Large spear questions

[alex_greene]

If your players have a preference for head shots, it stands to reason that the surviving enemies will develop that same preference too.

It's a balance of terror. You go for their heads; they go for yours, and everybody learns Evade, a lot.

 

[DamonJynx]

My players used to choose head all the time, now they go for arms unless they're heavily armoured-less HP. They're a blood-thirsty lot. Karma is a bitch!

 

[superc0ntra]

We reverted to choose location as being able to move the location up or down by 4 unless a critical IIRC.

I like that house rule and will try it.

I also can't see the logic in not being able to parry a dagger with a spear if the opponent has closed in since you don't use the head of the spear for attacking, so we have house ruled out this.
You cannot attack if range mismatch but you can still defend.

 

[Tias]

I'm going to use both the opponent bonus optional rule AND the +4 suggestion, too.

Also, supercontra, that does depend on the weapon, I guess. It can see two-handed swords and spears being fine to defend with, but a whip not so much. I'm also guessing that parrying with a shaft or base of a blade would do damage to the weapon, but perhaps that is too much micromanagament.

 

[DamonJynx]

Of course you're free to house-rule as you see fit but by allowing 2H weapons to parry at close range with not even a penalty, you are defeating the purpose of the closing and disengaging rules - there is NO advantage in this situation for the combatant with the smaller weapon, ALL the advantages are with the combatant with the larger weapon.

If my group were playing by the suggested house-rules those with smaller weapons would stand back and use ranged attacks and not enter close combat at all - which is not necessarily a bad thing mind you but sometimes it's fun to get a little blood on your hands.

Re Choose Location, we use the RQ6 option of it being a Critical only CM for ranged attacks, close combat attacks can use it whenever appropriate.