Fighting styles for dungeon & city

[mhd]

Let's assume the following tropes:

- The adventurers spend most of their (fighting) time either in dungeons or in the city (avoiding getting robbed, quests in more polite society, "thieves guild" business and the like).
- Wilderness travel isn't a big issue (no hexcrawl)
- The usual rather anachronistic TL4 hodgepodge creating a much wider variety of weapon and armor styles worn in a single time frame
- No big legal ramifications and restrictions in general, private restrictions excepted (no court visit with polearms & plate, innkeepers demanding that you check your shield & flail at the door)
- No big effect of magic (for the sake of this discussion)

What weapons and styles would "realistically" flourish there? We all know our D&D tropes of sword-and-board paladins, dagger-stabby rogues and "dual wielding" rangers. But disregarding that, what would be the more pragmatic approach?

"Use what you've been taught" is a common restriction, but if adventurers are common enough, teachers will cater to their needs. Just like a renaissance student would find someone willing to tell him how to wield a rapier, there'd be retired adventurers telling you how to kill that troll with a flaming pike using "Secret Dwarven Giant Fighting Techniques".

Having something that works for both city & dungeon (& maybe travel) would certainly have its draw. More teachers, less skills to spread out on. Could be done by e.g. leaving out a shield for sword & boarders in polite company. Common roots might be sufficient enough for some, like e.g. polearms & quarterstaff.

Both dungeons and alleys tend to be somewhat narrow, so apart from societal restrictions, polearms might not be the best choice. Never mind that they favor large groups fighting, and you've only got a couple of friends and the odd henchman. (Still, if pragmatic adventurers would find a good reason to give everyone halberds, including wizards & torch bearers, they'd probably do it). That reach does sound quite enticing when you're facing some big bads, though.

"Realistic" armor use is a bit difficult to judge. For one, I'd say most non-humanoid monsters will have lesser protection than a battlefield knight with hardened armor (even the scaley ones). The adventurers themselves (and underground humanoids) don't have the luxury of horses and too many helpers, so even if it is plate, it's more infantry plate.

On the other hand, if we stick to the tropes and you'll encounter lots of "low level" enemies, having impervious protection would be awesome when that horde of goblins/kobolds arrives.

What do you think will be common among the delving folk (and some of their opponents) in this scenario?

I'd rate Legionary-style sword & boarders quite highly. Good in narrow conditions, still quite usable in city situations, especially with a bit of wrestling mixed in.

[Sam Baughn]

Shields seem like a mixed bag in cramped environments: they are helpful when pushing up a corridor full of enemies or protecting yourself from falling or dropped rocks, etc. but are awkward to get through small doors with, difficult to squeeze through narrow gaps when carrying and so on. They also make carrying torches and lanterns problematic and can't be used at all when climbing. Overall, I'd call them not quite worth the effort.

Weapons for both dungeon and city fights need to be possible to draw quickly, as you will often be confronted by unexpected threats. This means that swords and knives are basically your only viable choices.

Exactly which will be best depends somewhat on your budget. The options which look best to me are:

Longsword: good range of reach options but expensive.
Thrusting Broadsword: slightly cheaper, can't attack at reach 2 but can make reversed grip thrusts at reach C which do a lot of damage.
Long Knife: a fine version is still cheaper than a good thrusting broadsword, it doesn't need any perks to be fully usable in close combat and it is an Easy skill instead of Average.

You will also want back-up weapons, typically knives, positioned so that you can draw them in awkward postures like sitting down, crawling and so on. Likewise your unarmed skills should be usable in circumstances where you might be in a weird posture or not be able to use your hands. I'd generally go with Brawling rather than fancy stuff simply because it takes no penalty for encumbrance and works with pommel strikes.

Regardless of weapon, the Grip Mastery perk and Reverse Grip techniques are essential for getting the most out of your blade. Low Fighting is a wise investment if most dungeons are cramped and Ground Fighting is probably useful too. Since most adventurers going into caves are likely to wear helmets and having the option of attacking even if you can't use your limbs is good, Head Butt seems like a good technique to have. Likewise, Kicking is good if you're hanging from a rope or need to target very small opponents.

Armour Familiarity is essential if you intend to use any skill which gets a 'fencing' parry, but overall I don't think those skills are worth the effort in this kind of environment.

Off-Hand Weapon Training (Knife) and OHWT(Fast-Draw(Knife)) are extremely useful for getting a back-up blade into play and should be learned by everyone even if knives aren't your primary weapons.

Sure-Footed (Uneven) is good for anyone planning to fight in tunnels and probably quite helpful in pseudo-medieval alleys, bars, etc.

[Kalzazz]

If they can afford it, and are using Low Tech, adventures will enjoy lighter forms of plate armor due to excellent DR for weight

If you use the optional rules for two handed weapons and parries, 2 handed weapons like staves and great swords are nice

Usually the best backup weapon is a spare of your main weapon. If you want to wield a broadsword, your second best broadsword can be your backup

Crossbows and wheel locks are often decent choices to open up fights

If you expect to fight in narrow confines, bows and polearms are very handy for using from the rear ranks.

In Godogma's Urban Fantasy, weapon control laws allow rapiers and knives and pistols and small bucklers and such, and light cloth and such. Brigandine is allowed if ornate. You can carry other weapons if your status/other things permit. For instance, a cleric (with Clerical Investment) can carry a mace or flail or other holy weapon, a knight or squire (with status) can carry an arming sword etc

[kdtipa]

I have a one-and-a-half hand broadsword at home that I bring to ren-faires and use for costumes in general. It's certainly not combat effective, but it IS about the right size and weight to tell that carrying it around is a huge pain in the butt. Because of its length it's also impossible to draw quickly if the scabbard is attached to me. To draw it quickly, I have to be holding the thing in my off hand, and then I can draw the sword sort of fast with the other hand.

Basically... unless you're a knight marching onto a battlefield, I don't think long/broad swords are practical. Sitting at a table to eat means having to accommodate it. Really... everything you do that's "normal" will be hindered by having a long heavy chunk of metal to carry around.

Considering how restrictive movement is in those heavy armors too, I'd guess people wouldn't bother with anything heavier than soft leather as protection that might be worn through normal activities.

If I had to invent a style of fighting that made sense (to me at least) for a fantasy setting where most of the danger is from dungeon delving and monsters, or perhaps as due to political intrigue in town...

In Town...
I'd guess that those embroiled in political intrigue, and who might face attempts on their lives from physical means like bladed weapons, would develop knife fighting skills to a high degree. They can be carried without it being a huge problem, and they can be small enough to hide on your person. For that reason, I think Holdout would become a really important skill as well as Search. I also think unarmed fighting would be important to these people.

Defensively, I think someone would have figured out a way to make some weave based material that is very hard to cut or stab through to make shirts and pants out of. As a funny aside, I think collars on shirts would be high not for modesty, but to make it harder to slice someone's throat.

In Dungeons/Caves/Ruins...
I think that ground that is not level, or not reliable as a flat surface, would mean that people would avoid heavy armor in that situation too. I wouldn't want to try to climb through cave systems with full plate armor on. So I think that the material that's hard to cut through would likely be used as a foundation for a leather "plate" kind of thing to provide more protection, but to avoid adding too much weight. I understand it would still be heavy, but you want SOME protection if you're likely to fight monsters.

As for weapons in a cave... I think you're correct that long weapons would be less likely. But I think swords would be too long as well as pole-arms. I'm trying to imagine swinging a sword in a hallway. So I think knives would again at least be carried. Far more maneuverable, and doesn't add much to the weight. But of course, in real life, you probably don't want to try fighting a monster that close. So I do think there would be something else...

If black powder is an option, a shotgun would be awesome. Cartridges filled with black powder and buck shot. Blasting down a passageway seems like a great idea against monsters. But assuming no black powder (since it doesn't seem to feature in fantasy that much)...

Short bows. They aren't long enough to make moving through passages too difficult, and with practice can be fired pretty quickly. Shooting a monster in the face at range might deter it completely, AND you don't necessarily have to get close enough for it to be able to reach you. You could also use the bow to send fire ahead of you into dark areas so you can see what's ahead a bit (though firing into darkness might have other risks).

So I picture high levels of skill in Bow, Fast Draw: Arrow, Melee Weapon: Knife, and Fast Draw: Knife (to get the knife out if the target gets too close). I also imagine that there would be a fair amount of practice fighting on unstable surfaces... though I'm not sure what that skill would be. Acrobatics might cover it, but that doesn't seem right. I might end up inventing a skill, or maybe a leveled advantage that can offset penalties for rough terrain?

Magic?
If magic is involved, of course weapons and armor would be enchanted to work better... so a nice light armor shirt can protect well despite not being made of steel. There might even be a replacement for the shotgun or bow that's just a ranged attack method that can be moved around easily inside a cave/dungeon.

[Kalzazz]

Having once done a job that required wearing a baton and thrust vest, with assorted other tools, you can very quickly get used to a baton swinging off your belt so I definitely wouldn't think a baton sized short sword will hamper folks to much after they do a few 12 hour shifts wearing it . . . they will instinctively learn where it is and to not drop it or bang it into things

[thrash]

I have often wondered why fantasy adventurers don't spend more effort on the one historical weapon that was designed for fighting "monsters": the boar spear. Certainly, I can see the utility of keeping something bitey/slashy as far away from me as possible. Your dungeon spear would need to be no more than about head-height (say, 6') to fit easily through tunnels and doorways. It could double as a pole for testing floors. Two of them plus a cloak could be pressed into a makeshift stretcher (for casualties or loot, depending on your priorities).

Extra points if your artificier can make a bayonet with a cross-hilt that sockets into a shod quarter-and-a-bit-more-staff.

I think there's a division of labor between traditional fighter and thief types, based on the size of gear they can carry. The thief is restricted in practical terms to short swords and armor one can climb or crawl in -- maybe cloak as a shield/parry? Slings and blowguns+poison are the ranged weapons of choice. The fighters wear rigid armor and carry small shields and dungeon spears, with short swords for backup. They aren't expected to break trail, or climb without ropes and set footholds.

[Dalillama]

if black powder is available, grenades will be a favourite for rooms full of horde monsters, from rat swarms to kobold caves. If local technology runs to wheellocks or magic is widespread enough for spell locks, pistols area good plan, especially for support types. Expect to see enchanted bullets and big, monster killing calibres. boar spears are a good plan, possibly with a feature that allows them to be broken down into a handier short spear for really tight spaces. Someone might also have the idea of welding a gun onto the head, to shoot whatever you're holding at bay. A spell lock makes this more practical.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by mhd

I'd rate Legionary-style sword & boarders quite highly. Good in narrow conditions, still quite usable in city situations, especially with a bit of wrestling mixed in.

No one walking around a city is going to carry either a 17 or 22 lb scutum with him. Not just heavy but hard to get through the tavern door with. City shields are going to be small bucklers. This is where you see nice light metal ones historically.

Longswords or bastard swords are too long for comfort but Thrusting Broadswords of 30 inches for the blade are still practical. City-based users use baldrics (shoulder straps) with quick-release attachments to anchor them to the belt.

These are much the same reason that Tokugawa battlefield blades that Basic calls "katanas" could be 40 inches but Late Katanas (see Martial Arts) are usually only about 29 inches in the blade.

[Polydamas]

The historical solution was to have your servants carry your rotella or staff weapons (or run and get them from home).

Sources from the 15th through 17th century give a pretty good idea of the weapons and armour that people expecting trouble carried, and its more than you might think (although in some ways less: hunters sometimes carried a big knife, a crossbow, and three quarrels). A common solution is something that doubles as a walking stick, ranging from a light cane, to a long-hafted axe with an iron butt, to a 10' staff with sharp irons on both ends. If you don't want to do the research, Matthew Easton has some YouTube videos on the subject, and he reads sources.

William Harrison's Description of England has a classic passage about the situation in Elizabethan England:

Originally Posted by William Harrison

Seldom shall you see any of my countrymen above eighteen or twenty years old to go without a dagger at the least at his back or by his side, although they be aged burgesses or magistrates of any city who in appearance are most exempt from brabling and contention. Our nobility wear commonly swords or rapiers with their daggers, as doth every common serving-man also that followeth his lord and master. Some desperate cutters we have in like sort, which carry two daggers or two rapiers in a sheath always about them, wherewith in every drunken fray they are known to work much mischief. Their swords and daggers also are of a great length, and longer than the like used in any other country, whereby each one pretendeth to have the more advantage of his enemy. But as many orders have been taken for the intolerable length of these weapons, so I see as yet small redress; but where the cause thereof doth rest, in sooth for my part, I wot not.

I might here speak of the excessive staves which divers that travel by the way do carry upon their shoulders, whereof some are twelve or thirteen foot long, beside the pike of twelve inches; but, as they are commonly suspected of honest men to be thieves and robbers, or at the leastwise scarce true men which bear them, so by reason of this and the like suspicious weapons the honest traveller is now forced to ride with a case of dags [a kind of handgun] at his saddlebow, or with some pretty short snapper [firearm with a self-igniting snaphaunce lock], whereby he may deal with them further off in his own self-defence before he come within the danger of these weapons. Finally, no man travelleth by the way without his sword, or some such weapon, with us, except the minister, who commonly weareth none at all, unless it be a dagger or hanger at his side.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by mhd

"Realistic" armor use is a bit difficult to judge. For one, I'd say most non-humanoid monsters will have lesser protection than a battlefield knight with hardened armor (even the scaley ones). The adventurers themselves (and underground humanoids) don't have the luxury of horses and too many helpers, so even if it is plate, it's more infantry plate.

"An open helmet, body armour, and maybe one other piece" is a pretty good rule of thumb for the maximum protection that infantry without servants can be bothered to wear. That said, a bit depends on the local dungeons and how you explore them. If each adventure is a few hours of walking into 10' wide corridors, more armour is practical than if it involves climbing up narrow 'chimneys' or spending days on a boat in an underground river.

Early D&D often involved gangs of hirelings, torch bearers, and pack animals like the flunkies in a 15th century 'lance.'