Traditional fighting styles and Weapons to spice up the fighter

[silentspace]

Oh, and dont ever start a post with "I dont mean to be offensive", theres nothing personal here mate, its all just history and Im pretty hard to offend.

Glad to hear it, though I don't think anyone said that. I think every one here is genuinely interested in these ideas. Are you planning on using these for large-scale combat? Is it going to be a low-magic world? Sounds like an interesting game.

I've thought about using phalanxes before. The problem I had was with the spacing. Phalanxes are very tightly grouped troops, standing shoulder to shoulder (not 5' apart). And their ranks were often extremely closely spaced too, depending on how they were equipped. That's how they were able to have the shield wall effect and the hedgehog effect. How to do that in game terms? Feats to allow troops to form extremely tight formations and move in unison would be helpful here. Tightly grouped phalanxes would be extremely vulnerable to area effects though.

Skirmishers are easy. As are cavalry units. They fit in nicely with the rules. The 10x10 spacing for horses gets wierd though. I'm curious to see what you come up with.

 

[Macbeth]

I would give a phalanx it's own stats, with some kind of feature that makes it lose AC and BAB as it looses HP (and, just so it makes sense, once it looses a certain amount of HP, it breaks down into individual solidiers). So basically a phalanx is a monster, just like you'd find in the MM, just with a disablilty that reflects the fact that it is made up of many seperate entites.

 

[CCamfield]

I think it would be appropriate to have some sort of "close formation" feat. If two characters with the feat could occupy the same space in combat, do you think that would be appropriate? (Now that I think about it though, maybe a mass combat system would suffice. The skirmish system in AEG's Mercenaries allows 10 humans in a unit to occupy a 15'x10' space.)

Note... the Spartans didn't use pikes, unless they adapted the Macedonian sarissa in later years (I'm not sure about that). The hoplite spear was about 8' long, and and I think the D&D appropriate weapon would be the normal spear. I don't know if a feat should be required to wield the spear one-handed?

The Macedonian phalanx did use longer spears, called sarissas. But they were much more lightly armored than the classical hoplite, and I think their shields were pretty small, like a buckler rather than a hoplite's large shield.

Silentspace's original comment about phalanxes (phalanges?) I think might be a recollection of the Roman republican army organization which had different types of troops in distinct lines. I don't remember the exact details except there were skirmishers, shield and gladius men(?), and in the back were the oldest men armed as traditional hoplites. This system was dropped when Marius reformed the army around 100 BC.

As for placing archers in amongst the rest of the troops, no, probably not done, but archers could fire over each others heads. But I think sometimes troops WERE mixed; in the 17th century, weren't there "musket and pike" formations?

 

[Thresher]

Just a quick post before I pass out from sleep deprivation.

I like the idea of a phallanx being treated as one big animal actually, for large scale combat in battles between armies. Think Ive got an old 2E mass battles book somewhere that has a similar rule in it for that.

The Hoplite of around 300-480bc used to use a 'long lance' (cant remember the greek name for it) that was anywhere between 6'6" and 10 feet long, which they used as their primary weapon. The sarissa is a much later weapon after Iphicrate's reforms where the armour and shield became lighter, as a result from that time it extends to 12feet to keep an enemy further at bay, after that up the time of Alexander and the Spartans are more or less history the Sarissa extends up to 15ft long, which is a big bloody spear in anyones language!
There was also some reforms at Alexanders time to the phalanx battle order where they use a few different methods to the battle drill and you get some of the 'Oblique', Square, Cresent's and Wedge formations. I might have to look at that again if I review this particular subject.
At the moment theres some people really pee-ing me off in another part of the forum so my chances of comming back here are minimal at best.

 

[Aaron2]

Just a few comments.....

Peltasts were greek and primariy used javelins. They tried to avoid HTH combat as much as possible as some didn't even carry HTH weapons. However, there probably needs to be a throw-and-charge feat for Romans and Franks (and even Norman cavalry) who used such tactics. Just a name change really.

As to Pillum, a 30 foot range is probably too much. The romans threw their light pilum (up to about the first century when they carried two different sizes) at around 100 feet. Their heavier ones where held for much closer. 30 foot range allows them to be throws 150 feet which is a bit too much. I just use the stats for normal spears. I'm not sure how much the "stuck in shield" stuff is legend vs. fact; it seems fairly improbable that it would be a common ocurrance.. If you do use it, you need to state that the pilum always break (become unusable) when thrown.

Bull Rushing an opponent who can't retreat, such as one that has another person behind him, causes him to fall down. That's a worse result than just pinning his weapon. I don't think a shield push would be a valid tactic in one-on-one combat.

Finally, the Macedonians didn't really use a sarissa one-handed but gripped it with both hands via a special rimless shield that hung around their neck. What I do is allow a longspear/shield combo but increase the penalty for being flanked from +2 to +4. That way the phalanx is an effective formation as long as the enemy stays in front of them.


Aaron