Some maneuver and weapon questions.

[Mokkurkalfe]

I got the chance to play a lot during the past week. During this time, I have come up with a few questions.
First, how should evasive attack be handled when you're facing multiple opponents? For that matter, how should any action be handled against multiple opponents?
Also, why is it that putting a spear point at the end of a quarter-staff makes it more difficult to parry with? Do you use a different technique?
And what is the cost for the new horse breeds in oBaM?
And given that most of my PC's are more or less typical adventurers, they are almost always homeless. That means that they usually have a *lot* of money on their hands, since thy don't have to buy a house. Suppose they buy any equipment they want, and it costs a total of 5 gold. If they're Low Freeman, they still have 10 gold to spare. If a Peasant, the they may not have that kind of money left, but they'll come with a longsword, chain shirt, leather for the extremites, pot helm, full travelling equipment, bow and quiver, three sets of clothing and a few silvers to spare!
In some cases it would work, i.e. if the Peasant has sold his house and everything to buy this equipment, but that is usually not the case.
One solution would be to enforce new costs that I haven't thought of. Any ideas?
Another is to simply lower the starting budget. But with how much?
Help is really appreciated.

[Ingenious]

While you bring up some thoughts that I am not qualified to answer, my first experience with TROS was with a GM that stated that each character essentially cashed in their houses, life savings, nest-eggs.. etc... in order to fund their adventuring careers. This brings up the logical point of which why the different social classes start with such varying amounts of money. A peasant's life savings could amount to only 5 gold, because he IS a peasant after-all and worked for cheap, but yet lived cheaply. This gets scaled up a bit towards the upper classes too. And if you're seriously worried about the amount of gold each player has, maybe they bought their equipment from a country that instituted heavy taxation. This would take their remaining cash reserves down a bit.. but I always liked to carry around some money in an adventure as a precautionary measure.
I do know how to handle attacks against multiple opponents however, use terrain rolls.. keep the players moving about in the fighting.. it isn't like the old school vid-game of Mortal Kombat where it was all 2-dimensional fighting and such... I assume in your world there are trees to block some of the attackers, tables, chairs, horses, etc.
As to the other stuff, maybe Jake knows.. or someone more knowledgable in weaponry than I.

-Ingenious

[Caz]

"Also, why is it that putting a spear point at the end of a quarter-staff makes it more difficult to parry with? Do you use a different technique?"

   Good question.  Also, why is it harder to parry when holding a dagger than with bare hands?  I think it's house rule time.

[Lance D. Allen]

I would say that if the character doesn't spend some of their funding on housing and such, that they don't have any means of additional income, as described in the book. They've severed ties to any one place, and as such, don't get paid. See page 202, Sources of Wealth for more information on this.

Also, in the case of peasants, this could anger the lord that they worked for, depending on the circumstances under which they severed ties. Even high freemen usually work for someone, so there are story hooks for why they're wandering free as well. Unless the PCs specifically state something about it in their background stories, make 'em pony up to the consequences of being unattached.

As for evasive attack.. Use common sense. Essentially you're going backward from the opponent you're attacking. If you've not managed to maneuver to be facing only one opponent at a time, then the others may, depending on their relative positions, have a free shot at you.. or if they're right next to the man you're moving away from, they may have the same penalties to attack as that opponent.

Have you ever handled a quarterstaff? Have you ever handled a spear? I can't speak with total authority as my experience involves mock-up weapons, but as spears are exceedingly unbalanced (much of the weight is centered at the very end) they're not good defensive weapons.

Horse costs (my take):

Destrier: same as listed, page 205
Courser: same as listed, page 205
Palfrey: same as Riding horse, page 205
Rouncy: same as Work or Cart Horse, page 205
Garron: same as Pony, page 205

[Mokkurkalfe]

So a spear is more unbalanced than staves? Ok, it makes sense.
Good take on the horses, there.

On multiple opponents, I was refering to the cases where terrain rolls was not an option or if the terrain roll failed. In this case, it was in a street, which two PCs had to cover. That street was wide enough for four people to fight "side by side". After rolling a terrain roll to avoid being flanked, they *had* to fight two opponents each.

On the money subject, at what age is the character supposed to have the kind of money each social class recieves? I mean, a 19 year old is not going to have as much savings and property as someone in his thirties or forties, right?

[toli]

I mean, a 19 year old is not going to have as much savings and property as someone in his thirties or forties, right?

I interpret $$ as inheritance for young characters and savings for older ones.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

"
   Good question.  Also, why is it harder to parry when holding a dagger than with bare hands?  I think it's house rule time.

parrying with your bare hands means you simply need to redirect the blow using your hand or arm, you also take damage to the parrying limb if the blow is a swing not thrust. in other words, its easy but generally a dumb, dumb thing to do if the other guy has a weapon, a dagger though is going to survive said parry IF its used correctly, its smaller than your whole arm and the blade must catch the incoming weapon just right and you are actively trying to keep the incoming weapon from bouncing into your hand/ arm

now if you want to house rule anything, you might let the attacker lower the dagger dtn to that of a hand but dictate that under a certain number of succeses means the blow hits the hand/arm. or if the attack was a thrust, allow the use of the hand dtn as you can deflect the thrust with dagger, hand or arm without serious effects.

[toli]

What do you think about parrying 'bare handed' when you are wearing plate armor? Would it really be much different from parrying with a buckler, in terms of effect at least?  In both cases you would really be trying to redirect not block a swing.

[Prince of Thieves]

What do you think about parrying 'bare handed' when you are wearing plate armor? Would it really be much different from parrying with a buckler, in terms of effect at least? In both cases you would really be trying to redirect not block a swing.

Just my thoughts. I think you would much rather parry with a buckler because then (with success of corse) the blow would be deflected by the buckler instead of smashing into your armored limb. Still if you were facing a weak combatant who was attacking weakly (not alot of dice) and you didn't have a better option go for it. Worse case it would hit one of the weaker parts of your armor like the hand or elbow. I don't think armored gauntlets would give 6AV like a breastplate or helm but they should be good for 3-4 AVs.

[Lance D. Allen]

It would be notably less protection than parrying with a buckler.. Generally, the palm of the hand was covered by a leather glove; you can't really (and the more knowledgeable are free to correct me if I'm wrong) put plate into the palm of the hand and still expect to be able to flex the hand enough to grab things..

On the other hand, specially designed gloves (arming gloves) did have a light chain mesh in the hand.. but this was mostly to avoid being cut, I'd think, rather than offering full protection.

[Caz]

I can say with authority that a spear is no less balanced and no heavier than a staff, at least not noticable, so that theory is out the window.  
  If you have a dagger, it should be even easier than parrying with bare hands.  When it's held underhand, you can use it just like your bare arm, but you can catch blows on the dagger instead of your flesh if you want.  When overhand, it's just like a longer, sharp arm.  
   BTW, can anyone give me historical reference for arming gloves?  Just curious.

[Brian Leybourne]

I can say with authority that a spear is no less balanced and no heavier than a staff, at least not noticable, so that theory is out the window.

You hold a spear a lot differently than you hold a staff. The way a spear is held would make it harder to parry with than a staff, I would think.

(Not an expert; that's Jakes department).

Brian.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

What do you think about parrying 'bare handed' when you are wearing plate armor? Would it really be much different from parrying with a buckler, in terms of effect at least?  In both cases you would really be trying to redirect not block a swing.

I would have the armor soak the damage and if it went past the AV then toughness, you are wounded sucker!

but thats my call based on how a buckler and armor were made for different purposes, a blade naturally is redirected by the buckler, not with the armor.

If you have a dagger, it should be even easier than parrying with bare hands. When it's held underhand, you can use it just like your bare arm, but you can catch blows on the dagger instead of your flesh if you want. When overhand, it's just like a longer, sharp arm.

No, not really, ARM= naturally attached part of body, likely you were born with it. Moving it into place, pretty damn natural, dont really need to learn too much there. If you did, man sorry to hear that but I think you can get disability pay for problems like that. DAGGER= held item, uniquely shaped, requires training, not hinged or completely instinctive in use.

And its NOT like a longer arm, unless you dont mind sword blades hitting you in the forearm and you have a cross guard on your elbow or a sharp/flat part of your arm. If you have any of the above, please take pictures, it would probably net you some cash on those neat tabloids, like the one I saw the other day that said "Bat Boy leads US troops to Saddam's spider hole" I hear they pay good for that kind of stuff.

seriously, having actually used both bare hands and a dagger in actual practice, there is a real difference. The modeling in the game via DTN is pretty appropriate. I prefer to parry with my sword (DTN 7) but will use a dagger in a pinch (dtn 8) but I like parrying with my hands the least as it hurts like hell to get hit with a waster on the arms. If you would like to try this for yourself, locate your nearest sca and have them smack you around. Also take pictures/video of this as we all would find it highly amusing.

and dont take any of this personally, I am being hyperbolic.

[Jake Norwood]

First, how should evasive attack be handled when you're facing multiple opponents? For that matter, how should any action be handled against multiple opponents?

Are you splitting your pool or using terrain rolls? If splitting the pool, then it's a separate roll for every combatant. If using terrain rolls, you're only fighting one guy in reality anyway.

Also, why is it that putting a spear point at the end of a quarter-staff makes it more difficult to parry with? Do you use a different technique?

Honestly? It's not that much different. I didn't know as much then as I know now. That being said, they are different tools to some extent. The balance will be different. The grip, however, is identical (ignoring the middle-grip in asian staff work and later european sport staff). Is it more than one higher? It probably shouldn't be if it is.

And what is the cost for the new horse breeds in oBaM?

Well, if the book is 144 pages and each breed takes up about half a page, and the book cost $25...the that's about 1/300th of $25, whatever that is.

Okay, sorry, just kidding. I have no idea of the costs.

And given that most of my PC's are more or less typical adventurers, they are almost always homeless. That means that they usually have a *lot* of money on their hands, since thy don't have to buy a house. Suppose they buy any equipment they want, and it costs a total of 5 gold. If they're Low Freeman, they still have 10 gold to spare. If a Peasant, the they may not have that kind of money left, but they'll come with a longsword, chain shirt, leather for the extremites, pot helm, full travelling equipment, bow and quiver, three sets of clothing and a few silvers to spare!
In some cases it would work, i.e. if the Peasant has sold his house and everything to buy this equipment, but that is usually not the case.
One solution would be to enforce new costs that I haven't thought of. Any ideas?

Beginning wealth is definitely life savings when liquidated. Therefore, ask where they got the money. Did they sell the farm? To whom? Did they get full price for it? Would it have gotten out that there's a few guys with their life savings in cash it little bags at their hips? People would kill for that now...imagine "then."


Lastly, with the dagger parry thing.

Parrying with a dagger against anything other than a thrust is nearly impossible if the guy really wants to kill you, unless you are quite skilled (in TROS terms, that means "higher DTN"). Historically the dagger was protection against thrusts and for closing in for the kill, meaning that the sword was actually the defense weapon and the dagger was the kill weapon. It's an issue of leverage, amongst other things.

Blocking or deflecting with an armored hand would work quite well I suppose, and you could treat it as a buckler if you liked. Bucklers are pretty swell things overall. The key is indeed deflection in all instances IRL. In TROS, the DTN is really a calculation (approximation and best guess, actually) of the speed and deflective capabilities of a tool. If it's higher, then it required greater skill to use in that capacity.

Hope that helps!

Jake

[Mike Holmes]

On the spear thing, think of that DTN as the one handed DTN. Spears are used this way with shields, and when using a spear one handed, it's probably the worst parrying device in the world. Because no matter where you hold it, the length works against you. For two handed, I'd just assume that it's being handled like a quarterstaff for defense, and use that TN.

Why use a spear with a shield then? Sounds pretty lethal. Well, it's a mass formation weapon (and dirt cheap, too, especially if it's actually just a sharpened stick). So TFOB will cover that. Right Brian?

Mike