Toward a Theory of Weapon Stats

[Falenthal]

I like them. Just for personal use I´d only use the Hobbit Staff stats (no other weapon has two versions. They´re usable by Hobbits or they aren´t).

Sword and Short Sword?

Maybe I didn't get it right. The Hobbit staff is a staff only for hobbits, or is a "short staff" usable by anyone?
Perhaps the name confused me.

I could add it (and other "house rule house rules") to the calculator. What should the cost per point of Parry be? 1 point or 2 points?

I'd say that increasing Parry is as important as lowering the Edge of weapon, something not easily done in this game. 2 Points I'd say.

Oh, and I just noticed: did you dismiss the Disarm Called Shot for staves for some reason?

[Falenthal]

Ok, here's my latest selection of Simple Weapons. For each of them I would use Falenthal's rule: that their Wound is replaced with Knockback.

Sling
Damage: 3
Edge: 10
Injury: 12
Encumbrance: 0
Called Shot: None
Usable by Hobbits
Part of the 'Dagger' group
Balance: 0

Staff
Damage: 6
Edge: 10
Injury: 14
Encumbrance: 0
Called Shot: None
Two-handed Close Combat
Part of the 'Dagger' group
Balance: 0

Hobbit Staff
Damage: 5
Edge: 10
Injury: 14
Encumbrance: 0
Called Shot: None
Two-handed Close Combat
Usable by Hobbits
Part of the 'Dagger' group
Balance: 0

I like Sling as is. Perfect for me.

As for Staff, just for comparison, this would be mine:

Quarterstaff
Damage: 4
Edge: 10
Injury: 14
Encumbrance: 0
Called Shot: Disarm
Two-handed Close Combat
Usable by Hobbits
Part of the 'Dagger' group
Balance: 0
*Wound is replaced with Knockdown
*+1 to Parry

*I consider that replacing Wounds with Knockback is a "bad" thing for a weapon. We could say that it gives +2 points of Balance. This 2 points would be spend in "buying" the +1 to Parry.

[Otaku-sempai]

Maybe I didn't get it right. The Hobbit staff is a staff only for hobbits, or is a "short staff" usable by anyone?
Perhaps the name confused me.

I will guess that it is usable by anyone. My own intention was that the Short stave (staff) is usable by anyone, including Hobbits and Dwarves. I only referred to it as a Hobbit-stave because of Tolkien's mention of such weapons in LotR, "The Scouring of the Shire." Was this what you meant, Glorelendil?

I also think that his omission of a called shot was intentional; I would include Disarm (and either Disarm or Knockdown for the longer Staff). But then I would also include the called shot of Pierce for Sling.

[Glorelendil]

Maybe I didn't get it right. The Hobbit staff is a staff only for hobbits, or is a "short staff" usable by anyone?
Perhaps the name confused me.

I will guess that it is usable by anyone. My own intention was that the Short stave (staff) is usable by anyone, including Hobbits and Dwarves. I only referred to it as a Hobbit-stave because of Tolkien's mention of such weapons in LotR, "The Scouring of the Shire." Was this what you meant, Glorelendil?

Yeah, I basically meant a "Short Staff", but didn't see any reason that anybody but a Hobbit would use it.

[Otaku-sempai]

As for Staff, just for comparison, this would be mine:

Quarterstaff
Damage: 4
Edge: 10
Injury: 14
Encumbrance: 0
Called Shot: Disarm
Two-handed Close Combat
Usable by Hobbits
Part of the 'Dagger' group
Balance: 0
*Wound is replaced with Knockback
*+1 to Parry

*I consider that replacing Wounds with Knockback is a "bad" thing for a weapon. We could say that it gives +2 points of Balance. This 2 points would be spend in "buying" the +1 to Parry.

So, you don't include a description for Quarterstaff. What size limit do you put on it to make it usable by Hobbits? A quarterstaff, historically, could be as long as eight or nine feet.

Knockback is a defensive measure taken to reduce to reduce Endurance loss by half. How does that apply to wielding a weapon? And how does the Injury rating relate to it?

I still strongly disagree with giving any weapon that is significantly larger than a dagger an Endurance rating of 0 and I feel that the lowest acceptable rating for a quarterstaff would be 2--even if you have severely limited its length.

We could quibble more over your ratings for Damage and Injury, but those are much more minor issues. 'Staves' should properly be its own weapon group, but that is a whole other discussion.

[Glorelendil]

Since this *is* the House Rules form, I'm going to add some new options to the calculator:

Parry, at +1 Parry per two points spent. And I think it should be restricted to 2H weapons.
Non-wounding (e.g. Knockback or other effect on a Pierce). What should the "refund" be for that? 1 or 2 points?

Any other options of interest?

[Otaku-sempai]

Since this *is* the House Rules form, I'm going to add some new options to the calculator:

Parry, at +1 Parry per two points spent. And I think it should be restricted to 2H weapons.
Non-wounding (e.g. Knockback or other effect on a Pierce). What should the "refund" be for that? 1 or 2 points?

Any other options of interest?

I don't think that I would restrict Parry to two-handed weapons. On the other hand, there aren't many swashbuckling-style weapons in the game. A cost of two points seems a bit high if you are also going to restrict it.

House rules or not, you do need to explain how Knockback works as an attack (as it is described as a defensive action). If you knockback your opponent, does he only take half of the damage you gave out? If you don't mean Knockdown instead then you might need to call it something else.

[Glorelendil]

Since this *is* the House Rules form, I'm going to add some new options to the calculator:

Parry, at +1 Parry per two points spent. And I think it should be restricted to 2H weapons.
Non-wounding (e.g. Knockback or other effect on a Pierce). What should the "refund" be for that? 1 or 2 points?

Any other options of interest?

I don't think that I would restrict Parry to two-handed weapons. On the other hand, there aren't many swashbuckling-style weapons in the game. A cost of two points seems a bit high if you are also going to restrict it.

House rules or not, you do need to explain how Knockback works as an attack (as it is described as a defensive action). If you knockback your opponent, does he only take half of the damage you gave out? If you don't mean Knockdown instead then you might need to call it something else.

Yes, Knockdown, sorry.

[aramis]

I like them. Just for personal use I´d only use the Hobbit Staff stats (no other weapon has two versions. They´re usable by Hobbits or they aren´t).

Sword and Short Sword?

Maybe I didn't get it right. The Hobbit staff is a staff only for hobbits, or is a "short staff" usable by anyone?
Perhaps the name confused me.

I could add it (and other "house rule house rules") to the calculator. What should the cost per point of Parry be? 1 point or 2 points?

I'd say that increasing Parry is as important as lowering the Edge of weapon, something not easily done in this game. 2 Points I'd say.

Oh, and I just noticed: did you dismiss the Disarm Called Shot for staves for some reason?

In the real world, short staves (Jo 5-6 shaku long) are used extensively in the oriental martial arts, in a manner not too dissimilar to the 1-hand sweeps with the quarterstaff (Bo 3-4 shaku); in the European martial arts, "baton" (a 3'-4' straight stick) was used with a very different (more sword-like) technique by several fencing schools. So, yes, it's logical that Humans and Elves should be able to use a short staff; probably won't be the same technique as a halfling...

[Falenthal]

Edited to Knockdown.

I sometimes get confused between Knockdown, Knockback and Knocked out, sorry.

As for lenght and the usability by Hobbits, I must admit that I consider here my own house-rule that hobbit sized weapons have a -2 to Damage and Injury. That's what I do with short swords and bows when wielded by a hobbit. I don't feel like a wood-elves bow and a hobbit's bow should deal the same damage output against an orc. But that's an entirely different topic. And also one I'll have to rethink with this calculator.
Long story short: I don't need a shorter version of the staff for hobbits in my games.

As for the calculator and Parry, I guess it should be 2 points. Increasing Parry is difficult in TOR. About the restriction to 2H weapons... well, if someone wants to introduce the sai or the main-gauche in his games, those are weapons that would grant a +1 Parry wielded 1-handed.

About not Wounding on a Pierce, I'm not sure how more bad that is. Usually a Wound means one kill. And we're talking about weapons here, so that NOT being able to killing something with a weapon is bad news. Begin with 2 refund?