03-04-2018, 10:21 AM | #11 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
IME the narrow hallway in a more modern building is more likely to be 1.5m rather than 1m - because you need to pass people, and you need to carry things like laundry baskets. And because sometimes people are fat or pregnant and it's even harder to do these things when you're one of them in a 1 meter hallway.
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03-04-2018, 01:33 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
I was talking about the corridor cross-section: 1 or 1.5 yards wide by 2 yards high. In order to reverse the spear (etc.), it has to fit through this, the most restrictive profile. The length of the corridor can be arbitrary, because it doesn't matter once it ceases to be the smallest dimension.
You could get around this by having a higher (3 yd) ceiling, but then why wouldn't you make the corridor 3 yards wide from the start? You might also try to reverse the orientation at a T-junction or in a room, but counting on having one handy just when you need it seems like a poor life choice. |
03-04-2018, 03:31 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
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03-04-2018, 11:23 PM | #14 | |||
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
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Huh, this does raise another question, doesn't it? How tall are the ceilings? Well given how often SM+1 beings seem to venture into them, I'd say at least 3 yards tall, maybe even 5 |
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03-05-2018, 08:59 AM | #15 |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
Again, I set ceiling height based on who built the corridor. Typical modern ceilings are 8 feet tall, and average humans (in the US, at least) are 5'8" for males, with examples regularly reaching 6'. Call it 133% the builder's height.
That said, medieval buildings and especially tunnels in general tend to be as short as possible since it reduces building expenses. Only structures and tunnels meant for their grandeur would likely be bigger. This gives a range of just above average height to about 133% regular height. So if a 9' tall ogre builds a house, the ceilings may be between 9' and 12'.
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03-05-2018, 09:34 AM | #16 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
If you want "What was the designer thinking, anyway?": On average I tend to think, "Big enough for two humans to pass in opposite directions while doing work" (carrying toolboxes, trundling wheelbarrows, bearing coffins, etc.) "and tall enough for a hulking ST 14, 6'2" warrior with a helmet on." Not just 2 yards wide × 2 yards tall, but something akin to that plus a 10% margin in both directions, or 2.2 × 2.2 yards . . . though it might show up as just two hexes wide on a printed map. That sets the diagonal at 3.1 yards (and where two such corridors meet at 90°, there will be room to clear 3.8 yards with a little moving-day mambo).
Which isn't to say that narrower or wider corridors don't exist, only that they always exist for a reason. Behind-the-scenes maintenance tunnels for traps, secret passages used by one bad guy who won't be bringing friends, hastily burrowed escape routes, corridors designed to funnel attackers into a trap, or anything built by an SM -1 or smaller race might be narrower (treat as one canonical hex, regardless of actual width in yards). Huge ceremonial hallways, routes intended to enable massive numbers of troops to deploy quickly, galleries built to allow carts to pass, corridors likely to be used for storage as well as passage, or anything excavated by an SM +1 or larger race might be wider (at least three canonical hexes, again regardless of actual width in yards). If you have the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, turn to the map of the dungeon (I Smell a Rat). Areas #3 and #8 are "average" corridors. Areas #2 (a hastily excavated, concealed tunnel) and #5 (a secret passage intended to endanger unwelcome visitors) are "narrow." And area #15 (blasted by monstrous energies) is "wide." Worrying about the exact diagonals is a bit too much worrying for the DFRPG, but the information is there to work them out: area #2 (3' × 6', 2.2 yard diag.), area #3 (6' × 6', 2.8 yard diag.), area #5 (3' × 8', 2.8 yard diag.), area #8 (6' × 8', 3.3 yard diag.), area #15 (10' × 10', 4.7 yard diag.). For convenience's sake, I'd allow all weapons to thrust and weapons no longer than the corridor width to be swung. Which means that dungeons are okay for knives, axes, clubs, maces, morningstars, picks, one-handed swords (even rapiers, which are stabby), etc.; occasionally a little limiting for spears, staffs, and two-handed versions of axes, flails, maces, picks, and swords; and regularly a rotten place to try to maneuver battlefield-length pikes and polearms.
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03-05-2018, 12:11 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
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Last edited by David Johnston2; 03-05-2018 at 12:28 PM. |
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03-05-2018, 12:19 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
That's pretty generous but probably consistent with the dungeon crawl genre. Realistically you probably can't swing properly if you don't have open space on your weapon hand side. This includes formation combat, there's a reason close infantry formations have historically used stabbing weapons.
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03-05-2018, 01:01 PM | #19 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
Well, the downward swing with a big gravity assist, usually aimed at the head, seems to be the favored attack of warriors in bad fantasy art everywhere, so I'm not going to get too bent out of shape over clearance to the side.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
03-05-2018, 08:13 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Corridor Width (In Dungeons)
I like using the rules from Underground Adventures to limit swinging melee attacks in tight corridors, but I tend to not mind slightly fiddlier combat in dungeons. It also makes it fun to arm the inhabitants with stabbiness for a home turf advantage.
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