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Comments
Which is fine. We're using this. It sounds too awesome not to use.
Also: Yay! Another player! And it's Cygan!
- Maille torso armour.
- Leather arm and leg armour.
- Pot helm.
- Arming sword.
- Dagger.
- Halberd.
- Any further personal effects you elect to buy.
You can ditch your stuff as you please. For instance, pot helms impose a penalty on your Combat Pool (and Perception). You might elect to take it off and clip it to your belt instead, forgoing the protection for additional offensive effectiveness. Keep in mind, though, that a pot helm has AV4, which is quite substantial and could save your character's life.
With that in mind, I'd like to make a note on Proficiencies. You can improvise skills even if your weapon doesn't technically fall under your favoured Proficiency. For instance, if your pole-axe skills are better than your polearm skills, you can use a regular polearm with the pole-axe Proficiency if you so choose. In such circumstances, however, you cannot use polearm maneuvers -- you must use the pole-axe maneuvers, as those are the skills you're using at the time.
By the same logic, you could use sword and shield Proficiency if you're using a longsword one-handed with the shield in the off hand. As a reversal, you could use an arming sword with the longsword Proficiency if you're not also using a shield.
Also, keep in mind your "defaults". Certain Proficiencies inform others. For instance, longsword Proficiency defaults on sword and shield at -2. This means that, if longsword is your highest Proficiency, sword and shield will be 2 less than longsword. You have either one or two "dominant" Proficiencies from which others default:
1. One for close combat (pretty much everyone should have this).
2. One for ranged combat (some of you might have this).
Basically, this allows your fighting skills to develop together. Some Proficiencies are more efficient for this kind of development than others. For instance, longsword defaults to one hell of a lot of proficiencies at -2, but pugilism? Almost everything is -4, meaning that if pugilism is your highest Proficiency, everything else is going to lag behind pretty seriously.
Also, you all begin with polearm Proficiency at 4, unless it is already equivalent or higher. In that case, you begin with that Proficiency at +2 if it's 4 or 5. +1 if it's 6.
... of course, since you're defaulting to -3, you could add those points to longsword instead for 7, and still have a wrestling of 4.
(This would also make your polearms 5, but 7 with the bonus I gave to the party as above.)
EFFICIENCY.
Longsword - 7
- Leather arm and leg armour.
- Pot helm.
- Arming sword.
- Dagger.
- Halberd.
Blah, is the money I would have light-weight coinage, heavy-weight coinage or Imperial Standard?
And sure. I'll allow you guys to have simple tools of that sort for free. Since you all have daggers, knives would be used strictly as tools and would be pretty basic to every person anyway.
Also, keep in mind that you have no holster for the halberd, but may have one for the musket. This means you must drop your halberd to use the musket (or any other weapon, really).
1 gold = 20 silver
1 silver = 12 copper
1 copper = 4 quarter-bits
So you have 960b to a g.
Between INUH, Cygan, Gelzo and yourself, that'd be four. Plenty to begin a campaign with.
Any weapon usable with the longsword proficiency (ergo, this includes single-handed swords with two edges) has a further mode of attack. This is the "mordschlag", or "death blow". To do this, you grip the sword by the blade with both hands and slam the crossguard, pommel or both into an adversary.
To move into mordschlag configuration, you must expend one die from your Combat Pool. You must do the same to move into normal grip. Mordschlag may be transitioned into or from half-sword configuration at no additional cost.
When in this configuration, your sword may no longer cut or thrust. Instead, it may use a standard bash attack as described in the rules at ST+0 damage. This bash attack deals shock equivalent to the user's ST plus their margin of success, against which armour is useless. In addition, it may use the hook maneuver.
When in this configuration, a sword has these stats:
Range: -1 step from the usual.
ATN: 6
DTN: 7
Bash Damage: ST+0
Using this configuration counts as a maneuver that may be used at greatsword/longsword Proficiency 5. However, when using a sword in this configuration, you use your pole-axe, polearm or mass weapon Proficiency at your own discretion.
The point of this? This maneuver is in an expansion, The Flower Of Battle, but it's a bit limited. It's represents the bashing strike, but not the issues involved in switching hand configuration, nor the alteration to one's fighting style when using a sword in this way. Here, using the mordschlag becomes a different mode of fighting, much like half-sword. There's a very significant difference in tactical application, though.
Half-swording is all about making a killing thrust through the gaps in plate armour, or directly through maille. Mordschlag (and hooking) is about stunning or disabling an adversary in such armours. This is reflected in the game mechanics; half-swording adds +3 to damage when thrusting against maille or plate armours, whereas the maneuvers available to a sword in mordschlag configuration can drastically damage an adversary's Combat Pool, rendering them easily defeated afterwards.
While I'm at it, I'll remind you guys about some game mechanic stuff.
Everything has a TN -- a Target Number. This is the number that must be equalled or surpassed on a d10 (or a handful of d10) for something to be considered a success. There are two kinds of tests:
1. Regular tests.
2. Opposed tests.
Regular tests are basically rolling against a skill with a number of d10 equal to the relevant attribute. You may need between 1 and 5ish successes on any given task to succeed, depending on difficulty.
Opposed tests are when your character clashes with another organism's attributes or skills. Sneaking past a guard might be an example; your TN is your Sneak skill, altered by the difficulty of the task, and you roll the relevent dice against their Perception. Whoever gets more successes wins. A more obvious example, however, is combat.
(And here we get to the point.)
Every weapon has a few TNs associated with it.
1. Attack Target Number (any combination of Cut, Thrust, Draw Cut and Bash).
2. Defense Target Number.
The ATN is what you roll against when attacking, where your Combat Pool provides the required dice. The DTN is what the defender rolls against that. ATN is pretty straight forward, but DTN isn't so much. That's because there are two primary defenses in the game: parries (of various kinds) and evasions. A parry uses the DTN of the weapon itself, but an evasion has a fixed DTN based on the maneuver itself.
For instance, the DTN for some polearms is as high as 9, giving you a 20% change per d10 of succeeding. On the other hand, the DTN for a sword parry is usually 6 -- a 50% chance per d10. On the other hand, an evasive technique has a DTN based on which technique you're using. A full evasion, which resets combat except for damage already sustained, has a DTN of 4. A partial evasion, which aims to avoid the incoming attack but can also buy you initiative, has a DTN of 7. Duck and weave has a DTN of 9, but ensures that you take initiative in the next exchange if successful.
So with that in mind, always compare the DTN of your weapon with the DTN of the three evasive techniques -- 4, 7 and 9 respectively, as well as what each maneuver accomplishes.
TACTICS.