Re: Main-Gauche
 

It's not that clean. It says there's something superior about the 2+0 damage of a halberd, compared with the 2+0 damage of a broadsword. So what about a wolf bite, or a dragon? Does it maybe cause a point of damage in that case, instead of protecting the user? If parrying works against thrusts and not chops does that mean the two-handed bastard sword can be parried since historically it was a thrusting weapon? It raises the question of why a sword can't parry, if a main-gauche can: wouldn't a guy with a sword be better protected than a guy with an axe? If so, can a sword parry a halberd? Can a main-gauche parry a one-handed mace?

To me it feels like pulling a thread. And isn't that a big part of why Steve wanted to change the rule originally, that the original rule was a special case, which raised as many questions as it answered?

To be honest, though, I don't have a better idea. My preference is to give parry rights to some or most of the swords, to differentiate them from axes and hammers, and reduce sword damage to compensate. That leaves the question of whether they can parry the least subtle weapons, but I'd be inclined to let them do it because it's getting a little fiddly for TFT.

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Mass alone makes that a problem; it's theoretically possible to aid it over you, but the mass/leverage/speed issue.

Plus, the main gauche and the buckler are both primarily for use vs thrusting weapons; a 1-h spear, it's plenty good enough for; a glaive, only when it's thrusting.

Still, the buckler, used right, can do what the MG cannot - use its own mass as a significant term in the calculus.

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Thanks I hadn't heard of HEMA before. Although after watching the end of the video below, it is clearer to me that:

A. Blunt weapons can definitely hurt you even wearing metal armor.
B. A buckler can do BIG BUCKET LOADS of damage
C. This couldn't have been UCV, so I suppose Brawling?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlCQ2pBob5Q

I assume the HEMA people here are saner than to participate in this kind of combat?

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Sheesh, I'm glad cutting and stabbing wasn't allowed!

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Cutting looks pretty allowed except those aren't sharpened and the armor stops it.

Looks like a shield being used to do damage in and out of HTH to me, too.

Re: Main-Gauche
 

That's not HEMA. This is HEMA:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/sports...-fighting.html

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Wow! I like the look of that. Confirms my thought I'd rather have a spear or bill (or bow!) on a battlefield. Always better to outreach the enemy.

Re: Main-Gauche
 

[HOWITZER]
I defy -- DEFY -- anyone to watch a few of these videos and then suggest they would prefer to go into medieval style combat as an unarmored martial artist. Honestly the guy getting creamed with the buckler would be dead without a very good helmet (even then? Do we KNOW he lived?)

For myself I'd probably go with full tubular plate + double-vested helmet + metal buckler + hammer/pick.
[/HOWITZER]

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Both of the profferred videos are HEMA in the meaning of Historical European Martial Arts.

For which, dozens of organizations do variations upon.

Rebated steel will readily bruise right through plate.

Even the SCA, whose Rattan is 1.25" diameter, still bruise people through plate routinely. (The SCA uses rattan for several reasons - one of which is how it mushes rather than breaks sharp; second is that it's only marginally heavier than the live steel it emulates.)

Concussions do happen - but hearing damage is also an issue - helms can ring like bells.

Re: Main-Gauche
 

Agreed. You'd have to be a total moron (or else poor and had no choice) to go into that sort of situation without significant armour. However, adventuring/dungeoneering is about a lot more than fighting; negotiating narrow ledges, water hazards, slippy floors, poor light conditions, climbing running away, etc. All of these are harder in armour. So there's still a balance there.