Jousts?!?

[keith418]

"Fighting Men within castles will demand a jousting match with all passersby of like class. Otherwise they will demand a toll of from 100 to 600 Gold Pieces from the party. If a joust takes place (use rules from CHAINMAIL) the occupant of the castle will take the loser's armor if he wins, but if the character wins the castle owner will host all in the party for up to one month, supply them with two weeks of rations, and provide warhorses (Heavy) if the party so requires."

Has anyone played this out - with an actual joust? How did it go? How hard was it to use the rules from Chainmail?

in-the-cities.com/

[Deleted]

Yes.

The CM joust rules work well but they have a flaw. To quote Tim Kask on the subject:

The jousting table has a glitch in it; I have used it in the classroom, but had to make a modification. As it is printed, if you most assume a steady seat upon breaking your lance or having your helm knocked off, all your opponent must do is aim FP on the next pass and you will automatically be unhorsed. In the classroom, I gve the option of assuming 4 or 6.

I have talked to Gary about this and he concurred.

Dragon magazine #17 (page 4) has a nice variant of the Chainmail jousting system that factors in the level of the participants.

I prefer the variant but both have served me well over the years.

[Deleted]

If you want to see his post for yourself, click here:

www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23223&start=600&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[tombowings]

I really wish I could find a digital copy of those variant rules.

[Deleted]

Seek and ye shall find ...

[keith418]

Thanks so much for this info. I actually had a copy of this issue back in the day! Loved the tesseract article and used it in a Traveller adventure!

[keith418]

Okay, so let's try using the variant. Oleg vs. Parti - both 4th level fighters, so no difference in levels. Neither has a magical shield or lance.

Oleg chooses to aim at Parti's helm and defends himself by raising his shield high. Parti decides to aim at Oleg's FP and places his shield low. Oleg compares his aiming point with Parti's defensive position and sees a zero on the first matrix. He rolls a 20 sided die and gets a 9.

Now what? I can't make any sense of the second matrix.

[Deleted]

You next step is to roll a d20, unmodified since the first matrix gave you a modifier of zero, and find the result in the -3 to 3 column of matrix two "Joust Results Table".

A "9" as given in your example, is a complete miss. As indicated, a minimum of "12" is needed on that column to score a hit.

That resolves Oleg's side of the joust and you would now resolve Parti's "attack".

[keith418]

Thanks! I "exalted" you!

[Deleted]

Feb 11, 2012 20:05:19 GMT -6 keith418 said:

Thanks! I "exalted" you!

You are most welcome, I hope the information is of good use.

[keith418]

It's of great use. You totally helped me out.

in-the-cities.com/

[tetramorph]

I am casting raise dead on this thread.

We had the opportunity (for my first time, and for many of those present) to use the jousting rules for a wilderness adventure on Planet Eris yesterday (Saturday).

It was fun. But I was struck by the way it was simply a kind of simultaneous battleship or stratego game. It did not account for levels and no dice were rolled. I like the random factor and the need for interp.

@dubeers, thanks for pointing to that article. I am going to study it.

Does anyone know of any other ways folks have house ruled factoring in lvls and the random (dice) into jousting while keeping the "precedence" of the Chainmail matrix?

Thanks all

[Finarvyn]

I suppose you could introduce some sort of "unhorsed saving throw" to account for levels. I think we kind of liked the notion that lower level knights might unseat higher level knights, but making an adjustment for levels is certainly logical.

[talysman]

Are there any jousting rules out there which emphasize the nature of the joust as a form of playing "Chicken", for example by adding odds of taking real damage and allowing knights to skip their attack at the last moment to avoid taking damage themselves?