Joe Commoner, and his BIG AXE!!!

[Stalker0]

Not that there aren't going to be errors and omissions in the PHB Lite, but under Weapon Proficiency (p 23), the source I copied from just said +1 attack bonus, and nothing about a damage bonus as far as I can see.

If someone knows of additional information they can add to the Weapons section, pass it on at the PHB Lite thread and I'll add it to the next revision.

Thanks
Verys.

The axe has a higher weapon die than a sword, but doesn't get a straight up damage bonus as far as I know.

 

[ironvyper]

I come from a mindset that people inhabiting my fantasy world want to survive. They know very well how their environment works, and they make decisions to the best of their ability within that environment that maximizes their chance of survival.

Ergo, if a commoner needs to take up arms to defend his home or his village, he will choose a weapon that maximizes his chance of surviving.

He will know whether swords or axes make the biggest wounds (he won't know d8 vs. d10, but he will know what kinds of wounds the weapons make).

He will know which weapon is harder to wield (he won't know he's -2 with a sword and -1 with an axe, but as soon as he's tried both implements, he will know which one he can use best).

Given that he will hit more often with an axe, and that the axe will make bigger wounds, he would see no reason at all to choose a sword.

He will maximize his chances of surviving by choosing an axe.

And, because axes are a dime a dozen in a medieval farm or village, and swords aren't, he won't likely be forced to choose an inferior sword because it's the only weapon lying around handy for him to find.

So yes, if the numbers we are discussing in this thread are true in 4e, then very nearly all of my commoners will be defending their homes with axes, not swords.

I agree with the principle that every commoner will try to maximize his chance of suvival. However i completely disagree that an axe is the best way for him to do it. In my opinion your average low to non skilled commoner in a world where regular healing might not be effective or reachable and magical healing is likely far out of his price range your average person is not going to be able risk getting hurt and not being able to work for a few days.

So sure the D10 instead of a D8 is 1 extra point of damage, maybe 2 extra if the other numbers for an axe stay what we have seen so far. And the axe is likely a better weapon then a sword for the average commoner. But theres a weapon thats been way better then either, the long spear.

The spear has reach, your average commoner with a melee weapon probably has no bonus to initiative so against most beastly monsters he is going to be at an initiative disadvantage, and against comparable humanoids just draw even. If your typical low HP common gets tagged because he lost initiative thats it, he's dead. Doesnt matter how much damage he may or may not have done cause he will never get the chance to find out.

But with reach, that commoner can hit the enemy before they hit him even if he loses initiative, which is immensely valuable. For that same reason i imagine short bows and slings being much more common then generally depicted.

The best weapon is definately the one that maximizes your survival chance, and nothing maximizes survival like killing the enemy before they can get close enough to hit u.

 

[Stalker0]

But with reach, that commoner can hit the enemy before they hit him even if he loses initiative, which is immensely valuable. For that same reason i imagine short bows and slings being much more common then generally depicted.

Not true in 4e. Reach only applies on your turn, it doesn't affect OAs. A guy with a longspear is just as vulnerable to a guy rushing in as a guy with a sword***

***From what we know so far. We know how reach works, but we don't know if reach weapons have any other advantages yet

Edit: Actually now that I think about it, not true in 3e either. You only get AOOs if your not flatfooted, so a commoner that loses initiative still wouldn't get an AOO against a charging guy.

 

[ironvyper]

eh, that flat footed rule was allways stupid, i houseruled it so that if u were aware of the enemy u werent flatfooted when the books first came out, guess i forgot about how it actually was according to RAW

 

[DandD]

You need Combat Reflexes as a feat to be able to make an Attack of Opportunity against somebody who won initiative in 3.X.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

"Bössa" is still a word in Swedish. You can call a M16 a "bössa" and you wouldn't be wrong (it would sound strange, though). That's what's so aggrevating when reading old Swedish first hand experiences from the 16th-17th century. You don't know what handguns they are talking about.

I understand it's like reading "aynd hye bringed 27 gonneman wyth gonnes." No way to tell what was brought more than 'it's a firearm' but I don't think many languages really had specialized descriptive terms for particular varieties until later on.

Just to clarify in English 'handgun' is applied only to pistols. "Bossa" as used in the 16-17th century is probably closest to the English term "small arms" as a generic catchall term much as the antique use "gonne" from which gun derives. But properly a 'gun' is a large mounted system or in the words of drill sergeant Brown, "if it don't got wheels or tracks it ain't a gun."
Followed by several hours of crawling shirtless through spiny brambles.

firearms=small arms
|
\/
rifle/pistol/submachinegun

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Also (just thought of this) wouldn't most farmers have some experience with using an axe to kill things? How does your average medieval farmer kill his chickens, pigs, or cows? (I know you don't usually kill the cows, but humor me.) I don't know, I'm wondering what the usual method was. I would imagine an axe, that makes the most sense to me.

Just got to chime in here with some of my obscure medieval daily life knowledge. This one's taken from a book called "A Medieval Book of Seasons," which is a fairly brief but excellent guide to the various tasks and daily life details of the Middle Ages. It talks about the lives of commoners, mostly, and the various work and recreation that they participated in during the different seasons.

Slaughtering chickens would be with an axe or simply twisting their necks. Killing a pig was the throat-cutting, and for a cow, they'd hit it in the head with a sledgehammer, then cut its throat while it was unconscious.

That said, peasants did quite a bit of small game hunting (a fair amount of it illegal), so although they wouldn't be melee experts, they'd likely be a fairly decent shot and own some kind of light bow.