The footman's pick and attack zones

[Jim DelRosso]

I was playing around with the combat simulator, and decided to try out a footman's pick (I'd had such fun taking Max Steele apart with a morning star, I just couldn't resist :-) ).

I found myself surprised that "thrust" was the only option, and that only the Thrusting zones were available for attack.  I understand that a pick does piercing damage, but I imagined that the motion of attack would be more like a cut or a bash.

I may be making amountain out of a molehill, but this kind of throws me.  So, I just wanted to ask the folks running and playing TROS -- have you had folks use picks?  And have they been using the thrusting attack zones, or the cutting/bashing attack zones?

If the former, how did you describe the action in game?  If the latter, how did you figure damage?

Thanks!

[Shadeling]

I was playing around with the combat simulator, and decided to try out a footman's pick (I'd had such fun taking Max Steele apart with a morning star, I just couldn't resist :-) ).

I found myself surprised that "thrust" was the only option, and that only the Thrusting zones were available for attack.  I understand that a pick does piercing damage, but I imagined that the motion of attack would be more like a cut or a bash.

I may be making amountain out of a molehill, but this kind of throws me.  So, I just wanted to ask the folks running and playing TROS -- have you had folks use picks?  And have they been using the thrusting attack zones, or the cutting/bashing attack zones?

If the former, how did you describe the action in game?  If the latter, how did you figure damage?

Thanks!

You do swing with a footmans pick...so you aim for those zones...however, you use Puncturing damage tables (which there are ones that correspond to those zones).

[Brian Leybourne]

Basically, I did it that way in the Sim because there's no puncture table for zones 1-7 :-) I agree that it seems more intuitive for a pick to use swing zones though.

On the other hand, if I swing at your head with a pick, that's really the same thing as thrusting at youir head. Ditto most other areas, it's really just the terminology "thrust" that irks me, but I couldn't be bothered renaming the button every time someone was using a pick.

Brian.

[Jim DelRosso]

Thanks for the replies!

So, could you use the swing attack zones for everything right up until you roll the d6, and then -- once you've determined the exact point of impact -- find the appropriate row for that zone on the puncture charts?

Or is that needlessly complex?

[Brian Leybourne]

Not really, because the puncture chart doesn't have entries for the swing zones. Swing cut goes 1-7 and thrust cut (i.e. puncture) goes 8-14 (then you have swing bash and thrust bash for the same zones).

You could do it the way you describe, but you would end up with slash/cut results instead of puncture ones (puncture tends to have less blood and more shock/damage IIRC).

Alternately, if you try to use the puncture tables with swing zones, you'll find they don't match exactly. Still, with some playing about it could work - it's worth a go if you really think it's worth the extra effort.

Brian.

[655321]

Basically, I did it that way in the Sim because there's no puncture table for zones 1-7 :-) I agree that it seems more intuitive for a pick to use swing zones though.

On the other hand, if I swing at your head with a pick, that's really the same thing as thrusting at youir head. Ditto most other areas, it's really just the terminology "thrust" that irks me, but I couldn't be bothered renaming the button every time someone was using a pick.

It will effect armor protection (shields in particular), tho a good GM (can't recall the TRoS term) can use common sense for this.