My untested HR

[Woodclaw]

Inspired by the effort put by Michebugio in his own HRs thread I decided to post some material of my own here.
While I don't think that TOR need to be heavily HRed, I want to see how far the system can be tamper with and, maybe, discover some new options I havent considered so far.
Keep in mind, my gaming group is quite rarified due to how our lives are organized, so most of these rules are untested so far.

This post will act as index with direct links to the individual posts about each rule, if multiple versions will be introduced there will be multiple links.

Combat

• Axes Secondary Called Shot
• Dual Wielding
• Stance Based Damage

[Woodclaw]

Dual Wielding

Status: untested

Idea
Dual Wielding is one the most difficult things to represent in a RPG. Among combat style it's quite hard to implement because it's hard to figure out it's benefits. Shield provide extra defense, two-handed extra damage, but dual weapons ... well, over the years I've seen many solutions but none that fitted, until recently.
In my eyes of the best ideas about how to dual wield comes from the Dragon Age RPG, where using double weapons provides a bonus to attack. This is the proverbial obvious with hindsight concept. Facing an opponent wielding two weapons is tougher not because of extra damage, but simply because you have to watch out for two striking points instead of one, hence making defense much harder.
The Feat Dice provides a nice way to implement this mechanic without complicating the game too much and there are already quite a few mechanical examples of that.

Rule
A character who wish to fight with two weapons has to be skilled with both weapons and need a rank of at least 2 in the main weapon and 1 in the secondary weapon. The secondary weapon must have a maximum encumbrance of 1.
A character fighting with two weapons may re-roll the Feat Dice on his attacks with the main weapon and choose which result to use, but if he does so he has to use the profile of the secondary weapon instead of main one to calculate damage, edge and injury. If he choose not to use the re-roll, the secondary weapon provides a +1 Parry bonus against close combat attacks for the current round.
Since fighting with two weapons is tiring a character must increase his Fatigue score by 1 every time he switch to this style or enter combat wielding two weapons. This extra Fatigue is recoved the same way as Travel Fatigue.

Notes
Yes, I'm aware that re-rolling the Feat Dice increase the chances of a Injury (especially with certain combination of weapons like axe+short sword), but I think that's actually in the spirit of the style, since the secondary weapons can often pop-up as a surprise for a less than careful opponent.

[Dunheved]

Hi Woodclaw
I like this as a variant rule. It made me think of Thorin Oakenshield (the book version not Jackson's film version!)
I guess that Thorin would fight (with a branch) on the 'Dagger' speciality: put like that your rule is very well done - it gives an attack and a Parry bonus for this style, and allows ANYONE to try this in desperation.



After a few minutes thinking I came up with this addition, but it would complicate your rule so I'm not sure it's a good idea!
If the fighter takes a Defensive stance the secondary weapon adds to the Parry rating only, but if the fighter takes a Forward stance then the secondary weapon is used for attack.
The fighter could chooose either bonus if they were in Open stance.

Thanks for your posts - great reading.

[Woodclaw]

After a few minutes thinking I came up with this addition, but it would complicate your rule so I'm not sure it's a good idea!
If the fighter takes a Defensive stance the secondary weapon adds to the Parry rating only, but if the fighter takes a Forward stance then the secondary weapon is used for attack.
The fighter could chooose either bonus if they were in Open stance.

First of all thanks for the compliments.

To be honest I would prefer not to tie the effects of the two weapons to Stances. Thematically it makes a certain ammount of sense, but it doesn't sit right with me because no other fighting style (sword and shield, one-handed, two-handed) is tied to the Stances.

[Otaku-sempai]

What I like about Dunheved's suggestion is that, historically, dual wielding is used for both defense and attack. His idea acknowledges that in a way that compliments the RAW.

[Woodclaw]

What I like about Dunheved's suggestion is that, historically, dual wielding is used for both defense and attack. His idea acknowledges that in a way that compliments the RAW.

True, but if need to go historical dual wielding became common only when the swordmanship shifted from primarily cutting weapons to primarily stabbing weapons, which is many centuries after the approximate technological reference of the Middle-Earth.
Granted my sources might be wrong on this count, but I recall that before the XV century dual wielding was an incredibly rare style and never the primary choice among European countries.

Given that, the other reason why I think that linking the style with the Stances is wrong is that it would make the re-roll option almost worthless because in Forward stance is pretty hard to miss with a skill of 2 or more.

I have a limited experience of reenactment, but I recall one time when I fought against a friend of mine using a spear, while he used two hatchets. The moment the second weapon was most dangerous was when I pushed him back on defensive, because the second balde was there to pierce my side if I pushed myself too hard.

[Yepesnopes]

Deleted post

[Woodclaw]

Axes Secondary Called Shot

Status: untested

Idea
Before diving into this I have to say one thing: I'm not a fan of the Called Shot rule. I can understand the idea, but I'm not a fan of how it was designed.
Now, axes are a bit of the ugly duckling when it comes to called shots. It makes sense that, if any weapon should be able to smash shields that must be the axe, but this limits the usefulness of their Called Shot to very specific situations. More than that, a shield maximum bonus is +3, which isn't exactly a big obstacle when you can reliably execute a Called Shot (3-4 dices at least). This -- combined with the argument about axes being the less "wounding" weapon -- got me thinking about how to improve them.
The easy way around, in my mind is to give the axes another option that can be called in after a target shield -- if any -- is smashed. Historycally infantry axes were designed to provide the warrior with a hook element to unbalance the target: the so called "beard". This provides the best line of work in my mind. An unbalanced target is likely to lose part of his Parry score, which ties in nicely with both the smash shield element and the historical axe fighting that we know of.

Rules

When a character hit with an axe called shot he can decide to apply the following effect to the target, instead of the usual smashing shield:

Tripping
A tripped target lose half of his basic Parry score during the next round. At the LM discretion creatures with the Great Size or Horrible Strength traits might be immune to this effect.

Notes

Tripping is slight less effective version of the Seize Victim effect. I think it would tie in nicely with the current mechanics, but I fear it might be slightly too effective.

[Rocmistro]

Woodclaw:

Why the fatigue gain from dual wielding?

Doesn't the lack of constant protection (shield) or the decreased damage output (two hander) compensate for what you are getting with dual-wielding (options)?

Also, can you I make a couple recommendations?

-I don't think that skill level 2/1 adequately reflects the challenge. EVERYBODY starts the game with a 2/1 weapon spread (everyone has dagger 1). Might I suggest making it a 3/2 spread?

-Another thing you could use as the "pre-requisite" is the Battle Score, requiring it to be a minimum of 2. When I created some of my houserules, I used "Battle" as a pre-req for many combat related things.

[Woodclaw]

Woodclaw:

Why the fatigue gain from dual wielding?

Doesn't the lack of constant protection (shield) or the decreased damage output (two hander) compensate for what you are getting with dual-wielding (options)?

As I said above, fighting with two weapon never became really popular until blades evolved from slashing to thrusting. Fighting with paired slashing weapons requires to use some very awkward stances, sometimes even to the detriment of defense. The Fatigue penality simulates the need to maintain a higher degree of mobility to compensate the lack of a shield. It's also an attempt to negotiate the advantages compare to two-handed weapons.

-I don't think that skill level 2/1 adequately reflects the challenge. EVERYBODY starts the game with a 2/1 weapon spread (everyone has dagger 1). Might I suggest making it a 3/2 spread?

-Another thing you could use as the "pre-requisite" is the Battle Score, requiring it to be a minimum of 2. When I created some of my houserules, I used "Battle" as a pre-req for many combat related things.

I don't know.
On one hand (pun not intended) 2/1 allows a character to dual wield from the start if he so choose, on the other 3/2 seem a bit too high and would restrict this style to advanced characters. While dual wielding is surely a more complex style, I often think that its level of difficulty has often been exagerated. I might be deadly wrong here mind you.

Adding Battle as a requisite doesn't suit me since I envision battle as more strategical skill. One might be an excellent fighter even with a low battle score in my book (although it wouldn't be my favoured choice).