half-swording?

[Mike Holmes]

Thanks for the comments, Jake. I think a consensus view is emerging.

How would this apply to Wyerth best, do you think? Any thoughts about the idea of makeing rules regarding this? Too little detail to be concerned about?

Mike

[Jake Norwood]

It's covered. Half-swording, as a technique, works. That's that. You can't use the technique until you've got a high enough proficiency level anyway, IIRC. Making up rules for this would be like making up rules for hitting yourself with the crossguard because you can't hold the sword right...

Am I answering the right question? Hmmm...

Jake

[Mike Holmes]

I was more refering to rules about interactions of differing blade geometries and armors.

Mike

[Salamander]

I was more refering to rules about interactions of differing blade geometries and armors.

Mike

I still think it is pretty much covered in the statistics for each weapon already.

[Mike Holmes]

I still think it is pretty much covered in the statistics for each weapon already.

True, but what I'm talking about is, for example, two longswords with different geometries. I'm guessing that it's not worth worrying about as the differences between different sorts of swords (scimitar to longsword, etc.) is much greater than this, and mechanically only amounts to a point of damage here, one more DTN there, etc. That is, as blade geometries probably vary less between different weapons of the same general label than between different sorts of swords entirely, they'd have to be accounted for fractionally to keep the differences on the same scale. Which is probably not worth it.

OTOH, with a system in which you had a much finer granularity, I think that it might be something that I'd put in just as an interesting detail. No biggie.

Mike

[Jake Norwood]

Ah, Mikey, I see now.

Frex, the difference between a longsword, a bastard sword, and an estoc, when half-swording, in a more granular world.

Yeah, could be fun.

Jake

[Jim]

Wyerth seems to strike me, as a fantasy world, as having more armor than historically would be available. That is, it's fun to have guardsmen in chain mail at times and such. Given that, in my game, I'd definitely have the same variety of swords that existed in the real world.

Armour prevalence:
Europe, late 15th century. In Europe, you bought your harness from the major centres such as Augsburg, Nuremburg, Milan or from the great harness markets such as Flanders. The sheer amount of armours prevalent at some large battles are breathtaking, the Burgundian Wars pitched Swiss pike troops (entire front ranks, sometimes three deep, were armoured in munitions gothic harness) against the Burgundian feudal troops and mercenaries, all heavily armoured. Even earlier, in 1295, Phillip the Fair bought 2853 helmets, 4511 padded jacks, 751 gauntlets and 6309 shields at one market in Bruges. This was 'from stock', obviously built up in readiness for the order but still an amazing number. Cicca Simonetta's armouring team undertook to make armour for six men-at-arms (men armed 'as knights') every day. One Milanese consortium of armourers put out about 5000 harnesses from stock as well, phenomenal numbers proving armour was widely prevalent.
Europe, 16th century. The Imperial Austrian armoury in the province of Styria (Landeszeughaus Graz) housed eight five thousand pieces of armour in readiness to issue to Imperial troops unable to bring their own harness, this would be poor men of the towns below guildsmen status and not belonging to any retinue, imagine the total amount of armoured troops in an Imperial army!
Finally, maille is essentially immortal unles burnt, mistreated or hacked to bits. Gerry Embleton has postulated that some pre-roman maille existed into the transitional plate era, and the great 'age of maille' hauberks were modified and used far into the gunpowder age.

[Caz]

That's something that's kinda bugged me about the different social classes in weyrth only being legally allowed certain armours.  In real history the only limiting factor seemed to be your purse.  Even if you were a drafte peasant, your lord would obviously want you to be as combat effective as possible, hence the lists of equipment soldiers showed up with, and the full armouries and munition gear for the under equipped.

[Jim]

Yep, although if you fronted up to muster with better armour than your liege lord, I bet an enormous amount of social pressure would be applied to get you to onsell it to him! :)
Blanket rules for what is and isn't allowed per social class are hard to enforce, they're good constructions stopping PCs being powerhouses but history abounds with variation.

A wierd one would have to be the German Ministeriales, or 'serf-knights'. Unfree men, bound to the land like any other serf but occuping the same social (in the manorial sense) and military place as a knight.

[Lance D. Allen]

Methinks you're reading too much into the law. As I see it, those serfs and lower freemen probably own kits of armor passed down, but they don't wear it around town. For one, why would they need to? For two, the governments would see peasants running around in armor as the signs of an incipient rebellion.

On the other hand, if those peasants or freemen are conscripted, you can be damned sure they'll be allowed to wear whatever armor they can muster, and provided with as much as their liege lords are willing to pay for, to make them more effective combat troops. The laws of peace don't apply to soldiers of war, and all that.

By the way.. any assumptions that Jake made such laws to nerf PCs from being powerhouses are most likely largely erroneous. While I have met a few scholars of history and sword on these forums who can surpass Jake's knowledge, for the most part, he is exceedingly knowledgeable, and any laws and customs cited for Weyrth are based on actual practices somewhere and somewhen in European history.

[Jim]

While Weyrth is not Earth, I think you'll find the Earth models the ruling were based on were aimed at law and order. In areas such as France that had blanket proscriptions on owning various weapons the fine for possessing such weapons were devastating. The ostensible reason for disallowing weapons was to inhibit the ability for lesser magnates to gather a large enough retinue and so prosecute feuds (Ger. fehdt 'private war'). Europe was wracked with these wars, especially in times of civil disturbance such as foreign conflicts, some of the nastiest northern English feuds were carried on while the Scots were raiding over the border nearby.
In Switzerland and many other places, burgesses were required to have a certain level of armour on hand for instant use, officers appointed to inspect this armour at musters were constantly catching people shifting the same harness around and saying it was their own to get out of a non-ownership fine. One of the reasons no one wanted to own a harness was that it was considered moveable property and effected your tax level, an expensive harness could catapult your tax well beyond your means to pay.
So there's this weird (but understandable) thing going across Europe in the late mediaeval/renaissance era where the royal governments want you to have the armour, but not if you're going to go and engage in unofficial war with it.
The War of the Roses is the classic problem where private ownership of weapons and armour coupled with powerful local magnates caused private wars to gradually add to the ground wave of violence, 'livery' (the granting of factional uniforms and badges in return for good lordship and the pursuing of the liveried person's rights) and 'maintenance' (the indentured service of individuals, possibly with their own retinues, for a indefinite contracted term in return for cash payments) caused huge local organisations to totally overwhelm royal power. When the wars finally erupted, these organisations marched en masse in service of one side or another.
Of course, it did have it's positive side. In a time when economics was only dimly understood and the royal power was totally unable to raise and maintain a defence force, livery and maintenance allowed the local magnate to march in defence of the realm with his own army.

[Jake Norwood]

Methinks you're reading too much into the law. As I see it, those serfs and lower freemen probably own kits of armor passed down, but they don't wear it around town. For one, why would they need to? For two, the governments would see peasants running around in armor as the signs of an incipient rebellion.

On the other hand, if those peasants or freemen are conscripted, you can be damned sure they'll be allowed to wear whatever armor they can muster, and provided with as much as their liege lords are willing to pay for, to make them more effective combat troops. The laws of peace don't apply to soldiers of war, and all that.

By the way.. any assumptions that Jake made such laws to nerf PCs from being powerhouses are most likely largely erroneous. While I have met a few scholars of history and sword on these forums who can surpass Jake's knowledge, for the most part, he is exceedingly knowledgeable, and any laws and customs cited for Weyrth are based on actual practices somewhere and somewhen in European history.

The laws have to do with peacetime and are really a detriment for weyrth to keep men from wandering around in armor all of the time. Historically it wasn't done, and historically if a guy showed up in armor you knew he was looking for a fight, whereas everyone was armed somehow.

Weyrth, while based on historical earth, isn't historical earth. A lot of stuff is there because it aids play in my estimation.

Also, I'd rather not look at them as laws and rather what you can get away with wearing in your station without raising some concerns within your "betters."

And Lance--who knows more about swords than me?

;-)

Jake

[timfire]

Interesting topic, I was wondering what the term half-swording was, too.

Though I had never heard the term, I thought I would bring up that I had encountered half-swording in my kenjutsu training. Because the katana is single-edged, the way I was shown was to support or push on the back of the blade, rather than grip the blade. This was in the context of either supporting a block, or in a sort of "push" cut (place the edge on the target, then using the off hand push into the target as you slice into it).

Also, interestingly, the development of the nagamaki (a 3 ft blade on a 3-4 ft handle) was the direct result of half-swording techniques.

From Karl Friday (on another forum):

Because nodachi, with their short hilts relative to their blade lengths, were difficult to handle, the practice of wrapping the lower part of the blade down to the tsuba (ie guard) with thin cord, so that this part of the sword could also be grasped, was introduced. These were called nakamaki nodachi (and other names too). These were later developed into the nagamaki, which usually featured a 3 foot blade mounted on a 3 or 4 foot hilt.

[kidar]

Hi,

I decided not to start a new topic for my questions regardin half-swording. Here they come..:

I don't know much about historical fencing and the first time I've read/heard something about half-swording is when I opened TROS rule book.

Now, it says that H-S has  ATN5 and DTN6. IMO they are amazingly low. Why would you ever need to do anything but half-sword with a bastard sword? The ATN lowers and thrusts are a lot more powerful against armor. The weapon of course looses some lenght, one step, but that isn't a big thingy.

What is not good with half-swording? Why wouldn't every just half-sword with a doppelhander or bastard sword? Shoult the ATN be 6 instead of 5?


kiD

[Ashren Va'Hale]

Why? that one length difference can make a world of difference in the long run, plus I have an optional rule in my game that half swording leaves your legs open like shields do. Based on personal experience, no problem on full evades but for parries, minus some dice depending on how much you choked up. The  the low ATN is reasonable based on my experience as well, it is easy to control and place your strikes where they need to be, and counters are very easy and wicked mean with the half sword.

I just wouldnt do it all the time as it removes alot of your versatility as well, no cuts and a limited striking range. Your opponent knows generally what to expect from your halfsword attacks. I simulate this in game by using the feint rules if I think the player has been camping in halfsword for too long. (1 extra die cost on attacks or extra die to the defender depending on my mood).