javelin (Dart) or Javelin (Spear, Short) skill? My guess is no, but it's only a guess.

I do wish the skills were more explicitly labelled, perhaps with an asterisk after a skill when it's meant to be a category, so that "Javelin* +10%" means +10% to any one skill in the Javelin category, but "Javelin +10%" means +10% only to Javelin (Javelin) skill.

[PhilHibbs]

5 hours ago, trystero said:

I do wish the skills were more explicitly labelled, perhaps with an asterisk after a skill when it's meant to be a category, so that "Javelin* +10%" means +10% to any one skill in the Javelin category, but "Javelin +10%" means +10% only to Javelin (Javelin) skill.

Perhaps that is the system, but no-one gets a whole-category bonus, so we will never know! 😉

[RosenMcStern]

11 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

RQ3 also had separate skills for every weapon.

Really? I recall skills applying to broad categories, not specific types of weapons. It was *certainly* this way in Land of Ninja, where Kenjutsu applied to both Katana and Wakizashi, and it did not specify that this was different from the standard rule that 1h swords covered all weapons in the category. It _did_ specify that the skill covered 1H use at -10%, however, so it is rather clera to me that the RQ3 norm was skill->category and not skill->weapon.

[PhilHibbs]

Player's Book, Page 48:

Quote

Generally, each weapon skill is unique, and must be learned separately from every other weapon skill. Some skill knowledge can overlap between weapons, 

 Ah, but it also says on page 51:

Quote

Within each category, an increase in skill with one weapon means that the adventurer gains experience with every weapon in the category.

So I'm mostly wrong. Base chances are clearly different within the categories, and I guess if experience applied equally then so would occupation increases. I don't think we ever played this rule though, I don't remember ever having a character with two different weapons in the same category. Losing weapons and having to improvise with something in the same category is also something that I don't remember happening.

Back to RQG, yes this is a change. The rule is now half chance and no improvement cascade.

[Furry Fella]

As an alternative might I suggest something from both my own (rather limited) and other re-enactors experience and quite a bit of reading. For practical purposes throwing an ancient Javelin or Dart has almost no differences in technique, nor does throwing a spear from a javelin. Judging the range does for each of them as weight and flight characteristics and certainly range are really quite different. Other than practically point blank ranges (8 to 12 meters) this judgement, flight differences etc end up mattering. At these ranges flight is effectively flat for all. A properly weighted throwing dart (e.g. a plumbata) can be thrown accurately and effectively quite a lot further than a Javelin (both assuming not modern elongated run up. Frankly without a hell of a lot of training and practice throwing a spear suitable for sustained combat even as far as 15 meters is bloody difficult at best. Observed effect on Human analogue targets does vary quite a bit to (yes I have both observed and thrown such a suitable carcasses etc.  I just wish I had more than reading to judge the practical effect of Atlatl.

Historically true skirmishers did fight with their javelins and indeed accounts from the 16th century in Central America also strongly indicate they did so with their darts - shorten grip and stab. Observed and written evidence promotes the thrown spear as the impact weapon from hand hurled weapons. Javelin & dart users should have skill with them as shortened stabbing weapons but really rather different from spears.

This is one area where I have every intention of exercising "Everyone’s Glorantha will vary, and should vary to match every individual group’s play style." Thus this area will get quite a bit of re-ordering etc.

 

[Atgxtg]

Yeah Rosen's right about RQ3. Weapon skills were more broadly defined, and stuff like 1H Sword or Spear applied to all such weapons. So the skill was 1H Sword, not Broadsword or Shortsword. It also kinda made a joke of different starting percentages, since you could take the best on in the case to get your skill, then pick up a related weapon.  It was a big departure from RQ2. In RQ2 you'd get dropped to half skill just for using somebody else's Broadsword!