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01-08-2018, 04:37 PM | #1 | ||
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
I broke this off from the "list the issues" TFT thread (Fantasy Trip Glitches, Contradictions, Ambiguities).
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I think mounted figures with lances should be pretty awesome though. Quote:
Last edited by tbeard1999; 01-08-2018 at 08:18 PM. |
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01-08-2018, 08:09 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
A better treatment of pole arms would be to give them all a similarly strong (and quite good) impaling charge attack, and then to have the swinging/hacking attack scale with ST and extend up to quite high values. The reality is that a halberd or pole hammer is one of the few weapons on a medieval battlefield that will wreck your day even in heavy armor.
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01-09-2018, 11:56 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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The best all-around seems to be the Glaive - a 2' seax (meat-cleaver with a thrusting point) on a 4' to 6' handle, often with a back spike and/or back-hook. It does most things a halberd does with a cheaper blade, and one which is also still useful as a utility tool... and is easier to make, as well. But, like the Halberd, a dedicated bec is better at opening the can, a dedicated axe is better at chopping bones to dust through chain and/or denting plate, and the dedicated bill hooks are better at pulling riders and cutting straps... Likewise, the Seax itself is a jack of all trades blade - a 2'-3' meat-cleaver with a thrusting point, and a 10 to 20 inch handle. Strong enough to make a useful hatchet, easily sharpened, massive enough to be hard to block or divert, and still wieldy enough to be used as a machete, too. And it can be used to stop-thrust as well as push thrust, in addition to chopping. Oh, and it's nimble enough to be used for preparing dinner... none of them as well as a dedicated blade for the task, but all of them better than the wrong blade. ( |
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01-10-2018, 06:45 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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01-11-2018, 05:16 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Columbia, Maryland
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
My recollection from ye olde days as a spear/glaive man were that my advantages were reach, and the ability to get in a quick hit with a sneaky jab or chop now and again. The only time that I felt like I did a hit with "extra damage" was in line battles while standing behind the shield wall. Then you could get in a full overhand swing with plenty of power behind it.
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01-11-2018, 06:45 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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But doubling the damage, while simple, might have been too much, with larger pole weapons. A simple fix might be to add 1 die for a charge attack (or set vs a charge) with anything the size of a spear or larger. |
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01-14-2018, 03:14 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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Functionally, there are only a double-handful of useful bits that define types
These can be simplified further into the following with only a mild loss of fidelit:
A few things that people sometimes think of as polearms really aren't. The Javelin and throwing spear are not really polearms. Throwing spears and javelins are usually much lighter, and are at best a desperation weapon in close order melee. A parry is likely to destroy them. The Pilum (plural: pilae) is also not a polearm - it's intended use is to weight the opponent's shield... stab it through the shield, then drop it; the long head bends, and it adds a couple pounds at a longer moment arm position, so it makes it hard to use the shield. (If you stick it into the ribcage, it has even more annoying effects.) |
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01-16-2018, 01:58 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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And something like a Pilum, specifically designed for the head to break off in the enemy, or his shield, in order to hamper his movement and defense (and prevent the enemy from using it by throwing it back at you!) would obviously be completely unsuitable for a charge attack -- the energy of the charge would be wasted when the neck of the pilum bent and snapped (as it was designed to do). Heck, you can't even use the pilum the way the Zulus did the Assegai, to parry and stab; at least not reliably. Which raises the question about whether or not something such as a "short spear" (Assegai) should be a category of weapon... The real question becomes how to make the rule simple, and the simplest way is to state that javelins may NOT be used in a pole-weapon charge attack, but that spears can. (Arguably, "short spears" wouldn't work well in a charge either -- they are a man-to-man weapon, not a pole weapon.) |
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01-09-2018, 09:17 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: Fantasy Trip Pole Weapons and Charges
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That doesn't surprise me. The figure you describe would attack first in a charge attack and would hit 91% of the time. He would do 2+4 damage, enough to seriously injure or kill normal opponents most of the time. More than half of the time, he'd knock an opponent wearing chainmail (or leather and small shield) down, which would prevent the opponent from retaliating. |
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