Weapon Reach

[hcobb]

If you really want to hammer the wizards then let swords stab first.

Add the following weapon reach to adjDX for order of attacking, but no other purpose. The longer weapon will tend to strike first, but has no advantage in accuracy:

• +6 Two handed pole weapons
• +4 Other two handed melee weapons
• +2 Most one handed melee weapons
• +0 Missile and thrown weapons, shield rush, dagger, main gauche, cestus

This is in place of pole weapons strike first in a charge.
Note that a wooden staff has an order of attack bonus over a staff-dagger for physical attacks, but not occult blasts.

[TippetsTX]

When people start talking about reach-based modifiers, I tend to consider weapon speed as well. Depending how how the two factors are applied, I generally see them cancelling each other out.

Bonuses from 'reach' therefore, should probably only apply to combatants that are not directly adjacent.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Bonuses from 'reach' [...] should probably only apply to combatants that are not directly adjacent.

What about characters who became adjacent during the movement phase, like charging polearm users?

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

What about characters who became adjacent during the movement phase, like charging polearm users?

For that scenario, I'm leaning towards some kind of 'attack-of-opportunity' rule where the polearm user gets a free attack against the charging opponent. Needs some playtesting, though.

[larsdangly]

I am not doing this in my active game, as it would be too disruptive and unpredictable in its effects. But I've long felt you could make Melee much 'jucier' when it comes to tactical movement by playing with the rules for reach, facing and engagement, in order to open up the battlefield a bit and increase the stakes of movement decisions. Specifically, the house rules I drew up include:

- a bunch of weapons with 2 hex reach (which is more physically realistic anyway), pole weapons more like pikes, but also more weapons that can be used effectively in HTH and some that are not effective at 1 hex range.
- Blow off the concept of engagement - you move where you want to move
- Attacks have to go through your front hex side facing only, and the bonuses for attacking through another person's non-front hex sides start with the 'flanking front' ones.

There are more details, but as I say I haven't really played much using them so I don't have a lot of confidence they are good.