From: Andrew Bell (acb@romeo.cs.dduke.edu)
Date: Sat 18 Aug 1990 - 09:56:33 EEST
In Digest 1.11, Steve Schrader writes:
>Conceivably the reason one can attack AND parry in the same round is that
>the person has two hands that they can do things with.
But they can also dodge, which shouldn't really require one's hands to do. (Irrelevant for RQII, I realize) I don't think it's just the number of hands that is important, it's what the person is capable of doing in 12 seconds.
Seriously, though, two-handed weapon fighting should be somewhat more tricky than sword-and-shield style, which should be more difficult than sword and mace style, and fencing should be quite different.
However, if you make it so people with two-handed weapons can't parry as well as attack, then an unarmored viking with a two-handed axe will never last 12 seconds with a decent opponent. It may be more difficult to parry with a two-handed weapon while also attacking with it, but it should be possible.
When I get a chance, I'll try to write up an article on fighting styles for this zine. Instead of having specific weapon skills, you'll have skills like:
Swung weapon and shield
Fencing
Two-handed swung weapon
Two weapons
Two-handed spear
and within those categories, you have extra skill with particular weapons. You train in a particular fighting style instead of particular weapon skills, so you train your shield parry at the same time you train your sword attack. The hours of training will basically be split between the various skills or something like that. Within each fighting style you may have some innate defense as per RQ II, perhaps as a third skill that is much harder to develop than the attack and parry portion. By having ENC affect this defense, a very heavy weight (like armor) can make one easier to hit, while a martial arts type, with no armor, would be harder to hit.
-Andrew
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