Why not use a d20?

[Al.]

The context is: No matter how experienced the veteran is with his sword,

if it is the "wrong" type of sword (e.g. katana, rapier, short sword) his ex-

perience is almost meaningless if he tries to use an axe in combat, and a

well trained recruit without combat experience, but with a weapon familiar

to him, will most probably kill the veteran easily.

I do not agree with this (which certainly does not mean that you are wrong! )

To my mind the basics of:

timing, aggression, spacing, feinting, reading one's foe (and I am sure many more) are the same whatever one is holding (or not holding)

The differences are:

mass, mass distribution, strength, stress concentrations and where the dangerous bit is.

Houserule:

I often use a single 'Combat' skill to cover Armed and Unarmed. If I'm being more granular (which depends very much on setting) I allow for specialisation

BRP as playtested

<Melee>* weapons

Default score is half of the highest skill a character has in that cluster

BRP as published

includes this as a watered down optional rule (and bizarrely has Parry as a tightly defined but not very clear additional skill)

In My Monkey Overlord's Opinion this is still the best published/written rule for different weapon skills

Al

*and several other clusters of skills

[rust]

The differences are:

mass, mass distribution, strength, stress concentrations and where the dangerous bit is.

Unfortunately the feeling for the mass and mass distribution of a weapon de-

termines whether the fighter hits something with it.

One only has to unbalance someone's familiar weapon slightly to make him

miss his target most of the time before he regains his feeling for the weapon.

But in the end this is a futile debate, fantasy roleplaying games are not a

simulation of real world combat, not more than chess is a simulation of an-

cient warfare.

I just tend to forget this sometimes.

[Al.]

Unfortunately the feeling for the mass and mass distribution of a weapon determines whether the fighter hits something with it.

Partly

One only has to unbalance someone's familiar weapon slightly to make him miss his target most of the time before he regains his feeling for the weapon.

I don't agree and neither does my pigeon but we might be wrong

But in the end this is a futile debate,

Sort of. If we are looking for very different things from a combat system then we may well not reach common ground. But I've previously argued for or against X on forums and later on the counter argument has been useful/made more sense to me

fantasy roleplaying games are not a simulation of real world combat, not more than chess is a simulation of ancient warfare.

No they ain't and I get very twitchy over the use of the word 'realism' in discussing RPG rules. 'Believable' or 'not immediately obviously complete bollocks' are as close as aim for now. But there are LOTS of ways to achieve 'Believable' or 'not immediately obviously complete bollocks'

Al

[Kloster]

This is the reason why for years I've used doubles as fumbles and crits. roll a double under your skill its a crit, roll a double over your skill its a fumble. Easy and quick, works like a charm.

If your score is below 100%, true.

If it is over 100%, it is not.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster