Advantages of a short sword

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Lancewholelot

I'm considering house ruling that short swords only receive half the close combat penalty (-2 instead of -4) to give the weapon a circumstantial advantage. Thoughts and opinions?

I have done that in my campaigns for years.

Works fine.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Lancewholelot

I'm considering house ruling that short swords only receive half the close combat penalty (-2 instead of -4) to give the weapon a circumstantial advantage. Thoughts and opinions?

What other Reach 1 weapons that presumably still take a -4 skill are you wanting to give it an advantage compared to?

I'm guessing something like Broadsword (B271) or Saber (B273) ?

One idea might be to tweak things to allow 0.5 increments of range and assign a -2 to skill per each 0.5 you are off by when using a weapon.

If we changed shortswords to reach 0.5 then you could be both -2 to use them in close combat and -2 to use them at reach 1, and maybe have some means of traveling 0.5 hex increments (half-step?) to use them at an ideal spot?

You can already get +1 reach via All-Out Attack (Lunge) so if you only wanted +0.5 reach, I could see taking that as a Committed Attack bonus.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

What other Reach 1 weapons that presumably still take a -4 skill are you wanting to give it an advantage compared to?

I'm guessing something like Broadsword (B271) or Saber (B273) ?

One idea might be to tweak things to allow 0.5 increments of range and assign a -2 to skill per each 0.5 you are off by when using a weapon.

If we changed shortswords to reach 0.5 then you could be both -2 to use them in close combat and -2 to use them at reach 1, and maybe have some means of traveling 0.5 hex increments (half-step?) to use them at an ideal spot?

You can already get +1 reach via All-Out Attack (Lunge) so if you only wanted +0.5 reach, I could see taking that as a Committed Attack bonus.

This doesn't really work, as it results in a weapon that can basically never be used without a penalty. Something I've been considering since my first post in the thread is the idea of many melee weapons having a single Reach at which they work, and be able to work at -1 Reach or +1 Reach at -4 to hit (this essentially gets rid of All-Out Attack (Long), making it just an application of (Dedicated) instead). That would be for weapons that are an average length for their Reach; shorter ones take a lesser penalty to attack closer (and a greater penalty to attack further), while longer ones take a lesser penalty to attack further (and a greater penalty to attack closer). You could have up to 7 sub-lengths within a Reach - Extra Short (XS; -1 to hit for -1 Reach, -7 to hit for +1 Reach), Very Short (VS; -2/-6), Short (S; -3/-5), Average (A; -4/-4), Long (L; -5/-3), Very Long (VL; -6/-2), and Extra Long (XL; -7/-1). You might have a Long Knife be XLC (nominally C, can be used at Reach 1 at -1 to hit), a Short Sword be VS1 (nominally 1, can be used at Reach C at -2 or Reach 2 at -6), a Broadsword be A1 (How Steak is Done nominally 1, can be used at Reach C or Reach 2 at -4), and a Longsword be VL1 (nominally 1, can be used at Reach C at -6 or Reach 1 at -2). Further discussion of such a system may be more appropriate for a new thread, however.
EDIT: New thread made - see here.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

This doesn't really work, as it results in a weapon that can basically never be used without a penalty. Something I've been considering since my first post in the thread is the idea of many melee weapons having a single Reach at which they work, and be able to work at -1 Reach or +1 Reach at -4 to hit (this essentially gets rid of All-Out Attack (Long), making it just an application of (Dedicated) instead).

Seems okay to me.

At a certain point it actually seems weird to be able to infinitely reduce reach...

Like should you really be able to stab someone with a Reach 4 weapon such as a Lance in close combat even taking a -18 to skill?

Reach C means something is less than a yard from you, and a Reach 4 spear presumably means the tip of your spear is more than 3 yards from your hands, so how could you possibly position your hands far enough away from a foe to actually make the tip hit them?

I actually can't find any pure 'reach 3' weapons in basic set, they all seem to be "2,3" so I would think what you would first do is adjust your grip to reach 2 and then take -4 wrap shot increments from there.

If we limited it to just one increment you could fight at reach 1 at -4 and maybe at reach C someone with a 2,3 weapon just ought to pummel and be unable to use the tip of their weapon without stepping back?

Originally Posted by Varyon

That would be for weapons that are an average length for their Reach; shorter ones take a lesser penalty to attack closer (and a greater penalty to attack further), while longer ones take a lesser penalty to attack further (and a greater penalty to attack closer).

Makes sense. I guess where I was going with -2 per 0.5 hex is to codify that a bit, and we actually might allow that by using half-steps.

Half-hex occupation already got toyed with in tactical combat when people are occupying close combat and sharing a hex. You're kinda taking up 3/6 of the triangles a hex can be divided into by connecting the vertices.

Of course that's with 1on1, I don't know how you'd think of it if 3 people were sharing a hex.

Originally Posted by Varyon

You could have up to 7 sub-lengths within a Reach
Extra Short (XS; -1 to hit for -1 Reach, -7 to hit for +1 Reach)
Very Short (VS; -2/-6)
Short (S; -3/-5)
Average (A; -4/-4)
Long (L; -5/-3)
Very Long (VL; -6/-2)
Extra Long (XL; -7/-1)

Since we also half to deal with parry penalties derived from half the skill penalty, it might be simpler to have three sub-lengths per Reach: -2/-6 for short, -4/4 for average and -6/-2 for long. That works out to -1/-3 and 0/0 and -3/-1 to parry.

For something like a 2,3 weapon we might simplify that as either a "long 2" or a "short 3" or allow those as options in addition to the standard 2 or 3.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I have done that in my campaigns for years.

Works fine.

I also would not go further than that. An ordinary sword with a 28"+ blade is better at almost everything as a fighting weapon, the main reasons for short swords are that they are handier to carry and less demanding on the materials. This is not something which was commonly debated, like fighters debated the virtues of choppy swords and stabby swords. Even the Romans only used the really short swords for a few hundred years.

Edit: Christian Cameron carries a sabre from around 1780 which was cut down before he got it to a roughly 20" blade for his treks in Algonquin National Park. He says it gets caught on brush less often than an ordinary sword, and the scabbard gets scratched and banged much less. He does not say it has important advantages in combat over a medium-sized sword, he is a longsword guy!

[Rasna]

In my Campaigns I give Shortswords Reach C, 1 for thrusting attacks only.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I also would not go further than that. An ordinary sword with a 28"+ blade is better at almost everything as a fighting weapon, the main reasons for short swords are that they are handier to carry and less demanding on the materials. This is not something which was commonly debated, like fighters debated the virtues of choppy swords and stabby swords. Even the Romans only used the really short swords for a few hundred years.

Edit: Christian Cameron carries a sabre from around 1780 which was cut down before he got it to a roughly 20" blade for his treks in Algonquin National Park. He says it gets caught on brush less often than an ordinary sword, and the scabbard gets scratched and banged much less. He does not say it has important advantages in combat over a medium-sized sword, he is a longsword guy!

The other reason romans and armies with similar fighting stiles used, mostly thrusting, shortswords was that in tight formations there is seldom room for swinging a longsword. Also in close combat and corps a corpse a shorter sword is easier to use and deadlier than a knife. The same goes for pikeman who carried a shorter sword as a backup. Romans knew and used longer sword, to fight from horseback for example.

[Pragmatic]

Willy:

From my reading of fictional stories set in Roman times, those were the gladius and the spatha.

[Edges]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned but there's another advantage of a short sword: Holdout.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Edit: Christian Cameron carries a sabre from around 1780 which was cut down before he got it to a roughly 20" blade for his treks in Algonquin National Park. He says it gets caught on brush less often than an ordinary sword, and the scabbard gets scratched and banged much less. He does not say it has important advantages in combat over a medium-sized sword, he is a longsword guy!

Christian Cameron, the former naval intelligence officer and historical novelist slash HEMA reenactor?