PDA

View Full Version : Calling upon Swordsmen



CowardlyPaladin
2015-07-11, 08:30 AM
For my D&D game I am introducing a system where you have "weapon skills" based upon your class and your strength, in order to try to break up the whole "I attack" level of strategy in D&D. If you put more points in, you can get special attacks that you can make at the expense of defense/attack (depending on the attack).

Problem is....I'm not a swordsmen I know a little bit about real life fighting because I'm a historian, but only in very broad basics. So I'm asking people what are some techniques and styles would be good to put into the game. I knew a few, like the Murder stroke to help you get ride of armor, halfswording to use a two handed weapon with more control, disarm, disengage, but thats about it. So does anybody know some good formal techniques how they work and what they are suppose to do? Thanks.


Edit: I should mention, while I was imagining the europeon Long sword or arming sword, this applies for other weapons too, the scimitar and the katana are weapons I know even less, and the rapier I know has lots of love. Spears, axes, maces, warhammer, anything with formal technique would be appreciated. thanks.

Cealocanth
2015-07-11, 10:20 AM
This section of the forum has an enormous chain of threads which cover this exact topic. You might get some more information under the "Got a Real World Weapons/Armor/Tactics Question?" threads.

MrStabby
2015-07-11, 10:41 AM
Just as an alternative point of view - dont make it accurate, make it up.

If you don't know the details then it is probably true your players don't either. And even if they did - its a game - who is going to allow a lack of realism getting in the way of having fun? Focus on abilities that are balance and interesting and add to the strengths/weaknesses of the classes then Pretend its accurate.

CowardlyPaladin
2015-07-11, 03:19 PM
Just as an alternative point of view - dont make it accurate, make it up.

If you don't know the details then it is probably true your players don't either. And even if they did - its a game - who is going to allow a lack of realism getting in the way of having fun? Focus on abilities that are balance and interesting and add to the strengths/weaknesses of the classes then Pretend its accurate.
Well from what I do know of real life swordplay, many of the techniques serve a very specific clever purpose, like the murder stroke. Its not realism, its ideas, I am sure that real life sword abilities had clever tricks that would be fun to play with it.

To answer the earlier question about the real life weapons and armor thread, going through all of that seems like extremely time consuming and difficult.

warty goblin
2015-07-11, 03:30 PM
Well from what I do know of real life swordplay, many of the techniques serve a very specific clever purpose, like the murder stroke. Its not realism, its ideas, I am sure that real life sword abilities had clever tricks that would be fun to play with it.

To answer the earlier question about the real life weapons and armor thread, going through all of that seems like extremely time consuming and difficult.

I don't think the idea was to go through that all of those threads, but to ask on the current incarnation of the Real World Weapons and Armor thread. There's a lot of knowledgeable people on there, several of whom seem to read and post nowhere else on this forum.

Dienekes
2015-07-11, 04:47 PM
Well, I'm a swordsman (admittedly a very, very crappy one), so I can give you some help.

For Longsword

A lot of attacks are really just trying to hit an opening and to make yourself not have an opening to hit. So really, there's just swinging your sword from point A to point B. These are designed to begin and end in one of the guards: ways to hold your sword to defend yourself.

The common guards are:
Plough: sword near your hip, point toward your enemies head or chest. Easy to defend your chest area, easy to thrust. Variations are pretty much your basic stance you see in movies.

Ox: Sword hilt is near the side of your head, the point toward your opponent's face. This is a pretty aggressive stance, as it allows you to thrust at your enemies head and chest easily, but it's a bit more difficult to defend against any attack that's aimed lower than your face.

Fool: Hilt is at your waist, the sword point is down toward the ground. It looks fairly open, however, you can swing your weapon up to defend yourself fairly easily against anything but attacks to your head. Maybe it gives a defensive bonus or a bonus to taunts or feint checks or something in D&D terms.

Roof: Hilt is either at the side of your head, or above your head with the weapon pointed up. An aggressive stance, very good for swings downward to the head, shoulders, and arms.

There are more, but that's the basic ones. The actual attacks are all aimed for hurting your arms, head, chest, legs, ect. The attacks themselves are really for your best judgment as to what they would do. For example a thrust from ox that hits your opponent in the face and then you bring your sword back into plough would be an attack. What it does is what you expect to happen when you stab someone in the face.

That said there are some moves that you could add. Such as the differences between swinging and jabbing with a sword. You can put more force behind a swing, but you can jab a bit quicker.

Draw cuts are where you try to cut your opponent by pushing or pulling the edge along their skin like it's a knife. It is very dangerous against skin contact making deep, long wounds. But is just about useless against rigid armor.

Beats: Knocking your opponent's weapon out of the way to make an opening to attack.

Bind: Locking your weapon against your opponents so neither can be used to attack with until the bind is broken. Generally used when you had a second weapon handy, or if you're transitioning from the bind into a full on grapple with your opponent.

Hook: If your weapon has one, such as a polearm, you can try to hook a part of their body to knock them off balance, or trip them.

Feints: Done pretty abysmally in D&D, the effect is fair enough, but you don't have to be a good liar to do it. Any swordsman worth their salt should know how to make a decent feint.

Rota: Is pretty much turning a parry into an attack by parrying a swing attack against you by putting your blade between theirs and their body and turning that into an attack.

Warding: I've never done, but it's been discussed a bit. Where you don't so much as attack an individual with your weapon but move it so a group of enemies cannot get with reach of you.

And a lot of grappling. Because when heavy armor is involved all that I've written is just methods of either tiring out your opponent or getting into a position so you can safely grapple them, pull out your knife (or start half-swording) and stabbing them wherever the armor is weakest, until they die.

Alejandro
2015-07-11, 08:23 PM
If you mean fencing (like with an epee or rapier) I can give suggestions.

CowardlyPaladin
2015-07-11, 09:09 PM
If you mean fencing (like with an epee or rapier) I can give suggestions.

That would be great thanks



And thanks D for all of those longsword notes, are their any types of unique special attacks like the Murder stroke you might recommend.

Dienekes
2015-07-11, 10:35 PM
That would be great thanks



And thanks D for all of those longsword notes, are their any types of unique special attacks like the Murder stroke you might recommend.

You see, the thing is, it's all just levers. From a sword to an axe, they're levers and they handle fairly similarly, in terms of what you can do by swinging a lever. There's not so much special attacks as learning how the properties of the weapon interact with things. Such as an axe or mace is top heavy, so it can put more force behind a blow, but it's slower to reposition when compared to a sword whose weight is more close to the hilt. While a longsword is balanced and designed to be as useful swinging as it is stabbing, and long enough to have reach advantage over most weapons, and has the heavier pummel and crossguard so you can effectively turn it into a pseudo-mace when performing the murder stroke). I know fencing has some differences between an epee and a rapier, but most of that is because of the rules placed upon the bouts rather than different capabilities of the weapon.

The closest I can really think of is:

Hooking with polearms, that I already mentioned (and I've seen at least one fechtbuch suggest that you can do this with a longsword when in the murder stroke position)

The francisca axe was as big as your usual battle axe but also was designed to be thrown as well, and had the interesting property of bouncing. So you'd throw it in between a bunch of people and no one knew which direction it would go.

All polearms can be set to take a charge

I've seen it suggested that polearms with heavier tops such as warhammers, used the buttspike to attack with most of the time, then swung it around to make a great hit with the top when the enemy was too weakened to really defend against it.

Um, with heavier weapons like a two-handed mass weapon or greatsword or something, I've seen someone let the enemy get close, get a few clean hits to their armor then cleave down from Roof stance as hard as they could to hit their enemy's weapon which completely bent the thing to make it unusable.

I've seen one-handed axes that had their heads hooked around a shield and then yanked it out of the guys hands. You could theoretically do this with any hooked weapon, but the angle is easier with a one-handed weapon.

I've seen someone throw their shield, that was hilarious. It worked too. Hit the guy right in the thigh, he doubled over in pain and shock and the formerly shielded guy chopped at him for the win.

Spears can be grabbed closer to their heads so that they can attack adjacent enemies. Though it takes a second to transition to this position, though nearly no time at all to extend back out again.

Yeah sorry, I don't know many special attacks, you just try to hit them and not get hit in return. But it's a complicated thing of knowing where to put your weapon and how to move. Knowing how it all interacts and trying to open up your enemy to an attack.

Dusk Eclipse
2015-07-11, 11:38 PM
What edition? In any case I'll go with what I know (3.5 and/or PF) and against the trend, check out Tome of Battle and Path of War, the disciplines there are as good it can get in D&D when trying to emulate martial arts; sure the maneuver system is not perfect, but it is quite fun and that's it what D&D is about isn't it?

IZ42
2015-07-12, 12:21 AM
I might be able to help with some eastern weapons, or at least eastern uses of weapons, such as the Chinese Broadsword (shaped similarly to a Scimitar, different fighting style I think), the bo staff (quarterstaff, basically), Jian (Chinese Straightsword), and spear. Not too good with Straightsword or spear, though. Much better unarmed, but that's not what you want.

Milo v3
2015-07-12, 01:29 AM
How many additional skill points are you going to give martial characters?

CowardlyPaladin
2015-07-12, 02:56 AM
To answer everybody, this is 3.5/Pathfinder/Homebrew, the more weapons the better would be better, various tactics (like hooking with polearms).

The way the system works is that each class gets a certain number of skill poitns which are x+strength. Fighters and Barbariansget 8+strength per level (times 4 at first level), Martial adepts, monks, Paladins and rangers get 6+strength , Rogues get 4+strength, and caster classes get 2+strength

CowardlyPaladin
2015-07-12, 03:35 AM
Basically their are four types of weapon skills. Tools, Armor, Style, and Tactics



Tools are techniques and skills from the weapons themselves (Shields are included in this as well) and are divided into these broad categories.

Sword, Large (Claymores, Greatswords, Two handed swords etc)

Swords, Medium (Long Swords, ARming Swords, Broad Sword

Swords, Small (Short Swords, Half Swords, historical falchion, Gladius)

Sword Light (Rapier, Smallswords, xiphan)

Swords curved, (Scimitar, Sabers, Dao, Shamshir, various Russian/Turkish swords)

Are Katana unique enough to be their own thing?

Axes one handed (Hand Axe, War Axe etc)

Axes Two Handed (Battle Axe, Great Axe etc)

Maces/Clubs

Chain Weapons (Flails, numchuks etc)

Whip weapons (Chain Whips, normal whips, various chain weapons without a stick)

Staff (Quarter staff, bo staff etc)

Polearm (Glaive, Guisarme, pole axes etc)

Spear (various....spears)

Daggers

Bows

Crossbows

Sling

Missile weapons (Javelin, dart etc)

Exotic weapons (anything weird and bizarre)

Shield light

Shield Heavy

Unarmed.

I don't know enough about warhammers to know if it would fit under axes or maces or should be its own thing.

I think that is it, but if people know others let me know

Important note, you need to invest a few points in a weapon before you can make up for the massive minuses you get, if you don't have any points in sword and use one, you could very easily hurt yourself, so their is a "Base competency level" swords and bows have a higher one, so martial classes are encouraged to invest in swords while other classes will be better off going with maces or axes (certain classes gain automatic points in certain weapons, so Samurai start out already proficiency with Katana)


Then we have ARmor which I haven't finished.



Then I have weapon styles which is basically how you use weapons together (using the weapon on its own is just the default assumption)

Weapon and Shield


Equal Length Weapon (like axe and mace)

Duel Wield (two of the same weapon)

Longer Weapon and Shorter Weapon

Weapon on Mount

Weapon with Unarmed.



FInally and I just came up with this idea to have characters get certain advantages in certain types of fighting to encourage players to try to fight in certain terrains or styles. I haven't come up with all of them but what I have is


Shield Wall (This includes Phanlix)

Ambush

Hit and Run

Wedge fighting

Legion (basically the roman style of fight for a bit and then move back to let somebody else fight, I don't know a better word for this)

Dienekes
2015-07-12, 09:59 AM
Basically their are four types of weapon skills. Tools, Armor, Style, and Tactics



Tools are techniques and skills from the weapons themselves (Shields are included in this as well) and are divided into these broad categories.

Sword, Large (Claymores, Greatswords, Two handed swords etc)

Swords, Medium (Long Swords, ARming Swords, Broad Sword

Swords, Small (Short Swords, Half Swords, historical falchion, Gladius)

Sword Light (Rapier, Smallswords, xiphan)

Swords curved, (Scimitar, Sabers, Dao, Shamshir, various Russian/Turkish swords)

Are Katana unique enough to be their own thing?

Well, looking at the Goliath Fechtbuch, greatswords and the like seem to have pretty much the same fighting methods as a longsword (that's the actual longsword, not the thing D&D calls a longsword), or bastard sword would have. Which would, in turn, be fairly similar in style to what was being done with the katana. Going by the "everything's just a lever" bit, it'd be kind of weird if a trained swordsman could use one thing but have 0 points in another.

The real styles of swordfighting I've seen have most been divided into:
Two-handed: greatswords, longswords, katanas, ect.
One-handed generally used with a shield: Arming swords, galdius, viking swords and the like.
One-handed jabbing: rapiers, sideswords
One-handed cutting: scimitars, sabers

Though this is a bit of an odd divide as both rapiers and scimitars were used with shields as well.



Axes one handed (Hand Axe, War Axe etc)

Axes Two Handed (Battle Axe, Great Axe etc)

Maces/Clubs

Chain Weapons (Flails, numchuks etc)


Mass Weapons, are another that are largely used the same. Axes, maces, hammers, they're handled largely the same way with minor exceptions for the properties of the specific weapons (Does that axe or mace have a spike on the top? Does that axe or hammer have a hook?)

The other mace weapon are flails, which would probably be their own thing as the continued swinging to keep up momentum would probably count for an additional style. But it'd be a pretty similar style.

So I'd go something like:
One-handed mass weapon
Two-handed mass weapon
Flails



Whip weapons (Chain Whips, normal whips, various chain weapons without a stick)


I have no idea how to use a whip.



Staff (Quarter staff, bo staff etc)

Polearm (Glaive, Guisarme, pole axes etc)

Spear (various....spears)


I'd probably just put polearm and spear together as well. Or, putting some polearms that can be used as both spears or two-handed mass weapons. They're used similarly, with a lot of the differences being more focused on the specific head of the weapon.



Daggers

Bows

Crossbows

Sling

Missile weapons (Javelin, dart etc)

Exotic weapons (anything weird and bizarre)

Shield light

Shield Heavy

Unarmed.

I don't know enough about warhammers to know if it would fit under axes or maces or should be its own thing.

I think that is it, but if people know others let me know

Important note, you need to invest a few points in a weapon before you can make up for the massive minuses you get, if you don't have any points in sword and use one, you could very easily hurt yourself, so their is a "Base competency level" swords and bows have a higher one, so martial classes are encouraged to invest in swords while other classes will be better off going with maces or axes (certain classes gain automatic points in certain weapons, so Samurai start out already proficiency with Katana)


I don't really see how someone is more likely to hurt themselves with a sword than an axe. But I have not studied how accident prone each weapon is.



Then I have weapon styles which is basically how you use weapons together (using the weapon on its own is just the default assumption)

Weapon and Shield


Equal Length Weapon (like axe and mace)

Duel Wield (two of the same weapon)

Longer Weapon and Shorter Weapon

Weapon on Mount

Weapon with Unarmed.



FInally and I just came up with this idea to have characters get certain advantages in certain types of fighting to encourage players to try to fight in certain terrains or styles. I haven't come up with all of them but what I have is


Shield Wall (This includes Phanlix)

Ambush

Hit and Run

Wedge fighting

Legion (basically the roman style of fight for a bit and then move back to let somebody else fight, I don't know a better word for this)

This is interesting, though a part of me thinks it'd just be a bit easier to just go with weapon styles over specific weapon skills. What you have here is where your attempts at realism kinda makes things unrealistic. For example, I practice longsword and some sword and shield. But if I pick up a katana I don't suddenly become non-proficient and everything I learned with the longsword is still largely applicable. I just have to get used to the fact that it's a bit shorter and I can't use the back edge, which honestly, isn't that much of an insurmountable problem. Same with using a shield/sword or shield/axe, I've done both and maybe my shield/sword I'm a bit more comfortable with because I'm more used to my practice sword, but overall you just need to remember that you can hook things, and get used to the weight distribution difference, which again, is not that big of a deal. Which is why you get fechtbuchs of masters explaining how to use pretty much every weapon commonly (and sometimes uncommonly) available at the time. The core principles carry over.

If I had to guess, I'd think there'd be something similar going on with bows and crossbows. Once you know the proper way to aim with one, it'll carry over to the other. All that remains is getting used to your specific weapons minor quirks, how to appropriately load it, and you're golden. But I'm not an archer, at all, my aim is abysmal, so apply a grain of salt here.

warty goblin
2015-07-12, 12:49 PM
If I had to guess, I'd think there'd be something similar going on with bows and crossbows. Once you know the proper way to aim with one, it'll carry over to the other. All that remains is getting used to your specific weapons minor quirks, how to appropriately load it, and you're golden. But I'm not an archer, at all, my aim is abysmal, so apply a grain of salt here.

My guess is that although there's carryover - in that both are weapons you aim - there's pretty significant differences between shooting a bow and a crossbow. For one thing unless I'm much mistaken, a crossbow will not suffer from the archer's paradox, and also not force you to aim while also compressing a very resistant spring.

But overall yes, I'd agree that you can compress weapon skills considerably.

ExLibrisMortis
2015-07-12, 01:18 PM
You don't have a lot of time to aim a handbow, as compared to a crossbow, and your arms are doing something quite different. Some skills do carry over, but I imagine those would be the skills you don't use your arms for: Spot/Perception to see the enemy, being able to estimate where your target will be, how fast your projectile has to go and so on.

Remember to use skill tricks rather than full-on skills for your special combat techniques, like Shield Wall and Hit and Run (which is already covered under Stealth, Athletics and movement speed).

Mr Beer
2015-07-13, 12:18 AM
If you want to make fighting more realistic like this, you could consider switching systems. D&D has a pretty bad combat system.

elliott20
2015-07-13, 11:31 AM
What edition? In any case I'll go with what I know (3.5 and/or PF) and against the trend, check out Tome of Battle and Path of War, the disciplines there are as good it can get in D&D when trying to emulate martial arts; sure the maneuver system is not perfect, but it is quite fun and that's it what D&D is about isn't it?

I second this. Given that you're talking about 3.5E anyway, Tome of Battle was basically built to go directly with it. It's your "technique as casting" kind of system, so it can be counter intuitive but I think you can definitely, make it seamless if you make sure the fluff goes with the mechanics.

PersonMan
2015-07-13, 12:44 PM
If you want to make fighting more realistic like this, you could consider switching systems. D&D has a pretty bad combat system.

I'd say it depends on what kind of combat you want. DnD isn't good at representing the kind of feint-dodge-block-parry intricacies most fighting will have, but it is good at boiling the complexities of melee combat down into something that's a lot faster and easier to use than even, say, GURPS' fighting system.

elliott20
2015-07-13, 04:20 PM
I'd say it depends on what kind of combat you want. DnD isn't good at representing the kind of feint-dodge-block-parry intricacies most fighting will have, but it is good at boiling the complexities of melee combat down into something that's a lot faster and easier to use than even, say, GURPS' fighting system.

Honestly, I think the best "realistic" combat system would probably be Riddle of Steel.

Octopusapult
2015-07-15, 02:28 AM
You should check out Skallagrim (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3WIohkLkH4GFoMrrWVZZFA)on youtube.

He does a lot of weapon reviews, technique reviews, sparring videos, and stuff like that.