Recreating the Weapon vs. AC Chart

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

This is something I've been playing with for a while. I began with an analysis of some of the old charts, which I posed here: wheel-of-samsara.blogspot.com/2009/08/recreating-weapon-vs-armour-class-chart.html.

Since then, I've been agonizing over it. Well, I have a draft I finally like. It is specifically for Spellcraft & Swordplay, but the central idea I had is broadly applicable to all iterations of OD&D. I posted this over at the blog, but realized I might some useful feedback here.

The basic idea here is I have lumped all weapons into a Weapon Class, such as Sword, Axe, Mace/Hammer, and so forth. All members of that Weapon Class have the same base number to hit the various Armour Classes (see? Weapon Class vs. Armour Class. Groovy symmetry). This is the idea that got me through the block of trying to distinguish a dagger from a short sword from a long sword from a claymore.

Here's the Matrix:



Armour Classes in this system are also reduced to five Classes:



All weapon also have a Weapon Size: Small, Medium, or Large.

• Small weapons roll 2D for damage, with the lower result used. In addition, a small weapon can be used in the off-hand to parry. This grants a -1 Defense to incoming melee attacks, but no Defense to missile attacks. However, anytime such a character scores a critical hit (12+), he automatically gets a second hit in with the other weapon rolling 2D damage for damage, with the higher result used.
  
• Medium weapons are the baseline and the size is meant to be taken liberally: a Roman gladius is a medium sword as much as a medieval broadsword.
  
• Large weapons roll 2D damage for damage, with the higher result used. They are unwieldy and impose a -1 to the Combat Roll. A character using a Large weapon cannot also use a shield.
  

And that's it. I like the look of it right now. Oh, I could keep fiddling with it. I could keep fiddling with it for the rest of my life, probably. But I think it's good enough to "test-drive".

[chronoplasm]

Nice! I might help you test drive this in fact.
Isn't a staff just a longer kind of club though? They're both just different kinds of beat sticks after all. It seems like it would make a lot of sense to just group them together as 'cudgels'.

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

Yes. Yes it would.


Cheers.

[chronoplasm]

Hmmm... On the other hand though, one could also argue that swords are basically long daggers that you can't throw and spears are basically swords with long hilts that you can throw..
It's a complicated matter, but I think you've done a good job.

[coffee]

Reminds me of a weapons discussion on another forum, this one strictly a wargame one. (I only read about it; I don't remember all the details). The upshot of it was, weapons boiled down to "stick" and "long pointy thing".

I, for one, am quite content with the categories noted above. (Although you may wish to add things like fang and claw, to be able to play monster attacks as well...)

[fitz]

Personally, I'm not hugely in favour of complicating combat rules. However...

You could simplify the table, and make it more open-ended for use with presently undefined weapons, by using weapon categories rather than weapon types -- e.g. Light Slashing, Heavy Slashing, Light Piercing, Heavy Piercing, Light Crushing, Heavy Crushing.

This does presuppose, of course, that any given weapon has only one use, and falls down in the face of multi-purpose weapons like halberds that can be used for stabbing, cutting or pummeling depending on how it's wielded, or things like assegai that are basically a cut-and-thrust sword blade on a stick. If a system like this were adopted, it would be necessary to break down damage for multi-function weapons into their separate categories, and for for players to specify just how they're using them. The halberd, for example, would have three separate damage stats: one for use as a pole-axe, one as a spear, and one as a staff.

Gamers being what they are, I can foresee some great arguments about whether an aklys is a medium piercing or light crushing weapon, or whether axes should be counted as slashing or crushing weapons

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

And this is why I've been fooling with this thing for so long--there's at least a dozen different ways to slice it, none of which are right or wrong. So, essentially, I had to choose the method that A) seems simplest to me while B) creating some meaningful tactical choices re weapon used. I wouldn't pretend for a moment that this is "the" way.

That said, I think the Weapon Classes actually are Categories as fitz suggested. I tried to lump together all weapons that do their thing in the same sort of way, while granting that you ain't ever going to capture all the various options.

Although you may wish to add things like fang and claw, to be able to play monster attacks as well

I was thinking about unarmed fighting last night. Right now, in S&S, befanged monsters have their atacks represented as "Claw [as dagger]" and I think I could just keep that. But it might be useful to lay out some general cases. I was also thinking it might make sense to say that human unarmed attacks could be effectively differentiated by Size: a punch is Small, a kick is Medium, and a haymaker is Large (or something).