Mounted lance charge

[bensei]

I am new to TROS and would like to hear some experience and hints on the following setup:

Setup: A mounted (destrier) full plate knight with a lance wants to attack a footman with a sword. The footman has a slightly larger combat pool, thus with the bonuses from mounted combat both fighters have about the same number of dice.

1. Should the knight win combat by lengths?
2. What can the knight do in order to win quite safely (not risky)?
3. When comparing charge and non-charge, up to our session yesterday, I thought that charging is quite safe (riding skill on 3), since the footman is dead before he can do anything. However, the footman was agressive, too, won the reflex contest, and hit the horse's legs. Then the lance hit him, and the footman was dead. Fine so far, but the horse had a level 3 wound, a bit more damage, and the knight would probably be dead.
4. When the knight charges, what is the best for the footman to do? (One extreme: Full evade, other extreme: red die, hope to win reflex test can hit before the lance hits (is this correct?).
5. When charging, can a knight do anything in order to protect his horse? (sim. block and strike only works vs. attacks against himself, doesn't it?)
6. Is not charging safer then (even with a lance), since combat dice can be saved for the horse to avoid blows?

What is your experience with mounted knight vs. footman?

[Caz]

Get of Beasts and Men.  It has some mounted combat rules that might answer your questions I probably shouldn't put up on here.  Though under the jousting rules it's extremely easy to be unhorsed, which seems to have been a rare occurence historically.  (I say proper military saddles give +4 dice to the staying mounted roll).

[toli]

First, I'd agree about the military saddles.

To the original question, don't forget the CP penalty or dice penalty in general for reach differences between the weapons.  The foot man will have a big CP penalty because of the range difference between a sword and lance.  I think in previous discussions, the general consensus is that this CP penalty should affect buying initiative or a reflex contest.  Thus the knight has a large advantage in reach and it is unlikely that the footman could get an initiative advantage on the knight.  Best strategy for the footman is to parry or counter the lance thrust, then attack...or just full evade...

If the footman does manage to get inside the knights lance, then the footman would have the advantage in reach and the knight would have the CP penalty to hit the footman.  In fact, if the foot man did manage to chop at the horse's legs, the knight would probably only be able to use the but of his lance to bash the footman on the head (the CP penalty...).  Best strategy for the knight would probably be to ride away and come back for another go...if possible, or drop the lance and use a hand weapon.

I don't think the knight could really do much to defend his horse, besides making a terrain role or ride roll to maintain his distance and prevent the footman from ever getting in range for an attack..NT

[bensei]

Get of Beasts and Men. It has some mounted combat rules that might answer your questions I probably shouldn't put up on here.

BaM is available in our TROS sessions. However, apart from one exception my questions are not rules questions, but questions like "What would you consider a good strategy in situation XY?"

To the original question, don't forget the CP penalty or dice penalty in general for reach differences between the weapons. The foot man will have a big CP penalty because of the range difference between a sword and lance.

My GM did not forget. Knight charged, knight and footman rolled both red, footman had more successes on reflex check, hence the dice penalty due to range difference was to the disadvantage of the charging knight (and the footman could attack first). Your description seems to contradict his ruling.

[toli]

I would apply the range penalty to the reflex check.   The footman has a lot of ground to cover.  I think this has come up before in some discussions on initiative.  

NT

[Valamir]

I agree that the reach penalty of lance vs. sword should be accounted for in the reflex check.

I think perhaps, the reach of the Lance should be reduced by 1 (or 2) if the footman is attacking the horse.  After all the horse's body is not nearly as far away from the head of the lance as the knights is.

[toli]

I think perhaps, the reach of the Lance should be reduced by 1 (or 2) if the footman is attacking the horse.  After all the horse's body is not nearly as far away from the head of the lance as the knights is.

Sounds reasonable to me...

[Prince of Thieves]

A bit off subject but...

Though under the jousting rules it's extremely easy to be unhorsed, which seems to have been a rare occurence historically.  (I say proper military saddles give +4 dice to the staying mounted roll).

+4?! Have you actually played the jousting rules or just read through them? I ask because I had the same impression on reading them but in actually play, unseating remains rare. After play I think the rules are fine as is. An average knight will have a 4 in AG. Therefore to be certain of a unhorsing this averaged AG'd knight (allowing him no Riding roll to save himself) you'd have to have a success margin of 4. (Increasing that to an 8 seems a bit unrealistic and unfair) Even with one dice left an unskilled  Knight (Skill Pack at 9) has a riding of 8 and therefore a 30% chance of hanging in there.
Remember the Clash is a sim. block-strike, with bonus dice gained by good horseman so only reckless jousters won't have some dice to block.

I recently started a story where the players are all Farrenshire folk, and  my adventure started with a tournament in Cyrinthmeir. Anyway the jousting tournament quickly ammounted to counting blows (more success on attack) not knights being unhorsed.

Anyway back to the question at hand. Lance vs. Footman
I think this is one instant where the rules do break down somewhat. If the thrusting lance is going to hit the footman it has to reach him before his sword comes anywhere near the rider or horse. Maybe just treat it as getting imaled but continuing an attack that was already in motion.
(insert shrug here)

I recall a rule which I believe was posted on the forum, not in the rule book that weapon lengths should also modify initiative rolls, both buying initiative and red-red reflex tests. I personal agree with this rule.

There for the reflex test would be in favor of the lancer.
Lancer: +1 reflex for thrust. TN 7 for lance
Footman(w/ med. weapon.): -2 reflex for shorter weapon. TN 6 for sword
Assuming both had a reflex of, say, 5; then Lancer rolls 6 dice, TN 7 vs Footman rolling 3 dice(4 if he too is thrusting), TN 6.

Still it seems the footman has better odds then reason would suggest. And as I stated before, if the lance hits it will have to hit before the footman can connect a blow. Still its a game and its cool if the player is the footman. :)

[Caz]

Just read em really, good to hear

[nsruf]

I was the GM in the above situation. Maybe a full description of the situation is helpful:

***

The melee involved 2 PCs and 2 NPC footmen. The footmen were charging PC #1, a competent duellist, who chose a defensive stance. The knight (bensei's character) had ridden away from the battle, waiting for an opportunity to charge. He decided to help out the other PC, and all 4 combatants met simulatenously. Thus, stance was in effect for all - just in case anybody wonders why the footman went offensive on a charging knight.

Both the duellist and the knight made their terrain rolls to face only a single opponent. Since I let the other side decide how to split in such a case, one footman took on the knight and the other the duellist. The knight also made a second terrain roll to limit the bout to a single exchange (using the rules from OBAM).

Since the footman was in offensive stance, he decided for the riskier maneuver and did a simultaneous block/strike with 7 dice for defense and 3 for attack (CP 10, 8 in armor, 10 again for attacking from offensive stance). The knight simply attacked with everything. I did not penalize the Reflex check for weapon reach, so the footman won and struck first. Because of reach, he had 1 die to swing at the horse's legs, which succeeded and caused a level 3 wound to the thigh.

The horse kept its footing easily and the knight hit with his lance despite the 2 dice reach disadvantage and shock penalty. That was the end of the footman...

***

In retrospect, applying the reach penalty to the Reflex check seems like a good idea. But the situation was somewhat extreme anyway, as the footman was on the offensive - something he wouldn't have done had he known that the knight would single him out.

[nsruf]

BTW, I think we forgot the +1 bonus to Reflex the knight should have gotten for a thrusting attack.

[Mokkurkalfe]

Nitpicking:

If I remember correctly, you can only have twice as many dice on attack as you have on defence when sim. strike/blocking. Thus, 7 def/3 att is not allowed.


On another note, you say you have OBAM. Do you use the ride-by maneuver? In that case, the knight would have the initiative without any reflex roll.

[toli]

Two things.

First, I think as noted before, the reflex check should have been penalized.  

Second, I don't know of any rule for this, but I think the knight IRL would probably lose any charging advantage if he actually did lose the reflex check.  Maybe he wouldn't lose the advantage of momentum but once the footman was inside the range of the lance, I think it would be next to impossible to both attack with the head of the lance and get an advantage from the horse's movement.  You could visualize it as the knight either 1) rushed past and bonks the footman on the head with the lance shaft or 2) actually stops and turns and repositions and stabs with the head of the lance.  

Does that make sense...?

[nsruf]

If I remember correctly, you can only have twice as many dice on attack as you have on defence when sim. strike/blocking. Thus, 7 def/3 att is not allowed.

The rule is not completely clear in the book. IIRC, it states that one number has to be half of the other. I decided that we would handle it as

a) declare the larger number and whether it is attack or defense
b) halve the number for the other aspect (round down)

This way, you get 2/1, 3/1, 4/2, 5/2, 6/3, 7/3, 8/4, etc. and can actually spend any number of dice on the maneuver (starting at 3).

On another note, you say you have OBAM. Do you use the ride-by maneuver? In that case, the knight would have the initiative without any reflex roll.

We used the rule that a rider can limit the bout to a single exchange with a ride check. If it says anything about automatically gaining initiative, I missed that. But it doesn't sound right, anyway: what if the footman has a long spear? The knight shouldn't be able to automatically gain initiative in all cases, IMO.

[nsruf]

First, I think as noted before, the reflex check should have been penalized.

I don't like changing the rules in the middle of combat, so we played that one "by the book". But I'll probably use this as a house rule from now on.

Second, I don't know of any rule for this, but I think the knight IRL would probably lose any charging advantage if he actually did lose the reflex check.  Maybe he wouldn't lose the advantage of momentum but once the footman was inside the range of the lance, I think it would be next to impossible to both attack with the head of the lance and get an advantage from the horse's movement.  You could visualize it as the knight either 1) rushed past and bonks the footman on the head with the lance shaft or 2) actually stops and turns and repositions and stabs with the head of the lance.  

Does that make sense...?

Sure, but the weapon reach system is too abstract for that (relative reach does not affect the kind of attack you can make), and making combat even more complex doesn't seem worth it.