Fantasy Action Hero Backup Weapons

[Kromm]

It depends on how you define "ranged weapon" and "capable of practical holdout rolls."

First, let's assume that melee use is vital. If you're rushed, you surely don't want to be in close combat with a bow or a sling, or a throwing-only weapon like a chakram or a hungamunga.

Next, let's assume that the weapon has to be capable of hitting targets outside practical melee range (3 yards) but indoors, where 100-yard ranges are excessive. That cuts the list down to throwable melee weapons, and long, flexible ones like kusaris, whips, and rope darts.

After that, let's assume that unless you make a career out of Holdout, you don't want to go past -3. That's where the classic fantasy thief's shortsword lives. This chops off full-sized throwing axes and maces, and the bulkiest whips (chain whips, kusaris, and studded bullwhips).

What does that leave?

• Shuriken (range 5 at ST 10, Holdout 0). Thrown damage is pathetic. They can be held in the hand and used with Brawling . . . also for pathetic damage. About all they have going for them is ease of use (Thrown Weapon and Brawling are both DX/E) and concealability (Holdout 0!). Oh, and they're cheap and light enough to use as belt and shoe buckles, buttons, earrings, hair pins, etc.

• Throwable knives. The dagger (range 5 at ST 10, Holdout -1), small knife (range 5 at ST 10, Holdout -1), and large knife (range 8 at ST 10, Holdout -2) are all concealable, dual-purpose blades. They can be wielded with Main-Gauche for a respectable parry, or chucked with Thrown Weapon (Knife). As you said, damage is pathetic. Fine or very fine quality can help a lot – but do you want to throw away an $800 very fine large knife?

• Sais (range 8 at ST 10, Holdout -3). Well, a sai isn't much better than a knife if you chuck it. But it does function as a fair club in a melee, and is great for disarming. Also, it stabs as well as any knife and can take advantage of the Main-Gauche skill as well as the Jitte/Sai skill. So if you'd carry a knife, I'd say that a sai would be better in every way . . . well, except that it's more expensive, heavier, and absolutely calls for a harder skill.

• Whips. The light whip proposed in Martial Arts (reach 1-4, Holdout -3) and the rope dart (reach 1-4, Holdout -2) let you cover melee combat and limited ranged combat with one skill. The first can entangle while the second does fair damage. Either should work with Garrote, if you have to sneak up on someone. But you can forget about ever parrying! And a mean GM will impose penalties for scenery indoors . . .

• Small flails. The bola perdida (range 60 at ST 10, Holdout -2) and bolas (range 30 at ST 10, Holdout -2) are cheap, light, and concealable. They can do some major hurt in melee combat with Flail, and hurt or tie up foes at range with Bolas. But, well, that's a DX/H skill and a DX/A skill vs. DX/A and DX/E for knives. And you can still forget about parrying usefully in a melee.

• Boomerangs (range 60 at ST 10, Holdout -2). Ah, now we're getting somewhere! The rang is a pretty mean hurled weapon, as it gets swing damage and has a low Bulk. Per Martial Arts, it serves as a baton in a melee, entirely capable of striking and parrying. And it's cheap, like the budgie.

• Hatchets (range 15 at ST 10, Holdout -3). Wow, what a deal! The hatchet is one of the only Axe/Mace weapons that's balanced for striking, parrying, and throwing. It does swing/cutting damage in melee and on a throw. And it's light, cheap, and can pass as a tool.

I'd call the hatchet the winner, with the boomerang in close second place if your Holdout skill isn't too good or you'd rather avoid blood. After that, it's a wash . . . use some sort of bola if you like to throw things far, some sort of whip if you prefer entangling and strangling, or a sai if you plan to end up in melee more often than not. Knives are pretty lame until you get up to katars, kukris, and long knives, none of which are usefully ranged – so forget knives. Shuriken are silly, but then again, they're light, cheap, and basically invisible, so I'd recommend them as tertiary weapons for your urban warrior, especially if the GM is willing to agree that they count as caltrops when pitched into the floor (as done in reality).

Of course, there's the issue of what skills you know. If you're a battlefield warrior, you might already know Axe/Mace, Flail, or Shortsword, so that may settle the issue for you. Conversely, if you're already an ace at urban warfare, you'll want things that leverage Brawling and Garrote.

[Kalzazz]

Could one feasibly fast draw a hatchet? That would seem an important consideration for a backup weapon, as if your main weapon goes flying away want to get another ready quickly

Also are they any potential backup weapons that make use of the polearm skill and/or can default from it?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Could one feasibly fast draw a hatchet? That would seem an important consideration for a backup weapon, as if your main weapon goes flying away want to get another ready quickly

*Shrug*

It doesn't hurt my SoD that if a two-handed sword can be Fast-Drawn, so can a hatchet.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Also are they any potential backup weapons that make use of the polearm skill and/or can default from it?

Not ones that are easily concealable or comfortable to carry, no. Polearm fighters should know Staff, as well, so there's that if the weapon breaks. Otherwise, though, it makes sense to have a secondary (tertiary, quartary, etc.) weapon skill as well as weapons.

[Shrale]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

Knives suck. Whats a good off-hand ranged weapon suitable for aiding friends having bad luck with the dice? It needs to be small, capable of practical holdout rolls, legal in most typical fantasy settings (dont ask me 'well it depends on your setting.' Have some imagination will ya? Guy walks into the inn in full plate armor for god's sake) and easily useable indoors.

Bonus points if I can use Gizmo on it.

Small pouch of fine sand (1) Seriously, dust or anything to make someone
either look away for an attack or subsequently blind them. Cheap, and
found just about anywhere. Turn the deployment method into a Gizmo if possible.

Three Stooges are constantly using those chimney bellows to fill each other or
an opponent's face/eyes with soot. Place a smaller one up the off arm/sleeve and
arrange a safety for it.



(1) Or Dust of Sneezing and Choking if it's handy.

>

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Kazander

MA68 in the Targeted Attack box, second paragraph:
It makes no mention at all of missile weapon skills. I guess we have a lack of editing consistency here. Obviously Kyujutsu contradicts this in the same book, so you must be able to use missile skills. Personally, I don't much like TA anyway. Give the players a choice, and they'll go for Vitals, Neck and Skull almost everytime.

Page 252 High Tech 4e.

For each Targeted Attack (TA), the gunman must specify a Guns specialty and a target. The target can be a hit location other than the torso (Eye, Face, Arm, etc.), chinks in armor at a specific hit location (Torso Chinks is valid, although the GM may rule that some hard armor isn’t vulnerable), or Weapon.

It like TA in MA is ofcourse an optional rule.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Shrale

Small pouch of fine sand (1) Seriously, dust or anything to make someone either look away for an attack or subsequently blind them. Cheap, and found just about anywhere. Turn the deployment method into a Gizmo if possible.

True. Also, if Gizmo-type throwables are an option, don't overlook "going ninja." The metsubushi (Martial Arts, p. 220) is a ready-made blinding powder puffer, and of course there's nothing wrong with nageteppo (Dungeon Fantasy 1, p. 25).

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Molokh

A katar? Decent damage and bonus against chinks.

If any rules say this then they do not reflect reality. The katar is no better at penetrating armor than any other blade with a similar geometry.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Could one feasibly fast draw a hatchet?

Yes. I've seen demos where men pulled four light throwing axes from an ordinary belt and chucked them in about four seconds. You'd need eight seconds if you had to Ready and then Attack, so I'd say that's Fast-Draw. I wouldn't allow it for anything but hatchets and smallish hurlbats – certainly not for full-sized throwing axes, maces, etc. – but I'd be fine with it for hatchets.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Also are they any potential backup weapons that make use of the polearm skill and/or can default from it?

No. Polearms are almost by definition main battle weapons. Even full-sized swords are "backup" weapons relative to them. There isn't a lot of polearm technique that's applicable to concealed weapons in close quarters.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The pistol crossbow is dismissed by some historians as mythical. I don't go that far, but I'll say that the only examples that I'd rate as capable of killing an adult human on anything but a critical hit are mid-TL4, loaded with a cranequin (which is too large to conceal well) and still don't work at a longer range than few feet.

I have tried to make pistol crossbow using every material I could think of and the only decent result came from using fibreglass. I don't think it is possible to make a pistol crossbow from a low-tech material that would be useful in combat. At point blank range you might inflict a single point of damage. Its only practical use would be to deliver poison. The only low tech material that might work that I didn't try is baleen since the ban on whale hunting has made it hard to acquire. According to the following website, baleen from a right whale makes the best springs
http://www.whaling.jp/english/isana/no32_01.html

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Shrale

Small pouch of fine sand (1) Seriously, dust or anything to make someone either look away for an attack or subsequently blind them.

Lime powder would be the best low-tech material for this.