Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I think several of us have done that. I remember the 12 to 13 rule, for what-ever reason...I found my old analysis, which disagrees. That sheet roughly says you to lower the total of the two numbers until they are below 25, unless facing a defense of 14+, in which case you want an attack of 16+ in order to fish for crits. Might be worth presenting that formally sometime.

Found the post. The attacker usually doesn't know what the target's defense is; also, those cases where something other than 12/13 is actually better, it's only by a bit, so just always aiming for those is typically your best bet.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Makes sense. And reminds me that my proper test is against an array of "Typical" mooks a GM might throw at the character. I wonder how HT effects that... one more thing to look at.

Potentially a lot - when I ran a test fight for my spear-wielding Swashbuckler, Shigran (alongside some hirelings) against some nautamadr (Nordlond minotaurs), the blasted things just absolutely refused to go down until they were at -5xHP, thanks to a combination of decent starting HT and a big boost from Berserk (the only failed Death Check of the battle was at the very beginning, where one of them got sneak-attacked before they could berserk).