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<blockquote data-quote="Tom B1" data-source="post: 7409733" data-attributes="member: 6879023"><p>Really, its almost like combat should track melee distance - close, short, long. </p><p></p><p>Close - right in your face - elbows and knees, shield bash, uppercut, maybe a dagger</p><p>Short - inside the distance of a spear or two handed sword</p><p>Long - not likely to be threatened by a person with a knife or short weapon</p><p></p><p>You would start out at long. If he has a spear and you have a short sword, your objective is to close to short range. The initiative that round is weighted in his favour. Some sort of test would be made (STR, DEX, Level based test) to determine if you got to close with your spear armed foe. If not, same thing next round. If you did close, on the next round, you have the advantage with the shorter weapon and HIS goal is to back off (again, a test). If you can keep the fight at short sword range, he'll have trouble hitting you with a spear. If he keeps it at spear range, you won't get many hits in and are likely to have a bad ending. </p><p></p><p>The other option for the spear guy once you get to short range is to drop his spear and go for his dagger (or attempt to grapple or batter you with his fists). At that point, you start the round at short with advantage to the shorts sword, but he tries to close with you to close. If he fails, you have advantage the next round. If he succeeds, he has the advantage and you likely have to grapple, punch or pull a dagger because you are so close. </p><p></p><p>That model makes more sense than arbitrarily assuming a dagger will strike before a spear --- that conclusion entirely depends on melee distance and strategy. </p><p></p><p>If I had a dagger, I would NOT want to try to close with a swordsman. If I had to do so, I'd hope for a fast pass to get me in close then I'd try very hard never to let the swordsman get a decent swing with his sword again by trying to be right up close to him. The same applies if I had a sword and he had a spear. </p><p></p><p>This is why weapon speed usually isn't represented. It's situational and if you want to abstract the combat, then you are really abstracting who is closer when and whose strategy is working to get close - you just both get to take shots at one another when portions of the round place you at ranges advantageous for your striking. (Exception: If you are grappled is actually modeled). </p><p></p><p>The same logic applies to larger creatures (slow, but longer reach) or smaller ones (very limited reach, but fast). If you aren't going to model the melee distance bands, then just abstracting weapons to remove modelling speed also makes sense (you can't just do half the job and have it make sense - do the full job or none at all).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tom B1, post: 7409733, member: 6879023"] Really, its almost like combat should track melee distance - close, short, long. Close - right in your face - elbows and knees, shield bash, uppercut, maybe a dagger Short - inside the distance of a spear or two handed sword Long - not likely to be threatened by a person with a knife or short weapon You would start out at long. If he has a spear and you have a short sword, your objective is to close to short range. The initiative that round is weighted in his favour. Some sort of test would be made (STR, DEX, Level based test) to determine if you got to close with your spear armed foe. If not, same thing next round. If you did close, on the next round, you have the advantage with the shorter weapon and HIS goal is to back off (again, a test). If you can keep the fight at short sword range, he'll have trouble hitting you with a spear. If he keeps it at spear range, you won't get many hits in and are likely to have a bad ending. The other option for the spear guy once you get to short range is to drop his spear and go for his dagger (or attempt to grapple or batter you with his fists). At that point, you start the round at short with advantage to the shorts sword, but he tries to close with you to close. If he fails, you have advantage the next round. If he succeeds, he has the advantage and you likely have to grapple, punch or pull a dagger because you are so close. That model makes more sense than arbitrarily assuming a dagger will strike before a spear --- that conclusion entirely depends on melee distance and strategy. If I had a dagger, I would NOT want to try to close with a swordsman. If I had to do so, I'd hope for a fast pass to get me in close then I'd try very hard never to let the swordsman get a decent swing with his sword again by trying to be right up close to him. The same applies if I had a sword and he had a spear. This is why weapon speed usually isn't represented. It's situational and if you want to abstract the combat, then you are really abstracting who is closer when and whose strategy is working to get close - you just both get to take shots at one another when portions of the round place you at ranges advantageous for your striking. (Exception: If you are grappled is actually modeled). The same logic applies to larger creatures (slow, but longer reach) or smaller ones (very limited reach, but fast). If you aren't going to model the melee distance bands, then just abstracting weapons to remove modelling speed also makes sense (you can't just do half the job and have it make sense - do the full job or none at all). [/QUOTE]
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