I broke my brain...Duel Weilding a Lances on a horse!?!? lol

[Riley37]

Some of those movie scenes are plausible. You can fire a mini gun for example without bracing it.

"Captain America: First Avenger" included Hydra soldiers dual-wielding chainguns. I guess they brace each other?

Pick a threshold of plausibility. Could be Black Hawk Down (guns can run out of ammo!), could be Xena, could be Roger Rabbit. If you can get a table to agree on a threshold, then it's funny when someone steps JUST past the line, rolls nat 20, and immediately steps back.

 

[Zardnaar]

"Captain America: First Avenger" included Hydra soldiers dual-wielding chainguns. I guess they brace each other?

Pick a threshold of plausibility. Could be Black Hawk Down (guns can run out of ammo!), could be Xena, could be Roger Rabbit. If you can get a table to agree on a threshold, then it's funny when someone steps JUST past the line, rolls nat 20, and immediately steps back.

I do not generally watch superhero movies (seen Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2).

 

[Nytmare]

The Mongols conquered nearly all of Eurasia on horseback, while shooting arrows from their composite bows. All pictures of archers on horseback clearly show they do NOT hold on to the reins. Riding without holding on to the horse does not seem to be a major issue.

However, all pictures that I can find of knights wielding lances on horseback shows that these definitely DO hold the reins in the hand with the shield. I think that it is probably essential to hold on to something as your lance slams into the enemy.

I was a professional stunt jouster for 5 or 6 years, and although my experiences were never battlefield tested, they should still count for something. That being said, I'm torn over whether real life alone should really dictate whether or not something like this should be allowed by a DM.

My entire schtick was a Mongol warrior riding around bareback and doing spear and archery tricks. Using the reins is the easiest way to control the horse. If you're not using the reins, you're directing the horse with your knees and your feet and relying way more on the horse's training.

When you're jousting (or really when you're doing anything where you're able to hold the reins) you're using those reins to tell the horse what you want it to do. It's your steering wheel. They're not helping you stay on the horse, they're just there so that you can convince the horse to (hopefully) go where you want it to go. What's keeping you on the horse are your legs and your saddle, and you leaning properly into the hit that you took and the hit that you landed.

In D&D two weapons mostly translates into more attacks, but in real life two weapons means more opportunities to take advantage of an opening to land an attack. I haven't jousted with two lances, but I've gone through the motions of a staged fight with various combinations of two light lances and/or spears and it's totally doable. Is it realistic, I don't know. You can at least be cinematic with light lances and spears, you've got backup weapons, you can throw them, they're small enough to spin and block things. But heavy lances? I don't see it being very practical, I don't think I ever had the strength to be able to do anything with one that wasn't just couching it and making a pass with one. Jousting with two heavy lances? The horse is in the way, the lances are in the way, unless the thing you're hitting is really big you're constantly fighting with the lances effectively being different sizes. I wouldn't ever want to do it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you're not using the reins, you're directing the horse with your knees and your feet and relying way more on the horse's training.

Warhorses are supposed to be very well-trained, yes?

In D&D two weapons mostly translates into more attacks, but in real life two weapons means more opportunities to take advantage of an opening to land an attack.

Which scans, because a D&D 'attack' isn't really a single swing, but is more represents an opportunity to land a telling blow, anyway. (Not as dramatically as when rounds were one minute, but still.) So it makes sense for the fencer with rapier & main gauche, for instance.

But charging with a lance isn't like that, either. That really is closer to 1 blow = 1 attack roll. I mean, if there were charging.

 

[Satyrn]

Or Marshal Marshall Martial, the Martial Warlord(Marshal)...

Poor Jan.

 

[Patrick McGill]

If your line in the sand is the DM not letting you dual wield two bloody lances I'd say martials must have it pretty good.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If your line in the sand is the DM not letting you dual wield two bloody lances I'd say martials must have it pretty good.

It's a symptom: you wouldn't be casting(npi) about for unintuitive combos like that if you could just kit up your knight in shining armor with a lance & shield and do fine...

 

[Nytmare]

Warhorses are supposed to be very well-trained, yes?

I went back and forth over that sentence a bunch trying to find the right way to phrase it. When you've got the reins you have the ability (you don't always need to do it) to move the horse's head which makes the horse want to go wherever it's head is pointing. When you're steering with your legs it's way more of a suggestion to the horse, and (with at least the way that I was riding) a lot of relying on the fact that you've gone through these moves a bunch of times before and the horse remembers and wants to play along with you. That being said, my old troupe also had it's share of horses who would either remember and decide NOT to play along every once in a while or who were just too dumb to pick up on it.

Not that it matters much in the grand scheme of this conversation, and I'm not sure from what you wrote if this is something you're familiar with, but there are lots and lots of different training styles. I'm not sure what medieval war horses (or their D&D equivalent) would have been trained in, but I'd imagine that a stock off the shelf warhorse would be more along the lines of a "trained to run on top of and stomp the crap out of whoever is in front of you" instead of a well mannered "trained to play along with the nice friendly man who is sitting on your back and gives you apples."

 

[BookBarbarian]

I'm not sure what medieval war horses (or their D&D equivalent) would have been trained in, but I'd imagine that a stock off the shelf warhorse would be more along the lines of a "trained to run on top of and stomp the crap out of whoever is in front of you" instead of a well mannered "trained to play along with the nice friendly man who is sitting on your back and gives you apples."

It is my understanding they were also trained to keep stamping their hooves when stationary to make it harder for enemy footmen to hamstring the horse.

But that's neither here nor there for the conversation. I just like that kind of information.

 

[Riley37]

In D&D 5E lances do a lot of damage, compared to other one-handed weapons. Doesn't make sense to me that a lance *inherently* does more damage than a spear or pike, if you're poking someone with it while standing still.

IMO a person who charges on a horse, and puts the combined momentum of a lance, warrior, and horse all behind *one* point, then that's a special move, called a joust. A joust should do extra damage whether you do it with lance, spear, javelin, or maybe even swordpoint. That's apparently too complicated for 5E; but at the same time there's a Charger feat which works even for overburdened halflings wielding whips.