This question is about spear damage, but lets look at swords and axe first.

short sword 5
sword 5
long sword 5 (1h)
axe 5

Very solid numbers, equal across the board (as they should be).

Great axes rate a 9, which understandable since unlike the all purpose axe (tool), the great axe is crafted only to kill things.


Now, spear damage:

spear 5
great spear 9 (?)

A great spear is longer, though it is vague as to how much longer, so we may assume from 8'-18'. And because of its length it weighs more. But does increased length and weight warrant an increase in +4 damage?

One could say the 2h requirement justifies the increase. But we know a normal spear may also be used two handed and it receives no increase in damage.

Now of course, there no question that a 9'-10' great spear provides its wielder a tactical advantage due to superior reach, as long as the opponent(s) don't get past the spear tip/blade, up close and personal.

I must be overlooking something or forgotten something mechanics-wise because I'm not seeing how the qualifier 'great' translates into +4 damage for a spear.

Perhaps a great spear should instead allow Rearward characters a close combat attack and/or provide a benefit to Defensive stance?

The only suggestion that I can offer at the moment would be that most great spears that I have seen pretty much have wide leaf shaped warheads on them; compared to more narrow (ie aerodynamic) heads of regular throwing spears. The leaf shaped head would cause much more grievous wounds, one that would also not heal all that quickly due to the level of damage to the tissue involved.

"Perhaps a great spear should instead allow Rearward characters a close combat attack and/or provide a benefit to Defensive stance? "

What we are talking here is basically a Boar Spear, not a Macedonian Sarrisa.

Okay, not sure if this pertains because I cannot exactly recall where I saw this (spears? javelins? arrows?), but I read something about their were changes in the point's design which added barbs. This addition was specifically to be a "man killer", a tool of war. The barbs increased the amount of damage inflicted on entering the wound, but more importantly it did grievous damage on extraction, keeping wounded warriors from re-entering combat. Thus the idea that these are "man killers". Otherwise most points were thin and smooth-edge to allow easy insertion and extraction, facilitating the re-use of the weapon on other targets.

I am not a weapons enthusiast so I could be remembering some other weapon's feature and applying it incorrectly to spears.


BTW, Wikipedia has an image of a native horseman with a spear that has to be at least 12' long. Cannot recall if it was a true spear or a lance since the user was mounted. I just remember the spear point being on the ground about 1.5-2 horse-lengths ahead of the rider. It might be shown under Spear, Javelin, or one of the specific named javelin types.

I agree, against an unarmoured or lightly armoured (leather) this would be the case.

Yeah, german boar spears from the 1400-1500's run about ~ 6-7 feet long with both slender dagger head and tapered arrowhead designs. Pikes are pretty much useless unless you have alot other pikes with you.

For what its worth, slender bladed spears are more likely to punch through mail, than a leaf shape.

Having a spear that is difficult to extract is not a good thing as you may need it immediately after downing your current opponent.




I'm wondering if the designer had in mind who would be wielding the great spear, rather than the spear's design when they assigned a 9 damage. I think only Beornings start with them? And what do they start with, all Body 6-7, plus 2 in Athletics?

So yeah, that damage would make sense if you had a stouter, heavier bladed spear being used by a more muscular, stouter individual that could apply serious strength and momentum.

My standard response is that it is a matter of game balance rather than simulating reality. As long as the balance feels justified by enough reality you can make it stick. And there is definitely a difference between a regular spear (shorter, narrow head) and a Great Spear, or Boar Spear (longer, broader blade like head and metal bar (or barb) across the shaft just below the head.)

Whether this difference warrants a 2, 3 or 4 points difference is something I would never argue about. Instead I would just accept that there is a difference and that, since you sacrifice the Shield and "need" two hands to be able to use it you get +4. Fine by me.

Yes a regular Spear can also be used two handed.

No there are no rules that add "extra damage" to it if you do.

If there were you'd have to apply this to all weapons.... daggers etc.

So instead you make a choice. Pick a flavour if you will, when you make your character. Will I fight 1H+Shield or 2H ?

Works for me.

/wolf

I'd like to point out that one of the things I really admire about TOR is there is little errata to contend with and we haven't seen any need for houseruling anything.

This isn't a rant thread. Just a 'why' thread. If the increase was only +2, I never would have brought it up.

I'll have to quibble with you there. A regular spear is designed to be use two handed. A dagger, short sword, sword are not. So, no, you wouldn't (and shouldn't) apply it to all weapons. Anyway, your point about balance in abstract games is very apt here.

I'll have to quibble with you quibbling. A regular spear for use in warfare was designed for use with one hand, often in conjunction with a shield. It is possible to use two hands, to gain extra piercing force, but not necessary. They were also useful to throw, if needed.

I'm no scholar in this area so I could be completely wrong here.

But I thought the whole concept of spears and why they saw such wide use was due to a) cheap as hell to produce b) easy to use and c) you could hide behind a shield (one hand) and stab at your enemy (the other hand).

see. Hoplites Phalanx etc. moving forward.

I thought Spear and Shield was the bread and butter of any army (except Japan where they never embraced the idea of "hiding" behind shields since it was regarded as dishonourable).

As far as I know this doesn't change until you have mounted soldiers in heavy armour that require some more "omph"... and then you make pikes instead to take them down.... and off comes the shield.

Simplified to near stupidity I admit, but that is my reasoning.

/wolf

No disagreement. I took it for granted everyone already knew this.

No, you made a reasonable summary.

Shields didn't fade away until plate replaced mail as the must-have armour. It was just dead weight. Plate armour can really take a beating, which is why hammer and pick polearms became the must-have weapons. Swords were useless except for jamming into areas not protected by plate and for using on people not wearing plate.

Shields didn't completely disappear. They just became smaller, like target and buckler types. All the while, spears remained in one form or another.

But I'm only recounting what everyone here already knows.

So, a regular spear wasn't "... designed to be used two-handed...", it was actually designed to be used one-handed (as Valarian and GhostWolf have stated) in order to take advantage of using a shield with it? If so, this makes the stats of the weapons in the book make sense, yes, rather than just be about game balance?

And if we really wanted to apply a houserule for weapons in the table listed as one-handed (eg, shortsword, sword, spear, axe)* when they are used two-handed we could add +2 to the base damage of these weapons or perhaps add +2 to the Injury rating? But not both - I think that double bonus should be left to weapons designed to be used one- and two-handed (eg, long hafted axe, longsword). If you think a spear was dual designed for one or two handed use then we could make the spear the exception to the other one-handed weapons and giving it a two-handed statistic line as well as a one-handed one.

Thoughts?

* Think it would be difficult to use a dagger two-handed in usual combat circumstances

yes a 'regular' spear was designed to be used two-handed, one-handed, with a shield, without a shield, and to be thrown. Does that cover it?

Except for the great spear, the weapon stats already made sense IMO.

Im sorry, but using a shortsword, sword*, axe (hand axe), or dagger two-handed in close combat, is daft unless the person is quite small, like a child or a hobbit. The only commonly relevant example I can think of is a hammer. One would be hard pressed to find a carpenter or roofer that used a hammer with both hands, consistently, day in, day out.

But i suppose a player could say, "this round I'm going to use my short sword with both hands against the goblin." Players tend to do stuff like that...

(*'sword' opens up a can of worms because of the vagaries of the word. Since we have 'long sword', sword implies a typical pommel grip of 4.25 to 5.5 inches in length, which is bit small to be grabbing two-handed.)

I think the idea of a spear used by beornings, along with a 'great' axe already doing damage of 9, resulted in 'great' spear with 9 damage.

Now that is clarified it seems to me that no alterations are in fact needed. I think the Great Spear looks fine as it is.

If I was to add an extra 2-handed usage line to the Spear (to give it characteristics of 7 damage and 16 injury), thus allowing for this "spears are designed to be used both one and two handed" idea, then I'd be inclined to raise the injury rating of the Great Spear to 18 to justify the extra 2 points in encumbrance between it and a normal spear as I don't think the 2 extra points in just damage alone is enough in that respect. Or perhaps reduce its encumbrance from 4 to 3 rather than increase its injury rating.

Personally though, I'm not sure I'd fiddle with anything considering everything posted above/previously by everyone.

It seems you've justified the damage with the Beorning starting thing... however elves are capable of starting with Great Spears also

It is a matter of game balance.

If it bothers you, you can always change its "name" and keep the stats. For example instead of a great spear, you can call it a halberd or whatever weapon you think it deserves those stats.

I agree. The 'long sword' (also known as the bastard sword) would be the only sword with a hilt length capable of use with two hands. A normal sword hilt would be too short between guard and pommel weight.

Use of the spear two-handed opens up complications, as the style of fighting is different to the spear-and-shield style. Two-handed spear fighting with a short spear (around 5 feet) more closely resembles quarterstaff with the occasional thrust of the point. Occasionally, you might get the double-handed forward thrust, but not often. I don't agree that this style would end up doing any greater damage than the use of the spear-and-shield technique. In mechanics terms, perhaps adding a called shot of a trip (instead of pierce) - allowing a coup-de-grace to be delivered.

The great spear is used in a circular parry, slash and thrust technique, keeping the opponent at a distance.

I always thought a bastard sword was different to a 'traditional' longsword. Learn something every day huh

And I agree: fighting with a spear two handed is definitely more along the lines of fighting with a staff.

Not that I know of ... as far as I know the long sword, bastard sword and hand-and-a-half sword are all describing the same thing. There may be slight variations in regional styles, but the same sort of sword: a 3 to 4 foot blade with a long hilt.

I read less into it:

swords = average edge, average injury
axes = low edge, high injury
spears = high edge, low injury

1-handed weapon = 5 damage
1-hand-and-half weapon used two-handed = 7 damage
2-handed weapon = 9 damage.

Weapons used two-handed (including 1-hand-and-half weapons) gain +2 injury from base weapon value.

Great Spear is a 2-handed spear; therefore 9 damage, high edge (9) and low injury (14 +2 for 2-h = 16)

It's a simple mechanical algorithm, nothing more.

Why isn't there a 1-hand-and-half spear; I don't know...

[edit] on that last part, I would be tempted to allow a (regular) spear used 2-handed as a 7 damage, 16 injury weapon. In order to follow the "official algorithm", I'd have to up the spear's encumbrance to 3 to make it a proper hand-an-a-half weapon...

@ Rich, no need to up the injury of the Great Spear if you make the spear a hand-and-a-half weapon, note how th great axe is the same as long-hafted axe (2h). Encumbrance would need to go up one point however. Great Spear would stay as is.

Glorfindel

Well said. I will point out however, the 7 and 9 damage is being assigned to weapons which are primarily, in the most simplest terms, swung like a baseball bat (momentum, impact, force transference). If this were a poleaxe instead of great spear, yes easily 9 damage. Giving a great spear 9 damage just because its two-hand is akin to giving an oak staff with iron caps a 9 damage, imo.

I'm not really looking for a houserule. I was just asking a question along the lines of how blue is the ocean or how high is the sky.

On another tangent, do proper halberds/polearms even exist in ME? (I don't think so.) I thought the books only mentioned swords, staves, axes/mattocks, knives/daggers, clubs/hammers(?) spears and bows. Games Workshop gave the U-H crossbows, but I don't remember if they appeared in the books.

Anyway I believe Glorfindel's formulaic reasoning explains the 9 damage -- if, then, therefore. If xyz weapon is used two handed, then it must be powerful, therefore it rates a 9 damage (especially if it is described as 'great' )

I'm not going to change it, but a 7 damage would be fair for a great spear. Leave the 9+ damage to Named or magically imbued great spears.

I think Jon Hodgson said something about the armor and weapons of TOR are more historically accurate to the cultures Tolkien based his ideas on and the time period covered.

Many of the polearms were late additions to warfare, appearing after the time period TOR is modeled after (up to 1500, I think).

I'm not sure that a Great Spear would be used for thrusting alone. In fact, I'd say the majority of attacks with it would be more swing based than thrust based, for the simple fact that a thrust is more likely to knock you off balance, and is easier to dodge.

I did aikido for a while, and in doing so, I learned that with a spear there are lots of ways to fight that don't require you to stab. True, it's a Japanese martial art, but I assume the ideas would be similar, namely that it'd be easier to knock somebody over or just crack them over the head with your spear than to stab at them and risk them merely move out of the way :/

Beleg