Tuesday 1 June 2010

Wrapping up Weapons

So ... I just don't have it in me to blog about the odds and ends of weapons remaining. Shields, staffs, small arms. Flails. Whips. Sigh.

But ... I am going to put it all into a pdf. Here's the first page.

This system presents a set of house rules for pre-gunpowder combat with any pre-1984 d20-based adventure game. They add variety to weapon choice and interesting situations to combat, without bogging down in table lookups or extra dice rolls.

There are four sheets to the guide. One sheet is the Player’s Aid. It is suitable for new players, who shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the level of description. More experienced players should intuitively grasp what is meant by each of the weapon effects. They can always ask the referee for details or check out the advanced sheets.

The other three sheets are mainly for the game master. They’ll replace the pages on weapons in your game rules, and add to your array of rulings on combat situations.

Your group might like these rules if:

*     They like improvising small-group military tactics in a variety of situations, without worrying about who is in which five foot square.
*     Your fighters enjoy walking around with a harness full of weapons, and figuring out which is the right one for any job.

They might not like them if:

*    They want the rules to regulate really dramatic, spectacular, heroic feats. (You can still improvise rulings for those, though.)
*     They want ultra-realistic, blow-by-blow, reenacter-approved fighting rules.
*     They want combat to be ultra-light and schematic, so they can get on with role-playing or exploring.

2 comments:

  1. I'm one of those 'right tool for the right job' sorts of rpgers. Sword, mace and spear (and maybe a bow) should be standard equipment for every player!

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  2. Absolutely - with the tradeoff of having to switch between them, and encumbrance, which doesn't have to be hard - Raggi's Flame Princess system is the model of elegance. The other thing this encourages is diverse weapon wielders in a party.

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