Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gus L" data-source="post: 9682813" data-attributes="member: 7045072">On of the things I try to avoid in thinking about RPG mechanics, especially combat ones, is stuff that seems cool, or is too specific, or too hyped.  I think of this as the "Katana Issue" or more historically maybe "Gygax's Spear"*.  The basic problem I see is the urge towards simulation (not Forge style situationism) that over complicates and privileges certain things at the expense of basic game logic and existing mechanics.When I was a kid in the 1980's it seemed like every had their own table rules for katanas. These were always a bit absurd but built around the 80's obsession with all things Japanese and Japanese weapons in particular.  Rules like katanas do 1D12 damage on the low powered end to they ignore all AC or have a percentage chance to cut off heads. It could get elaborate - I remember one DM (not a good one ... but a through one) whose katanas had different power levels and abilities based by quality mark and the "ancient master" who had made them.  This last idea was very cool in concept, but in play it just introduced a bunch of magic swords that outdid the +3 Frostbrand or +5 Holy Avenger (also ok depending on the power level of the game I guess ... but badly implemented). While 80's kids loving katanas (a sword that is cool and all but not really much different then most when it comes to cutting people up) is a funny sort of thing, the principal behind it isn't exactly.  D&D rules and especially the oldest combat ones, exist within the context of the game, and for me that has to come first before any momentary sense of verisimilitude or popular conception of how fighting worked in ancient times. So while I suspect SCA archers popping up to shoot people in shield walls works in SCA fights ... it doesn't seem to have been super common in shield wall combat. I'm guessing that the sort of bow you can do that with won't do much to a good helmet or mail ... but I don't know.  What I do know is that making special rules for it would mess up my game and how the mechanics generally work for melee combat. Suddenly having lots of archers firing into melee is optimal - which I guess makes hobgoblins even more dangerous?To me the important part of mechanics is that they push towards the kind of game I want. I'm not much concerned about spotlight in combat (thieves and MU's tend to either stay out of it or nuke things with spells or sometimes a well set up backstab) ... but I don't play a game where combat is a huge amount of the player choice and decision making. *While Gygax loved polearms he hated spears as a primitive weapon. There's a editorial in Strat Review on it - basically spears are for primitives tribespeople who deserve to be colonized (at least this was the tone I got from it) and pole arms are for baddasses like Swiss mercenaries.  This rather ignores the fact the the spear has been consistently the weapon of choice on pre-modern battlefields which generally suggests that it works pretty damn well. I suppose a good spear is a pole arm though as well?</blockquote>

Verification