Mechanical discussion

Still thinking on shield rules -final decision before we start with time for people to revise characters.

Yes, well. Thing is that Combat Defense doesn't keep up with combat offense. We had a pretty good example in SA where two AP -4 full-plate characters managed to dent each other just fine despite not having fighting 5 or strong athletics to back up the damage. It just took a bit more time, is all. Your typical combat type will have 9 to 10 combat defense (two 3's and a 4 in the key stats), with large shield bonus and armor penalty cancelling each other out. More min/maxed for defense might push you up to 13-14. But that's what separates the generalists from the specialists. Specialists probably needs 5D against other specialists, true. But for generalists and rank and file NPC's, 4D is plenty.

There is however the issue that defenses are flat. It's easy and cheap to buy them up to 9, but shields and armor offers flat modifications, and that's where it ends, and from there it's rather costly to get it further up. They hold up well to the optimized 4D, but they start to lag behind the optimized 5D. A bit loose and fast rule is that a TN of 3xability rank is a good balance. So Combat/Intrigue defense of 9 holds well against 3D, 12 holds well against 4D and 15 holds well against 5D. The trick is that while a 9 is easy to get, and a 12 is something most specialists will manage, 15 requires some serious optimization. For combat, the high AR muddles things somewhat, as a non-specialist will have difficulty getting past heavy armor with just two DoS. Requiring the specialization tax, however, makes the generalists even harder pressed to be able to hold their ground against a specialist.

Your view might be a bit skewed by a clear overweight of combat strong characters in the melee in BITW, I think the general power level looks to be lower here. Or rather, the BITW only included the part of the iceberg floating above water in terms of participation.

I thought I would share one of the House Disadvantages we added to our weekly game. We have added a great many of these (we like flaws), but most are campaign specific. This is one of the better generalized disadvantages that is transferable. It has been thoroughly play-tested.

Attraction (Disadvantage)

You are strongly attracted and well disposed to those of a certain type.

Perhaps you are attracted to those lithe of body, keen of mind, leaders of men, or strong of will. Pick an Ability trait. Opponents who posses this trait at a rank of 3 or higher may add their rank in that trait to any Influence Intrigue actions against you. They also gain a +1B when using the Charm or Seduce Influence technique against you. You may take this disadvantage up to three times. Each time it applies to a new Ability trait. Bonuses from multiple Attractions are cumulative, and bonus dice from this disadvantage can exceed normal limits.

So if you had the Disadvantages Attraction (Fighting) and Attraction (Cunning) someone like Ser Corbin Celtigar would gain a +8 bonus to Persuasion or Deception tests to Influence you, in addition to any Disposition modifiers or modifiers from other Advantages, and gain another +2B to Charm or Seduce you.

We like it because it's balanced in power, flexible in character development, and reflects real world psychology.

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Zorbeltuss wrote:Yes, well. Thing is that Combat Defense doesn't keep up with combat offense. We had a pretty good example in SA where two AP -4 full-plate characters managed to dent each other just fine despite not having fighting 5 or strong athletics to back up the damage. It just took a bit more time, is all. Your typical combat type will have 9 to 10 combat defense (two 3's and a 4 in the key stats), with large shield bonus and armor penalty cancelling each other out. More min/maxed for defense might push you up to 13-14. But that's what separates the generalists from the specialists. Specialists probably needs 5D against other specialists, true. But for generalists and rank and file NPC's, 4D is plenty.

Min/maxed for defense can put you over 20 pretty easily, but I think we can both agree that that would be a bit of an abuse of the system. Still, take your above example and give them tower shields instead of large shields - it only costs an extra 20ss, and going from bulk 4 (3 from full plate and 1 from the large shield) to 5 bulk makes no difference in maneuverability. That shifts those 9-10 CDs to 11 or 12, which doesn't seem like a huge difference, but when you consider that it will take at least 3 DoS to get past the AR (assuming a longsword, 3-4 athletics, and no relevant benefits), that puts the effective TN at 21-22. A knight of Quality suddenly only has about a 50/50 chance of making a successful strike on a 'typical combat type'.

Zorbeltuss wrote:There is however the issue that defenses are flat. It's easy and cheap to buy them up to 9, but shields and armor offers flat modifications, and that's where it ends, and from there it's rather costly to get it further up. They hold up well to the optimized 4D, but they start to lag behind the optimized 5D. A bit loose and fast rule is that a TN of 3xability rank is a good balance. So Combat/Intrigue defense of 9 holds well against 3D, 12 holds well against 4D and 15 holds well against 5D. The trick is that while a 9 is easy to get, and a 12 is something most specialists will manage, 15 requires some serious optimization. For combat, the high AR muddles things somewhat, as a non-specialist will have difficulty getting past heavy armor with just two DoS. Requiring the specialization tax, however, makes the generalists even harder pressed to be able to hold their ground against a specialist.

It is true that combat defense does not scale well vs. offense. However, if combat stats were based around lower CDs (i.e. a regular shield instead of a large/tower shield), then there is more growth potential for CD as well - upgrade to larger shields as you can spare the specialty dice, and having already spent those dice makes Shield Mastery a more attractive benefit. Further, whether you have to pay a 'tax' for your combat defense or for getting past your opponent's combat defense is pretty much the same, isn't it?

Zorbeltuss wrote:Your view might be a bit skewed by a clear overweight of combat strong characters in the melee in BITW, I think the general power level looks to be lower here. Or rather, the BITW only included the part of the iceberg floating above water in terms of participation.

Perhaps, though BitW was not my first SIFrpg game. As for the relative power level here vs. there, I hope you are correct... but I don't know if that will remain true.

Hey guys, I have a rule question.

Dunstan here has 2B in Bludgeoning weapons, and the number of training penalty dice for flail is 2. So does that affect him in any way or he can use the flail without any penalty?
It looks weird to me that flail damage is Athletics +3 and warhammer only Athletics.

The 2b requirement means it "
uses up"
you bludgeon 2b.

Example - fighting 4, bludgeon 2b attacks with 6d6k4 with a mace but only 4d6k4 with a flail. On phone, can type better explanation later.

Flail does look good compared to war hammer, unless you're keen on shattering 2.

Oh ok I understood.
Will probably use a warhammer just because it is awesome.

Also, if you've kept Dunstan's Bludgeon Fighter I, you'll have Shattering 3 with the warhammer. Pretty much everyone is going to feel that... :;
):

Dunstan_Tullison wrote:Hey guys, I have a rule question.

Dunstan here has 2B in Bludgeoning weapons, and the number of training penalty dice for flail is 2. So does that affect him in any way or he can use the flail without any penalty?
It looks weird to me that flail damage is Athletics +3 and warhammer only Athletics.

A warhammer is easier to hit with than a flail, but does a lot less damage. It also does an additional point of shattering, which can be significant. On the other hand it also has bulk 1 and thus will probably lower your movement speed. I would say that a flail is more likely to do damage early in a fight due to needing fewer DoS to get past the AR, but the warhammer can quickly tear down someone's defenses, first lowering their CD (as you destroy shields/defensive weapons) then lowering their AR. For solo fights the flail is probably better as a solid hit early can be decisive, but in group fights the lowered defenses make it easier for your allies to hit.

Keep in mind that there's no reason that you cannot have multiple weapons and use whatever you feel is appropriate for the fight.

fendrin wrote:

Dunstan_Tullison wrote:Hey guys, I have a rule question.

Dunstan here has 2B in Bludgeoning weapons, and the number of training penalty dice for flail is 2. So does that affect him in any way or he can use the flail without any penalty?
It looks weird to me that flail damage is Athletics +3 and warhammer only Athletics.

A warhammer is easier to hit with than a flail, but does a lot less damage. It also does an additional point of shattering, which can be significant. On the other hand it also has bulk 1 and thus will probably lower your movement speed. I would say that a flail is more likely to do damage early in a fight due to needing fewer DoS to get past the AR, but the warhammer can quickly tear down someone's defenses, first lowering their CD (as you destroy shields/defensive weapons) then lowering their AR. For solo fights the flail is probably better as a solid hit early can be decisive, but in group fights the lowered defenses make it easier for your allies to hit.

Keep in mind that there's no reason that you cannot have multiple weapons and use whatever you feel is appropriate for the fight.

Ok, thanks for the clarification:)
Will buy both, why not. One additional question about starting coin - does my Head of House benefit adds a +2 on starting money check too?

Dunstan_Tullison wrote:One additional question about starting coin - does my Head of House benefit adds a +2 on starting money check too?

A status test is a status test, so normally I'd say so. However, with the altered starting coin rule we are using I'm not sure. It's basically just an average roll, so I would think you would add the +2 after the multiplication (basically get an extra 2 crowns), but Reader would have to make that call.

Fendrin is right, you do indeed get the +2 bonus from your head of house benefit:

"
3. Equipment - multiply your status by 3.5 and add any static bonuses to status tests (e.g. Heir, head of house, anointed etc)"


Enjoy spending your (slightly boosted) riches!

Reader wrote:The 2b requirement means it "
uses up"
you bludgeon 2b.

Example - fighting 4, bludgeon 2b attacks with 6d6k4 with a mace but only 4d6k4 with a flail. On phone, can type better explanation later.

Flail does look good compared to war hammer, unless you're keen on shattering 2.

We had a long discussion about this several years ago. The rule in the book says the following (the wording we considered pertinent are bolded):

Training

Not all weapons are created equal, some are harder to use than are
others. Certain weapons require a minimum level of specialized training
to wield properly and those without the minimum specialty rank
find fighting with these weapons more challenging than simpler ones.

Whenever a weapon indicates 1B, 2B, and so on under training, you lose
the indicated number of bonus dice from your Fighting or Marksmanship
tests with the weapon. If the penalty reduces your bonus dice to less
than 0 (or you have none to begin with), you take a penalty die on your
tests with the weapon for each additional –1.

This wording, at least to us, meant that if you did have the minimum specialty rank, you did not take any penalty to your test.

So if the weapon is a 2B specialty, you would take -2D if not trained, -1D -1B if partially trained, or no penalty if completely trained.

This is our rationale, because [we felt] that the wording implied you could master a weapon, and if the penalty always applied then the weapon would always be somewhat challenging to wield regardless of how much you exceeded the minimum specialty rank with training.

.

Nathaniel Mason wrote:This wording, at least to us, meant that if you did have the minimum specialty rank, you did not take any penalty to your test.

So if the weapon is a 2B specialty, you would take -2D if not trained, -1D -1B if partially trained, or no penalty if completely trained.

This is our rationale, because [we felt] that the wording implied you could master a weapon, and if the penalty always applied then the weapon would always be somewhat challenging to wield regardless of how much you exceeded the minimum specialty rank with training.

I can see that interpretation of the first paragraph, but it is directly contradicted by the next paragraph.

Whenever a weapon indicates 1B, 2B, and so on under training, you lose
the indicated number of bonus dice from your Fighting or Marksmanship
tests with the weapon. If the penalty reduces your bonus dice to less
than 0 (or you have none to begin with), you take a penalty die on your
tests with the weapon for each additional –1.

If it worked the way you thought, only the second sentence would be be needed. However that is not the case. Further, the weapons with a training penalty are clearly superior to weapons without it, thus once you meet the training penalty (most will for their preferred weapon type anyway) there would be no reason to use, for instance, a longsword instead of a bastard sword.

fendrin wrote:
I can see that interpretation of the first paragraph, but it is directly contradicted by the next paragraph.

This was discussed. There is only a contradiction if the paragraphs are parsed separately. Taken together it can easily be interpreted that 'you lose the indicated number of bonus dice from your Fighting or Marksmanship tests with the weapon' IF you do not have 'the minimum specialty rank'.

Even if you are correct and the second paragraph is a direct contradiction to the first, that is precisely when a Narrator determination is needed. When there are obvious contradictions in the rules.

I am only giving how we ruled and the reasons for it. However the narrator wants to interpret in this game is fine by me.

Edit: Actually, in our case, when we encounter vague or contradictory rules the group discusses it and comes to a consensus. We are very democratic that way.

Thanks for being understanding and civil everyone!

My ruling - you lose the bonus dice as outlined in my earlier example.

Yes, well, you might want a shield also. I'd take Mace and Shield over warhammer. And Flail over Warhammer, as well.

Also, grab a spear specialization if you haven't and want to compete in the joust.

As for the rule interpretation thing. It may be that GR intended for the training penalty to be a training requirement, though RAW is clear enough that it's a training penalty which is made worse if you do not have the required specialty dice.

And the discussion of ROI is one best taken on the GR forums. My guess is that RAW equals RAI in this case.

Zorbeltuss wrote:Yes, well, you might want a shield also. I'd take Mace and Shield over warhammer. And Flail over Warhammer, as well.

Or a ball-and-chain. With the mace revision, it's at -1B to fighting and -1 damage per DoS relative to a mace, but more than makes up for that with Powerful and Shattering.

Reader wrote:Still thinking on shield rules -final decision before we start with time for people to revise characters.

How's the thinking going on this one?

Inching towards enforcing the requirement, to prevent people being too samey.

About to embark on playing some Pillars of Eternity, final decision by the weekend.

I stand by my claim that forcing the specialty tax is one of the worst house rules I've ever seen. The breakdown is in fact such that using a large shield compared to regular shield slows you down if you're wearing heavy (bulk 3) armor, while tower shield does not compared to heavy. Better to make Tower Shield unwieldy and bulk 3 IMO.

The effect of this being that in most cases*, going up one shield category will slow you down, and you can't use tower shield when they do not slow you down (mounted). Choice of shield is between mobility and defense rather than a question of having the skill to properly wield it.

*Unless you're wearing bulk 2 armor, then heavy shield doesn't do this. But that opens up for interesting tactical choices for mail and scale.

I'm inclined to agree that the major drawback of the large and tower shields is their bulk - with heavy armor it's easy to end up with a move of 2 (sprint 4). It's not a huge penalty, but it can be significant if not all battles happen in a very small area (as was the case in the BITW melee), since a faster character can then control the pace of the engagement.

As for the tower shield, if we're really worried that someone intends to lug one about as standard equipment, I suggest Reader simply bans it as day-to-day equipment. I can't recall any POV character in the books being described as using a tower shield (which I think of as a form of man-portable pavise), so it's probably not standard issue in Westerosi military tradition anyway.

I'm no expert in medieval warfare, but I was always under the impression that a tower shield really works best in part of a shield line, where you can't be easily flanked by a more mobile foe. You have to plant that giant heavy thing in the ground in front of you, where it basically becomes a man-portable wall section.

If you're one on one, it wouldn't be terribly hard for a foe to get around it while you struggle and strain to keep up. Unless he's similarly encumbered of course.

If the tower shield is indeed similar to a medieval pavise, its main use was to provide cover for an archer, in which case it was usually planted in the ground. Of course, that makes it useless in a hand-to-hand fight. I have seen some depictions of pavises apparently being used by an infantryman to shelter both himself and an archer, but I have no idea if it was actually intended to be used if the infantryman was attacked in hand-to-hand combat (the archer would probably just have withdrawn in such a situation).

According to Wikipedia, a pavise was often wielded by another archer, or a 'groom' to defend archers and crossbowmen as they reloaded. It was sometimes planted, sometimes not.

I don't see much mention of tower shields being wielded in other circumstances, but of course it's a very general treatment.

It mentions that since shields were generally used to deflect blows rather than take them dead on, the better the armor a knight wore, the smaller the shield he used tended to be. That also makes sense from a weight perspective. A 20 pound or more shield, on top of plate armor, would tire that arm out real quick. Doesn't matter how strong you are.