Are spears too strong?

[Bragallot]

You can charge with a spear, but not with certain other heavy weapons (unless you were falling down on an opponent, apparently). So, if you were being a total Anorak you'd just arm all your guys with spears 'cos they're literally better than other heavy weapons you can't charge with, unless I'm missing something?

I know simplicity > perfect balance but we could maybe come up with a simple solution to this 'cos right now Charging Heavy Weapons > Heavy Weapons You Can Grip With Both Hands > Heavy Weapons You Can't Grab With Both Hands. A lot of weapons that are not spears are cooler than spears so they should also be better.

-1 damage to spears could work (4/6 chance to hit and 3/6 to kill a normal minifig is still pretty good), although reducing damage seems kinda un-Brikwars-ish. Maybe remove the ability to be Armour Piercing from Charging Weapons? 'Cos you can already get a similar effect by charging.

[AZKAMAT]

I use custom melee rules where they're broken up by broad type. When I was figuring out what should get what bonus to differentiate them I was like, "Wait, I need something for spears! Oh yeah, they can already deal double damage in vanilla anyway."

I think it's a by-product of BW being so generalized that it can be applied to any setting. I.e. I can't think of another rule set that without extensive homebrewing allows for the whole panorama of any possible historical setting AND sci-fi AND fantasy all in one.

Maybe instead of modifying the main rulebook Mike should just make supplements for particular settings like Fantasy/medieval. Concentrate the nitty-gritty there for those who want it and leave the core stuff in the core book.

[stubby]

I like rules that trick anoraks into being more fun. They're all out there "ha, I got one up on everybody by taking advantage of charging weapons" and I'm all "ha, I got them to be more dynamic and stop turtling-in-place by tricking them into making charges."

[Bragallot]

Hah, good point.

Now that I think about it charges should get parried more often now that you roll against the UR of the parrying object instead of against the attacking roll, which on average should be higher.

I wouldn't make stuff more complicated either, was just wondering if I'd missed something. You can customise weapons as much as you like under your own house rules. Especially when it comes to all the different types of guns used in sci-fi BW, this is very common already.

[stubby]

Now that I think about it charges should get parried more often now that you roll against the UR of the parrying object instead of against the attacking roll, which on average should be higher.

Since a charge adds a damage die and parrying removes it, they cancel each other out and it's just a regular attack again.

The problem with parrying against the attacking roll was keeping track of all the modifiers on the original attack and figuring out which ones affect the difficulty of the parry, and how. Too complicated! Instead, I'm treating the parry as what it is: the minifig making a standard attack on the incoming weapon. The only fudge is ignoring the penalties you'd normally have for small target size.

[Bragallot]

Yeah I know, what I mean is that before it was more likely you would not be able to parry the charge since it could require a 3 but also a higher number. Now a 2 or 3 should be enough depending on the type of weapon.

Removing a die is also stronger (and faster) than having to roll to see how much of the damage you block. Before spearmen charging sometimes killed heroes with their UR of only 3 and the subsequent 2d6+2 damage they did, and if two of them charged at a time they killed pretty much anything. I'm all for minifigs getting violently run through in BW but it was still a bit over the top.

I agree this is the better system. I remember in squad battles where one side tried to parry particularly it required a lot of attention.

[Zupponn]

Question:

Are spears too strong?

Answer:

[Kommander Ken]

Please nerf Ancient Greece.