Weapon Identity / Carrying Capacity

[Gabado]

So two very different topics here

1. I very much enjoy the crunchiness of the combat system, having to allocate resources round to round on attacks, parries, dodges, and movement. But I feel a little underwhelmed by the weapons section. There is little variation between weapons of the same size classification, the variation between the barda hammri (battle hammer) and barda klot (battle chain) is negligible (they are identical apart from a cost difference of 1 sc). This seems a bit odd, as the hammer is made from a blacksmith's hammer and would be presumably straightforward to use for a common peasant, and the battle chain is (by it's own flavor text) incredibly difficult to use and especially effective against opponents wielding shields. However, in game, the chain gets no benefit against shields and does not require any special training to wield effectively.
This is a rather specific comparison, but I feel that it exemplifies a trend in the weapons in general, where the descriptions given in the flavor text to not match how they would play in game. I've read through other rules questions threads and a common trend seems to be that Trudvang does not focus on hyper realism or over-extensive rules. I generally enjoy this about the game, but when it comes to weapons and combat, I feel as though the rules as written won't give players an adequate sense of immersion when wielding different weapons.

2. Rather unrelated and a bit trivial in the grand scheme, but I was looking through the rules the other day and couldn't find anything about maximum carry limits or how much a player can hold before taking penalties. I'm wondering if I missed a table somewhere or an errata page.

Any input, advice, or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Mugge]

Hello there, I'm stalking this forum, because I'm waiting for my friends to man up and try trudvang with me....

There is already small differences in weapons; being ->light -> heavy-one handed -> two-handed with open-rolls, and all the weapons have a different initiative mod and hardness.
Which is telling me that they actually balanced it out quite easily by not adding more differences to each weapon... Now some wants BIG weapons to be more powerful, and doing that by lowering open dice rolls on heavy-one and two-handed.. but I just want to point out, that there is already in game tricks for lowering those, so be careful before you get a player with (OR 3-10) (and try look how much vitner needs to be filled into a fire spell to make a 1T10+4 (OR 8-10))

Enough about my love to the rules, I thought all day about this and came op with an ide, one could easily add a special under either 'battle experience' or 'armed fighting', we may as well call it 'weapon mastery' were each time you increase it you master a new weapon (and maybe every weapon at rank 5?) then keeping the bonuses small say->

-sword/blade mastery; +2cp attack/parry
-axe mastery; +1 damage
-mace mastery; penetrate 2 natural armor
-picked mastery; penetrate 2 armor
-chain mastery; let's you 'faint' as if your opponents PSY is 2 less
-spears; add +2 on initiative if you ain't in Melee before you're turn (cause of reach)
-bow mastery; may be something as extraordinary as +1 action limit
-crossbow mastery; penetrate 2 armor (cause you know where to place the bolt)

Personally I would keep this simple and easy, without too many bonuses, and then stick to the rules as they are
PS I don't think they added a carrying table, but simply wanted the game master to rule what is and what's not possible..

[Gabado]

I like that idea of giving specific specialties for weapon type. It does seem as though someone trained in bludgeoning weapons will be less effective when wielding a flail or sword than someone specifically trained in those.

I see what you mean about the small differences between weapons and I do agree that it appears very well balanced. But I don’t feel as though it reflects actual weapon variation within size categories. There’s so much cool stuff within the weapon flavor texts, I’m just looking for a way to have that flavor reflected in the game rules.

As for the carry limit, that’s kinda what I was figuring, though I thought it’d be good to check to see if anyone else had ideas for how to handle it. If you convert from other systems, you get 6.8kg * (10 + 2 * str) for the maximum a character can lift.
I was working on an excel spreadsheet character sheet and wanted to do an algorithm to track carrying capacity and total weight carried. Tangentially related, I’d like to share that sheet with people on here, but I’m not sure how upload an excel file to the forum.

[Mugge]

Again with the maximum carrying limit, I would say even a person with 0 trait in CON/STR, should be able, somehow to use full plate, heavy shield and heavy weapon without a crazy penalty... Actually I did say they went a little overboard with armor weights, it is still possible to get hands in a less weighted master crafted armor, but still, when would that happen?
Furthermore a flat limit from STR would seem a little strange between a Ogro, and a changeling.. Maybe making a table from a characters wight/race with +/- from STR and 'armor bearer' specialist, but I did say that +4 STR is a muscle man and not your average soldier boy (all of my friends would hate me for a dwarf who couldn't lift a tankard of ale and still swing an axe)

Hmmm maybe going back a little on a few of the ideas above and then making a few more specialities, then instead of actual flat bonuses, change them into something special.. (I would personally try to still keep a balance between each, like a penalty for a plus)

-Personally I really liked the idea of chain weapons, so it's easier to faint with a flail or troll chain as if you opponents perception was lowered by 2
-then going to something as war picks, you may take a penalty-10 on the attack to lower the OR by 1 *
-axes; taking a flat penalty from attack/for a flat plus on damage max -2/+2
-hammers; taking a flat penalty from initiative/for Flat armor penetrate, max -2/2
-crossbow; taking a full turn to aim, lower OR by 1 with crossbows on the following turn
-bow; increase WA by 1**
-blades/swords; making more then 1 WA in your turn with the sword, add +1 to all attacks with that weapon
-staff; ?
-spears; ?
-Slings; ?

I'm a little out of ideas here, and some weapons like drupi axi, miekka and stakk swerd may need their very own special effect?

*this is actually the same penalty as ride-by attack, and I really don't want this to be lower, since to use a ride-by, also needs a lot of skill, furthermore slashing weapons shouldn't be able to do this if you ask me, since a Thuul would become insane
**i don't really know, if this is to powerful, I'm a little more scared of giving such a bonus for a Melee weapon, since it would change every ideas of going ambidextrous, or two-handed fighting, and bows are already superior to crossbows since you don't use a turn to load... But then again that additional action may be useless most of the time since ranged weapons a so heavily penalized under combat...

[Gabado]

One way to approach it could be to add weapon-specific maneuvers, similar to ride by attack. The feint bonus for flails is a good way to approach this, maybe hammers and picks get access to specific disarm maneuvers or something to that nature. Maybe letting spears set up to brace for receiving a charge.

This could all be handled by a game master though, with players describing their attacks and the GM arbitrating specific combat points needed for creative maneuvers.