Two Fisted Fighting Question and other such Qs

[Trayer]

Last night marks the second time I've run my Friday night BW game. The week before was a test run and a minor introduction to the system. Needless to say this week I had all the rules bending and pushing I could handle. I now have several questions that I'd like input on. (Either suggestions or solid answers)

First: One of my characters is a Deulist fighting with Rapier and Dagger. When he scripts a Counterstrike how does that change from what's in the BW book? It essentially seems that his standard Block Strike script does the same thing. Is Counterstrike just redundant for Two Fisted Fighters? Or Sword and Shield Fighters who do the same thing?


Second: Is Charging considered a power check at OB equal to whatever your opponent's speed or power check result is? Or perhaps is the Ob just the opponents speed or power exponent? Essentially my oversized peasant blacksmith is using a table in the tavern to push around an orc and pin it to the bar. I'm thinking I'll give a power check of some level for this. What do other people think?


Third: One of my players is a groomsman. He has his own already well trained riding horse. He fancies himself becoming a knight in the future (sort of a childhood dream coming true) He fights from horseback with a spear. His mount is not war trained. And at this point has been involved in a fight once. The character wants to train his steed for war. How should I go about doing this? I can think of several ways, but I'd like input here. (one of which would just treat it as the horse training for something with the characters husbandry skill check as some sort of assist or time saver)


Fourth: Another of my players has a huntsman/trapper. He fights mainly with a bow. We are both curious how to eventually advance his weapon into something beyond just what fancy arrowheads can give it. (Essentially there will be no such thing as magic weapons in my campaign, but players can invest artha into their things to give them special qualities. Perhaps a few artha to increase damage once he greys his bow skill? I'm really interested in hearing what people think about investiture leading to magic or superior qualities.


Fifth: Along the same lines as above. The deulist has an instinct, "Avoid spills and messes" He dodges spilled ale and leaps puddles of blood while fighting, talking, walking, etc. He likes staying clean. He wants to invest Artha into his clothes to make them stain resistant.

" Laers steps back from the bar, a bit too late, as the pitcher falls over spilling mead on him. The alchohol cascades off his clothing onto the floor leaving no trace that it was there a moment ago...
Tavern Wench: 'Nice pants!' "


Thanks in advance for any help you guys can toss my way.

-CMC

[rafial]

Is Counterstrike just redundant for Two Fisted Fighters? Or Sword and Shield Fighters who do the same thing?

Less important perhaps. I'm still figuring this stuff out myself. One important thing to keep in mind is that Counterstrike is a defensive manuever, and so can be executed at a bonus while in defensive stance.



Second: Is Charging considered a power check at OB equal to whatever your opponent's speed or power check result is?

It's a versus test, so yes, your goal is to exceed the number of successes rolled by the opponent on their dice. Disarming strike is the only manuever that I can think of that treats the opponents skill exponent as an Ob (and says so explicitly).



(one of which would just treat it as the horse training for something with the characters husbandry skill check as some sort of assist or time saver)


To my mind, this is spot on. "Learning Training Skills" bottom of BW60, and "Learning from Another, aka Instruction", BW61. The trick is that the person doing the training would probably have to have the human "Mounted Combat" skill. If the character in question didn't have that, maybe he could seek out an old campaigner, and he and the horse could train together.

[mike_ravenwood]

The difference lies in when the two are used.
You divide the dice in sword between the the strike and block portions. the offhand weapon/shield adds equpment dice to the blocking portion, with the usual application of VA. So one attacking with a high VA weapon ( VA 4 say) would negate the equipment dice. Depending on the GM they could rule that a parrying blade lacks the weight to block a heavy Axe or Mace, and you would have to switch the attack and block with the sword and attack with the parrying blade. The Strke and Block attack option requires no action on the opponents part to use.
On the other hand Counterstrike requires the opponent ATTACK you to trigger the block, and the you folllow up with the riposte attack. This can be very deadly to opponents who don't fight with a shield or parrying blade as they have do defence agains the riposte.
Of course if you script counterstrike and they script block you both stare at each other for that action.

[eruditus]

First: One of my characters is a Deulist fighting with Rapier and Dagger. When he scripts a Counterstrike how does that change from what's in the BW book? It essentially seems that his standard Block Strike script does the same thing. Is Counterstrike just redundant for Two Fisted Fighters? Or Sword and Shield Fighters who do the same thing?



What Mikeravenwood said :D

[eruditus]

Second: Is Charging considered a power check at OB equal to whatever your opponent's speed or power check result is? Or perhaps is the Ob just the opponents speed or power exponent? Essentially my oversized peasant blacksmith is using a table in the tavern to push around an orc and pin it to the bar. I'm thinking I'll give a power check of some level for this. What do other people think?



My opinion on this is more based on my alterations to the rules as written as compared to direct canon. As Rafiel points out, yes, its a power check with the Ob equal to what is rolled. Personally I have changed such things to brawling checks.

I am a much stingier GM with stat advances than Luke is :roll:

[eruditus]

Third: One of my players is a groomsman. He has his own already well trained riding horse. He fancies himself becoming a knight in the future (sort of a childhood dream coming true) He fights from horseback with a spear. His mount is not war trained. And at this point has been involved in a fight once. The character wants to train his steed for war. How should I go about doing this? I can think of several ways, but I'd like input here. (one of which would just treat it as the horse training for something with the characters husbandry skill check as some sort of assist or time saver)


I think we'll need to defer to the new Horse Burner :wink:

I like this approach, however I think that Animal Husbandry doesn't give any advantage, rather its required for the horse to learn anything useful. Without it most folk would not have clue one about how to make a horse battle ready, never mind carrying a rider INTO battle. Otherwise you may have the horse making steel tests when faced with these situations, maybe the riders animal husbandry and mounted combat skills can add helping dice.

[eruditus]

Fourth: Another of my players has a huntsman/trapper. He fights mainly with a bow. We are both curious how to eventually advance his weapon into something beyond just what fancy arrowheads can give it. (Essentially there will be no such thing as magic weapons in my campaign, but players can invest artha into their things to give them special qualities. Perhaps a few artha to increase damage once he greys his bow skill? I'm really interested in hearing what people think about investiture leading to magic or superior qualities.



Enchanting? I have my own ideas about how this should go. I will try to publish my ideas on another thread VERY soon. I think Abzu is playtesting his own ideas and not sharing :lol:

Let me say that graying bow should be its own reward :roll:

Depending on the type of technology level someone could invent some special recurving and/or pulley system to develop bows that allow you to FoRK in Power in the attack roll. Any such task I would do as a Bowyer manuever. Raise the manuever Ob based on the prevalance of the technology. If the bowyer in question is inventing the technology then it should take some research time and a higher manuever Ob.

Maybe a special Artha inbued string or elven-strings could lower the Draw time by one action. Maybe some manuevers that allow the bowyer to do some more fantasy-esque actions like avoiding while shooting or fireing more than one arrow at a time.

Maybe investiture of Artha would actually allow the archer to keep his bow strung (I would say 10 points on the string itself would accomplish this nicely). And maybe toughening the bow for the occassional strike.

A bow with more punch may give the bow a power requirement but increase the VA on all arrows.

Hope you can use some of these

[Kublai]

Hey, Trayer! Even though some people have already addressed your quesitons, I'm bored. :P


First: One of my characters is a Deulist fighting with Rapier and Dagger. When he scripts a Counterstrike how does that change from what's in the BW book? It essentially seems that his standard Block Strike script does the same thing. Is Counterstrike just redundant for Two Fisted Fighters? Or Sword and Shield Fighters who do the same thing?

Two-fisted Training is very much like shield training - it allows you to use your secondary weapon to block incoming blows just like a shield would. And so, Two-fisted training makes the counterstrike even more potent. Say I was your Duelist with B5 skill and a Sword and Dagger. I could Script a Blocking Strike and use 5 dice to strike and have 1 die to block with from the dagger. I could script a Counterstrike and use 2 skill dice to block plus a bonus die from the dagger, and have 3 dice left to strike. The training's a boon no matter how you use it!


Second: Is Charging considered a power check at OB equal to whatever your opponent's speed or power check result is? Or perhaps is the Ob just the opponents speed or power exponent? Essentially my oversized peasant blacksmith is using a table in the tavern to push around an orc and pin it to the bar. I'm thinking I'll give a power check of some level for this. What do other people think?

Charging is a simple Power test. Charger rolls his Power and the amount of successes becomes the Obstacle for the target to avoid with his Natural Defenses - either Speed or Power. If you feel the blacksmith can push around the table with ease, I might even suggest that you give him an extra die to roll to account for the momentum of the table.


Third: One of my players is a groomsman. He has his own already well trained riding horse. He fancies himself becoming a knight in the future (sort of a childhood dream coming true) He fights from horseback with a spear. His mount is not war trained. And at this point has been involved in a fight once. The character wants to train his steed for war. How should I go about doing this? I can think of several ways, but I'd like input here. (one of which would just treat it as the horse training for something with the characters husbandry skill check as some sort of assist or time saver)

It's funny. I swore the Horse Burner was a waste of time, but here it is coming into play! There are two necessary skills for this war mount to be ready for battle: Mounted Combat Training for the Knight and Mount Training for the Horse. Mounted Combat allows the knight to use his weapon skills without obstacle penalty. Mount Training allows the horse to use his rider's Steel instead of his own (which is often dreadfully low!). Your knight must find an instructor to teach him Mounted Combat training, or else spend a very long time learning it on his own. I would think that Animal Husbandry is the necessary skill to teach the horse in Mount Training. I would make it Obstacle 3 and require several months.



Fourth: Another of my players has a huntsman/trapper. He fights mainly with a bow. We are both curious how to eventually advance his weapon into something beyond just what fancy arrowheads can give it. (Essentially there will be no such thing as magic weapons in my campaign, but players can invest artha into their things to give them special qualities. Perhaps a few artha to increase damage once he greys his bow skill? I'm really interested in hearing what people think about investiture leading to magic or superior qualities.

It's my opinion that long term artha investment can grant the weapon traits based on the user - but we're talking looooong term, like as in a lifetime. Like an axe used by a Beserker might grant the Beserker trait to it's next wielder. That kind of thing. A few artha ought to grant him nothing more than a little good luck. For example, a troll steps on his bow but - What Luck! - it didn't break. Perhaps, if he puts a ton of Artha into it - enough to earn an epiphany, then he can transform his bow into a Grey weapon or some other effect of choice. I also think that even though there might not be magic weapons in your campaign, some supernatural materials might grant the weapon magical qualities. For instance, a bow made from Ironwood and strung with a Giant's hair might grant a +2 Power to any arrow shot from it, although it would require a minimum Power - B6 or even a Grey Power? - to use without some serious Obstacle penalties.



Fifth: Along the same lines as above. The deulist has an instinct, "Avoid spills and messes" He dodges spilled ale and leaps puddles of blood while fighting, talking, walking, etc. He likes staying clean. He wants to invest Artha into his clothes to make them stain resistant.

I refer to my above note for this, although Elven clothes do this already! Does the duelist know any Elves that owe him a favor?

[luke]

Rafial is spot on. I agree with him.

One comment about the "bow advancement" thing. I would suggest a very mild, "get over it." While bow technology is cool to jigger with --we have a number of "special" bow types in our game-- addressing a characters advancement with kewl weapons upgrade is uncool. The bow is a tool, the player might look to push his character is more than one direction rather than to try to become a Diablo or DnD 1st Ed character.

I double specialize in the bow, myself. When I fire my arrows windows shatter for 100 yards. Need that door opened? No problem! ::fires six arrows in the blink of an eye. Door is blow off hinges by first arrow. Everything inside is killed by remaining arrows.::

Why not earn his way to Affinity for Bows? or use the Epiphany rules to Gray out his skill. Or study with a Bowyer so he can learn to design his own bows? Lots of options to go before just bumping up Power.

("Fifth" is a farking great instinct, btw. He's well on his way to a trait!)

-L

[eruditus]

Rafial is spot on. I agree with him.


guess that makes me liver patee...sheesh, no respect. :wink:

[luke]

Mm, eruditus patee with kublai crackers.

mmmmmmm.

[eruditus]

I will attempt to ignore that you said that and drive the image from my head, thank you very much...

:?