Low Tech Favorite Weapon

[FuelDrop]

So, expanding on the question a bit: Favorite shields? Also, do you use the damage to shield rules or not?

Big fan of the kite shield myself :)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by FuelDrop

So, expanding on the question a bit: Favorite shields? Also, do you use the damage to shield rules or not?

Big fan of the kite shield myself :)

Nordlond battle shield, of course.

[Sorenant]

Large Roman Scutum. It's not great stat-wise, but I love bashing and dashing with it.

[ericthered]

My three favorites have got to be broadsword, shield, and staff.

broadswords just do everything you need them to. They parry, they do decent amounts of damage, they have two fairly flexible damage types, they leave a hand open, and they don't require fiddly knowledge of the rules.

Staffs are similar to broadswords, but more defensive. They parry exceptionally well, and have a number of modes you can use them in. They're cheap and simple, and if I just want to stay alive during combat so I can get to the real part of the game, I spring for a staff.

Shields are another defensive option, and it seems that when I go for any one handed weapon that's not a broadsword, I end up pushing shield sky high and leaving my lance, shortsword, axe, or whatever else at a middling skill. Maybe I just like defense. Maybe shield is just a good deal.

[Luke Bunyip]

I'll go TL0-1

• Spear (Fire hardened wood, bone, stone, or metal tipped) Jab, parry, or hurled.
• Hatchet/Adze (stone, possibly metal) Cheaper than swords
• Knife (hopefully metal) Hakkaa päälle!
• Buckler Possibly
• Sling Cheap as chips
• Dart thrower/Spear thrower (Atlatl/Woomera)
• Bow and arrow

Honourable mentions to the following, as per tactical requirements:

• Macuahuitl Assault troops!
• Blow guns Special Ops, TL0 style
• Escrimaesque twin stick fighting. Perfect for the urban guerilla
• Bolo If facing cavalry/chariots, maybe?

[Fred Brackin]

Some people seem to have short-sighted views on economics. Money comes and goes but character pts are forever.

So you don't want to spend a lot of cp on a weapon you can't have avaialble all the time. Spend all your time wandering in the wilderness? If so you can keep your spear.

If you spend most of your time in town pretending to be an Medieval/Renaissance aristocrat you _need_ a sword just to keep up appearances and a spear is low class trash you can't be seen with unless you're going boar-hunting. A hatchet is a peasant tool you can't be seen with period.

Put me down for a sword. In many settings there's a social class that can carry a sword anywhere. If you come into enough of that transient money you can get a VF sword but not much of anything else. Swords are also the VF/Magic weaposn you're most likely to find in dungeons too.

[acrosome]

Wrestling :)
It can never be taken from you (short of cutting pieces off) and is very effective.

But to address the spirit of the question, since I prefer rogues and also from an aesthetic point of view I would say that I like "common-man's weapons"- slings, quarterstaffs, hatchets, blowguns, etc. And the Long Knife is pure awesomeness.

I usually expand that to "Common soldier's weapons" like spear and various polearms, especially bills, ideally paired with Staff skill and Weapon Adaptation (Polearm to Staff) or (Spear to Staff) to represent some poor peasant boy who grew up with a quarterstaff in his hands and then got drafted into some levy.

If I had to pick just one for pure kewlness, though? Probably the dueling bill. I has everything: a pokey bit, a choppy bit, and a hooky bit. There's nothing quite like the satisfaction of Deceptive Attacking to hook your opponent's leg and land him rudely upon his buttocks. Or dragging some snotty noble out of his saddle so that you can chop him into dogmeat or stick your knife through his visor slit.

[acrosome]

Peasant Hero Lens [70]
a.k.a. Death Incarnate with a Stick in his Hand

Style Familiarity (Quarterstaff) [1]
Staff [20] Avg DX+5
Grip Mastery (Staff) [1]

Style Familiarity (Dagger Fighting) [1]
Knife [12] Easy DX+4
Fast-Draw (Knife) [8] Easy DX+3
EITHER: Off-Hand Weapon Training (Knife) [1] or Quick-Swap (Knife) [1]
Targeted Attack (Knife, Eye) [2]
Wrestling [8] Avg DX+2
Arm Lock (Wrestling) [1] Wrestling+1
Combination (Wrestling Arm Lock + Knife Targeted Attack Eye) [4]

Axe/Mace [2] Avg DX
Sling [2] Hard DX-1
Shield [1] Easy DX
Brawling [1] Easy DX

Weapon Adaptation (Polearm to Staff) [1]
Weapon Adaptation (Spear to Staff) [1]
Style Adaptation (Glaive Fighting) [1]
Hook (Staff) [2] Staff-4

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Somebody give that boy a dueling bill and a long knife! So, after he hooks the snotty nobleman to the ground he fast-draws his knife then invokes his combo to kneel on the target's sword arm (grapple with leg) and stab him in the eye. Heh, heh. Or I guess that given the high Staff skill he could just use that Grip Mastery to spin it about and thrust the pokey bit of the bill through the eyeslit...

I think this is the minimum to make it all work while respecting the optional RAW point investment requirements for in-style and non-in-style Perks from Martial Arts. Those three Adaptation perks at the bottom are mostly what drives this high point total. (If you're not using that rule this could be a lot cheaper.) But assuming a "standard" 150-point starting hero you still have 80 points with which to customize. If you add 4 more points to combat skills in the Dagger Fighting style you could then buy both combat perks instead of having to pick one.

I did treat Targeted Attacks and Combinations as "combat skills" for this purpose. I hope that's correct.

Since Quarterstaff Style only has one combat perk available you could drop the Staff points to 12 and move the other 8 into other combat skills if you wanted and it would still work. But the whole point of this lens is Staff skill, so I left it 20 points.

Axe/Mace and Sling are just for "peasant" background color so you could move those points into any other combat skill, but it does have to be a combat skill for the reason above- i.e. if you want to respect the optional rule about the perks. I chose to add two extra points, one in Shield and one in Brawling, since if he ever looses his stick and has to fight with a one-handed weapon then a shield is just too damned useful not to know how to use it. And Brawling is nice if he ever has to throw a punch. I'd say they are good investments. (So actually you could lose two points in combat skills entirely, but I wanted the total lens cost to be an even number.)

Likewise, if your Fast-Draw (Knife) ends up higher than 16 then there isn't much point to that, so you could move some of those points to another combat skill, too.

Instead of Style Adaptation (Glaive Fighting), if you cared to you could pick any other style that allows the Hook technique, but Glaive Fighting does sort of fit the polearm motif well.

[AlexanderHowl]

I am confused, how are you spending 10 CP on Knife, Wrestling, Fast-Draw (Knife), Axe/Mace, and Sling? I am also curious why you would have six skills above DX+1 instead of just buying +1 DX?

[(E)]

I tend to cycle through weapon combinations, after playing a sword and board fighter my next character might use a whip or be an athletic spear/staff specialist.
My last character was focused on sneak + over strength crossbow, another was heavy armour and dual flails.
I get a lot of entertainment by playing with the range of options available.