Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

[OddGamer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What happens when someone shoots a bow at spear guy? Or sneaks up on him and stabs him in the back? Or fights him under the influence of a Shield spell? Incredibly mediocre knight is better prepared for each of those eventualities. That is the peril of choosing to be a one-trick pony quite apart from the uproarious laughter from your DM when you present such an unbelievable character.

I actually have a question about that Shield spell. Well, the Armor spell, really.

But first, a Shield spell isn't about to help anything. If you've sunk points into Magery (25 to be able to get that Shield spell) you're missing out on ST and HT at this point, need to get your spell skill up there (otherwise you end up not having it, so let's assume 12). Said mage can have the Comfortable wealth level to afford the armor, but at that point there's not much left for any form of actual attack skill. I think this would have to be something along the lines of Spear Guy is up against multiple opponents. But that's not a fair comparison.

So the only way that works, really, is for 2 Spear Guys against mage and knight. But this doesn't work since Spear Guy can just Feint to obliterate any bonus that mage could give (and I didn't even simulate Feinting in my run, just 'Deceptive Attacks').

This brings me to the Armor spell... does it cover the eyes? The Magic book says it offers DR 'just like armor', but the whole point of attacking the eyes is to avoid the armor! If it does cover the eyes, yes this will severely mess with Spear Guy's day.

Ranged weapons and sneak attacks are, of course, far more of an issue, and there's not a lot this character can do about that, true.

However, all that said, I'm not sure the knight is faring much better in these scenarios than Spear Guy. What if the knight (or two of them) were up against someone with a shield spell? Armor spell? Those would ruin his day by almost as much since basic damage is 1d+1 vs 1d+3. And if it were against another knight, the attacking knight is toast! It's the DR of the spell and the underlying armor now! If we considered 5 DR from the spell and 4 from the armor, that makes the knight effectively unable to do any damage at all without trying for the impossible eye shot (needs a 3 or 4 roll), meanwhile Spear Dude still does damage on a roll of 5 or 6 and is hitting with a 17.

Then there's ranged combat. Not sure the knight's faring a whole lot better there, either. Sure, with his DR of 4 most shots aren't going to hurt him at all (depends on the weapon, but a regular bow with ST 10, so not even knightly, would do damage on a 6) while the Spear Guy gets pelted with arrows and turned into a pin cushion, but that person with the bow, unless they are heavily armored, too, can likely just outrun the knight, keeping him at a distance and pelting him with arrows until he goes down anyway.

Now the knight can correct this by getting a block skill, but the Spear Guy can largely do the same since even at Poor he's still got plenty of money left over to buy a shield, though he'd lose 1 point of damage. Not sure how this would play out. Unlike the knight, the Spear guy can't really be kept at a distance because he's likely moving the same speed as the archer (whereas the archer is likely moving much faster than the knight).