Shields and dagger and such oh my!

[Khanwulf]

This ended up in another thread and really deserves its own, as weapons treatment in KAP is another of the sore points:

Text by @Atgxtg

  40 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Was thinking about this on the way in today.

 

So, here are a few potential fixes, though this is not really the thread for it:

No, but feel free to start one. Daggers and Spears could use a little love.

  7 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

1. Daggers may be employed as a weapon/skill during a successful grapple [this is core rules], and if so halves opponent armor values; use Dagger skill instead of DEX. (Grappling may also prevents shield use--this is unclear.) A dagger may be readied and used to attack the same round at no penalty.

2. Spears receive a reach bonus (+5) on the first round of combat or when employed in formation (one or more allies on each of the right and left), so long as the opponent is not also employing a spear/polearm.

The problem is a 1H spear doesn't have a reach advantage, becuase you generally have to choke up on the grip. A 2H spear would. I was watching some reenactments on youtube, one in particular by Lindybeige where he ran dozens of spear vs sword tests and based on his results (which are only one sample, but most of the other experienced reenact ors no youtube seem to have a similar option):

2H Spear vs Sword is a big advantage for the spear- the spear won every match, and this was with reenactors who spent little time with a spear and some time with a sword.. 

is much more even. In fact the advantage shifted to the sword, since the swordsman could use his shield to push the spear out of the way while stepping in to finish the job.

Formation fighting that is a group of guys with 1H Spear & Shield vs  another group with Sword and Shield favored the spearmen again, as the spearmen could cover each over and help each other out. 

I did up some tables with reflexive modifiers that seemed to fit with the sample data, but am hesitant to use it in play, as it would tend to favor footmen with greatspears over mounted knights with swords. So like the longbow, schiltron, Swiss pikemen, and firearms it  is probably best glossed over and ignored until the last few years of the campaign. I can did it up and post it. The modifiers are significant, based on the data, and that's assuming that the sowrdmen and spearmen were equally skilled, when in fact the swordmen were more skiled (so the modifiers would be higher)

. 

  7 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

3. All weapons are dropped on a fumble. A spear, axe, polearm or mace fumble on the same round in which the opponent scores a critical results in a broken weapon. Frequently swords, maces and axes are secured to the knight with a lanyard and may be retrieved the next round with a reflexive penalty (+5/-5). Spears and polearms fumbled are at the mercy of the combat and may be more easily prevented from rearming--especially if the owner is ahorse. [This reduces the breakage rate to 1 in 400 for regular combatants.]

One big problem IMO is the sword breaking non-swords on a tie. It's fine normally, but since a critical =20 then a Swordman with a 25 skill fighting someone with a non-sword with a 25 skill means a lot more broken weapons, as all those critical become ties and broken weapons. 

  7 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Edit 4. Combatants in a shieldwall formation (close shield use, one or more allies on both right and left) receive cover (-5) to attempts to attack them. 

--Khanwulf

I'd do something similar but probably only increase the normal shield bonus (-5) up to -7 as there is only a partial overlap of shields and coverage.  

*End Atgxtg*

 

Ok, so while the formatting is broken above, let me elaborate a bit.

First, philosophically I'd rather modify KAP as little as possible. I've tried injecting complex additional systems into it and have not liked the results. KAP is streamlined and fast and intended to take care of everything that knights care about, well. 

But: the incentives distort things more than a tad, and this thread is to discuss fixes to that.

Backing through things in no particular order:

(#3) Non-sword weapons should not break on fumble--we've discussed this before. The fix is to make them break on the much less-likely combination of fumble+crit. This moves the probability from 1/20 to 1/400, though as opponent's skill increases the probability slides more toward 1/20.

(#4) Shields have a certain value because of their size and the assumption that their user is interposing the shield actively. A shieldwall is an intentionally dense overlapping of shields in order to remove opening for attack. The shield value is overcome by axes, which is a combination of their "reach around" effect and intent on splintering shields. Cover in KAP is for interposing objects to reduce the opening for attack. 

A shield wall seems to me to be more of an effort to create cover in the field, in combination with a bunch of pointy things directed at the enemy. From what we know of reenactments and history, shield walls were a deuce to break and took a lot of time in shoving and poking--or very little if you could find a weak point and exploit it. This again looks more like cover to me than a higher shield value, as cover flat reduces the probability that the enemy will land a hit and thus makes their efforts more ineffectual, while shield just means the target doesn't get hurt so bad.

A group of trained warriors using a shieldwall (ala Romans) could have cover up to -10, but the principle is simple enough that peasants can do it: bunch up and keep your shield in place!

(#1) Daggers don't need a lot of attention. They need to be specifically useful under the circumstances where they would be used. In this case KAP has already provided grappling as their point to shine, so my suggestion simply ensures they have an effect that overcomes armor. It also means dagger skill could be used instead of a DEX check after initiating a grapple (which, unfortunately, makes DEX less useful again). 

Dagger a free readiness action means that you don't have to be unarmed or take the re-arming penalty so long as you carry a dagger, so it's useful in a pinch. Further, if you're a legionnaire, you can ready your gladius (dagger) immediately after throwing pilum. So it makes sense to arm your legion shieldwall with short swords.

(#2) Spears. Spears have been humanity's main battlefield weapon up until the proliferation of gunpowder. Swords have been a popular backup. Why? Because spears give reach, play well in shield walls, have duel hunting purposes, are cheap, and have lovely armor-penetrating points. We still use them as bayonets. So KAP really should reflect some of these basic reasons. Knights used spears/lances for as long as they could, and then switched to backup weapons when the spear became unfeasible. Footmen carried spears primarily and a variety of cheap backup weapons. 

Spear and shield is not as effective as two-handed spear at range, true. But it still provides the opportunity to gain reach while also using a shieldwall. I could see applying reach the first round if used 2-handed, and not if one-handed, such that there would be a decision on whether to haft-up the spear and go with more protection, or stick it out there and aim to keep your opponent at range.

That said, KAP applies the +5 situational bonus even to attacking opponents who fall down (and it's reflexive), so I'm not uncomfortable with what I've proposed above. 

All this said, the real danger during a spearfight is not wounding from the fellow in front of you, it's their bud with a spear ganking you from the side (at range) when you didn't assign a roll to them.

 

--Khanwulf

[Atgxtg]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I did sort of crunch the numbers on Lindybeige's tests. I assumed equally but moderate skilled (10) combatants, which frankly doesn't match with what he said (the had no spear experience), and I also doubt that even the experienced re-enactors are all that experienced with swords compared to actual soldiers who wielded them in battle  but based on the test results and equal skill (10) I came up with:

 

Match	Results	Modifier
1 H Weapons vs. Spears	3 vs. 9	-5/+5
Sword & Buckler vs. Spears	2 vs. 4	-3/+3
Longswords vs. Spears	2 vs. 4	-3/+3
Greatswords vs. Spears	0 vs 4	-10/+10
Half-Swords vs. Spears	3 vs. 3	0/0
Sword & Shield vs. Spears	6 vs 7	-1/+1
Sword & Shield vs. Spears & Shield	6 vs 0	+10/-10

Now a few of things to note: 

• This assumes equal skill (10 for both combatants, where as according to Lindybeige the swordsmen were experienced with swords while the spearmen were not, so the bonus might be greater. 
• The sample size on most of these tests are so small that the confidence level is of the results is very low, under 25% for the first example, and it drops from there. That's significantly lower than the confidence level of a political candidate following through on a campaign promise. So take these results with all the salt you can afford.
• A shield really changes things, as does half-swording. So in play a lot of this would equal out. 

 

 

 

 

[Morien]

In no particular order:

 

SWORDS (vs. Spears)

Greg DELIBERATELY made the Sword unbreakable and the primary weapon of the Pendragon knight for a reason. The reason is that the Sword is the chivalric weapon, the symbol of a knight, and as such, should not be weakened. I am against making the Sword a poorer weapon than the Spear in general.

(If anything, my feeling is that the Sword could use a bit of a boost especially in comparison to axe & mace, but I don't want to get sidetracked here. I might also quickly note re: closing against a spear that the situation changes dramatically when the combatants are armored, since then a chance poke of the spear won't be enough. As an aside, during the Napoleonic Wars, there was a debate which was better for cavalry, lances or sabers? The conclusion was that the lancers were superior in a charge thanks to the reach, but as soon as it became a melee, the sabers cut the lancers to ribbons. Lancers did have an additional advantage against bayonets of an infantry square, thanks to the reach, that sabers struggled against as they got their horses poked.)

 

BREAKAGE

I agree that having non-swords breaking on a fumble is an additional strike against the non-swords, and a serious one at that. I would be in favor of making all fumbles just a dropped weapon, with a lanyard option for one-handed weapons (not Spear). However, I would very much keep the Swords breaking non-swords on a tie, since if you remove this, you remove the whole advantage of having a sword. (And additional reason to boost swords up a bit, since they kinda lost the durability on a fumble with comparison to non-swords.)

Whether this tie should extend to Criticals as well is another point to consider. Personally, I prefer the houserule that we have, where you actually calculate the exact number of a die roll, and if both are 20+, then you cancel out the criticals and use them as normal rolls. So in your skill 25 example, if one rolled 18+5 and the other 17+5, it would be 23 and 22, normal hit on B who gets a shield. This would keep the ties as rare as they already are with skills less than 21.

 

The Role of Spears

We already have plenty of reasons why spears dominate on the battlefield: they are cheap, they are easy to train (poke the enemy with the pointy bit) and to use in formations, and like you said, they are popular hunting weapons, too. So of course you would arm your arrowfodder with them. But the KNIGHTS are the elite. The Knights are supposed to be the badasses. Pendragon is not a history simulation, but also injects the Chivalric Romance sensibilities. In short, I don't see a big need to make spears compete with swords when it comes to KNIGHTS' weapons.

Mind you, I would be fully in favor of ditching the single-use Lance as a skill and just have Knights use Spear in a charge, too. This would make Knights train their Spear up, which would also nicely give them a hunting weapon for all those boar-hunts. I would be happy to give a spear a bonus there, like an unopposed attack before the boar gets to do its thing, whereas with a sword, both unopposed attacks could be simultaneous. But in duels and general horseback melee, swords should be generally preferred over spears by the knights.

 

Daggers

This is something I am adamant about: Gladius is a sword. It is a big, hefty chopper compared to a dagger, and some big gladii are more comparable to Viking swords in length already. Pugio is the legionnaire's dagger. (Although I might mention that around 3rd century AD, the legionnaires started to shift to a slightly longer spatha, so by 5th and 6th centuries, any 'legionnaires' around should be carrying functionally identical swords as the knights.)

I do like the idea of allowing dagger to be rearmed at a ready action, which would really fit its role as a surprise or last-ditch weapon. I would also be in favor of them halving the armor after a successful Grapple, which would make up for the -1d6 damage, but also mean that you'd have to win the Grapple first. Grapple rules definitely need a looksie to make sure that they work and are not too overpowered; i.e. I wouldn't want a situation where Grappling and knifing someone to death becomes the number one tactic for the knights from start forward, whereas it would make more sense in the full plate era when you can't get through the armor any other way.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Morien
spatha addition

[Khanwulf]

36 minutes ago, Morien said:

SWORDS (vs. Spears)

Greg DELIBERATELY made the Sword unbreakable and the primary weapon of the Pendragon knight for a reason. The reason is that the Sword is the chivalric weapon, the symbol of a knight, and as such, should not be weakened. I am against making the Sword a poorer weapon than the Spear in general.

(If anything, my feeling is that the Sword could use a bit of a boost especially in comparison to axe & mace, but I don't want to get sidetracked here. I might also quickly note re: closing against a spear that the situation changes dramatically when the combatants are armored, since then a chance poke of the spear won't be enough. As an aside, during the Napoleonic Wars, there was a debate which was better for cavalry, lances or sabers? The conclusion was that the lancers were superior in a charge thanks to the reach, but as soon as it became a melee, the sabers cut the lancers to ribbons. Lancers did have an additional advantage against bayonets of an infantry square, thanks to the reach, that sabers struggled against as they got their horses poked.)

I'm aware of that, and am for the same reason very disinclined on making the sword weaker. Regardless of the role of the knight as a lance-charging tank, the sword is their iconic symbol and I'm not going to anger the spirits of the Sarmatians by opposing that.

It might be enough to provide cover effects to a shieldwall. 

Once knights wore plate you were not going to injure them short of hitting them really hard at one point (spear, on a charge), breaking the plate (hammers), doing enough blunt-force trauma armor didn't matter (maces), or controlling them long enough to find weak spots (grappling + dagger). Even their helms were shaped to repel arrows. Prior to plate, chain needed either blunt force or a very short point to catch the riveted links and force them sharply apart. Swords needed to be sharp and pointy to do real work, but have always been fantastic when the opponents are unarmored  or lightly armored (ie. Napoleonic lancers), or blows could be delivered with skill toward vulnerable bits (ie. by professional warriors--knights).

So spear men in KAP could... carry their spears 2H and use them to avoid being reflexively penalized during a cavalry charge (per the infantry square/line), and then switch to 1H use in a wall. That's... theoretical flexibility, since actually organizing either tactic would happen only once/battle unless the troops are highly disciplined professionals.

36 minutes ago, Morien said:

BREAKAGE

I agree that having non-swords breaking on a fumble is an additional strike against the non-swords, and a serious one at that. I would be in favor of making all fumbles just a dropped weapon, with a lanyard option for one-handed weapons (not Spear). However, I would very much keep the Swords breaking non-swords on a tie, since if you remove this, you remove the whole advantage of having a sword. (And additional reason to boost swords up a bit, since they kinda lost the durability on a fumble with comparison to non-swords.)

Whether this tie should extend to Criticals as well is another point to consider. Personally, I prefer the houserule that we have, where you actually calculate the exact number of a die roll, and if both are 20+, then you cancel out the criticals and use them as normal rolls. So in your skill 25 example, if one rolled 18+5 and the other 17+5, it would be 23 and 22, normal hit on B who gets a shield. This would keep the ties as rare as they already are with skills less than 21.

Is there anything else that can be provided to sword that would better illustrate their utility rather than having them break everything in sight? 

On that note, do you have evidence from Greg's comments or the sources why that was selected as sword's particular niche? It has such a detrimental effect on the value of all other weapons I think there must be a more substantial underlying reason.

 

36 minutes ago, Morien said:

The Role of Spears

We already have plenty of reasons why spears dominate on the battlefield: they are cheap, they are easy to train (poke the enemy with the pointy bit) and to use in formations, and like you said, they are popular hunting weapons, too. So of course you would arm your arrowfodder with them. But the KNIGHTS are the elite. The Knights are supposed to be the badasses. Pendragon is not a history simulation, but also injects the Chivalric Romance sensibilities. In short, I don't see a big need to make spears compete with swords when it comes to KNIGHTS' weapons.

Mind you, I would be fully in favor of ditching the single-use Lance as a skill and just have Knights use Spear in a charge, too. This would make Knights train their Spear up, which would also nicely give them a hunting weapon for all those boar-hunts. I would be happy to give a spear a bonus there, like an unopposed attack before the boar gets to do its thing, whereas with a sword, both unopposed attacks could be simultaneous. But in duels and general horseback melee, swords should be generally preferred over spears by the knights.

I think the more playtime is spent before Boy King, the more the setting tries to feel like a post-Roman Britain historical simulation. That's part of the problem. Then you get through the Anarchy and civil wars and people settle down and have enough time and margin to be chivarlic. When KAP was designed it started with Boy King, and has been extended backwards from there. 

Now the early knights are "elite mounted warriors" and Ambrosius brings the stirrup to Britain!

On spear/lance skill: Cymrics get spear expertise that does exactly that--conflate the two. Every other culture has to pay double and isn't going to be using spears unless they are trumped-up warriors (Picts and Saxons maybe). On the note of Saxons, they ride but fight on foot until after Badon, when Arthur civilizes them and forces their sons to behave like knights (learning to use lances, presumably).

If you conflate the two skills then you remove BoK&L's contribution to Cymric super-power. (This may or may not be a problem.)

 

36 minutes ago, Morien said:

Daggers

This is something I am adamant about: Gladius is a sword. It is a big, hefty chopper compared to a dagger, and some big gladii are more comparable to Viking swords in length already. Pugio is the legionnaire's dagger. (Although I might mention that around 3rd century AD, the legionnaires started to shift to a slightly longer spatha, so by 5th and 6th centuries, any 'legionnaires' around should be carrying functionally identical swords as the knights.)

I do like the idea of allowing dagger to be rearmed at a ready action, which would really fit its role as a surprise or last-ditch weapon. I would also be in favor of them halving the armor after a successful Grapple, which would make up for the -1d6 damage, but also mean that you'd have to win the Grapple first. Grapple rules definitely need a looksie to make sure that they work and are not too overpowered; i.e. I wouldn't want a situation where Grappling and knifing someone to death becomes the number one tactic for the knights from start forward, whereas it would make more sense in the full plate era when you can't get through the armor any other way.

Ok, do not want to create a Roman armaments argument. The point was that there is utility in the dagger as a quick-draw item that would get it used more. As is, why pull it out when you could search around and re-arm with a more substantial weapon? So we're agreed, that if used in grapple is halves armor, and it may be readied for free.

Grappling in general is as undignified as brawling, and I think you could say that if you are engaged in it you may not split your skill to defend from others who may be attempting to relieve their comrade. That right there would hurt enough to make it not the first choice tactic. 

 

--Khanwulf

[Atgxtg]

 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

In no particular order:

 

SWORDS (vs. Spears)

Greg DELIBERATELY made the Sword unbreakable and the primary weapon of the Pendragon knight for a reason. The reason is that the Sword is the chivalric weapon, the symbol of a knight, and as such, should not be weakened. I am against making the Sword a poorer weapon than the Spear in general.

I agree a lot of the rules in KAP deliberately favor the knight, increasing and advantage they had (like +5/-5 for mounted) or minimizing things that would work against them (Pike formations). Of course historically the sword was actually a secondary weapon, but this is Pendragon.

But spear does neet some sort of upgrade. Only dagger is worse.

25 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

It might be enough to provide cover effects to a shieldwall. 

That could help. As I mentioned with the data, shields and half sword technique seem to cancel out most of the 2H spear advantage, and 1H spears don't do as well .

1 hour ago, Morien said:

(If anything, my feeling is that the Sword could use a bit of a boost especially in comparison to axe & mace, but I don't want to get sidetracked here.

Good because we'd disagree. IMO the breakage ability more than offsets any advatage the other weapons have. In all my years of playing kAP I've never seen a player get though a battle with an axe, mace or such without breaking it. 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

I might also quickly note re: closing against a spear that the situation changes dramatically when the combatants are armored, since then a chance poke of the spear won't be enough.

Yup. In fact one of the tactics used in the simulation was for an armored opponent to just rush in and take the hit, as most attacks wouldn't get through the shield, let alone any armor. 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

BREAKAGE

I agree that having non-swords breaking on a fumble is an additional strike against the non-swords, and a serious one at that. I would be in favor of making all fumbles just a dropped weapon, with a lanyard option for one-handed weapons (not Spear). However, I would very much keep the Swords breaking non-swords on a tie, since if you remove this, you remove the whole advantage of having a sword. (And additional reason to boost swords up a bit, since they kinda lost the durability on a fumble with comparison to non-swords.)

I'd rather keep the break on a fumble and go to dropped on a tie (sword excepted) the main reason is that if you take two combatants, both highly skilled, the swordsman is going to win just because of the increased number of ties, and broken weapons. If Sword 30 goes up against anything but a Sword (or Greatsword) 30, then there will be a broken weapon 55% of the time. 

 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Whether this tie should extend to Criticals as well is another point to consider. Personally, I prefer the houserule that we have, where you actually calculate the exact number of a die roll, and if both are 20+, then you cancel out the criticals and use them as normal rolls. So in your skill 25 example, if one rolled 18+5 and the other 17+5, it would be 23 and 22, normal hit on B who gets a shield. This would keep the ties as rare as they already are with skills less than 21.

Not a bad houserule, but a major chance in how things are handled.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

 

The Role of Spears

We already have plenty of reasons why spears dominate on the battlefield: they are cheap, they are easy to train (poke the enemy with the pointy bit) and to use in formations, and like you said, they are popular hunting weapons, too. So of course you would arm your arrowfodder with them. But the KNIGHTS are the elite. The Knights are supposed to be the badasses. Pendragon is not a history simulation, but also injects the Chivalric Romance sensibilities. In short, I don't see a big need to make spears compete with swords when it comes to KNIGHTS' weapons.

Me either, but I do thing they should get something. 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Mind you, I would be fully in favor of ditching the single-use Lance as a skill and just have Knights use Spear in a charge, too. This would make Knights train their Spear up, which would also nicely give them a hunting weapon for all those boar-hunts.

Plus in a real fight they would just stab people at a distance with the lance/spear instead of closing in with the sword. But I can see lance being sperate becuase it it a lot harder to use one than to use a spear, and footmen shouldn't be good lancers by default. RQ has rule where combat skills from horseback are capped by ther Ride skill, but I can see why Greg didn't do that  in Pendragon- it would negate most of the height bonus from being mounted.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

I would be happy to give a spear a bonus there, like an unopposed attack before the boar gets to do its thing, whereas with a sword, both unopposed attacks could be simultaneous. But in duels and general horseback melee, swords should be generally preferred over spears by the knights.

Spear Expertise covers that.

 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Daggers

This is something I am adamant about: Gladius is a sword. It is a big, hefty chopper compared to a dagger,

Not really. The line between knife and sword is a very blurry one. The Gladius wasn't used to chop as much as to thrust. It's basically used like an improved 1H spear. From what I've read and see the real advatage was when used with the Large Shield. It could be used from behind the shield without exposing oneself the way they would have to with a swining weapon. Plus they could get about three attack s to one from an arming sword.

 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

and some big gladii are more comparable to Viking swords in length already. Pugio is the legionnaire's dagger. (Although I might mention that around 3rd century AD, the legionnaires started to shift to a slightly longer spatha, so by 5th and 6th centuries, any 'legionnaires' around should be carrying functionally identical swords as the knights.)

All true, I wish Greg hadn't made the dagger the default Roman weapon in KAP4, at least not without some sort of compensation in formation fighting. 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

I do like the idea of allowing dagger to be rearmed at a ready action, which would really fit its role as a surprise or last-ditch weapon. I would also be in favor of them halving the armor after a successful Grapple, which would make up for the -1d6 damage, but also mean that you'd have to win the Grapple first. Grapple rules definitely need a looksie to make sure that they work and are not too overpowered; i.e. I wouldn't want a situation where Grappling and knifing someone to death becomes the number one tactic for the knights from start forward, whereas it would make more sense in the full plate era when you can't get through the armor any other way.

How about if dagger defaulted to DEX now the way grappling and brawling do? So the character would lose a die of damage, but have a backup weapon that they will be reasonalby competent with on little to no training. 

The misercord and other specially "cous de gras" type daggers could be special weapons that get introduced in the Later Periods (after Plate). I was thinking they would have a penalty to use in combat, and so mostly be used to finish off defeated opponents rather than as a fighting weapon.