Holmes Edition - Weapons Question

[Baumi]

A friend will GM a classic Edition One-Shot with the blue Holmes Edition next week. I read through the booklet a bit and saw that it allows daggers to hit two times per round while two-handed weapons hit only every second round.

The problem I have now is that I have seen no differentiation between the weapon-damage, in fact I have seen no weapon table at all.

Have I overlooked something or was it really that unbalanced, since that would allow a wizard with a dagger to be a much better warrior than a fighter with a one-handed or two-handed weapon (both attack with the same chance, damage is the same but dagger attacks at least twice as often).

 

[diaglo]

have your magic user with no armor get into melee combat.

 

[Baumi]

Then how about a two Fighters in Plate, one with Dagger and Shield and the other one with a two-hander.

The first one would attack four times as much with the same damage per attack as the second one and would have a better AC...

 

[Dm_from_Brazil]

Baumi, if your friend is SUCH a purist (using only the rules contained in the Basic Box), yes, that WAS the way that things happened: the Fighter was the perfect "defender" (an euphemism for "meat shield" ) - not causing much damage, but able to stay in front of the party, taking the brunt of the damage.

BUT, if your friend in NOT such a purist, he can use the Damage Done by Weapon Type table from the Greyhawk supplement, as it IS part of the OD&D Canon...

In this case, a dagger and sling stones causes 1-4 points of damage (one HAS to love this weird OD&D notation), a sword, spears, battle axes and polearms 1-8, a 2-h sword 1-10, hand axes, hammers , arrows and maces 1-6. This going VERY basic, because you could have "damage vs. Man-sized opponents" and "vs. Larger Opponents"

May this help your friend!

 

[JDJblatherings]

There are three ways to handle the weapons #of attack rules in holmes.

1. keep them as is and just dont' worry.

2. ignore them. weapons just do 1d6 damage.

3. house rules- come up with some rules to tweak combat to your tastes. The holmes combat rules are so simple you have room to tweak stuff without screwing p the wholel game.
(here are mine)

Strength Bonus for Attacking with Heavy Weapons- This bonus only applies to:
Flails, Morningstars and Battleaxes wielded in both hands. Halberds, Two Handed Swords and Pole Arms (not pikes).
STR
3-8 no hit or damage bonus
9-12 no hit/ +1 damage
13-14 +1 to hit/ +2 damage
15-16 +1/+3
17 +2/+3
18 +2/+4

(i like this because there is no auto bonus from high strength a player has to decide to arm a character with a heavy weapon to get the advantage and there are some trade offs from this).

(more following but the STR bonus for heavy weapons mentioned above could really solve the whole issue)

Damage per attack- use the classes Hit dice. Fighters and Dwarves do 1d8, halfligns and elves 1d6...etc.

Dagger Attacks-
if you are attacking someone and you are armed with a dagger and they are armed (even with a dagger) and you aren't attacking them from behind or they are not surprised they are allowed a free attack against you before you roll your dagger attack(s). If the free attack hits you then you lose your attack for the round. If the free attack misses you are allowed your two attack rolls.
A foe keeps getting this free attack until you successfully hit them.
The free attack can come from any sized weapon.

Fending Off Foes.
When armed with a long weapon one may keep foes at bay. f your weapon is a larger size category then a foes weapon and you have declared you are fending off foes
you get a free attack against each foe that advance on you (up to your leve).
If the free attack hits the advancing foe loses their attack.
You may not move on a round you are fending off foes.

fending off foes grants free attacks if-
Weapon foes weapon
Pike vs any
Halberd vs any but pike
Polearm vs any but pike or halberd
Spear vs any but pike, halberd or polearm.
Two Hand Sword vs any but spear,pike, halberd or polearm
Staff vs mace, warhammer, club, handaxe

Two handed weapons are allowed free strikes on rounds they may not make a regular attack.

 

[Baumi]

He is not a purist, he is just curious about how it was done in the old times and therefore want to try it as a one-shot.

But I stumbled about this strange rule and wondered if I was overlooking something or how it was handled back then. If there is nothing that balance it then I will simply not abuse the rule (only attack once with daggers), but as I said maybe there is something that I have not seen...

 

[Baumi]

nice rules...

Thanks but I'm sure he want to keep as much to the book as possible for this "test-session", but these look like great rules if you want to play for more than a one-shot. If there is nothing in the book than I will certainly suggest your second rule and just ignore the different speed.

 

[Delta]

You know, I did play with that rule in Holmes basic, and in later years I keep thinking that I just imagined it. I can never re-find it in the book these days, what page is it on?

In any event, you really do want to ignore that rule. It's sort of a mangled attempt at simplifying "who strikes first" from Chainmail man-to-man combat (which also got quasi-mangled into the 1E AD&D initiative rules).

Using Greyhawk weapon damage is not a bad idea, except that you then have to deal with the different SM/L damage types, which weren't a great idea. You might just draw up your own: d4 dagger, d6 sword, d8 greatsword, something like that.

 

[diaglo]

He is not a purist, he is just curious about how it was done in the old times and therefore want to try it as a one-shot...

0 hit points equals dead

 

[ExploderWizard]

You know, I did play with that rule in Holmes basic, and in later years I keep thinking that I just imagined it. I can never re-find it in the book these days, what page is it on?

The rule appears on page 20 in the " Combat rounds, time and movement in melee" section.