Spears

[Angelalex242]

The Journey to Dul Gulder to get an ash tree is designed to justify a bitter great spear, not to get around the fact you must buy a Valor Reward to have a spear bitter in the first place. (presumably, the big shot elves in Mirkwood have to infuse your new great spear with the bitter powers of its kind.)

[Eclipse]

And, according to the game, the "big shots" hand you a bitter spear afterwards, not a bitter great spear. You are free to change it, but the rules are clear.

[Angelalex242]

Many good ideas in the world require a more flexible Loremaster, it's true. I've got an entire concept in a game I'm playing right now that simply would not work without some good old fashioned skill swapping.

[Robin Smallburrow]

One thing forgotten in this discussion about the merit of spears is Reach. I use a house rule that makes spears even more useful:

Optional Combat Rule: Reach

The target of a close combat attack who is aware of the attack and able to defend themselves is harder to hit if the weapon they are using has a significantly greater reach than that of their opponent. Subtract the Relative Reach of the attacker's weapon from the Relative Reach of the target's weapon and add it to the TN of the attack.
Relative Reach : Weapon
0 : Unarmed
2 : Dagger
4 : Short Sword, Axe
6 : Sword, Great Axe, Mattock
7 : Long Sword
8 : Spear
10 : Great Spear, Pike etc.

Robin S.

[Elmoth]

Actually a spear does not have a significantly longer range than a sword and the like. A pike does, but a pike sucks big time in solo combat since it is designed to act in formation. What a spear is great is defense. With a spear you can adopt a much more defensive posture with your shield than when using a weapon used in swings (Axe, sword). This is hardly ever reflected in games, but hey. +1 to shield defence using a spear could be feasible easily.

Xavi

[Elmoth]

I just noticed that, regarding statistics, a Grievous weapon might be better against weak opponents.

A grievous one handed weapon does 7 damage. An orc warrior seems to have an endurance of 12. That means that you can drop one in 2 strike if you have a grievous weapon, while you would need 3 hits with a keen weapon, unless you scored a critical (something you will be scoring 1 in 4 times at most). If you roll a Tenwar in a single round, you drop the orc automatically if your Body is 5 or above. (7+5=12).

Orc leaders have an endurance of 20. So here you need 3 regular hits or a critical. You have the same options of killing him with 4 hits than you have of droping him with a critical, so the grievous weapon wins again.

So for regular orc killing, a Grievous weapon seems to win over a keen or fell weapon. For dropping big creatures the Keen weapons remain on top, though. A grievous hand weapon seems like a good option for humans, specially, that can have a body of 5 or more easily.

Interesting.

[Angelalex242]

Two handed weapons, however, can get to 12 damage normally with grievous and fell handed.

9 base+2 Grievous+1 Fell handed=12...just barely enough to kill an orc without a T rune. And body score isn't relevant either.

For Orcs in particular, Dwarven Racial Ability 'Old Hatred' also kicks in...a Valor 6 dwarf with old hatred and a great axe can do up to 18 damage with a tricked out Great Axe and Fell Handed without a T rune. One T rune with a body of 6 or 7 will down all orcs but great orcs.

[Elmoth]

The problem with 2 handed weapons is that you do not have a Parry total as high as with single handed weapons. Otherwise nobody would be using one handed weapons if they could get the larger stuff

Full tricked up characters are easy to use to overcome obstacles. What I was looking is more common characters, with 1 or 2 raises at most, and see what they can come up with. I am sure that Aragorn can kick some ass, but well, my character is unlikely to be Aragorn-level in the next months The case for a Grievous blade is that with a single improvement (grievous) a sword, spear or similar can be quite effective even if you do not score a critical hit. Quite nice. In fact it might be better than Keen as a first improvement against quite a few opponents since the damage will be more consistent. 2-3 hits to bring down an orc chieftain and 1 lucvky (with a 6) hit to bring down a regular orc sounds OK to me

[Angelalex242]

In that case, the reliability of a grievous reward, fell handed virtue character with a two hander (Which won't cost you more then 4 XP...) cannot be beaten. Any simple success will take down that orc warrior.

About that parry score? Well, the best defense is a good offense. I've never made a 1 handed character yet. Granted, my two handed characters always have a wits of at least 6, so there ya go, and my elvish characters (all I've played so far) can always get spearman's shield later, since it works with ANY two handed weapon, regardless of what the virtue is called. Reinforced spearman's shield is worth +2 parry with a zweihander...

[Elmoth]

Reinforced spearman's shield is worth +2 parry with a zweihander...

Correct. And a nice combo. I will write it down for future reference