Weapons and the coevolution with monsters?

[HurinSmite]

Has any of you ever thought of and does there exist somekind of books/webpages where weapons are developed to deal with different of monsters? Confused? Let me explain.

This question has been running around my head since I got my hands on Witcher 3. Geralt, the protagonist, is a warrior monk trained to deal with monsters. The Witchers choose these two handed swords to fight the monsters. In Witcher 3 you will fight humans who use shields but Geralt never bothers with that. Is it because he's too mobile and an expert that a shield and sword style would lower his effectiveness in combat?

The "Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question?"-threads deal with the real world so I can't really ask there. But what little I've seen from National Geographics/Discovery Channel seems to tell me one thing: new weapons develop to deal with current strong weapon and armor. A sort of coevolution between different kinds of weapons and armors. So with that in mind. Wouldn't it make sense that in a fantasy world there would be weapons specifically designed to deal with certain monsters?

It depends on the setting ofcourse. If there's only a few kinds of magical monsters then it would be a lot easier to carry around specificly designed weapons for those monsters. A standard dnd world there would be too many monsters for you to (without magic) carry weapons for all situations.

Here's some thoughts:

• Shields usefulness drops when the monster is large enough to take a hold and give the wielder a good shake through the shield
• Axes are good against armored creatures (Like axes are good to... break shields? Small impact area I assume?)
• Swords are good against lightly armored and faster creatures
• Spears are good against etc etc.

I suppose this coevolution already exist a bit in the form of blunt weapons preffered by clerics to bash in skeletons (5/bludgeoning).
But what about Specifically designed and shaped weapons for monsters?

[GorinichSerpant]

The first place I would look is at weapons designed to kill animals in real life as a starting point and extrapolate from there.

The boar spear is one starting point, the bear spear can also be looked at, due to the variety of monsters that happen to be large animals.

Harpoons of some variety would most likely be what's used against aquatic beasts.

Torches on the ends of polearms would be good against trolls, many undead and other flammable monsters.

All I'm saying is that if I were to make a monster fighting weapon, I'd want to keep as much distance between myself and them as possible.

Armour or a shield would be a requirement if going up against a manticore.

[Doorhandle]

Don't forget enchantments! Bane is a key example, but so are flaming weapons for trolls and hydras. Alchemist's fire could also be another example of coevolution: the pseudo moltov-cocktail would be great for handling trolls.

I imagine wooden weapons, made of enchanted hardwood by elves, would have a key purpose: it'll help against rust monsters, and anything else that gets funny ideas about eating equipment.

Spiked armour could have a purpose in deterring the larger monsters that love useing swallow whole. Perhaps using a certain alloy that has a bitter taste.

Weapons to fight iron golems would be similar to weapons to fight people in iron armour, I would imagine

Some sort of woollen cloak for use against dragons and other firebreathers, not to mention commonly available alchemist's fire. Complete with a quick-release to remove it if it's set on fire. Not as good as modern fire-retarding materials, but better than nothing.

Speaking of: Some sort of way to lance a dragon's fire-breath gland and make it explode like a pinto. That would be cool.

[Mr Beer]

Yes, you would definitely want different weapons for different fantastical monsters.

Large, dangerous animals are hunted with missile weapons and spears. Missile weapons because obviously killing them while they are a long way away is safer than fighting them. Spears because they keep the animal back and because puncturing something right the way through with a steel blade is effective against all real-world animals.

In fantasy world, you might want two handed spiked weapons against creatures with heavy natural armour, much like such weapons were developed to counter plate.

[veti]

I would think that, for any reasonably-fast-moving large target, a spear of some kind would be the go-to weapon of choice. There's a reason why, historically, spears were used both to hunt boars and fight cavalry. By making the haft good and stout, and bracing the spear on the ground (always handy), you get something capable of resisting a very strong charge with a lot of mass behind it, and concentrating enormous force at the point.

Should work against most any large opponent that relies on its mass and has some kind of charge or leap attack.

For everything else - you can see why the sword is the most popular weapon of choice for adventurers. It's light enough to be manoeuvred quickly, strong enough to deflect many attacks, and sharp enough to hurt even without a great deal of force applied - all of which make it a solid choice for fighting anything from a giant bat to a troll. Where it falls down is against heavily armoured enemies (Beowulf broke his sword, trying to batter it through a dragon's hide). And the spear isn't so great against a dragon, either, because it doesn't have to rush into contact to kill you. But in a traditional setting, at least, dragons are so rare that - even if you do survive your first encounter with one, it's vanishingly unlikely that you'll ever have a second, so the idea of developing a specialist weapon more suited to the task never comes up.

[Martin Greywolf]

There are couple of things you need to watch out for when it comes to issues like these.

1) Weapons are still used by humans

This is a really important one. No matter how big a monster you're hunting, a one handed sword can't exceed about 1.5 kg/3 pounds and still be useful to a human. Bows like wise can't go above about 200 lbs at most (make it 160 for sustained military fire), two-handed swords stop at about 3 kilos (there are heavier ones around, but they're likely ceremonial) and so on and so forth.

Armor has similar limitations, with top weight of all equipment being about 35 kg - modern soldiers carry as much as 45, and recent studies done by military show that it's starting to affect their combat effectiveness.

2) Weapons need to be universal

If you have an awesome weapon of +lots against manticore that is useless against everything else, it's not a good weapon. Almost all real weapons that were ever popular got that popular because they were universal. Best example of this are spear and sword - useful on foot or horseback, in armor or without, can be used with shield or alone.

Specialized weapons will have to be relatively cheap, and they'll probably not be super specialized, you can't afford to cart three wagons of equipment with you wherever you go.

3) Weapons need to last a while

Medieval steel quality wasn't great, but you could still expect your sword to usually last through at least one pitched fight. If you make your swords out of silver, well...

4) Weapons need to be easy to wear

Okay, not all of them, but weapons that travellers use as sidearms need to be, this is why swords were so popular - while they loose hard against any and all polearms, you can't strap a polearm to your belt and go shopping.

Obviously, once you go to hunt a beastie, being loaded for bear, this no longer applies.

5) Even Geralt says humans are the real monsters

Having to buy two sets of weapons, one for war against humans and one for monsters isn't fun or cheap, and in case of sidearms, carrying two at one time is just impractical. Witcher has the sword on the back thing - which wasn't used in real life for a reason. You'd have to strap two swords to your side and remember which is which.

What modifications would they make?

Not that many. One possibility is sturdier shields - historical shields are surprisingly light and thin, most modern replicas are somewhat sturdier since we don't really want to shell out 200 euros after every event we go to for a new one. While this isn't much of a problem in the fight itself, it would be more of a pain in the neck if we had to march with them, but that's not insurmountable. Still, all-steel shields are straight out, they're just too heavy one they get above the size of a buckler.

Spears, swords and bows are fine, if the monsters have thick hides, they could start making tapered point blades sooner, but that's about it.

A big area of change would be ballistae and crossbows - there would be a lot more incentive to develop these kinds of things, so you could well end up with windlass crossbows way before we had them in real life (they were incentivized by quality plate armor). You could also have them have modern stroke-length (length during which a bowstring applies force to the projectile), medieval ones had really short ones, probably because they wanted to play it safe, and that may not be an option here.

Oh, and as for Geralt going longsword vs sword and shield, that's not a bad matchup, really, especially not since Geralt does wear armor - albeit least practical and realistic armor in the games. Most of his opponents use heather shields, and those are meant for formation fighting more than for one on one duels or skirmishes.

[Berenger]

A pig's carcass stuffed with poisonberries.

A sufficiently deep pitfall.

Nets, thrown and / or stretched out between trees.

All of the above combined with long boar spears and heavy crossbows. Yes, plural, I'm not attempting this one-on-one.

Basically, everything that prevents a fair fight from happening.

[Joe the Rat]

There's a rather nice discussion on these lines in The Dragon and the George relating why knights are dangerous to dragons. You have a knight, in full kit, mounted and charging with lance. That's about a half a ton of meat and metal, coming at you at 15mph, with all that force concentrated into a single point. Your scaly hide isn't going to stop that.

With properly trained mounts, lance charges can be quite effective against larger beasts. I'd still start by shooting.

[Nightcanon]

Also consider co-evolution with adventuring environment. Lances tend to be unpopular and swapping out one's Paladin mount for ACFs tend to be popular because of the limited opportunities to ride a horse in a dungeon, but similar thought is seldom given to weapons. Swinging even a 3' sword in a 10' passageway is likely to be tricky for a 6' tall man, even without taking into account a team-mate in the 'other 5' square' doing similarly. Any party doing much in the way of dungeoneering down 10' passageways is going to gravitate to trusting reach weapons, shields, and short weapons (maces, clubs, short swords and daggers) rather than two-hands and power attack. I suspect that going through a doorway with a loaded crossbow is easier than getting though with a drawn longbow, too.
Going back to the original question, diagrams in the original Dragonlance books indicated that dragonlances had integral shields that could deflect dragon breath; mirror-attachments for polearms might be used for hunting creatures with gaze attacks.

[Knaight]

Also consider co-evolution with adventuring environment. Lances tend to be unpopular and swapping out one's Paladin mount for ACFs tend to be popular because of the limited opportunities to ride a horse in a dungeon, but similar thought is seldom given to weapons. Swinging even a 3' sword in a 10' passageway is likely to be tricky for a 6' tall man, even without taking into account a team-mate in the 'other 5' square' doing similarly. Any party doing much in the way of dungeoneering down 10' passageways is going to gravitate to trusting reach weapons, shields, and short weapons (maces, clubs, short swords and daggers) rather than two-hands and power attack. I suspect that going through a doorway with a loaded crossbow is easier than getting though with a drawn longbow, too.

With that said, most weapon design is going to be for more conventional forces than adventurers, who are more likely to deal with monsters in and near towns than in underground environments. Cramped quarters are much less of an issue here.

[GungHo]

Has any of you ever thought of and does there exist somekind of books/webpages where weapons are developed to deal with different of monsters? Confused? Let me explain.

This question has been running around my head since I got my hands on Witcher 3. Geralt, the protagonist, is a warrior monk trained to deal with monsters. The Witchers choose these two handed swords to fight the monsters. In Witcher 3 you will fight humans who use shields but Geralt never bothers with that. Is it because he's too mobile and an expert that a shield and sword style would lower his effectiveness in combat?

He has two swords because that's how he's written and in his universe, silver hurts monsters real bad, so one of his swords is silver. However, the real benefit he has against monsters is that he over-prepares like Batman.

Personally, if I wanted to go hunt monsters, I'd hire other people to do the dying part.

[Bohandas]

Has any of you ever thought of and does there exist somekind of books/webpages where weapons are developed to deal with different of monsters? Confused? Let me explain.
...
But what about Specifically designed and shaped weapons for monsters?

There's the eponymous dragonlances from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting

1) Weapons are still used by humans

Doesn't necessarily apply in this kind of setting

[theasl]

Hmm, we're only considering one side of this. What about monsters and the coevolution with weapons? Or does the fact that monsters usually have concrete statblocks and abilities preclude that in such an environment?

[oudeis]

There's a rather nice discussion on these lines in The Dragon and the George relating why knights are dangerous to dragons. You have a knight, in full kit, mounted and charging with lance. That's about a half a ton of meat and metal, coming at you at 15mph, with all that force concentrated into a single point. Your scaly hide isn't going to stop that.

With properly trained mounts, lance charges can be quite effective against larger beasts. I'd still start by shooting.

I think your weight and speed figures are off by at least 50%.

[Doorhandle]

I think your weight and speed figures are off by at least 50%.

Under or over? Approx. three quarters of a ton of at approx. 21mph is even better.

[oudeis]

Under or over? Approx. three quarters of a ton of at approx. 21mph is even better.

Yeah, those are more in line with what I was thinking.

[Cluedrew]

5) Even Geralt says humans are the real monsters

"I hear you carry two swords, one for men and one for monsters."

"No, I carry two for monsters."

Anyways, the only weapon I think is missing right now is nets for the flying creatures. The ones big enough that you can't reliably take them down in one shot but small enough that you can throw a net that can weigh them down. Even with a catapult it might be worth while on a big hunt.

[red_kangaroo]

Armour or a shield would be a requirement if going up against a manticore.

That's where Geralt would disagree with you - it's stated in the books that witchers don't use shields because they are nearly useless against most monsters. If you were to try and block a blow from manticore, you'd end up with a broken, or at least heavily bruised arm and wouldn't be able to block again. That's why witcher's were trained in evasion, not heavy armor and shields.

[Bohandas]

How about some kind of war spoon or something for dealing with oozes

[Pauly]

It kind of depends on what you mean by monster.

If you includes orcs, goblins and the like there would be co-evolution of arms and armor.

If you're talking classical mythology monsters - big beasts without weaponry then it depends a lot of their intelligence. For animal level intelligence critters then history gives us a good guide - spears, bows as being the main weapons.

For intelligent creatures it probably would be a mix of missile weapons at range then spear/shield or sword/shield at close rangle.

[HurinSmite]

When I made the post I was thinking of monsters who aren't too humanoid. If that was the case then it would be close to real world co-evolution of weapons. Boring!

No. What I'm interested in seeing is things as on page 57 in Draconomicon (dnd book) where at the beginning of the chapter we see a character block a dragon's breath by using some sort of folded out shield. The character is holding the shield with both hands and seems to avoid any major damage even though he doesn't look like a rogue with evasion.

Bohandas, War spoon for oozes? I like it. Need some work but I'm sure there's a polished product behind those words.

Like some people have mentioned there probably is an upper limit on how many different kinds of monsters there can be in a world before the hero character says "screw it". At some point the monster hunter will just stick with the tried and true longsword instead of a wagonfull of "anti-gaze shield", "anti-troll spear with acid capsule at the tip" & "sticky net for pixies" kinds of weapons.

There probably isn't a design for a monster killing weapon that doesn't have a real world name already. The thought was just interesting.

I'd also gladly hear if some have any interesting ideas of traps to deal with certain monsters/enemies. Just... don't be too effective. I get no joy from hearing how you kill a herd of mammoth by chasing them off a cliff. That's just extinction, unfunny and sad.

[Floret]

Relevant video
Despite the (I find) questionable DMing he brags about, the general concept seems to hit right on the mark.

I imagine that while more "generalist" weapons, such as spears, polearms, bows etc. are probably more useful for adventurers that encounter different stuff on a regular basis, such weapons as you describe would work very well for areas that regularly deal with similar threats - a land where there is a large wild troll population might have the local garrisons armed with specific "troll-killers" that are especially effective against them, and not much else. (Same for Dragons, Mammoths, or giant turtle-thingies.)
So... more something for NPCs, or to be acquired for a special job, rather than something adventurers carry around regularly. In that capacity, though? I'd be all for the idea.
(One example I remember of this being done is from the Dark Eye: The dwarves have a special kind of weapon you need 4 people to wield - some giant, heavy, I think three-pronged spear. You need (in 4th edition) a special skill to know how to be one of the four. But it is rather good at killing dragons, at least in lore. Thinking about it, those things seem to boil down to "very special spear" rather often.)

Now, I don't know much in the way of DnD monsters, so am somewhat without ideas myself. But I want to note that this (Monster hunting, with gearing up with special weapons and tactics) sounds like a really nice concept for at least a oneshot.

[Zombimode]

That's where Geralt would disagree with you - it's stated in the books that witchers don't use shields because they are nearly useless against most monsters. If you were to try and block a blow from manticore, you'd end up with a broken, or at least heavily bruised arm and wouldn't be able to block again. That's why witcher's were trained in evasion, not heavy armor and shields.

I think a Manticore was specifically mentioned here because of it's ability to shoot Spikes. Since those Spikes are not the size of ballista bolts, a shield would be quite usefull. And considering that Manticore are sometimes shown to fire a whole spray of Spikes, dodging would be quite difficult.
So no, I don't think that Geralt would disagree that a good shield would come in handy in a fight against a Manticore. Not necessary for him specifically, but useful nonetheless.

Besides, the Witcher Universe runs on a different set of genre conventions and assumptions then, say, Eberron, or RealLife (tm).

Relevant video
Despite the (I find) questionable DMing he brags about, the general concept seems to hit right on the mark.

Ugh, this video...

I think I like this guy in general, but I good GM he is not. It is actually one the first things that come into my mind when I think of "worst instances of GMing ever".
He had an agenda and used the game to force his Agenda down the Players throat, violating the trust between them and ignoring the expectations they obviously had.
The genre conventions the Players believed to hold true were quite obvious: pretty much usual Fantasy fare were someone of the PCs calibre does have the ability to effectively fight a Dragon Turtle (or whatever this creature was) with a sword.

Also, I don't think he mentioned what System was in use, but somehow I got the suspicion that the ineffectiveness of the Players Action was not actually justified by the system's mechanics. Instead he strikes me like a GM that, when invited to a game of D&D and a Player tries something like attacking a Titan with a longsword, would just ignore the Abstract System of attack Bonus, Amor class, Hit Points and damage, and say something like "Ok, you stab the Titan in the great toe which has no effect whatsoever."

Now, I don't know much in the way of DnD monsters, so am somewhat without ideas myself. But I want to note that this (Monster hunting, with gearing up with special weapons and tactics) sounds like a really nice concept for at least a oneshot.

Yes, I agree. Not for every kind of game/System, though. To try this with D&D would be missing the Point.

If I ever manage to get a game for GURPS Fantasy together, I will create the Monsters in a way to emphasize this style of game. My recent Inspiration for that is the Kayran fight in Witcher 2 (in which, to spite the above video, a sword was one of the main instruments).

[Stealth Marmot]

But what about Specifically designed and shaped weapons for monsters?

Let me put it this way: First Edition did something extremely similar and it was the most universally ignored section of the game. In fact it was one of only 2 sections of first edition that Gary Gygax went on record of saying that he regretted putting in there entirely. (The other being the horrific First Edition version of psionics)

The idea is complex, will almost certainly be clunky, will require an excessive level of chart work, and only apply for a fairly small section of characters. Keep in mind that having a swiss army style number of weapons would also render several feats unusable, and would require that a larger section of weapons be considered martial lest we end up with fighters spending all their feats on exotic weapons.

We already have forms of this through the bane enchantment on weapons anyway, and certain weapons will be somewhat more effective against certain monsters by the nature of what the weapons do.

[Haldir]

A fusion of easy-to-use weaponry and as much magic as is available, all for the goal of removing yourself further and further from the conflict. If there is any way to gain flight, such as taming beasts or magic, that'll be incorporated very very quickly.

Nets and chains would probably be quite extensively used.

[Bohandas]

Let me put it this way: First Edition did something extremely similar and it was the most universally ignored section of the game. In fact it was one of only 2 sections of first edition that Gary Gygax went on record of saying that he regretted putting in there entirely. (The other being the horrific First Edition version of psionics)

What was the 1e version of psionics like? I'm only familiar with 2e, 3e, and 3.5

[Stealth Marmot]

What was the 1e version of psionics like? I'm only familiar with 2e, 3e, and 3.5

I think they later expanded it, but here's the short of psionics as it was first introduced.

There was no psionics class, or any sort of feat etc. that existed for it. Instead, if you had mental stats that were over a certain amount, you gained a random chance to have psionics. I don't remember the number, but it was something like for every Wisdom you had over 15 you had 1.5% chance to be psionic, and you added up all the the chance from the 3 mental stats (Int, Wis, Cha).

It gets worse. Not only is the chance of being psionic low, but the powers you get and how good you are at them were random as well. To top it all off, there was basically little to no defense for anyone against the powers unless you were psionic too, and the powers were vague as hell, nothing about them was spelled out.

So if you were lucky enough to have VERY high random mental stats, you had a very low random chance of getting powers that would either be useless, confusing, or game breaking.

[Bohandas]

Also, I don't think he mentioned what System was in use, but somehow I got the suspicion that the ineffectiveness of the Players Action was not actually justified by the system's mechanics. Instead he strikes me like a GM that, when invited to a game of D&D and a Player tries something like attacking a Titan with a longsword, would just ignore the Abstract System of attack Bonus, Amor class, Hit Points and damage, and say something like "Ok, you stab the Titan in the great toe which has no effect whatsoever."

I think the most elegant way to handle this if you were worried about the absurdities of attacking a creature ten times taller than you would be to apply size modifiers backwards during critical hit confirmation rolls. So the excess of size that makes a creature easy to hit also makes it difficult to score a critical against (and conversely it's easier to score a crit on a rat or some other creature where your sword is big enough that it can stab all their vital organs at once)

[Floret]

Ugh, this video... [...]

Oh, those are the problems I have with the video. The second idea, of the Fantasy weapons, I do like though

Yes, I agree. Not for every kind of game/System, though. To try this with D&D would be missing the Point.

If I ever manage to get a game for GURPS Fantasy together, I will create the Monsters in a way to emphasize this style of game. My recent Inspiration for that is the Kayran fight in Witcher 2 (in which, to spite the above video, a sword was one of the main instruments).

Oh, yeah, not with basic DnD. (Although I think with the right restrictions put in place (No/Low magic, for example) it might even work there. Dunno, Never played DnD and likely never will.)
I am currently contemplating a version of Symbaroum, tweaked a bit to make it work better. Dark Eye might work as well, but I like the Darker tone of Symbaroum for such an idea. Or maybe FATE, but going for the "all-purpose" one seems almost like cheating^^

I think the most elegant way to handle this if you were worried about the absurdities of attacking a creature ten times taller than you would be to apply size modifiers backwards during critical hit confirmation rolls. So the excess of size that makes a creature easy to hit also makes it difficult to score a critical against (and conversely it's easier to score a crit on a rat or some other creature where your sword is big enough that it can stab all their vital organs at once)

Or to just play with a system that does what you want from it
Seriously, there are more games out there than just DnD. Just use those, especially when met with an idea that doesn't fit in too well.

[Potato_Priest]

If I was to fight giants, double-ended javelins would be my first thought. They're exceedingly easy to make, you can throw them up to the vital regions of a giant, and if you plant one end in the ground it's a devastating caltrops for a giant that a human won't have to worry about.