Bronze age setting - what gear should be available?

[monboesen]

If a character rolls a "1" on a to hit roll with a bronze weapon, the blade bends, and needs to be beaten back into shape before being able to be used again.

I would not recommend such a rule. Loosing a weapon for every 20 attacks you make is neither fun nor realistic IMO. For a high level fighter weapons will have a lifetime of about 30 seconds before he has broken them.


As for more primitive magic. Id say

1. loose the wizard (they are the most advanced of spellcasters)

2. keep the cleric but reduce and tailor the spell list to each god (aiming for about 10-15 spells per spell level). This is to reflect the relative newness of the organised religions. They havent had time to research/share many spells yet.

3. keep the sorcerer and allow them spells from the standard spell list and the druid spell list. Remove all spells dealing with items/technology (like arcane lock, locate object etc.) and those dealing with other planes (summon monster, teleport, rope trick etc.). Drop the familiar and up the skill points to 4/level and use the combined skill list of the sorcerer and the druid class. This is the adept on steroids and reflects the natural/primitive spellcaster.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I would not recommend such a rule. Loosing a weapon for every 20 attacks you make is neither fun nor realistic IMO. For a high level fighter weapons will have a lifetime of about 30 seconds before he has broken them.

I concur. Better to design a bonus than a penalty. You can lower the hit points of the bronze weapons to make a Sunder attempt easier. Then, as already noted, iron and steel weapons can be the "masterwork" of the setting.

Sean K. Reynold's New Argonauts covered a lot of this stuff. I recommend it.

 

[Pinotage]

From Stone to Steel

This will probably have the answers you need.

Pinotage

 

[Nyaricus]

From Stone to Steel

This will probably have the answers you need.

Pinotage

Indeed, referenceing from there:

Weapons

• Dagger, bronze
• Sickle, bronze
• Club
• Hayfork
• Mace, bronze
• Throwing Spear, bronze
• scythe, bronze
• javelin, bronze
• handaxe, bronze
• battleaxe, bronze
• longsword, bronze
• shortsword, bronze
• khopesh, bronze
• spear, bronze
• Light Warbow, bronze-tipped arrows
• Whip, braided or hair
• sling
• Quaterstaff
• Dart, bronze-tipped
• Net, grass

Armour

• Lamellar, bronze [treat as studded leather]
• Studded Leather, bronze [treat as studded leather]
• Minoan Beastplate, bronze [treat as breatplate]
• Mycenaen Breastplate, bronze [treat as breastplate]
• Cuirass, Bronze Plated Linen [treat as studded leather]
• Banded Armour, bronze [treat as banded armour]
• Furs and Hide [treat as leather armour]
• Wood and Hides [treat as leather armour]

Please note that copper was still widely used in the bronze age, and in any case where bronze weapons were being used one could still find a variety of copper ones as well. Bronze, however, was preffered in this age because it holds it's form longer and mroe easily and is used more easily in decorative work as well. Tin shortages of Assyria lead to the more widespread adoptation of iron and, eventually steel. Also note that even in the hayday of the bronze age, iron weapons were used. The thing was that iron is not that much better than bronze, but it is harder to find and requires more heat to smelt and thus was not preferred.

Also, for game mechanics, light armous allowed more movement, so consider allowing +1 to the Max Dex bonus for those armours and -1 Max Dex for the heavier stuff. Also consider than most wore lighter amrous during this time period, although breastplate was essentually at it's hayday.