Lances and mounted combat

[AmbientRaven]

Hi Folks,

My character died recently, so I am in the process of making another.
I am making a Mounted Halfling Dinorider. After reading up and checking everything out, I noticed that Lances don't really do much. In 3.5 They doubled damage after a charge.

Am I missing something, or are they just a one handed reach weapon when mounted.

Sidenote: Halflings cannot use heavy weapons, a lance is not heavy. But I asked the GM to make it 1d10 instead of 1D12 to keep in line with halfling weapons scaling down

Thanks for any responses!

[SharkForce]

it's already a d12 weapon that has reach and can be used in one hand. what more do you want, exactly? it does very close to double the damage of a one-handed spear as-is.

[Sigreid]

it's already a d12 weapon that has reach and can be used in one hand. what more do you want, exactly? it does very close to double the damage of a one-handed spear as-is.

I would consider letting a player substitute the mount's strength for their characters on a charge. Definitely a house rule, but historically the advantage of the lance was a braced lance takes advantage of the horse's power to deliver a incredible amount of force at the tip.

[Talamare]

I would consider letting a player substitute the mount's strength for their characters on a charge. Definitely a house rule, but historically the advantage of the lance was a braced lance takes advantage of the horse's power to deliver a incredible amount of force at the tip.
Instead I suggest if your mount has a charge ability, that it can be used

[Malifice]

I would consider letting a player substitute the mount's strength for their characters on a charge. Definitely a house rule, but historically the advantage of the lance was a braced lance takes advantage of the horse's power to deliver a incredible amount of force at the tip.

The d12 already accounts for this in a simplistic way.

A lance is really just a spear used from horseback.

[Flashy]

Sidenote: Halflings cannot use heavy weapons, a lance is not heavy. But I asked the GM to make it 1d10 instead of 1D12 to keep in line with halfling weapons scaling down

But halfling weapons don't scale down anymore...

[AmbientRaven]

But halfling weapons don't scale down anymore...

They do in a different way. Halfling cannot use heavy weapons. This rules out all two handed martial weapons. If they want a two handed sword, they use a Versatile longsword. it isnt the exact same, but, similar enough. Also thematically I don't see a halfling using a human size lance :p

[Lines]

Seems fine to me. A halfling can use a human longsword in one hand, why can't they use a lance in one hand?

[Talamare]

Using a Lance on Horseback literally only requires you to hold the thing steady. There is very little thrust, swing or weight of the weapon to throw around.
There is no reason why a Halfling can't use it one handed on horseback.

Even if they want to use it 2 handed on the ground for that 'mighty' d12 die, remember that they get disadvantage while within 5ft
I think it's better do just deal d10 than have to put up with the annoyance of constant shuffling because of disadvantage

[Knaight]

Using a Lance on Horseback literally only requires you to hold the thing steady. There is very little thrust, swing or weight of the weapon to throw around.
There is no reason why a Halfling can't use it one handed on horseback.

There's a fair amount of torque to contend with, and holding the thing steady is made more difficult by horse jostling. Some of the same things that would prevent a halfling from using a two handed weapon sized for humans on the ground effectively still apply. Others, such as being close to the ground and thus in a bad position to do anything that involves the weapon pointing very far down (which would actually be a really big problem with some two handed weapons) not so much. In this case, it's probably a high strength veteran warrior using it, and the problems pretty much completely go away, but generally a halfling trying to use a typical lance would have the same difficulties as a human trying to use a lance twice as long as a standard lance. There's real problems with them at that size, which is why they never really caught on despite being exactly the sort of thing that would be really helpful against packed pikes.

[Sigreid]

If D&D were simulationist there would be an issue with relative mass and the halfling possibly going flying.

[Slipperychicken]

If D&D were simulationist there would be an issue with relative mass and the halfling possibly going flying.

If D&D were simulationist, halflings would have the strength of toddlers and could never compare to humans in a straight up fight. I don't care how fast you think he is, a 3 foot tall dude at 40 pounds is not going to beat a person who is 6 feet, properly trained, and 220 pounds. The guy's armor alone probably weighs more than the halfling, not to mention the huge force he's putting behind each blow; the little guy wouldn't stand a chance.

It's fantasy. That means we can allow absolute nonsense like 3-year-old sized people jousting and beating well-trained knights, or a glorified street urchin killing godzilla by stabbing his toes with a dagger.

[Sigreid]

If D&D were simulationist, halflings would have the strength of toddlers and could never compare to humans in a straight up fight. I don't care how fast you think he is, a 3 foot tall dude at 40 pounds is not going to beat a person who is 6 feet, properly trained, and 220 pounds. The guy's armor alone probably weighs more than the halfling, not to mention the huge force he's putting behind each blow; the little guy wouldn't stand a chance.

It's fantasy. That means we can allow absolute nonsense like 3-year-old sized people jousting and beating well-trained knights, or a glorified street urchin killing godzilla by stabbing his toes with a dagger.

Yep. 100% agree.

[Talamare]

There's a fair amount of torque to contend with, and holding the thing steady is made more difficult by horse jostling. Some of the same things that would prevent a halfling from using a two handed weapon sized for humans on the ground effectively still apply. Others, such as being close to the ground and thus in a bad position to do anything that involves the weapon pointing very far down (which would actually be a really big problem with some two handed weapons) not so much. In this case, it's probably a high strength veteran warrior using it, and the problems pretty much completely go away, but generally a halfling trying to use a typical lance would have the same difficulties as a human trying to use a lance twice as long as a standard lance. There's real problems with them at that size, which is why they never really caught on despite being exactly the sort of thing that would be really helpful against packed pikes.

What is a 'typical lance'
because as you obviously know from your 'expertise' that there are 2 standards for Lances
The Light Lance can be as short as 6'
While the Heavy Lance could be as long as 14'

Light Lances were very maneuverable and left almost no blind side.
So, yea... I guess there isn't much problem with Human's using Lances twice the size of another Lance.

[Ruslan]

It's fantasy. That means we can allow absolute nonsense like 3-year-old sized people jousting and beating well-trained knights, or a glorified street urchin killing godzilla by stabbing his toes with a dagger.
It actually sounds quite bad now that you put it this way ...

[Slipperychicken]

It actually sounds quite bad now that you put it this way ...

The genre is called 'fantasy'. The term is associated with being whimsical and untethered by the laws of our world. It's a big part of why ideas about realism so often conflict with fantasy conventions.

And it's not a bad thing at all. We just need to figure out what we want our games of let's-pretend to be.

[JoeJ]

If D&D were simulationist, halflings would have the strength of toddlers and could never compare to humans in a straight up fight. I don't care how fast you think he is, a 3 foot tall dude at 40 pounds is not going to beat a person who is 6 feet, properly trained, and 220 pounds. The guy's armor alone probably weighs more than the halfling, not to mention the huge force he's putting behind each blow; the little guy wouldn't stand a chance.

Unless they had muscles more like a chimpanzee than a human.