Mounted Combat

[LBurger]

Hey.

Well, I have two doubts about mounted combat, I hope you guys can help:

1) It states in Campaign page 397 that a rider "uses melee weapons at the lower of his melee weapon skill or riding skill". But what about techniques lik Feint? Would you say that a rider with Broadsword 15, Feint (Broadsword) 17 and Riding 15 would use the Feint at 15? It appears to me that this is right, but am I missing something?

2) A Lance does damage based on mount's mass and speed. But wouldn't it be right to have a max damage like any other weapon (3x the min ST)? If so, how would you calculate that max, as the damage is based in colision, and not pure st?

Thx

[Nereidalbel]

1. You're not missing anything.

2. Slams aren't limited by ST, as the weapon is there to change the damage type from Crushing to (usually) Impaling. Unless you're moving at unrealistic speeds, the weapon also takes the impact, instead of the attacker also taking damage from the Slam.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by LBurger

1) It states in Campaign page 397 that a rider "uses melee weapons at the lower of his melee weapon skill or riding skill". But what about techniques lik Feint? Would you say that a rider with Broadsword 15, Feint (Broadsword) 17 and Riding 15 would use the Feint at 15? It appears to me that this is right, but am I missing something?

I would argue that techniques default to the lower of the relevant melee weapon skill or riding skill, whichever is worse. In your example, I would say the Feint technique would still be 17.

[LBurger]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

2. Slams aren't limited by ST, as the weapon is there to change the damage type from Crushing to (usually) Impaling. Unless you're moving at unrealistic speeds, the weapon also takes the impact, instead of the attacker also taking damage from the Slam.

What would be unrealistic? And about the impact: so the lance should shatter?

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

I would argue that techniques default to the lower of the relevant melee weapon skill or riding skill, whichever is worse. In your example, I would say the Feint technique would still be 17.

That also makes sense to me.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by LBurger

What would be unrealistic? And about the impact: so the lance should shatter?

Speedsters tend to run at speeds where the weapon does nothing, unless it's magical.

As for a lance shattering, that's what weapon breakage rolls are for.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by LBurger

Hey.

Well, I have two doubts about mounted combat, I hope you guys can help:

1) It states in Campaign page 397 that a rider "uses melee weapons at the lower of his melee weapon skill or riding skill". But what about techniques lik Feint? Would you say that a rider with Broadsword 15, Feint (Broadsword) 17 and Riding 15 would use the Feint at 15? It appears to me that this is right, but am I missing something?

I'd have him feinting at 17, if his Riding was 14 I have him feint at 16 (but if someone was attempting to feint at him he'd roll at 17)

Originally Posted by LBurger

2) A Lance does damage based on mount's mass and speed. But wouldn't it be right to have a max damage like any other weapon (3x the min ST)? If so, how would you calculate that max, as the damage is based in colision, and not pure st?

Thx

These are slightly different things, but if you wanted you could take 3x minST (i.e 36) and have that as the cap on how much ST is used in calculate damage. Which will not limit most horses (just as most upper caps don't limit most wielders).

Massive High ST horses will tend to move slower than less massive ones, so I wouldn't worry too much about the speed factor here (and horses arn't going that fast anyway)

Personally I have issues with how lances basically transform a charging horse into a charging spike at 100% efficiency so that would fit my prejudice


(I also tend to use an ST of the average between mount and lance wielder to make the point it's a combined system partly limited by its weaker parts, but again that's my prejudice at work)


Alternatively you could just have 3xMinSt as the damage threshold above which your lance breaks which considering it would 36 really should only be for extreme RL combinations of speed x ST (but really it should be combination of how hard you hit and what you hit). Which is nice because it works the same way as the intentionally weakened jousting lances.

Obviously bigger wielders on bigger mounts leveraging higher ST's will have larger lances with higher MinST. Speedsters will need to make their lances out of something stronger though.


If you're a fan of dragon lance, now you know why dragon lances where made of metal!

[LBurger]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Alternatively you could just have 3xMinSt as the damage threshold above which your lance breaks which considering it would 36 really should only be for extreme RL combinations of speed x ST (but really it should be combination of how hard you hit and what you hit). Which is nice because it works the same way as the intentionally weakened jousting lances.

Obviously bigger wielders on bigger mounts leveraging higher ST's will have larger lances with higher MinST. Speedsters will need to make their lances out of something stronger though.


If you're a fan of dragon lance, now you know why dragon lances where made of metal!

Im a big fan of Dlance, hehe. It is not a game in Ansalon, but we are riding dragons when this doubt occured. And this interpretation seems to be pretty fair.