Rules question - How would you handl a chariot?

[Greenfield]

I was watching a PBS show on a team trying to recreate an Egyptian war chariot. The construction was interesting.

What was more interesting was the detail whose purpose had escaped the reconstructing team until they did test runs.

There was a gap in the side panel on each side. When testing it they found that it was perfect for a man to put a slightly bent knee into to stabilize him while firing a bow. They were meant to be fast moving archer's platforms.

The "floor" was made of strips of woven rawhide, which smoothed the ride for the passengers, giving the archer a relatively stable base even when speeding over open fields.

Now, in game, managing a chariot or cart is done through Handle Animal rather than Ride. The front panel would give a partial cover bonus to the rider, though I don't think he should get Dex to AC.

But how do you handle fighting from this moving base? There's no Ride skill involved, so neither Mounted Combat nor Mounted Archery seems applicable.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Despite the lack of Handle Animal, I think those are the relevant feats. Either that or create "Vehicle" feats that have very similar effects. There's no Drive skill and I'm a bit leery of creating new skills for the game. Of course, if only NPCs use chariots, then go ahead.

I wouldn't take away the Dex bonus. You can still duck, crouch or otherwise dodge blows. Of course, you're prone (I don't know about 3e, but in 4e if you're kneeling you're considered prone) so hitting you with a melee attack would be relatively easy, while hitting you with a ranged attack would be quite difficult. Chariots would probably specifically take away prone penalties to making ranged attacks (if you have the appropriate feat) as they're specifically designed to give you enough space to shoot a bow while "prone".

 

[GMMichael]

If a bowman is riding on a chariot, it's because he's putting on a show for the crowd above a very flat, well-groomed arena floor. Or he's drawing fire for the bowmen who actually expect to hit something.

An animal handler is a horse trainer or dog breeder. If you're on a horse or behind a horse pulling reins, you're using Ride.

Use mounted combat rules. You can use a full attack action if you can make a DC 5 Ride check.

 

[Vegepygmy]

But how do you handle fighting from this moving base? There's no Ride skill involved, so neither Mounted Combat nor Mounted Archery seems applicable.

I would call for Ride checks, with a -5 penalty like there is for riding an ill-suited mount or bareback, and (if necessary) I'd create a feat to negate that penalty, possibly even a whole chain of feats for the specialized charioteer.

 

[Greenfield]

Despite the lack of Handle Animal, I think those are the relevant feats. Either that or create "Vehicle" feats that have very similar effects. There's no Drive skill and I'm a bit leery of creating new skills for the game. Of course, if only NPCs use chariots, then go ahead.

I wouldn't take away the Dex bonus. You can still duck, crouch or otherwise dodge blows. Of course, you're prone (I don't know about 3e, but in 4e if you're kneeling you're considered prone) so hitting you with a melee attack would be relatively easy, while hitting you with a ranged attack would be quite difficult. Chariots would probably specifically take away prone penalties to making ranged attacks (if you have the appropriate feat) as they're specifically designed to give you enough space to shoot a bow while "prone".

Not sure where "Prone" is coming from. The archer is standing. The thing with the knee is, well, think of standing at a rail. You push one leg slightly forward so it hooks slightly under that rail. That's how the "brace with a knee" thing works.

It's because of that position, a leg brace that loses it's value if you duck, and that limits the ability to dodge, that I thought the archer would lose Dex bonus to AC.

Now while Handle Animal doesn't list handling a team, we've always used that skill for cart drovers.

DMMike: War chariots weren't used simply for show. They were used by noblemen and officers in combat. They would race towards an opposing formation, firing as they went, then veer away in a hard turn, and then retreat, again with the archer firing as he goes.

The Egyptian chariots were made for two, one driver and an archer. This was an advance over earlier versions which, for reasons of light weight and maneuverability, were made for a single driver/warrior.

Later versions used by the Persians were made for three, so a spearman, a driver and an archer would be a fast strike team.

Military history credited the two man war chariot with much of Egypt's military success.

 

[Random Bystander]

It's almost always a good idea to take any claim that an ancient military weapon, vehicle or strategy "was not effective", or any variation thereof, with a large dose of salt. Any historical nation which was not isolated, and survived its neighbors long enough to establish a place in history, had effective military tools, an effective military, and knew how to use them.

 

[GMMichael]

DMMike: War chariots weren't used simply for show. They were used by noblemen and officers in combat. They would race towards an opposing formation, firing as they went, then veer away in a hard turn, and then retreat, again with the archer firing as he goes.

The Egyptian chariots were made for two, one driver and an archer. This was an advance over earlier versions which, for reasons of light weight and maneuverability, were made for a single driver/warrior.

Later versions used by the Persians were made for three, so a spearman, a driver and an archer would be a fast strike team.

Military history credited the two man war chariot with much of Egypt's military success.

Fascinating. I won't try to single-handedly rewrite military history, but:

- Charging towards enemy formations is a uniquely bad way to maintain a noble line. I can see low-ranking officers doing it, though - similar to today's jet pilots.

- An archer firing from the back of a chariot that is speeding fast enough to keep its noble driver safe would be lucky just to hit an enemy formation. This pretty much reduces the chariot's usefulness to "diversion." (Kamikaze?)

- I haven't been to Egypt (I have been to Kuwait). But I'll assume that it has some incredibly flat, clear land if fast-moving chariots contributed to military successes there. Living in Phoenix, I can tell you that not all desert land is clear of obstacles (but arenas are).

Luckily, you're working with a fantasy world, so chariots are free to rule it. I'm gonna go slap some wings on a chariot and see what empires fall...

 

[ephemeron]

- I haven't been to Egypt (I have been to Kuwait). But I'll assume that it has some incredibly flat, clear land if fast-moving chariots contributed to military successes there. Living in Phoenix, I can tell you that not all desert land is clear of obstacles (but arenas are).

War chariots were a major factor in Bronze Age warfare in Mesopotamia and Egypt precisely because of the terrain. Then people in places like Anatolia and Greece saw that the military elite of those civilizations were all chariot archers and decided that chariots=prestige, never mind practicality, and so we get some of the weirdness of the Iliad.

And a little after that, someone succeeded in breeding horses big and strong enough to carry a rider, and suddenly one horse and one rider could do what previously took a chariot, two or three men, and at least two horses.

As for D&D mechanics, I'd take the rules for mounted combat as a starting point, have the charioteer make all the Ride checks, and slightly reduce the attack penalties for the archer/spearman because they don't have to divide their attention quite as much as they would if they were also steering.

 

[Greenfield]

From what I'd read, it was the invention of the stirrup that made the chariot obsolete.

Up until that point horses could be harnessed to pull wagons or chariots, and were often ridden *to* a battle, but not into one. Without the stability in the saddle that the stirrup provided, fighting from horseback, whether with sword or spear, or with a horse bow (shortbow, in D&D terms) just wasn't practical. You threw yourself off half the time.

Oddly, the stirrup was invented and used, then forgotten for a century or three before being reintroduced.

As for accuracy from a speeding chariot: The PBS special I saw showed a man shooting at man-shaped targets as he passed. He was scoring head shots with pretty much every shot. And the ground they were driving over wasn't smooth and clear either. It was hard scrub, with sandy stretches that could easily bog down a wheel. The narrator commented on the concerns about the rough ground.

Now I personally find it hard to explain how the horses would survive such a charge, since they're out in front and unprotected. It's like asking opponents to pincushion them. You take one horse and you've stopped the entire chariot. Perhaps it was considered "cheating".

In any case, while the chariot had no suspension to speak of, the platform, woven from strips of raw hide, at least provided a cushioned platform for the riders.

Chariots played a part in the Boudicca Rebellion in Britain as well, when the locals rose up against Roman rule. They too used speeding chariots to make what were essentially strafing runs against their enemies. This proved less than effective against a hardened and tight Roman formation, however, when the men had their shields all but locked together. That was as late as 61 A.D..

Since the stirrup didn't come into broad European use until the 5th or 6th century AD, the chariot was still a useful weapon of war. The Roman's standardized the wheel base, which was reflected in many of their roads. (Full "High Roads" were all stone. Many lesser tracks however consisted of two stone tracks spaced for the chariot wheels, with a earth strip in the center.) This standardized with, in fact, helped encourage a similar standard in wagon wheel spacing for centuries to come, and was carried over into automobile wheel base and the spacing of railroad rails. (The first railroad wheels were made using the same jigs that had been used to build carriage wheel sets, so they had the same spacing.)

So echoes of this ancient vehicle/engine of war continue to this day. There's a horrible joke that carries this one stage further: The size of the solid fuel boosters used in the space shuttle and other orbital vehicles is limited by the size of a train flatcar used to carry them. The flatcar size is based on the width of the tracks. The width of the tracks is based on the width of horse drawn carriages. The carriages width is based on the old Roman roads. The width of the roads was set by the width of a Roman chariot. The width of a chariot was set by the width of two horses side by side that drew the chariots.

So if it ever seems that crucial decisions at NASA were decided by some horses ass, you now know which horses ass to blame: The Romans!

 

[Random Bystander]

Since the stirrup didn't come into broad European use until the 5th or 6th century AD, the chariot was still a useful weapon of war. The Roman's standardized the wheel base, which was reflected in many of their roads. (Full "High Roads" were all stone. Many lesser tracks however consisted of two stone tracks spaced for the chariot wheels, with a earth strip in the center.) This standardized with, in fact, helped encourage a similar standard in wagon wheel spacing for centuries to come, and was carried over into automobile wheel base and the spacing of railroad rails. (The first railroad wheels were made using the same jigs that had been used to build carriage wheel sets, so they had the same spacing.)

So echoes of this ancient vehicle/engine of war continue to this day. There's a horrible joke that carries this one stage further: The size of the solid fuel boosters used in the space shuttle and other orbital vehicles is limited by the size of a train flatcar used to carry them. The flatcar size is based on the width of the tracks. The width of the tracks is based on the width of horse drawn carriages. The carriages width is based on the old Roman roads. The width of the roads was set by the width of a Roman chariot. The width of a chariot was set by the width of two horses side by side that drew the chariots.

So if it ever seems that crucial decisions at NASA were decided by some horses ass, you now know which horses ass to blame: The Romans!

Snopes must feel so sad and lonely: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp