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What's the rule for switching between sword & board and two-handed during combat? My hunch would be that you can freely drop the shield on the ground and go 2-handed, but that switching the other way is more complicated.

I'd say a round. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of 30s if I recall correctly.

I would say you could drop the shield and carry on the combat round without penalty. However, getting a shield into place takes more time so that would take a combat round.

I'm pretty sure there is no rule about it.

In my game I don't track such things. After all, I'm not penalizing the archer for shouldering the bow and drawing the sword once he angage in melee. Then again, your table, your rules

Corvo wrote:I'm pretty sure there is no rule about it.

In my game I don't track such things. After all, I'm not penalizing the archer for shouldering the bow and drawing the sword once he angage in melee. Then again, your table, your rules

I think Corvo is correct, switching weapons is considered one of those "minor combat actions" that the system doesn't keep track of normally.

Based upon time spent both learning and watching SCA Heavy and live steel reenactment...

Going from 1H+Shield to 2H: instant
2H to 1H+Shield: one round, presuming the shield is slung.
2H to 1H+Shield by taking shield from the ground: still a round, but parry halved during that round.

I'm with Corvo on this; I wouldn't take an action off the player to switch unless getting the shield to use it required some substantial movement or similar (like running across the clearing to get the shield from a fallen friend, etc).


Regards,

Shane

Agree with Corvo and Shane on this, no penalties to swapping out weapons and shields unless there are special circumstances involved in getting to those items.

Yeah a round of combat is kind of a stretchy piece of time isn't it? As long as players are sensible I say go with flow.

I do historical re-enactment, classical Greek period (ie, hoplites)

i have a 28 pound full bronze-over wood 36" custom made aspis shield.
I can get that thing off my arm with a flick of my shoulder. Getting back on, however, is a different story.

http://thegreekwarriors.com/images/480_ ... camera.JPG

(I'm the guy in the middle.)