Weapons & Armor for a Bronze Age Setting?

[Palanan]

Are there any official Paizo sources for a Bronze Age setting, especially giving stats for weapons and armor?

I’m aware of a handful of items in Ultimate Combat, but ideally I’d like to find a fully fleshed-out list of Bronze Age weaponry. Are there any official Paizo publications that provide this?

[zlefin]

I've never seen suhc a list; all I've seen is the general entry for bronze as a material and the effects it has on gear.

They probably just rely on that plus the few special pieces of equipment to cover things.

[Ashtagon]

Aside from the bronze material construction affecting the quality of weapons and armour, the main change will be in terms of some weapons and armour being absent from the equipment list. Just going by the 3.5e SRD (yes, I know the PRD goes further; extrapolate).

Armour:

Missing: chainmail (and all "chain" variants), plate armour (except for breastplate).

More specifically, articulated plates that made gauntlets and arm/leg armour (especially the joints) practical was a medieval invention.

Armour spikes are non-historical, so use at your discretion. In GURPS terms, their tech level is ^.

Weapons:

Gauntlets would only be available in leather, if at all. GM decision whether that counts for game purposes.

Spiked gauntlets are non-historical (and would not be available at this tech level, as they would require a metal foundation for the spikes).

Missing: Morning star, crossbow (in all forms), military picks (in all forms), swords (except shortsword), most polearms would be missing (except pikes, spears and "simple axe on a pole" weapons).

Most of the "monk" weapons are East Asian in nature. Whether they are available in a bronze age setting depends on whether you have that cultural influence in your setting.

Darts were an iron age invention, but could be plausible in bronze age.

Double weapons are non-historical.

The weapon known in real life as a warhammer would have been a medieval era weapon (and it was a type of military pick axe). However, the D&D stats reflect a hammer-type weapon (sometimes known as a maul), which would have been available.

Scythe: The "simple agricultural scythe" with a straight pole and a blade mounted at right angles, was invented around 5000 BC. The modern agricultural scythe, which has a complex curve to the pole, was invented around the 17th/18th century. The fauchard, which was essentially a scythe blade mounted perpendicular to the pole rather than at right angles, was a medieval invention. Whether you consider the scythe to be available as a weapon or not depends on whether you consider the simple agricultural scythe to be represented by the D&D scythe stats.

Bows:

Shortbows and longbows were known since prehistory; a longbow was found in the possession of Otzi (Alps, circa 3100 BC). Composite bows were introduced to Egypt around 1700 BC, but were known in central Asia earlier than that. It is unclear how much earlier.

Note that composite bows in D&D, and only composite bows, allow for Strength bonuses. However, in reality a non-composite bow could do that just as well. (3.0e did this right by calling them mighty bows.)

Compound bows were invented in 1966.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by zlefin
I've never seen suhc a list; all I've seen is the general entry for bronze as a material and the effects it has on gear.

Thanks. Expanding to 3.5, do you happen to know if this was ever covered in any official 3.5 source, and/or a Dragon article?

[Tzardok]

Dungeon Master's Guide in chapter 5 has a section on technology levels. That's where bronze as a material is described. Don't ask me about the exact page number; I only have the German version of the book right here.

[inuyasha]

Thanks. Expanding to 3.5, do you happen to know if this was ever covered in any official 3.5 source, and/or a Dragon article?

Well, I think it's 3.0, but I'm pretty sure it's covered in the Arms & Equipment Guide

[Maat Mons]

Bronze khopeshes were used in Egypt, and bronze lamellar armor was used in Persia.

Edit: Also, padded armor was quite common. In Greece, it was called linothorax.

I'm not sure leather armor was ever really a thing.

Edit 2:

Linothorax
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/92/11/U2CIX3kD_t.jpg (https://imgbox.com/U2CIX3kD)
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/79/2b/82dJvw6X_t.jpg (https://imgbox.com/82dJvw6X)

Lamillar Armor
https://images2.imgbox.com/b4/2d/d9rS1FYG_o.jpg (https://imgbox.com/d9rS1FYG)
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/16/cc/iWcVhguz_t.png (https://imgbox.com/iWcVhguz)
Ignore the chainmail in that last one.

[RSGA]

Page 144 in he 3.5 DMG has the Bronze Age and Stone Age rules. It does not, however, give you any tips on how to represent iron weapons of the age, because iron was worse than bronze in just about all ways but being more common.

[Satinavian]

Most of the "monk" weapons are East Asian in nature. Whether they are available in a bronze age setting depends on whether you have that cultural influence in your setting.
What, you don't think of Shang and Zhou when someone says "Bronze age setting" ?

Joke aside, even with such a counterpart, monk weapons would often be too modern or too specific if you go beyond everyday items like staffs and sickles.

However you could include various pole-arms that are not spears. Overlong dagger-axes and stuff that some people file under halberds for strange reasons despite them looking nothing alike. Considering those things i am not very sure about the exclusion of military picks either. Anyway, even bronze age had a lot of interesting pole-arms even if it is difficult to find the nearest equivalent in the equipment list.

Also the first crossbows do fall into the bronze age period even if mass adoption only happened later.

[Ashtagon]

What, you don't think of Shang and Zhou when someone says "Bronze age setting" ?


Without any further clarification or context, I generally assume that someone talking about the Bronze Age or Iron Age is referring to early European cultures. This is probably on account of how modern western culture, which we (well, I am; I'm making some assumptions here about my audience here) are a part of, ultimately derives from those.



Joke aside, even with such a counterpart, monk weapons would often be too modern or too specific if you go beyond everyday items like staffs and sickles.


Okay, fine.

Quarterstaff: This one is probably prehistoric in origin. (And is also an exception to my earlier "double weapons are non-historical" statement).

Kukri. Nepalese. Earliest recorded use is 7th C. AD. No reason it couldn't be older (all the way through to bronze age) though.

Kama: This is basically a Japanese sickle. I would be mildly astonished if it did not exist in bronze ag Japan.

Nunchaku: This Okinawan weapon was adapted from the agricultural flails. Again, it could quite easily have existed in the bronze age.

Sai: The earliest documentation for this weapon I can find is 17th century, but it's almost certainly older. Absent any contrary evidence, I am happy to allow it in bronze age.

Siangham: Malaysian weapon. I am happy to allow it in bronze age.

Shuriken: Japanese. Although popular imagination has them as ninja weapons, they were more often used by samurai as close-ranged weapons prior to engaging in melee (functionally similar to Roman darts and Frankish throwing axes). There's no technological restriction from letting them be bronze age weapons.

If you are making a "bronze age" campaign, you are making a specific statement about what is available, and part of that is a curated equipment list. If your setting is at all east Asian influenced, by all means, feel free to include these. Otherwise... it depends how you feel about monk PCs (the quarterstaff would be the only monk weapon if you remove the weapons that have East Asian names).



However you could include various pole-arms that are not spears. Overlong dagger-axes and stuff that some people file under halberds for strange reasons despite them looking nothing alike. Considering those things i am not very sure about the exclusion of military picks either. Anyway, even bronze age had a lot of interesting pole-arms even if it is difficult to find the nearest equivalent in the equipment list.


The military pick (the one-handed horseman's pick and the two-handed warhammer (which despite its name, is a pick not a hammer) weren't used as weapons until medieval times (14th century). I excluded them in the list of bronze age weapons because in the bronze age (at least, the European-Middle-Eastern one), they didn't exist as weapons.

Now to be fair, there's a kind of sliding scale between picks and axes. A sufficiently short axes blade is indistinguishable from a pick point. But axes were preferred over picks before medieval times as weapons. This is because on a soft target, they will inflict more grievous wounds, and tend not to get stuck so easily (you only need to penetrate the skin and muscle; you don't need to cut bone). Picks entered fashion once chain and plate armours grew fashionable, as they were better able to penetrate that armour and breach weak points (a pick point can enter a small gap in armour plates that an axe blade can't).

In terms of metalworking, there's no reason you can't have a pick in the bronze age. But there were valid reason not to use them that aren't reflected in 3.x D&D rules. Without examining pole arms (there's a massive list after all), I imagine many of them could have been made in the bronze age had there been a reason to, but without a need to get past plate and chain armour, there was less need for many of these weapons.



Also the first crossbows do fall into the bronze age period even if mass adoption only happened later.

So, the crossbow. The first crossbows (by which I mean weapons designed to be operated by a single individual who is as mobile as someone operating a bow or sling while doing so) dates to around 600-700 BC, in China. By 200 BC, they had made it a standard military weapon. By the 1st century AD, the Greeks had the gastraphetes, which appears to have been invented independently. Both of these inventions are firmly inside the Iron Age. (China's Iron Age began around 1000 BC; in Greece, around 600 BC).

The Greek oxybeles, an early ballista-type weapon, appeared around 375 BC. That's still iron age. The Romans adopted that weapon after they absorbed the Greek city-states and made incremental improvements. The Romans also had the scorpion in the 1st century BC, an early ballista weapon; but again, this is an iron age weapon.

A separate and valid question is, could a ballista, crossbow etc. be made in the bronze age by swapping out all the iron fittings for bronze ones? You could certainly make a ballista-shaped object. And it might even work reasonably well for the first dozen uses of the weapon. But bronze is a much softer metal than iron, and the fittings would get damaged and distorted by the tension and stresses that they are put under. This would rapidly degrade both the accuracy and the effective strength of any individual weapon. Such weapons would have to wait until materials technology had reached the iron age to be useful.

[Rynjin]

You shouldn't really need a full supplement. Armor throughout the ages hasn't changed all THAT much, with the main exception being plate armor wasn't really common before steel. Even then, a bronze breastplate wouldn't be out of place, just full plate and half-plate.

You can take everything that exists in the book currently and just say "if it's metal it has to be made out of bronze or Elysian Bronze" and call it a day.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by inuyasha
Well, I think it's 3.0, but I'm pretty sure it's covered in the Arms & Equipment Guide….

Just a column in one table, but I appreciate the suggestion.


Originally Posted by Maat Mons
Also, padded armor was quite common. In Greece, it was called linothorax.

I'm not sure leather armor was ever really a thing.

I appreciate the reminder on the linothorax. As for leather armor, by the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt the common soldiers had some leather protection, and the elites had leather shirts with the sort of overlapping scale armor shown in your third image. Those scale-and-leather shirts must have been insufferably hot when campaigning.


Originally Posted by Ashtagon
A separate and valid question is, could a ballista, crossbow etc. be made in the bronze age by swapping out all the iron fittings for bronze ones?

…Such weapons would have to wait until materials technology had reached the iron age to be useful.

Those Spring and Autumn crossbows had components of cast bronze, and presumably they worked perfectly well in a military setting.


Originally Posted by Rynjin
You shouldn't really need a full supplement.

For my purposes I need more than what’s apparently available in the game books that have been mentioned. I’m working on something tied to a specific culture, and wanted to see what was already out there.

It looks like very little, at least that’s easy to find. I’m still open to obscure sources (APs, modules, etc.) if anyone happens to come across them.

[Rynjin]

Does it need to be first party? It sounds like you're asking for more of a setting book (like an "Ancient Greek" supplement) or something similar than mechanics for Bronze Age stuff.

[Satinavian]

Without any further clarification or context, I generally assume that someone talking about the Bronze Age or Iron Age is referring to early European cultures.Well, that is a big assumption and thus my post was mostly about Asian bronze age. For western bronze age your list makes sense,


The military pick (the one-handed horseman's pick and the two-handed warhammer (which despite its name, is a pick not a hammer) weren't used as weapons until medieval times (14th century). I excluded them in the list of bronze age weapons because in the bronze age (at least, the European-Middle-Eastern one), they didn't exist as weapons.I was talking about the following bronze age polearms
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Eastern_Zhou_Bronze_Ji_%28Halberd%29.jpg/220px-Eastern_Zhou_Bronze_Ji_%28Halberd%29.jpghttps://bidkit.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/23/imgMed/100/5.jpg


So, the crossbow. The first crossbows (by which I mean weapons designed to be operated by a single individual who is as mobile as someone operating a bow or sling while doing so) dates to around 600-700 BC, in China. By 200 BC, they had made it a standard military weapon. By the 1st century AD, the Greeks had the gastraphetes, which appears to have been invented independently. Both of these inventions are firmly inside the Iron Age. (China's Iron Age began around 1000 BC; in Greece, around 600 BC).The given timescale for the chinese Iron age varies quite a bit, mostly because it was not some kind of significant cultural shift, but a common variant is calling the Shang early Bronze age, and most of the Zhou late Bronze age and using Iron age for the time from around the 5th century. 1000 BC for the Iron age is a number i rarely see in context with China. But admittedly that is quite messy considering that certain tribes in the westernmost territory if todays China had Iron already way before what is considered the center of ancient Chinese civilisation. So i concede on the crossbow if you chose an early Iron age start date.


A separate and valid question is, could a ballista, crossbow etc. be made in the bronze age by swapping out all the iron fittings for bronze ones? A lot of chinese bronze crossbow or parts of them have been found. Though the earliest survinving bronze crossbow locks are from around 650 BC. That is not an open question.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
It sounds like you're asking for more of a setting book (like an "Ancient Greek" supplement) or something similar than mechanics for Bronze Age stuff.

No, I’m specifically looking for mechanics for weapons and armor. Broader setting content I’m doing myself.

That said, I’m still holding out for relevant mechanics in some overlooked module or other obscure Paizo source; but if you have a third-party setting in mind that covers any aspect of this, I wouldn’t mind looking at their take. Culture and characters, story and skullduggery I can handle; but when it comes to mechanics I’m willing to learn from the more talented in that area.


Originally Posted by Satinavian
Though the earliest survinving bronze crossbow locks are from around 650 BC.

That’s what I was referencing just above. Definitely bronze, definitely mid- Spring and Autumn Period.

[Ashtagon]

Okay, that surprised me about the crossbows with bronze fittings. But that still does change the fact that this was during China's iron age, not its bronze age. (And yes, there is some debate over the exact start of that. I see it as "iron used somewhere in the region, possibly as prototypes; you view it more as "iron is mainstream").

If the OP is looking for 'official' materials for what might have been available, late-era 2e's Player's Option: Combat & Tactics went into detail on this. It's obviously not the right book to look at for crunch info, but "what is available?" is a fluff question, so it should still be relevant for that.

For crunch, the 3.5e DMG (chapter 5: Building a Different World) has rules for bronze (-1 to attack and damage rolls; -1 AC for bronze breastplates; lower hardness and hp for bronze items). Dragon 319 was the Dark Sun supplement, and went into detail on a number of materials, including bronze; the rules for bronze are essentially a re-statement of the DMG rules.

[Maat Mons]

I prefer the rules for bronze Pathfinder published in Ultimate Combat to the rules for bronze 3.5 published in Dungeon Master’s Guise. Yes, the Fragile property it bestows on non-masterwork weapons is super-duper annoying, but masterwork weapons don’t get that property. So, after the lowest levels, when you can’t afford 300 gp for a masterwork weapon, bronze equipment in Pathfinder imposes no penalties of any sort. … Well, okay, it has hardness 9 instead of steel’s hardness of 10. But who uses sunder anyway?

Pathfinder’s prohibition against two-handed bronze weapons other than axes and spears isn’t that big a deal. Greataxes are perfectly serviceable for a standard melee bruiser, and spears are adequate for reach builds. Remember, Pathfinder put out an FAQ saying you can trip with any weapon, not just those listed as having the Trip property. Apparently, all the Trip property does is let you drop the weapon to avoid being tripped back when you really mess up your trip attempt.

As an aside, I think the Shield Brace feat does a reasonable job of portraying the Macedonian style of gripping your spear with both your main hand and the hand of your shield arm. I think the Phalanx Fighting ability of the Phalanx Soldier archetype for Fighter does a reasonable job of portraying the more typical style of holding your spear in just your main hand while your shield arm only supports your shield. Shield Brace gives you better Power Attack returns, but it also forces you to care about your shield’s armor check penalty. Annoyingly, this means the historically common fighting style of using a lonspear in one hand and a heavy shield in the other is only available to 3rd-level fighters.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Maat Mons
*all of it*

Interesting and very helpful, thanks.

Would a human fighter with some combination of traits, drawbacks and archetypes be able to pull off the longspear style at second level? Just curious if it's somehow feasible.

[Maat Mons]

You can do the Macedonian-style option (two hands on the spear, using the Shield Brace feat) at level 1 if you're a Fighter, but you'll be taking a penalty on attack rolls until you can save up for a masterwork light shield or a darkwood heavy shield. Also, if you're a Fighter, since Shield Brace is a Shield Mastery feat, you can ignore the Shield Focus prerequisite once you get Armor Training. This means the only class capable of getting it before level 3 is incentivized to wait until level 3 anyway.

[Metastachydium]

As far as picks are concerned, one does not need to go so far as China with its dagger-axes to find pick-adjacent weaponry. They were a thing, if (I believe) not terribly common in Bronze Age Mesopotamia/Iran (I have seen examples, at any rate), and Late Copper/Early Bronze Central European cultures such as Tiszapolgár or Cucuteni–Trepolye also produced (sometimes adze-backed) weapons and tools that are commonly (And I'd say correctly) described as pickaxes.

[Ashtagon]

As far as picks are concerned, one does not need to go so far as China with its dagger-axes to find pick-adjacent weaponry. They were a thing, if (I believe) not terribly common in Bronze Age Mesopotamia/Iran (I have seen examples, at any rate), and Late Copper/Early Bronze Central European cultures such as Tiszapolgár or Cucuteni–Trepolye also produced (sometimes adze-backed) weapons and tools that are commonly (And I'd say correctly) described as pickaxes.

I was talking about picks as weapons, intended to strike people. I have no doubt they existed continuously since the early bronze age (and maybe even earlier, depending on how you classify stone tools) as tools.

However, mining tools are not weighted or balanced in the same way as weapons (and getting stuck in the target is almost a virtue, as you can then use the long handle as a lever to break the rocks apart even further). In D&D terms, they would have a -4 attack penalty as improvised weapons.

[Metastachydium]

I was talking about picks as weapons, intended to strike people. I have no doubt they existed continuously since the early bronze age (and maybe even earlier, depending on how you classify stone tools) as tools.

However, mining tools are not weighted or balanced in the same way as weapons (and getting stuck in the target is almost a virtue, as you can then use the long handle as a lever to break the rocks apart even further). In D&D terms, they would have a -4 attack penalty as improvised weapons.

It's somewhat hard to tell what many of the examples I gave were used for, given the lack of more informative sources than the object itself, but their make quite commonly suggests they were unlikely to be tools. Some could be ceremonial or ornamental, and some are assumed to be weapons.

Case in point, I don't presume you wish to argue this Near Eastern specimen:

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/an/original/HB57_13_5.jpg

was really for moving earth.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Metastachydium
…this Near Eastern specimen:

Do you happen to have the date and location for this one?


Originally Posted by Ashtagon
…getting stuck in the target is almost a virtue, as you can then use the long handle as a lever to break the rocks apart even further….

Hollywood depictions aside, this isn’t always how ancient mines were worked. There’s evidence for other techniques, in particular building a fire beneath the active rock face and then applying cold water to crack off sections of rock. Still labor-intensive, but more efficient than just swinging at a solid wall of rock.

[loky1109]

While bronze age was, y'know, bronze, there exist stone and bone weapon in numbers from place to place. And stone arrowhead is far more dangerous and lethal than any metal arrowhead against non-armored/light-armored body.

[Ashtagon]

Do you happen to have the date and location for this one?



Hollywood depictions aside, this isn’t always how ancient mines were worked. There’s evidence for other techniques, in particular building a fire beneath the active rock face and then applying cold water to crack off sections of rock. Still labor-intensive, but more efficient than just swinging at a solid wall of rock.

I never said that was the only technique used. Pickaxes would have been just one of many mining tools and techniques used.

Anyway, we were discussing weapons.

[Metastachydium]

Do you happen to have the date and location for this one?

Pre-2000 BC, Mesopotamian (or Western Iranian) provenance, currently held in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. Acquired from an Iranian dealer in the 1950s. Exact site of excavation unclear.

[Rynjin]

I was talking about picks as weapons, intended to strike people. I have no doubt they existed continuously since the early bronze age (and maybe even earlier, depending on how you classify stone tools) as tools.

However, mining tools are not weighted or balanced in the same way as weapons (and getting stuck in the target is almost a virtue, as you can then use the long handle as a lever to break the rocks apart even further). In D&D terms, they would have a -4 attack penalty as improvised weapons.

"The Warpick" may not have existed in the Bronze Age but enough equivalents did that you could use it as a mechanical base and slap a new name on it. In terms of combat utility a falx is essentially the same thing even if it's shaped differently.

[Ashtagon]

"The Warpick" may not have existed in the Bronze Age but enough equivalents did that you could use it as a mechanical base and slap a new name on it. In terms of combat utility a falx is essentially the same thing even if it's shaped differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0v136wHjjQ

That falx doesn't resemble a pick so much as a sword (except distinguished by having a concave blade). Obviously, the one featured in the video is a modern reproduction, but it is a faithful reproduction of an artefact, which is also shown in the video.

Sure, the strikes with the tip are superficially similar to what a pick can do. But it seems that a falx might be better reflected by sickle statistics (incidentally, falx is Latin for sickle).

[Rynjin]

I'm aware it's shaped differently, hence why I mentioned it's shaped differently. But it fulfills the same role in combat (an anti-shield/anti-armor weapon) as a warpick would.

[liquidformat]

No, I’m specifically looking for mechanics for weapons and armor. Broader setting content I’m doing myself.

That said, I’m still holding out for relevant mechanics in some overlooked module or other obscure Paizo source; but if you have a third-party setting in mind that covers any aspect of this, I wouldn’t mind looking at their take. Culture and characters, story and skullduggery I can handle; but when it comes to mechanics I’m willing to learn from the more talented in that area.

I think the best you are going to do is DMG pg 144 for bronze material then the Arms and Equipment handbook giving an overview of some weapons and armor you would find in that time frame.

I am working up a stone age game currently and have just been dumpster diving to create and curate my own list of suitable weapons and armor.

[Palanan]

For those who may be interested, here’s (https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0s0smkjpvkm51. jpg) a graphic showing a variety of Bronze Age swords and their composition. The creator kindly included a list of the weapons and their provenance here (https://www.reddit.com/r/SWORDS/comments/hvukor/comment/fyvjlo4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3).

[Metastachydium]

Nice! I actually woke up one of these mornings wondering when the kopis and the makhaira entered the picture (for the purpose of seeing if the kukri can, after all, be lawyered back into the list), but ended up too lazy to actually check, and then the holidays happened and…

(I'm also pretty sure I'v seen a sword of Central European provenance very similar to that Italian one with the antennae, (perhaps mistakenly) attributed to the Scythians.)