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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6631446" data-attributes="member: 6787503">Thanks for your interest. I actually read your post earlier, before it was edited, but since I hate to post from my phone I waited until I got home. I don't know, of course, what Gygax was thinking when he compiled the original tables, but to address your concern I think the rationale has to do with there being a limit to a weapon's ability to bypass the added defense of certain armors or shield/armor combinations. In your unedited post you mentioned the halberd and the maul as examples of such weapons, in that they lose a +3 bonus they had against an opponent in full plate when that opponent dons a shield. Rather than the shield in this case effectively bumping the opponent's AC by five points, however, it should be thought of as hindering the ability of these heavy weapons to continue to break through defenses that are so resilient against lesser weapons.Also, I should probably explain the size of the bonus. The original table had +1 for halberd v. plate which I converted to +3 based on the fact that a +1 attack bonus in first edition results from a 17 strength. Since the probability of rolling a 17 is the same across editions, my assumption is that the resulting modifiers can be regarded as equivalent. Thus in all cases but one, I have substituted in +3 where the original has +1. Of course this means that a 0 on the original chart is actually the equivalent of between -1 and +3 in fifth edition (a 0 modifier resulting from a strength score of 8-16 in first edition). I've opted to leave it as 0 except in a few places where adding a shield would actually make you easier to hit, in which case I've used the +1 instead to avoid that situation. With this in mind, however, wherever a 0 appears, a number between -1 and +3 could be substituted as you see fit.Another note as regards your concerns is that while the halberd row is converted straight from the original chart, the maul as a weapon was not represented in first edition, so I used the lucerne hammer's numbers for the maul due to their both being two-handed bludgeoning weapons.</blockquote>

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