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Old 06-13-2021, 11:42 PM   #13
JustAnotherJarhead
 
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Join Date: Jul 2019
Location: Cali
Default Re: Spears for throwing

I see it as a game balance thing, whenever you consider something "doable" but not specifically outlined.

If a Heavy crossbowman can carry 40 bolts at the ready, or a Longbowman can carry 40 arrows at the ready, with very little concern for encumbrance and maximum combat effectiveness, I would like to see the scales leveled for other missle/thrown weapons users.

Specifically on the spear vs: javelin front

I'm okay with the limit of 3 spears, they are twice the weight of a javelin and considering they "can be" 2.5 yards in length, we have to give that a fair amount of consideration as well.

I would even consider a 4 spear character, although few will opt to occupy both of their hands, many would chose a shield, or have a hand for a torch etc... So I don't like this approach of two spears at the ready as a default.
I would allow the shield hand to hold a second spear for a limited time, but this would put the shield out of proper service, until the spear was transferred to the fighting hand, say after the primary spear was thrown, and now the shield may be readied.

All to often you get players tryin' to min/max and really cram an excessive amount of actions into a single sequence, it's only 5 seconds in a turn, and that includes movement, and some element of evasive maneuver trying to stay alive, so I really like to get a grip on players that try to hard to do everything at once.

Now, back to the 3-4 spear capacity, it's reasonable to allow 2 accessible long weapons, slung on the back, keep in mind the Bowman comparison, but the missing element is the specialized quiver.

Sure you could probably just assume a simple leather strap was sufficient, but these are Adventurers, we want a stable weapon storage system, not 90 inch sharp sticks bangin' around, you can't have it dragging on the ground, so you need a little clearance, so they will have to be 2 feet above the avg. Adventurers head. That is a point that should be considered on a 90" weapon.

Now for Javelins, these are at a maximum 54" and could be argued to be even less, but I think we need to consider RAW and thus I will go with 54".

These are 1/2 the weight of a spear, and Damage reflects that, so we have to assume the metal tips are smaller as well. Same thing applies to the shield arm carry, you could probably grasp 3 in your hand, but I would rule against full use of the shield.
So this brings up the back quiver, how many is reasonable for a quiver that might not be much bigger than a longbow quiver?

a GM just needs to assign a cost to a stabilized back quiver, but I would want this as a viable option in my game, it helps to diversify the all light crossbow using party of murder hobos.

4- 6 in a back quiver would not be excessive, and the javelin is not a game imbalancing weapon.

We just need to assign cost to specialized weapon storage devices.
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