Long Maces

[thom]

Originally Posted by tbone

But PCs who willingly choose a greataxe or maul, and just accept that Ready requirement after every attack... Pretty darn rare, I think!

Oh yeah! The player never even considered using the Great Axe without the Extra Ready option! <g>

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Is it my imagination, or is that going to be horribly unbalanced? Impact weapons are not famed for their agility, and sticking one on the far end of a six foot pole will surely only make matters worse.

As I said, I suspect that the print has enlarged the heads of the clubs a bit for the same reasons that Peter Jackson and manga enlarge the heads of maces and clubs (but also, most wood is not that dense!)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by tbone

Sure, I can see that. Same with PCs who overcome the slowness with high ST.

But PCs who willingly choose a greataxe or maul, and just accept that Ready requirement after every attack... Pretty darn rare, I think!

I could see potential for a build that makes heavy use of Feint, as I believe Feint doesn't unReady the weapon. Basically, you just keep throwing Feints each round until you get a good roll, then capitalize on that to drop the foe. But I don't think such weapons tend to have enough additional damage/reach to really justify such a strategy (the reason one normally doesn't do the above - throw Feints until you get a good roll, then attack - with a more balanced weapon is because attacking twice is typically better than feinting and then attacking). But personally, my own inclination is to get rid of the ‡ designation, increase the MinST of the weapons that have it a bit (I think they typically have -1 or -2 to MinST compared to what their weight implies, so +1 or +2 - or maybe +3 or +4 if they're particularly long - should work) and just have a general rule that you can wield weapons as though you had 1.5x your actual ST (probably just for meeting MinST, not for damage) in exchange for them becoming unReady after each attack.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

As I said, I suspect that the print has enlarged the heads of the clubs a bit for the same reasons that Peter Jackson and manga enlarge the heads of maces and clubs (but also, most wood is not that dense!)

Also, the round bodies of those and similar weapons are normally hollow rather than solid metal..

I saw one such mace/morningstar used on a re-enactor show against a ballistic dummy in chain mail and it was a Swing/Impale weapon with no particular bludgeoning effect. It didn't impale deeply but it did penetrate with multiple spikes.

[Anthony]

Wikipedia has a nice example from a tomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P...144514616).jpg. It also claims that the morning star was frequently 6' or more, though that's not a blunt weapon. If you want a long blunt weapon, I'd suggest the two-handed flail.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by thom

Oh yeah! The player never even considered using the Great Axe without the Extra Ready option! <g>

I can only recall one player who knowingly, willingly chose a weapon with "requires Ready after swing", and that was... myself. Back in the 3e days, when a normal hand axe suffered that Ready requirement. I made an axe-fighter (with one arm, too), just for the perverse fun of saying "wow, the rules seem to make this choice a really bad idea... so let's try it." It was for a one-shot, so weird was okay. I certainly wouldn't choose a slow weapon like that for an ongoing campaign with lots of battles...

[martinl]

Originally Posted by William

What GURPS statistics might it have? Practically by definition it would use Two-handed Axe/Mace. Perhaps it could be added to the Great Axe and the Warhammer to complete the trio of sw+3 damage weapons of similar statistics, with cr in lieu of cut or imp.

As a GM, I'd be fine with a player using a variant of any existing sw/cut weapon that is instead a sw/crush weapon, so pick the one you want.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by tbone

I can only recall one player who knowingly, willingly chose a weapon with "requires Ready after swing", and that was... myself. Back in the 3e days, when a normal hand axe suffered that Ready requirement. I made an axe-fighter (with one arm, too), just for the perverse fun of saying "wow, the rules seem to make this choice a really bad idea... so let's try it." It was for a one-shot, so weird was okay. I certainly wouldn't choose a slow weapon like that for an ongoing campaign with lots of battles...

I've made a few characters who use those sort of weapons. Typically they end up using armed grapples more than the swing...

[Sir Tifyable]

There is a whole rack of morningstars with 6-8' shafts in the Landeszughaus Graz.

If you get a chance, visit it.It's awesome. It's a city armoury which kept all the weapons and armour that was issued to the city's army when defending Graz from the Ottomans.

[William]

Originally Posted by Sir Tifyable

There is a whole rack of morningstars with 6-8' shafts in the Landeszughaus Graz.

If you get a chance, visit it.It's awesome. It's a city armoury which kept all the weapons and armour that was issued to the city's army when defending Graz from the Ottomans.

That's neat, the depictions are one thing but I'm happy there are extant examples. I wonder if I can find a photo.

I found https://www.museum-joanneum.at/en/st.../morning-stars , which shows the head, and the text indicates that the total length is about 250cm. You could call it just a typical spiked mace head, but honestly, those spikes seem long enough to do imp if you wanted to claim it!

Also interestingly, these were apparently all made by one guy, quickly, and used to equip peasant conscripts (I'm assuming the "well-armed mercenaries" didn't need them). So this would presumably be the kind of weapon a mass of hastily organized infantry would get, not a professional warrior. Maybe a PC would use it if his background has him starting out like that.

Well, this has been an interesting dive. I also bought the Fantasy Tech pdf mentioned earlier. Thanks everyone!