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how to make spartan type warriors?

00durrin

First Post
If any of you remember history correctly, supposedly the Spartan Hoplites fought with 8 foot spears and huge round shields. I've read accounts of the 2nd and even 3rd rankers being able to reach over the front line and hit the enemy with their spears. How would I do this with D&D rules? The longspear is a 2handed weapon and they have to carry a shield. Any suggestions? I suppose I could give them all monkey grip...anyone know of any other way?
What other kinds of things would I have to take into account (i.e. front rankers providind half cover for the 2nd rankers and also providing cover for the enemy from the 2nd rankers (page 132 phb).
 

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Alzrius

The EN World kitten
Considering that probably not too many people here know that much about Spartan Hoplites, I don't think you're too likely to get much help here.

That said, you seem to be doing fine on your own. You've already got the Monkey Grip feat down for holding those spears one-handed, and you're calculating the changes for them using the front-rankers as cover. What else is there? I suppose you could make sure they have the same armor as the historical Hoplites, and I know I saw some sort of feat somewhere for phalanx fighting, which gives warriors grouped together bonuses against flanking, or something like that...
 
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Witch Doctor

First Post
Hmm, sounds like a cool idea for a PrC (i know, house rule, but this might work).

Spartan Hoplites were great not because of their ability to fight man-to-man. They were great because the whole was greater than the sum of it's parts. In other words, when you got 100 of these guys together, they could easily hold off a force of 300 or more.

Coordination was the key to their success, so you might wanna think about feats that involve 2 or more people attacking together. Aside from that and the advice about monkey grip and such above, not much else rules-wise that fit spartans very well.
 

Particle_Man

Explorer
Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide, a D&D book, has a few feats for warriors to use in conjunction with other warriors with the same feat (Hammer and Anvil, Sisterhood of Tharggy). These could be adopted for your rules, I imagine.
 

Jotun

First Post
I recently went looking for feats that would give our group of characters benefits in combat due to coordination. I found all kinds of feats, some quite similar. Kingdoms of Kalamar, Quintessential Cleric, Oriental Adventures, Rokugan sourcebook, AEG's Mercenaries, Legend and Lair's Path of the Sword, and one of my friends had a bunch of team fighting feats from a set of counters he bought. There are at least a dozen feats out there that give your character some kind of bonus.

I finally ended up choosing Great Teamwork from OA. It doubles the flanking bonus. For a Hoplite I would imagine that Alzrius is on the right track with suggesting a Phalanx Formation feat. It's in the AEG Mercenaries book. That book might have a lot of cool ideas for you in regards to designing a Spartan warrior. If you go for a Prestige Class, I'd enjoy it if shared your design with the rest of ENWorld and me. I'd probably opt for making the Hoplite into a Prestige Class. There's more room for you to give the concept of a Spartan warrior more flavor and distinction over a regular fighter with a feat every other level. Good luck in whatever you decide!
 

Greybar

No Trouble at All
Considering that probably not too many people here know that much about Spartan Hoplites, I don't think you're too likely to get much help here.

Beg differ. There are some amazing military history minds here. I won't claim to be one of them, however.

Note that the Greek era fighters fought as a coherent mass. We're not talking about one man per 5" square. We're talking about people being crushed in the middle as your chest presses on the back of the man in front of you. Men died on the opponent's spears because it was impossible to dodge. Huge fights that can best be described as shoving matches. Morale was everything.

So, note that we're not talking about a style appropriate for a group of PCs that is 4 to 10 big. You need mass here. This is appropriate for an NPC army unit. Create a feat to let people share a square at a major cost to AC. This will also let you get multiple ranks in easier. Perhaps consider the spear/shield a combined piece of equipment, with the spear resting on the shield and the shoulders of the guys in front of you.

But you're really going to need to think about where this fits in your world. Again, there isn't going to be a single Hoplite warrior on his own waving the 18" spear around and carrying a great shield.

John
 

Brista

First Post
I think that Aid Another would be a better choice of feats (from the Oriental Adventures book)

It gives +4 bonus when using the Aid Another action. Now that doesn't sound like much but it would make 300 men fighting two-ranked in a fortified mountain pass very hard to beat
 

Thresher

First Post
The spartan Hoplite of around 4-500BC carried a spear that was between 6'6" and 10ft long and had an iron head and a bronze butt-spike that could be used in case the head got snapped off.
They where a 1 handed weapon, yeah throw that D&D crap out about spears needing 2 hands ok, they dont really know that much about historical warfare.
Hoplites also carried a straight double edged sword made of iron with bronze fittings, that had a blade about 2' long and was effective for both slashing and thrusting in close quarters.

The shield, called a 'Hoplon' which is where they get their name, weighs about 8kg, or 18pds for you freaks that dont use metric :)
Its made of mostly wood and faced with bronze and backed by leather. Sometimes they would hang a heavy leather curtain off the bottom to protect the feet and legs. Its about 3ft tall and completly circular.

Armour, varies. The most expensive cuirass where made of bronze but others where made of a laminate of linen or canvas layers(called a linothorax) and reinforced with metal plates and scales. They afforded the best body protection in the world for some time.
On his legs the spartan wore bronze greaves and sandals, though later on they canned those because they where too heavy and made it hard to move. Sometimes there where equivalent arm guards.
To put them on they where basically 'sprung' and squeezed onto the limb and didnt use straps.
The helmet was made of bronze construction as well and sometimes was decorated with a brightly died horsehair crest.

The 'phalanx' formation, every man occupies a 3foot square area and where sometimes up to 8men deep and the left frontage of his shield covered his neighbour. The rear ranks advance as the front ones get mown down.

Spartans where about as hardcore as you could imagine, their life was extreamly tough from day one focused on survival, fighting and discipline.
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
Greybar said:
Beg differ. There are some amazing military history minds here.

I agree with you there, and Thresher just showed it, but I said "not too many" and "unlikely to get much", not "none at all". It's just that I see a lot of threads like these fade away into oblivion with no in-depth historical help given to them, simply because the couple of people who could help weren't there at the time. That's all.
 


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