Trident weapon stats

[Bathawk]

Hey all, short and sweet. Can anyone provide, or at least direct me to where I can find the stats for a good-old-fashioned "in the gladiator pit" trident?

thanks in advance

[thalcos]

Originally Posted by Bathawk

Hey all, short and sweet. Can anyone provide, or at least direct me to where I can find the stats for a good-old-fashioned "in the gladiator pit" trident?

thanks in advance

It's in Low-tech. Don't have my books, but I think it's thr+3 or thr+4 (2H), with a (0.5) armor divisor -- which usually means players hate them :-)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Bathawk

Hey all, short and sweet. Can anyone provide, or at least direct me to where I can find the stats for a good-old-fashioned "in the gladiator pit" trident?

thanks in advance

Tridents show up in both GURPS Martial Arts and GURPS Low Tech. GURPS Low Tech Companion 2: Weapons and Warriors I believe also has rules for replacing a spear head with one that has multiple tines, like a trident.

IIRC, a trident basically works out to a spear that is at -2 to use (negatable with a Perk, Exotic Weapons Training: Trident), has Armor Divisor (0.5) (multiply DR by 2) and I believe is at +1 for the foe to Block or Parry (large head is easier to intercept), but gives a +1 to damage and is at -1 for the foe to Dodge (large head is harder to avoid, although a full -1 to Dodge probably overstates the effect).

[Dalillama]

There's a Korean military trident style that used the extra tines to capture an enemy weapon and disarm after the fashion of a jitte/sai. It seems likely that gladiators would have done the same.

[Bathawk]

Does the 0.5 armor divisor affected by the quality of the weapon (a very fine weapon made with modern materials?)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

There's a Korean military trident style that used the extra tines to capture an enemy weapon and disarm after the fashion of a jitte/sai. It seems likely that gladiators would have done the same.

Jitte/sai weapons have the extra tine starting close to the grip, such that you're basically using the forte to bind and disarm, while the trident would be using something akin to the foible, making it markedly more difficult. Looking up the Korean trident, the dangpa appears to be more akin to a ranseur than a trident; I'd need to take another look at the three books I mentioned to see how GURPS treats such a weapon (if indeed there is an official treatment). Offhand, I'd say it functions like a boar spear (that is, a spear that the foe cannot run itself through on to reach you) but has the ability to use Armed Grappling at full Reach at a further penalty (and with the sharp prongs, it may deal some incidental cutting damage while grappling). A trident should function similarly.

Originally Posted by Bathawk

Does the 0.5 armor divisor affected by the quality of the weapon (a very fine weapon made with modern materials?)

Nope - the poor armor divisor is due to the fact that it's striking with multiple points, which spreads the impact out more than striking with a single one and thus performs worse against armor. In theory, a Superfine version - Superfine being an option from GURPS Ultra Tech that gives a cutting and/or impaling weapon an Armor Divisor of (2) - wouldn't have an Armor Divisor, with the bonus for being Superfine and the penalty for multiple tines canceling each other out.

[Dalin]

The merfolk always enchant their tridents with Penetrating Weapon, of course…

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Jitte/sai weapons have the extra tine starting close to the grip, such that you're basically using the forte to bind and disarm, while the trident would be using something akin to the foible, making it markedly more difficult. Looking up the Korean trident, the dangpa appears to be more akin to a ranseur than a trident; I'd need to take another look at the three books I mentioned to see how GURPS treats such a weapon (if indeed there is an official treatment). Offhand, I'd say it functions like a boar spear (that is, a spear that the foe cannot run itself through on to reach you) but has the ability to use Armed Grappling at full Reach at a further penalty (and with the sharp prongs, it may deal some incidental cutting damage while grappling). A trident should function similarly.

So, I looked up the relevant stats, and there are some... inconsistencies. What I listed in my previous post was correct - -2 to skill (negatable with Perk), AD (0.5), +1 to enemy Block/Parry, +1 to damage (which combined with the poor armor divisor basically means "same penetrating damage against foes with DR 0 or DR 1, less against foes with DR 2+ - because DR 0 gets upgraded to DR 1 for weapons with poor armor divisors, the bonus damage never actually results in more Injury than a normal spear), -1 to enemy Dodge; this also typically makes the weapon Parry U. The descriptions for the trident in both Martial Arts and Low Tech only mention these effects, but in both cases the table have it ignore the basic -2 to attempt a disarm with a non-fencing weapon. However, LTC2 treats a spear or similar with a prong, like a ranseur, as still having that basic -2 to attempt a disarm (it's quite explicit about that - "There's no effect on the penalty to hit with a disarm attempt"), but you get a +2 to the quick contest to actually disarm the foe once you've connected. Technical Grappling doesn't consider weapons like tridents and ranseurs, but in general weapons with prongs use Fast progression for purposes of binding weapons only (which basically means you get a skill-based ST bonus, which in TG means you can do a more effective grapple), which is more akin to getting a bonus in the quick contest than a bonus to hit.

Part of me feels that it would be alright to give multitined weapons, and possibly weapons with exaggerated prongs like the dangpa and possibly the ranseur, both the bonus to hit with a disarm attempt (larger surface area) and the bonus in the quick contest to actually do the disarm (the tines/prongs trap the opponent's weapon) or Fast progression if using TG. But all this is a bit more complicated than the basic stats OP was looking for!

[tbone]

The latest published iteration of trident stats would (AFAIK) be from DFRPG, which seems to faithfully follow Low-Tech, without any extra prongs rules from LTC2. (AFAIK, those prongs are envisioned as something different from trident tines, so we don't necessarily have conflicting rules for tridents.)

Tangent:

FWIW, I never liked that -2 TH for "tip-heavy" tridents. Yes, the weapon has a somewhat heavy tip - which makes it an example of, or at close to, a polearm (as GURPS defines it). A polearm that's lighter and shorter than most. And less tip-heavy than most polearms, it would seem, as it's used with Spear skill (even one-handed).

I don't get the penalty.

This seems more fair to me:

• A trident can be used two-handed at no penalty with Spear skill - or Polearm skill (because, why not?).
  
• A trident can be used one-handed at a -2 penalty with Spear skill. (it is indeed a bit awkward for that usage). A perk buys off the penalty. (High ST should also remove it.)

That change makes a trident less unappealing to two-handed users (though its remaining forkful of merits and demerits will still appeal mainly to oddball stylists and gladiator wannabes).