Help with Roman weapon.

[MikeJW]

I'm thinking of running an Imperial Roman campaign and I need help rules-wise for the pilum. A pilum is an iron headed javeline that was used as an anti-shield weapon. It was barbed and was designed to stick in a shield, therby reducing it's effictiveness since the shield now had a few feet of shaft attached. How should I rule this in game terms? Should a succesful hit totaly render a shield unusable until it's removed or should there be a cp penalty on shield based defence. What about the chance that it may hit the shield arm? Any help would be appreciated.

[Sneaky Git]

I'm thinking of running an Imperial Roman campaign and I need help rules-wise for the pilum. A pilum is an iron headed javeline that was used as an anti-shield weapon. It was barbed and was designed to stick in a shield, therby reducing it's effictiveness since the shield now had a few feet of shaft attached. How should I rule this in game terms? Should a succesful hit totaly render a shield unusable until it's removed or should there be a cp penalty on shield based defence. What about the chance that it may hit the shield arm? Any help would be appreciated.

It was also meant to bend upon impact so as not to become one of the bad guys' favored missile weapons. :)

As far as the rules are concerned, I would impose a CP penalty (so long as you continue to use the aforementioned shield) rather than mandating that it was no longer in play.  True, the shield was weighted down and most likely damn awkward to use, but it was not by any means destroyed.

As far as hitting the shield arm...why not just treat it as any strike in RoS?  The attacker may aim his/her strike...and the defender may choose to parry/block with the shield.  Or, they may choose to not block and simply try to get out of the way.

Chris

[Deliverator]

Wouldn't raising the TN of the Shield be more consistent than penalizing the defender's CP pool if he wants to use the Shield?  The result is more or less the same, of course.

Matt

[MonkeyWrench]

I'd go with raising the TN to block with the shield.  What if they still held onto the shield but never used it after the pilum struck?  WHy would they have a CP penalty?

[hkdharmon]

well the shield would now be alot heavier, and just carrying around the extra weight could cause a cp pen.

[Sneaky Git]

I'd go with raising the TN to block with the shield.  What if they still held onto the shield but never used it after the pilum struck?  WHy would they have a CP penalty?

well the shield would now be alot heavier, and just carrying around the extra weight could cause a cp pen.

My thoughts are more in line with hkdharmon's.  If you refer to the armor & shields table on pg 85 of the mainbook, you will note that smaller shields are actually harder to use (so far as higher TN is concerned).  They cover less area, so it takes more skill to get them in the way of an attack.  Larger shields, seeing as how you can hide behind them, make the job of the defender easier.

Larger shields (read: heavier and more awkward to use) have a CP and Move modifier to simulate this weight, etc.  That's the reason I suggested a CP mod, rather than altering the TN.

Chris

[hkdharmon]

My thoughts are more in line with hkdharmon's

AH! You are indeed a gentleman and a scholar, Sneaky Git.

[Mike Holmes]

I'd say that, like armor, the problem with the weight isn't as much CP penalties as fatigue. That is, I might charge a couple of points of CP, but I'd definitely make the character fatigue faster if he was trying to even carry the shield. To say nothing of trying to block with it. Note that it's not so much that the pillum is even that heavy. It's the awkward lever arm that it represents, with a high moment of inertia relative to the arm, and the likely tendency to get tangled with things even dragging on the ground.

Mike

[Sneaky Git]

I'd say that, like armor, the problem with the weight isn't as much CP penalties as fatigue. That is, I might charge a couple of points of CP, but I'd definitely make the character fatigue faster if he was trying to even carry the shield. To say nothing of trying to block with it. Note that it's not so much that the pillum is even that heavy. It's the awkward lever arm that it represents, with a high moment of inertia relative to the arm, and the likely tendency to get tangled with things even dragging on the ground.

Mike

Yeah.  What he said.  :)

[MikeJW]

I'll knock off a couple of CP and increase the fatigue, which I hadn't thought of. If the fight moves into an area with undergrowth that could entangle the pilum I may make the shield wearer make a terrain roll to keep it clear. How quickly could someone drop a shield? Are shields buckled onto the forearm or could they just be dropped by opening your hand. Of course, TFoB probably has rules for all this.:) If it matters I'm probably going for the late 100's AD for a timeline.

[Mike Holmes]

How quickly could someone drop a shield?

As I understand it, this is usually what the person on the receiving end did. I don't think it takes too long, certainly less time than it takes to close the throwing distance. The idea with the pilum was not that you'd end up engaging an opponent with a pilum in his sheild, but that you'd end up engaging a shieldless opponent.

That is, barring odd circumstances, I'd say that trying to continue using the shield should be less effective than just dropping it.

Mike

[Ashren Va'Hale]

If I emember correctly, the pilum had a long thin  metal spear head extending  several feet after the shaft so that it would punch THROUGH the shield and get the man behind it... I always supposed that it sticking in the sield was more of an afterthought and killing the man behind it the main goal. I would house rule first the chances of the spear going through the shield- in other words give it a Vs SHields bonus like the flail, then rule the probability of hitting the man behind it then cap it off with the CP penalty for having a javelin like object stuck in your shield with the pointy end poking at your face and body.

Just my two cents.

[Mike Holmes]

There has been some debate on that point (no pun intended), but I believe that many think that it would have been very rare to achieve that sort of penetration. The theory about weighting the shield is a more recent idea, in any case. Based on the fact, again, of the softness of the heads, and the tendency to bend. They had better metal, why not make it hard if it was intended to penetrate?

Which is not to say that wounding never happened. Just that the goal was the shield weighting more than anything.

In any case, for the game, I'd just choose an interpretation and make the rules to match. This is one of those things that we're not going to solve in a forum like this.

Mike

[MikeJW]

On History International over the weekend they had a lot of shows on Roman history and had a lot of actors in historical clothing. Some were carrying pilums and the head doesnt seem long enough to penetrate a shield and strike the carrier unless it was really close to theire body. I'm sure it wasn't uncommon for a pilum to strike the hand or arm that was holding the shield though.

[Drifter Bob]

There has been some debate on that point (no pun intended), but I believe that many think that it would have been very rare to achieve that sort of penetration. The theory about weighting the shield is a more recent idea, in any case. Based on the fact, again, of the softness of the heads, and the tendency to bend. They had better metal, why not make it hard if it was intended to penetrate?

Which is not to say that wounding never happened. Just that the goal was the shield weighting more than anything.

In any case, for the game, I'd just choose an interpretation and make the rules to match. This is one of those things that we're not going to solve in a forum like this.

Mike

A lot of people are confused by this, because so many historians do emphasise the shield incapacitation, and it is certainly an important use.  Pilum were specifically designed to facilitate this, and designed to bend or break so they couldn't be thrown back, in some cases by having a weak iron or even lead weight between the wooden shaft and the iron point, or having one of the two bolts holding the point in place made of wood (in a famous anecdote)

However the pilum is first and foremost an armor piercing weapon, and that means shields as well.  Modern tests have shown that javelins penetrate very well.  The pilum with it's staged shape is essentially similar to a modern armor piercing sabot shell, or the head of an armor piercing ('bodkin') arrow or crossbow bolt.  Tests with modern reproductions have shown that they have excellent penetration especially at close range.

In combat, the pilum was the primary weapon of the legionaire.  The first two that were thrown, (one heavy, one light) upon closing with the enemy are only the first.  More were brought up through the open ranks of the soldiers continuously through the battle.

So the pilum is both a shield incapacitating and armor piercing weapon.  This is more understandable when you realise that most of the Romans enemies had little more than a shield for defense.  (The celts had invented mail of course, but didn't mass produce it like the romans could.)

DB