Weapon Groups that are more "realistic". . .

[Aus_Snow]

That's what I'd like to do to the groups I've been using.

Someone here on EN World once said that the weapon groups as they are in Unearthed Arcana are pretty terrible when it comes to representing how training might actually work / have worked. Sounds quite true, possibly. There might have been mention of arranging weapon groups according to the fighting techniques and styles required, rather than aesthetics or the like.

I can't remember who that was, but if you're out there, please step on up. . . might've been a member of the SCA, I think. . .? Someone with fighting experience and a bit more than average knowledge of medieval weaponry, anyway. . .

Otherwise, I'm certainly interested to hear what anyone else has to say (except if it's the same old tired "D&D + 'realism' = ZOMGWTFBBQ, my head will explode!" type thing.)

How would you arrange your weapon groups, or how do you, assuming you're happy with the way you've altered them?

 

[shurai]

Hello. I have experience with martial arts from many years, and have hung out with SCA and more historically-oriented western martial arts revivalists, and have played in games that use more realistic medeival combat systems.

I'd take a look at GURPS's system, it's pretty good.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Someone here on EN World once said that the weapon groups as they are in Unearthed Arcana are pretty terrible when it comes to representing how training might actually work / have worked. Sounds quite true, possibly. There might have been mention of arranging weapon groups according to the fighting techniques and styles required, rather than aesthetics or the like.

I can't remember who that was, but if you're out there, please step on up. . . might've been a member of the SCA, I think. . .? Someone with fighting experience and a bit more than average knowledge of medieval weaponry, anyway. . .

How would you arrange your weapon groups, or how do you, assuming you're happy with the way you've altered them?

That would be me.

One-handed mass arms: axe, club, flail, hammer, mace, pick
Two-handed mass arms: great axe, great club, great flail, great hammer, great mace, maul, great pick
Pole arms: bardiche, bec de corbin, glaive, guisarme, halberd, quarterstaff, voulge
One-handed thrusting: dagger, knife, melee javelin, 1-handed spear, rapier, short sword,
Medium cutting/slashing: arming sword, broad sword, cutlass, long sword, sabre, scimitar
Two-handed cutting/slashing: bastard sword, executioner's sword, great sword,
Two-handed thrusting: two-handed spear, long spear, pike, ranseur, spetum, trident
Hurling: throwing axe, throwing dagger, thrown javelin, thrown spear
Jousting: lance (all)
Crossbows: crossbows, etc.
Selfbows: composite bow, longbow, shortbow, etc.
Pistol: pistols
Musket: harquebus, musket, etc.
Slings: sling, staff sling

The above is a pretty good balance between my personal experience in the SCA (and kenjutusu, kendo, fencing, etc.) and D&D.

A more complicated (and realistic) method is to call out certain weapons as requiring multple weapon groups. For example, a long sword is both one-handed cut and one-handed thrust thereby requireing proficiencies in two weapon groups. Likewise the two-handed sword requires two-handed cut and two-handed thrust. A halberd would be poll arm and two-handed thrust. And so on.

Also using flails is more difficult than using mass arms. So it would be more realistic to give them their own proficiency (weapon group) but the downside that those weapons become expensive from a feat proficiency perspective.

And throwing javelins & spears is not the same skill as hurling axes or throwing knives for that matter but like the flails it is probably better to sacrifice the realism over game play.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Brilliant, thanks! I can't believe posting the question that way actually worked. Heh, luck happens sometimes, I guess.

I'll see how I go integrating this approach (plus or minus a couple of weapons here and there, or whatever - for the tech levels and stuff).

Cheers.


shurai: I've looked at some GURPS stuff, and it's pretty well written (some of it), but I don't have access to the right sourcebook(s) for this particular issue. If I manage to track it/them down sometime, I'll definitely have a read though.

 

[Aleolus]

I would say that the character should pick what weapons he's proficient with, based on how he wanted his characters training to go. For instance, a Rouge adding in proficiency with Kukri (which I think is stupid that they aren't already!), or a Fighter choosing to only be proficient with slashing weapons, naturally. Of course, you would have to balance this out with appropriate penalties, or loosing something. In the example of the fighter, he gains proficiency with all slashing weapons (including exotic), but looses proficiency with every other type of weapon (bludgeoning and piercing).

 

[Thanael]

So where does the quarterstaff fit in?

 

[shurai]

So where does the quarterstaff fit in?

Well, we have the internet, look it up. I googled for "staff fight" and got lots of good interesting stuff.

I'll tell you my own experience though. The staff is funny, because it's got multiple personalities. It can act like a greatsword, a spear, or "itself." I personally am trained to use it like a spear with some funny extra properties -- that is, I hold it so it points at my enemy, with my hands at the close end and the middle, and thrust or swing the far end at my enemy, using the shaft-part that's away from my hands for most of my defense.

However, I'm also trained to shift my grip so I have roughly equal parts of staff-end on either side (basically, imagine me holding the thing about shoulder-width space between my hands), and make rapid swinging hits and defensive knocking actions with alternating ends.

This is interesting though, because almost all weapons could be modified to suit the situation like this, it just so happens that the staff is more well-known for it perhaps than other weapons. I've seen the half-swording and "murder blows" of the western medeival sword-manuals, for instance.

I wouldn't put it in the polearm category though, because most of those were much longer than the staff, right? It's kind of a different ballgame, seems to me.

So, if it were me, I'd put the staff in the same category as "Two-handed cutting/slashing", because you can use it most like those weapons: You "swing" the staff rather than "slash" with it, but the motions are most similar. And, all those weapons, I believe, were also used for thrusting.

This is representing a broader context than Europe though. I want to say that the European tradition of quarterstavery puts more emphasis on two-endedness, and I don't think they believed in shifting the hands around live during a fight.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

This is representing a broader context than Europe though. I want to say that the European tradition of quarterstavery puts more emphasis on two-endedness, and I don't think they believed in shifting the hands around live during a fight.

I used to think the same after watching all those Robin Hood movies. However, I was reading an account of a murder trial in the 1500s where the perp alledgedly crushed the head of the victim using his quarterstaff as a poll arme. I then did some research among the fightbooks (13th, 14th, and 15th C. fighting manuals ) and noticed that all the staff fighters gripped their staves like poll armes, i.e. the lower half of the staff and shifted the top hand as necessary. And then I started noticing the same position in other Mediæval and Renaissance illustrations.

All in all, I agree that the quarterstaff can be used in many ways — like a poll arme, greteswerde, speare, or double weapon. Although I have never personally trained in the use of the quarterstaff as a double weapon, I can certainly hold my own using it as a poll arme, a speare, or even as a greteswerde. Game-wise I would allow a fighter to use it as any one of those weapons but require an exotic weapon proficiency to use it as a double weapon.

Interestingly enough, according to Dictionary.com the quarterstaff word dates from circa 1550, was between 6' and 8' in length, and tipped with iron.

Also, you'll notice in the fight books that the fighters shifted their hands with the greteswerdes even to the point of gripping the ricasso which is more of a poll arme style of fighting although the distribution of weight in a greteswerde is the exact opposite of a poll arme, e.g. bottom heavy instead of top heavy.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Cool. I was wondering about the quarterstaff, to be honest. Just thought I'd figure that out along the way. But this is great: learning things about medieval (and earlier. . . and maybe renaissance) combat = fun.

When I'm happy enough with the groups to post them, I will. Shouldn't take too long. No doubt I'll have some more questions or issues. House rules, eh.

 

[shurai]

I'll be honest, I tried really hard to avoid the Robin Hood movie image of quarterstaff fighting when I was thinking about it, but then there are these guys:

http://www.quarterstaff.org/

They seem to do it sort of between equal-ended fighting and one-ended fighting. They claim they're traditional, but of course being Western rationalists we demand historical documentation, and you've got that settled, seems like. Anyway their tradition could just be newer, but still traditional.

I wonder if I'd really count the double-ended technique as Exotic, only because once I myself started to learn it, I thought it was pretty intuitive. For someone with no practice at all I'd think it about as hard as learning how to use a weapon and shield properly. That's just a guess, though.