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Post by harlandski on Mar 16, 2019 21:29:49 GMT -6
Again this comes from my spreadsheet creation, where every box needs a value.
So looking at the table on p. 15 of Men & Magic, two weapons from the Basic Equipment and Costs table are not given a weight: the spear, and the lance.
There are three ways I might go about solving this:
1) Assume weight roughly corresponds to length (as per the length/reach of weapons in Chainmail), so that would give spear either 100 or 150, as it comes between flail and pole arm so it could go either way. Instinctively I would go for the lower category (100). Lance belongs firmly in the 150 category. I wonder if this might also be some sort of 'game balance' thing - so longer weapons weigh more to make them slightly more inconvenient to have.
2) Go with my gut for what they weigh in relation to other weapons. I might be wrong, but for me a spear would be more in the sword/mace/hand axe category, so 50. Lance seems pretty big and heavy, so 150 seems right.
3) Check out the AD&D 1e PHB. Spears are 40-60 (so 50), lances are divided into light, medium and heavy from 50-150.
I'd be interested to know what other people think, both from the perspective of playing OD&D and from the 'real world weapons' perspective.
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Post by Red Baron on Mar 17, 2019 7:07:42 GMT -6
Look at how the weapons are organized on the equipment list - they are listed ordinally by encumbrance!
A lance clearly falls into the 150 catergory as it is listed between 2H-sword and pike. The spear is more ambiguous as it between flail and polearm, so depending on how long you see a spear being in your game, you could go either way!
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Post by clownboss on Mar 17, 2019 8:31:34 GMT -6
Let's see my hand-notes...
oh dear, lol, even I didn't put anything in.
I think by comparison with the logic above, lance is probably 150. Spears might be as light as 50 if they're primitive and wooden, or can vary anywhere any up to 100 and even 150 depending on the material they're made of, although it certainly helps them to be light if you want them to be thrown. So I guess throwing spears by design have to be 50. Could you imagine yourself throwing a two-handed axe?
But it's probably best to think of their weights in abstract terms. When my players draw their equipment weights, I tended to notice that we're very prone to rounding things up and merely approximate weight, rather than doing detailed math-crunching.
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Post by retrorob on Mar 17, 2019 12:38:57 GMT -6
Look at how the weapons are organized on the equipment list - they are listed ordinally by encumbrance! A lance clearly falls into the 150 catergory as it is listed between 2H-sword and pike. The spear is more ambiguous as it between flail and polearm not exactly, Morning Star & Flail were swapped. For me a regular spear weights 50 and is one-handed. You can add two-handed one with a weight of 100. Note that the table isn't complete, there are other weapons mentioned in vol. II: hammer & javelin. the former has throwing range of 3" (just like spear and axe), the latter 6". By the way - how do you understand battle axe, morning star & flail? Battle axe - dane axe, morning star - ball on chain, flail - hussite weapon? |
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Post by harlandski on Mar 18, 2019 5:53:33 GMT -6
Look at how the weapons are organized on the equipment list - they are listed ordinally by encumbrance! A lance clearly falls into the 150 catergory as it is listed between 2H-sword and pike. The spear is more ambiguous as it between flail and polearm, so depending on how long you see a spear being in your game, you could go either way! I'd say that they're listed by length/reach (Chainmail 'weapon class'), though this doesn't necessarily correspond to weight. I can't really see any spear weighing twice as much as a sword, I'm definitely leaning more towards 50 at the moment. I suppose if 'weight' takes in general unwieldiness then it would make sense for a spear to be at 100 or 150... |
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Post by harlandski on Mar 18, 2019 5:57:02 GMT -6
Look at how the weapons are organized on the equipment list - they are listed ordinally by encumbrance! A lance clearly falls into the 150 catergory as it is listed between 2H-sword and pike. The spear is more ambiguous as it between flail and polearm not exactly, Morning Star & Flail were swapped. For me a regular spear weights 50 and is one-handed. You can add two-handed one with a weight of 100. Note that the table isn't complete, there are other weapons mentioned in vol. II: hammer & javelin. the former has throwing range of 3" (just like spear and axe), the latter 6". By the way - how do you understand battle axe, morning star & flail? Battle axe - dane axe, morning star - ball on chain, flail - hussite weapon? I don't know very much about real weapons. I suppose I've always assumed a battle axe is just a big axe made specifically for fighting (rather than a repurposed tool), a morning star is a mace with spikes (as opposed to studs) with or without the chain, and a flail is a repurposed farm tool, maybe with some metal cladding added. |
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Post by harlandski on Mar 18, 2019 5:59:15 GMT -6
Let's see my hand-notes...
oh dear, lol, even I didn't put anything in. I think by comparison with the logic above, lance is probably 150. Spears might be as light as 50 if they're primitive and wooden, or can vary anywhere any up to 100 and even 150 depending on the material they're made of, although it certainly helps them to be light if you want them to be thrown. So I guess throwing spears by design have to be 50. Could you imagine yourself throwing a two-handed axe?
But it's probably best to think of their weights in abstract terms. When my players draw their equipment weights, I tended to notice that we're very prone to rounding things up and merely approximate weight, rather than doing detailed math-crunching.
Yeah, I actually quite like the OD&D 'encumbrance' system, as it is pretty abstract. The '80 for bags and sundries' is genius. I tend to agree with you that 50 is the most logical weight for a throwing spear, unless the 'weights' are supposed to also account for unwieldiness. |
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Post by Red Baron on Mar 18, 2019 6:20:46 GMT -6
unless the 'weights' are supposed to also account for unwieldiness. They are. A proper one-handed spear is 7-8 feet long. |
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