06-24-2019, 01:49 PM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2010
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[Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
In GURPS Loadouts: Low-Tech Armor, the standard bronze-age charioteer loadout weighs 84.7 lbs. for the driver or 75.5 lbs. for the rider. This comes to a total of 160.2 lbs. Even if the archer only carries a dozen arrows in a shoulder quiver and no backup weapon, total loadout with a composite bow comes to 164.15 lbs. The light chariot only has a Load statistic of 400 lbs. Therefore, unless the charioteers weigh under 118 lbs. apiece, they'll be overloading the chariot.
What are the penalties for doing this? One model would be to treat the chariot as a character with ST equal to HP as long as it's being pulled by the normal wo ponies, and apply encumbrance penalties as usual. By that approach you wouldn't actually face any penalties until going over 451 lbs. You could also do something more complicated involving the rules for dragging, but the chariot statistics in the table appear unconnected to the pony statistics in Campaigns. I'm surprised by the difficulty of finding any sort of official rule on this—help? |
06-24-2019, 04:22 PM | #2 |
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
I don't think there are rules for this yet. I think we're all waiting for Pulver's book, though there might be something in the steampunk vehicle book. You could apply modest penalties to an overloaded vehicles: reduce Move as you would for going over Encumbrance levels, penalize driver skill, apply a penalty to vehicle HT rolls, and the like.
My recommendation, though, would be to ignore it or, if you like, increase the load of the light chariot to a sufficient value to accommodate the crew with their loadouts. The light chariot in Low Tech is clearly a repeat of the stats of the chariot from Basic. Back when Basic was first published, 400 lbs. was a reasonable guess for the weight of two men and some modest gear, so there was no strong reason for that stat to be changed when we wrote Low Tech. A total weight of gear and passengers in excess of that is a consequence of Dan researching that specific issue more closely in ways we didn't do for the main gear catalog. The stats for that chariot approximate the performance of a vehicle for which we don't have a lot of originals or reality checking and was never standardized anyway. Given Dan's instantiation in GURPS of charioteer loadouts, a chariot with a load of, say, 450 or 475 lbs. might be better to characterize a light war chariot.
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06-24-2019, 04:44 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
Quote:
https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Bron...uipment/p/3272
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06-24-2019, 06:43 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
Why is all that armor needed? The chariot is it's own corselet.
Now horse armor is needed as one horse going down smashes the whole thing. Not to mention protecting the wheels with those flimsy spokes. No wonder they switched to cavalry.
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06-24-2019, 09:51 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
Did historical people wear that armor while using chariots?
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06-24-2019, 10:07 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
Quote:
This is the Florence chariot https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/ima...in_desktop.jpg This is one of the chariots found in Tut's tomb. http://www.metroway.com/digonis_8182.gif
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Compact Castles gives the gamer an instant portfolio of genuine, real-world castle floorplans to use in any historical, low-tech, or fantasy game setting. Last edited by DanHoward; 06-24-2019 at 10:18 PM. |
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06-24-2019, 10:19 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
I wouldn't have put it in the loadouts book if they didn't.
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06-25-2019, 08:19 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
Quote:
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06-25-2019, 02:22 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Pisa, Tuscany, Italy
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
Quote:
https://www.akg-images.co.uk/Docs/AK...AKG3028791.jpg * = Sometimes Osprey books contain errors, especially the old ones, but the average quality of most of the recently written books is very good. |
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06-25-2019, 05:36 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: [Low-tech] Charioteer loadouts and overloaded land vehicles
The Dendra Panoply is definitely charioteer armour. More specifically, I'm convinced that it was worn by the driver, not the archer (Mycenaean chariots were archery platforms just like everyone else's at the time). Only drivers wore neck and full arm coverage.
The Mitanni wore armoured skirts called dutiwa but we don't know how far down the leg they reached. Most likely they stopped at the knee. In the Loadouts book they cover the knee but not shin.
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