Spare arms

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by drohem

...
Maces were a staple of starting adventurers as well. I usually always had a backup weapon or two. I think every character I had carried a dagger just in case things got desperate.

Idem for us.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

I pesonally have used disarm and have it used against me, but I agree this is rare.
But what I have seen and used is: Targeting the weapon to destroy it.
On axes and maces, this is a worthwile tactic. Versus swords, it is a bit longer, but it works also.

That might have been workable in RQ2, but by the time of 3, they had _way_ too many armor points for that to be useful unless you just had a monstrous damage bonus and they were heavily armored in the first place. You could easily take twice the time to break most weapons than it took to kill the wielder.

And in RQIII, the broadsword and the scimitar (the most common 1 handed swords) are impaling weapons. I have already lost (and recovered later) several time my sword that way.

I can't say I ever saw anyone do so locally; it happened with rapiers when they were used, but not longswords (I'm not sure I recall anyone as of RQ3 using a scimitar). Of course people were awfully fond of bastardswords, so perhaps there just weren't that preportionately many longsword users once they had the strength to move up.

I know it is not mandatory to use one's sword that way, but the impale bonus is often too tempting.

But that's probably why people _didn't use it; no one wanted to be disarmed just to get in one good hit. People willing to do that used spears in the first place, and they were a minority.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Have you ever had your shield rendered unusable.
I had and this is another reason to have a parrying weapon available (once

People lost shields sometimes, but to be honest, unless you took a lot of time to learn one as a backup, you weren't going to be worth a damn parrying with a backup weapon anyway. If you lost your shield, you were just as well off trying to parry with your weapon at hand; after all you could do that if it was all you had.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

Most of my characters went for the standard layering combinations: soft leather with bezainted, cuibouilli, or ringmail.

I don't recall why anymore, but in RQ3 we almost never saw layered armor; I seem to recall there was some mechanical disadvantage that no one wanted to deal with.

[/quote]
Maces were a staple of starting adventurers as well. I usually always had a backup weapon or two. I think every character I had carried a dagger just in case things got desperate.[/quote]

Well, most people did have a light backup weapon of some kind; I just noted that almost no one carried two (other than a knife), and that some people could go a long time without needing one.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

oh...and "I love my shield!"

Always the sign of an RQ player.

[drohem]

The only disadvantage for layering soft leather or heavy cloth under hard armor is you add the ENC of both armor suits/pieces. However, you also added the Armor Points together.

Now, if you tried to layer hard armor with hard armor, then you ran into trouble. You added the Armor Points of both armor suits/pieces, but you tripled the ENC of the lesser hard armor.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by drohem

The only disadvantage for layering soft leather or heavy cloth under hard armor is you add the ENC of both armor suits/pieces. However, you also added the Armor Points together.

Now, if you tried to layer hard armor with hard armor, then you ran into trouble. You added the Armor Points of both armor suits/pieces, but you tripled the ENC of the lesser hard armor.

I once saw a character wear four layers of armor. Plate over doublemail with padding. Great AP, but he couldn't fight for long. But it helped when going after a Dragon.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I don't recall why anymore, but in RQ3 we almost never saw layered armor; I seem to recall there was some mechanical disadvantage that no one wanted to deal with.

...

According to RQIII, you can carry 2 layers armor if:
1 - the innermost is soft armor
2 - the innermost has fewer AP than the outermost.
The consequence is that you add the AP and the inner ENC is doubled.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

That might have been workable in RQ2, but by the time of 3, they had _way_ too many armor points for that to be useful unless you just had a monstrous damage bonus and they were heavily armored in the first place. You could easily take twice the time to break most weapons than it took to kill the wielder.
...

Don't forget that if you strike deliberately the weapon, you don't substract 1AP but the difference between AP and damage rolled.
A broadsword has 10 AP. If you do 12, it goes down to 8, not 9.
And the main advantage of hitting the weapon is that it is not protected by the shield. When your opponent has a hoplite shield (18 AP) or even a round (12 AP), that makes a BIG difference.


Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

...
I can't say I ever saw anyone do so locally; it happened with rapiers when they were used, but not longswords (I'm not sure I recall anyone as of RQ3 using a scimitar). Of course people were awfully fond of bastardswords, so perhaps there just weren't that preportionately many longsword users once they had the strength to move up.
...

This campaign is in Prax. We use the cultural weapons, so Lunar characters use scimitars, and non lunar don't. And for the bastard sword, in Prax, they are hard to get and terribly expensive, at least with our GM. And considering the access to metal, I find this logical, and I continue using my broadsword.


Runequestement votre,

Kloster