New Bullet Points (10/28): Gear and Equipment

[ledded]

Part of the problem is looking in the wrong places for information. You can do a good-faith search to find out how much a greatsword should have weighed, historically, and come away with 15lbs. if you're not looking in the right places.

But yes, having a katana and a claymore of equal quality do the same damage is a bit silly. I told my players to use D&D-equipment rules whenever necessary. Axes should KILL you on a crit, so that x3 is not a bad idea.

I like the grenade-mount, though. But it's single-shot only. Are grenade-mounts in real life single-shot or semi-automatic? Or are grenade-mounts not in real life at all, and I'm pathetically using Half-Life as my basis for reality?

Or, and this is a novel idea, pick up a few *books* by experts, extract what you can, see where they disagree, and ask other experts. Even better, find a real, or reasonably good modern copy of one of the weapons in question and at least swing it around a bit. Even better, train with it some. Of course, that is a lot of work and time, and I dont honestly expect every game designer to do stuff like that.

Searching on the net, ironically, I find more educated estimates of weapon weights for swords that are pretty reasonable (discounting all of the stuff that starts with "I've played RPG's for years and I think that a katana should weigh X, because it can cut a car in half"). Look at some Hans Talhoffer diagrams then go get a 15lb iron piece of iron rebar the length of a greatsword and try to do some of that. Sure, it might work for a while, but after a few minutes you would probably be thinking 'boy, this would be easier and MUCH more effective if this thing weren't so darn heavy'.

And the funny thing is, I'm in no way an expert, but just a guy who has read a bunch of books, participated in a bunch of sword/weapon forums and newsgroups with guys who knew a LOT more than me, and picked a few different weapons up in some kind of martial-art type environment over the years and hit things with them (fencing, rapier combat, japanese swordsmanship and a few sessions with different weapons for familiarity's sake). I have a family and a career (such as it is) plus other hobbies too, and I've been able to fit some of it in because I was interested in it.

I can tell you what I think. You know why a greatsword is 15lbs in the newest books?

Because it was 15lbs in the 3rd Edition D&D books.

/Rant off

Sorry about the ranty, I'm not directing it at you, it's just an old sore point ;^)

And you game designers, I know that there are also many more questions other than historical accuracy, etc that you have to deal with, so no offense, I fault my personal obsessive compulsiveness more than your design decisions.

Though, for heavens sake, noone mention dire flails or I may have some kind of breakdown ;^)

As far as guns go, I find that most resources you can get tend to be a bit more accurate, plus there are a lot more people in these forums and others that have more real experience with them.

As a general side note, here is a link to a site for a japanese swordsmanship style I took for several years. This link shows what happens when a man who has trained for quite some time takes a japanese sword and attempts a sword test called kabutowari (helmet cutting).

http://www.shinkendo.com/kabuto.html

This is a more accurate depiction of what a katana can do to steel than anything you see in the movies. I would have hated to be a guy in that helmet.

 

[takyris]

Ledded,

I feel your pain. I've done just enough research to know in my gut when some numbers are wrong, but not enough to conclusively re-rule them. I believe that a well-made claymore ought to weigh something like 5 lbs, although it will feel heavier than a 5-pound weight because there's weight at the tip, almost five feet away from you. But that's just from a couple of historical re-enactment-armory pieces. (Can anybody tell me if Albion Armorers is good?)

But yeah, it IS a lot of work for them to go through. It would be wonderful if they did, but they can't do it on everything.

As for the dire flail, I've used a three-section-staff without killing myself, so I just tell people that the picture in the book is radically horrifically wrong and that it's really more like a three-section-staff with a very short flail-and-chain on each end. Much like I describe the double-sword as being much closer to a double-spear (which I've used) with very long spear-blades, as opposed to "giant sword-blades with tiny little handle in the middle".

The artist and the rule-makers are about equally to blame...

 

[JPL]

Y'know, I must be getting old and jaded, because I cannot get worked up over inaccurate weapon weights in an RPG.

Oh, back in the day, I would've argued about any old nonsense. Whether a dwarf could mate with a gnome, whether banded mail existed, whether Muhammad Ali could've taken Bruce Lee, whether Data's inability to use contractions made any sense.

But if Urban Arcana gets the weight of a flail wrong, I still sleep easy at night.

 

[takyris]

JPL, you're such a sell-out.

[sweeping orchestral score]
Someday, somebody's character is gonna die because they were encumbered by a flail that was far heavier than it should have been. And that character's player is gonna be hurt, man, hurt, at that death. And you know what, man? On that day, my conscience is gonna be clear. Because I fought the good fight.

I hope you sleep well knowing about all those slow-movement-rate folks who are gonna die because you don't care anymore.
[/sweeping orchestral score]

 

[Tellerve]

Neat webpage ledded. I only have one sword I got from Toledo when I was in Spain and I went and weighed it just now 'cause I wasn't sure how much it weighed. Well, it weighs 2 lbs. It, however, is a far cry from a greatsword, although I will concede that 15lbs could very well be too much. My sword is a "long sword". It is a recreation of one of many swords owned at one time by El Cid, and let me tell ya he had a very small pair of hands. The grip is disturbingly short in my tastes and find it quite annoying to swing around. The times I've held and swung mock/recreation katanas I liked the extra grip much better. But I didn't weigh them so I dunno. After very quick searching on ebay for katana swords I found one that listed itself at 4lbs 8oz. As for greatswords, *shrugs*, I saw some freakin' huge swords in my trips around europe that would put my little toledo blade to shame, but even if it was 5x's as heavy it would only be 10lbs.

And I think JPL points out my final feelings. I don't really care overly much about the weight. Especially in a modern d20 thread...c'mon, get a 9mil

Tellerve

P.S. Jaerdaph, are you running a d20 modern game in NYC? I ask because I'm moving up to brooklyn and I'm interested in playing modern d20.

 

[starwolf]

Just as a point of game design.

The weights in the rules are not just about the physical "dead weight" of the weapon. Some weapons are listed as larger weights for the purpose of simulating the net "encumbrance value" of the weapon. While a Greatsword may not actually weigh 15 lbs. that weight is used to model the effects of carrying around a 6' ft long piece of steel vs. a 3.5' piece of highly sharpend steel.

Now the designers could have listed equipment with just the "dead weight" value, but then they would have needed to add another value for actual encumbrance. Do we really want to add yet another mechanic to the mix? I for one don't.

 

[Tellerve]

Ohhh good point Starwolf.

Which inadvertantly brings up a point that I wondered about after my first purusing of the modern d20 handbook. Did anyone else think they mixed up the pocket vest thing with the backpack. How my copy is written is that the backpack allows you +1 str for carrying items whereas the pocket vest whatever the name is gives a +2. *shrugs*

Tellerve

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My book says the same...

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think it highlights the foolishness of attempting to use weights for measuring encumberance.

D&D 3e should have bitten bullet and gone to a simpler and more cohesive abstract system like they used to have in old Runequest.

Enc becomes an abstract property. Most one-handed stuff is Enc 1, Most two handed stuff is Enc 2, light one handed stuff is Enc 0.5. Things are assigned Enc values based upon an abstraction of weight and wieldiness (thus a large empty cardboard box might be Enc 4 because although it doesn't weigh much it is a pain to try to carry).

For a system which uses hp (the ultimate abstraction?) it seems really strange to persist in trying to use real-world weights - especially when they get it so wrong!

Cheers

 

[JPL]

JPL, you're such a sell-out.

[sweeping orchestral score]
Someday, somebody's character is gonna die because they were encumbered by a flail that was far heavier than it should have been. And that character's player is gonna be hurt, man, hurt, at that death. And you know what, man? On that day, my conscience is gonna be clear. Because I fought the good fight.

I hope you sleep well knowing about all those slow-movement-rate folks who are gonna die because you don't care anymore.
[/sweeping orchestral score]

Taky, you have held up a mirror...and what I have seen makes me ashamed.