Topic: Revised Weapon Attack Tables

[The Hierophant]

Hello,

Long time lurker, first time poster.  I played RM2 years ago and I have started looking at RM2/C/E as a system to build my new setting on.  I've spent a while looking at various options (of which there are lots!) so expect more posts.

Anyway here's my question.  I came across John G's Revised Weapon Attack Tables in the Guild Companion http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2002/may/revisedweapontables.html.  I quite like the idea of not penalising heavy armours twice (once with Quickness penalty and once with concussion hits at lower to-hit-numbers) but not having tried the Revised Weapon Attack tables I'm not at all certain what impact these would have.  Presumably they make higher ATs even better?

Has anyone used them and does anyone have any views of either the revised weapon attack tables or the issue it tries to address.

[markc]

 I have not used them but what I have done is make AT2 standard for people and At-1 for fast animals. It works great.


 I do not see the double penalty and IMO the getting hit and taking small damage is as it should be. But that is juts my opinion and others should make up their own mind.


MDC

[VladD]

I have not tested those tables because:
The thing with wearing heavy armor is that you really do not care as much for defense anymore. Especially plate armor, used with good padding, will protect you from most blows. The only way to pry a knight out of his armor is by exploiting a weak point in his armor, or using a can opener: a very heavy one.
The low to-hit values on plate, heavy chain and heavy rigid leather simply mean that the wearer is more easily hit, because he doesn't care for those blows.

I do agree however that the quickness penalties are debilitating. I'd rather see them reduced by 5 for SL and RL by 10 for CH and 10-15 for Plate. The old table for Armor type penalties is based on a Mark Twain story, presumably, Yankee in king Athur's court, where full plated knights are hoisted on their horse. However re-enactors in faithfully reproduced armor have demonstrated the great freedom they still have, even when wearing 70 pounds of armor. I have worn full hauberks myself, but after taking in account the added weight I didn't really notice wearing the 60 pounds of mail. I was a little slower and slightly more clumsy, but nowhere near the debilitating penalties assigned to an untrained user by the RM system.

This is one of the nicest vids I found on medieval battles in Russia...TODAY! They are wearing fairly authentic russian armor (mostly mail) and those guys really try to inflict some damage. The only re-enactment trade-off I see are very heavy padded gloves those guys all use and PROBABLY (but I speak no Russian) their weapons are blunted. Check that split shield in the middle of the vid: that is how hard they try! and I see no one get injured. Probably some bruising, but no major injuries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xAbuL0_nPs&feature=related

For people interested in more vids: look at the side bars and follow the links around.

Enjoy!

[Nders]

What we do to avoid the double penalty for armor is to use the optional rule of allowing a characters strength to offset the quickness penalty. Thus a character with a strength total of 40 would recieve no quickness penalty no matter which armor he wore. It works very well and is one of the optional rules that ought to be made core IMO. Wel to be honest it sort of is but there is room for interpretation as to what exactly is meant by the core rule of strength reducing quickness penalties from armor. The official take is that it applies only to movement but this had to be deemed from the highest authority

[yammahoper]

is one of the optional rules that ought to be made core IMO

Agreed.  The math problem with negative St mods needs to be addressed.