One-Handed Reach 1, 2* Spear

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

So harder to hit than a true ranged attack at that distance? That seems excessive to me, but I am willing to be persuaded.

I think I'd rather show the difficulty in keeping a long thrust on target via MinST and weapon balance than hit penalties.

Especially as you say -1 per reach is worse than missile attacks, So I can throw my spear at someone 2 yards away at no penalty, but thrust with it at -2?

Maybe I've done too much fencing but thrusting at someone 3ft away from you just isn't that hard in IME (but see below regarding defending). So I don't know maybe if you like the premise make the penalty -(Reach-1)?

And I'm not sure why thrusting is being singled out. If it's hard in abstract to keep a weapon tip that far way from your hand on target in a thrust, shouldn't the same be true for a weapon tip that's being swung?

TBH the more I think about it the more I think it's down to weapon balance and ease of use. For me weapons that can thrust at reach 2 or 3 (or be swung at those reaches) are harder to control and balance in general than smaller weapons, and that's a factor of MinST, 0U and two handed use. Or put it this way its why when trying to poke someone 4 yards away with a pike you need two hands, ST12 and you wont be parrying in the same round.

But maybe one way to go it to combine the two. So have the penalty, but allow any ST* over MinST to negate it.


However I would say it easier to defend against an attack coming in from further away (TBone had a tweak for this in a Pyramid), that gives the effect of it being overall harder to land an attack on a 'distant' foe in HtH.



*and if you use trained ST that would work well here