Song of Swords: Shooting Bollocks Off

Because nobody bothered to bump old thread or make a new one. It's the hell you chose and deserve but now with freshly uploaded pdfs.

>Zellish arms evolution

Ballad ship creation rules when, Jimmy

Stat me /SoS/, left to right.

Did you steal all the good pics from the dieselpunk thread as well?

you know it.

Probably stat the first like a backsword, second as either a heavy backsword or sidesword depending on the balance, and the third maybe an Espada Ropera?

What a pedestrian fetish

Gizka is rumoured to have stolen the womb of a giant's wife, which may or may not be the Black Cauldron

Are there things like this in Ballad?

Those must be what the space SS use as normal motorcycles.

>What a pedestrian fetish

Only the tip of the rabbit hole my friend.

>Gizka is rumoured to have stolen the womb of a giant's wife

Yeah I remember that. A rumor told by the Albish right? As far as I'm aware that's probably just a tall tale and not exactly confirmation of the existence of giants.

That picture is from porn isn't it.
What's the title

Hey, so I've seen this thread around and lurked it a couple of times and you guys all seem to know a thing or two about swordplay, so I'd like to get your input on a rather abstract question if that's all right.

The other day, my best friend and I were talking, and I think Fire Emblem came up. In case you're not familiar with it, it has a very basic system of what sorts of weapons trump other sorts: swords have bonuses against axes, axes have bonuses against spears/lances, spears/lances have bonuses against swords.

I thought this seemed pretty reasonable, at least the part about polearms vs. swords, because swords generally have inferior reach compared to sharp things on sticks: an attacking swordsman would have to run past the polearm blade in order to attack its wielder. My friend objected and said the opposite was true: in real combat, a swordsman would have the advantage against the spear-wielder because he could use his sword to knock the pole out of the way, close range, and stab the other fellow first.

Obviously, the kind of polearm being used would probably be pretty relevant, but as far as we've talked about it it seemed to me as though we were at a bit of an impasse. He's got some experience with the SCA to back himself up, which I don't, but I can't help but think that an experienced guy with a spear would be able to just pull back and stab the other guy if they got rushed (assuming they just wouldn't be able to stab the swordsman first).

Anyway, what do you guys think about this? In an duel between a swordsman and a spear- or polearm-wielder, who would win?

Well, you've also got to consider how these things work in formation as well. In a major battle, a polearm-user in the front rank won't be able to 'just pull back', but on the other hand the sword-user will be dealing with more than just one polearm.
Also, I imagine that knocking a polearm out of line with a sword would be more difficult than it appears on first blush, but I have nothing but vague intuition to back that up.

Also depends what polearm.
Fuckhuge formation spears are a different thing.

I'd say that in a vacuum, the idea that spears and the like give an advantage over swords is reasonable. That may change when armor and shields and stuff are brought into the mix, but just at base, sure.

I'm actually more confused as to why axes have advantage against spears, you'd think that any weakness swords have against spears (which is basically one--reach) would be exacerbated by making the weapon even shorter, as most axes were.

The videogame logic is "axe the spear to break it" I think. The game has some weapons that change the rules, and IIRC it's some chopping swords beat spears.

>boob plate
>no codpiece

>SCA
lol
HEMA or go home

I mean let's be honest if she's a cavalry anything there's not really a need for a codpiece due to the whole horse thing.

It depends on specifics.

That category includes everything from 15 foot lances to halberds and pollaxes on the polearm side, and everything from falchions to greatswords on the sword side.

Are the combatants wearing armour? What specific sword and polearm?

In general though, if the polearm is super long, it loses a lot of it's advantages in a one on one fight, but if it's a medium to short one, like a Halberd or a Pollaxe, that also have a lot more versatility than poking people, the advantage is with the polearm, especially if the combatants are wearing lots of armour and the sword in question is anything one-handed.

Polearms are not completely neutralized by getting past the point, at least not the short to mid-length ones. They can be used for tripping, hooking, cross-checking and so on, and if you're wearing armour the fight becomes more about trying to control or ground your opponent so you can dispatch him more easily, rather than hitting each other until one guy falls over, and then the advantage is heavily with the polearm.

Remember that some medieval fencing masters (if you put any stock in their opinion) said things like how pollaxe fighting can be used to teach all other kinds of weapons, or that the quarterstaff was superior to the sword.

I'm willing to bet that your sca friend never has to deal with people who are allowed to crosscheck him, sideswipe him in the chins etc, or fights where you go at it until someone yields rather than fighting for points.

SCA fighting is only marginally more relevant when discussing the pros and cons of weapons in combat than olympic fencing is.

You only really see crotch armour on suits of armour meant specifically for foot combat. If you're mounted, the front and back of the saddle protects all those parts, and would make armour there super uncomfortable because you're sitting on it.

For foot combat on the other hand, you have things like the amazing butt-armour of henry VII.

Still, doesn't explain the boob plate. That shit would get you wrecked real fast in real combat because the boobs would attract enemy blows instead of fending them off. Also, it would get really nasty if someone managed bash your boob piece in with a blunt weapon.

It would get really nasty if your breastplate got bashed in with a blunt weapon any way man, it's also a very unlikely thing to happen seeing as the angle, thickness and location of your breast plate doesn't really lend it'self to super-effective swings connecting. If you're on the ground already, absolutely, but then you're fucked any way, boobs or flat plate.

The problem with boob plate is not that it's boob shaped, it's that it's often depicted as skin tight.

99% of the "boob plate doesn't make seeeense!" arguments only really work for skintight lolfantasy armour, and would not make much of a difference on "real" armour worn with proper padding.

The problem is that people try to sound logical, when logic is not their issue with boob plate.

People forget that making giant holes and deforming the armour was not really a common occurence. People in late medieval plate got killed when they got knocked over and had their helmets pulled off, not by magical can-opener warhammers.

>the boobs would attract enemy blows
And then you factor in how good plate armor is at stopping blows. Cutting weapons are useless, maces are short so you have to be close (or both fighting on horseback). Polearms besides poleaxes mostly utilize overhand strikes and hooks so boobplate doesn't help it find your fragile sternum. Boobplate magnet is a myth.

This.

Boobplate death trap is an exaggeration.

The people who are the most rabid about it are not actually worried about logic, they just want to make it sound that way while they're lashing out at what they perceive to be objectifying women.

Look at this here helmet. Notice how it's got a inward pointing crease between the eye slits and beneath them? OMG IT WILL CATCH SPEAR THRUSTS AND DIRECT THEM INTO YOUR FOREHEAD!

And it's worse, the entire helmet looks vaguely like a perky tit, so clearly it will just explode the moment you hit it.

>Secret life of Voltaire

Sexy.

Isn't that rather the point, so it slides harmlessly off the top?

Sure, and you could just as easily argue that boob creases could guide a thrust harmlessly off to the sides or up onto the gorget if you wanted to make that point.

In either case, real armour has all kinds of details and creases that we can zoom in on and say "zomg, spear/arrow trap" if we conveniently ignore that a spear thrust there has very little chance of actually piercing the plate.

There's a reason forensic archaeological evidence show us that people who are assumed to have worn plate armour were generally killed by injuries to the head or face sustained after the helmet was removed ( like, famously, Richard lll at bosworth field) , or in vulnerable spots of the armour after the person was incapacitated or on the ground. What we don't see very often is people getting killed by blows that have compromised or destroyed the armour.

A person in plate is really, really hard to kill or meaningfully injure as long as they're mobile, which is one of the reasons for the emphasis on weapons that can either A: ring someone's bell until he falls over even if you don't actually destroy the helmet, or B: hook or trip him the fuck up so you get him on the ground in the period where plate armour becomes more and more widespread. The most prominent examples being more and more complex halberds or the pollaxe.
A spear or sword thrust is not a serious threat to someone in 15th century plate, and putting tits on the armour is not going to change that.

Again, this of course assumes that the rest of the armour is non-retarded, if you have a boobwindow, bare thighs, no helmet and other silly nonsense going on, that's obviously going to make you very vulnerable, but that's not the boobplate's fault, and I'll not be told otherwise by people who have a problem with me enjoying tits on things. I'll put them on my helmet if I feel like it, mark my words.

Boobplate is fine, at least in this case. Context is everything.

Tell me about Carthage guys.

People who are upset about the pretty reasonable boobplate and correct lack of groin protection for a horseback fighter but not about that fucking sword really need to reconsider their lives.

Plate cod pieces were only around in a certain time because of fashion anyway.

I can't tell you much, but I can try and find you some documentaries that are strangely butthurt about the result of a millennia old war.

Well, we'd sort of need ship combat to be ready before then. We are coming along in that regard them. I've just sent a message to Claymore regarding the delays, I hope we'll have something concrete to show off first.

In the meantime I have to deposit a check (Fucking Wells Fargo is unaware that it's current year, apparently, so I have to go do it manually) then maybe I can answer some lore questions.

I think someone wanted to know about Ballad's Technocracy, and someone else wanted to know about TR's Giants.

Both are good conversation pieces, I'll touch on them sometime today.

Are giants the same as ogres in the TR universe?

>Running Ballad of the Laser Whales for a first-time player and a group of normies
What am I in for, exactly?

Group frustration at how hard it is to hit someone proceeding someone actually being hit for the first time.

Overconfidence ending in a hail of automatic fire.

Relief that the luck mechanic exists.

Start out with enemies who have very low powered pistols and advise your players to use cover.

Also remind them that Aim exists.

Sorry, fucked the last one up.

So I want to run a bank job one-shot for some of my players with an escalation of force Payday-style, what is all the bad shit that can go wrong in a situation like that?

Hay Jimbo computers are still the size of rooms in BotLW right?

This is a work of divine comedy.

Sounds based. I would advise you to let the PCs do it "clean" if they're smart and stealthy.
I mean, they won't be, but that's normal.

>Computers
There are some which are smaller than that, normally very simple ones. Targeting computers are a fairly well developed science, but there are even very simple targeting computers that exist on certain planes--meant to discern enemy distance using radar, and then calculate the proper "lead" for the fighter's guns, so that the targeting reticle is always aiming where the enemy will be when the guns fire.

So it is possible to design computers that are of a less than extreme size, but they're usually very specialized for a specific task.

Sorry if this is the wrong place since I've never looked at these threads before, but I beg a question.

Say I wanted to run a game featuring a knights tournament. Does this system do something like jousting and melee justice for some chivalrous deeds? Does any system?

>a knights tournament
You mean like with one-on-ones? With dudes in armour?

That is literally the thing that SoS does best, no deception this is mechanically the best thing that SoS does right now.

>He didn't say ahlspiess

Look at this pleb and laugh.

The game is very focused on "lethal" combat, which is to say, there are rules for fighting with lances and such, but they don't really work if you don't want to kill the people involved.

A jousting lance might inflict bludgeoning instead of piercing damage, or even Unarmed damage, I'm not 100% on the engineering involved.

>Does any system?
The Riddle of Steel supplement Flower of Battle has chapter about mounted combat and jousting. Check it if you aren't satisfied with SoS. Maybe Pendragon or Hackmaster has specific rules for that.

nhentai.net/g/22708/

There's also ASOIAF RPG that does a lot of joust stuff.

Oh, gosh. Thanks for all the replies, sorry I fell asleep before I could read them.

Oh, yeah, we talked about formation stuff a little, but mostly I'm interested in the dueling thing.
>Also, I imagine that knocking a polearm out of line with a sword would be more difficult than it appears on first blush, but I have nothing but vague intuition to back that up.
That's exactly my situation, yeah: nothing but hunches versus his at-least-kind-of-significant sorta-actual-combat experience.
Unfortunately, "boffer battles aren't exactly very much like real medieval combat" is about the closest thing I have to an argument, yeah.
So the length of the specific polearm is going to be significant? That seems true. After all, pikes like the ones they used in formations could be like 10 feet long, right? Obviously it would be a real pain in the ass to fight a sword guy one-on-one with one of those. And I hadn't even considered how armor would factor into it at all, honestly. Thanks for that.
>I'm willing to bet that your sca friend never has to deal with people who are allowed to crosscheck him, sideswipe him in the chins etc, or fights where you go at it until someone yields rather than fighting for points.
That was my impression as well: he mentioned that he has fought against a spear-user, but I'm not sure exactly what the rules of SCA combat are like. You said it works with points?
I'd also appreciate it if you had the names of any resources that I could use as evidence, like those medieval fencing masters' names or something.

> someone else wanted to know about TR's Giants.
> I'll touch on them sometime today.

Thank you Jimmy you glorious bastard.

I knew that getting drunk and talking to my friends about you would only yield good things.

Also after I finished my rant about you and what you do, one of the fucks asked if you were the guy that made Windforged. After looking into it I can see why that is what he thought I was talking about.

>Unfortunately, "boffer battles aren't exactly very much like real medieval combat" is about the closest thing I have to an argument, yeah
Even in boffer going against a spear with nothing but a single sword is incredibly risky, especially if the boffer allows leg shots, which SCA does not.

>10 feet
Pikes could reach 21 feet.

Huh? I found it in Tsukasa Jun artwork collection.

Thanks dudes. I'll take a look at everything. The main draws of creating a knights tourney for me would be to ensure that it's theoretically non lethal combat with fairly common lethal consequences, usually accidental.

Lances are blunt and break easily so they don't puncture armor, with the intention to unhorse the knight rather than impale them, but the splinters are still dangerous and so is falling off a horse. And also the chance for some one to be a total dickhead and aim for the face. On-foot melee I think SoS definitely looks great.

I could see tourney lances as having negative damage modifiers, but a bunch of Shock (possibly increasing incrementally per Bonus Success to represent really good hits).

Have you ever checked out The Few?

Pretty simple but functional dogfighting game.

The lances in SoS right now are all battle lances, intended to poke a motherfucker right through rather than breaking on his armor. If you want tournament lances, homebrew would be necessary, but it wouldn't be too bad. Converting the lance damage to unarmed would probably work pretty easily, if you want people to be able to go multiple passes against each other.

That is one fine murderstick.

That's pretty damn good. Would be neat if it got expanded.

I'm not familiar with Windforged. Let me go check what that is. What gave them that impression?

I'll read it.

I mentioned airships and hunting flying whales.

Quickly someone, Jimmies trying to pass these ideas off as his own. I need that picture that warns against believing his lies.

>Windforged.
store.steampowered.com/app/266170/

I think it's less important in Ballad that they are whales and more important that they are LASER WHALES

So, here comes the much-awaited Giant Talk.

Before we move forward, let's establish what Giants are NOT.

Giants are not Ogres.
Ogres are large, bipedal humanoids, but they are probably not related genetically to humans--at least not any time recently. They are pure carnivores, and were unable to adapt to agrarian society. Driven to the edges of civilization, they are stereotyped as inbred cannibals incompatible with civilization, and are often killed on sight, or used for brute labor with the promise of alcohol and beef as their reward. They are also very fond of cow's milk, and often accept pay in the form of buckets of the stuff.

Giants are not Trolls.
Trolls are cunning predators, often believed to be Spawn of the Dark Watchers. Their bodies are hideous, twisted parodies of human form, with a slack, barely expressive human face attached to a monstrous and emaciated torso, with some parts protected by overlapping bony plates, and clawed hands and prehensile feet. Called "Fasci" in Illegon because of their ability to squeeze into very tight spaces (which causes their bones to poke morbidly out of their flesh, making them look like a bundle of sticks) they prey almost exclusively on humans. Some trolls can mimic human speech, though it always sounds stilted and lilting. They often use this ability to lure travelers to their doom.
They are infamous for their resilience to magic, and for their quick healing. They are also notoriously sadistic and cruel, often baiting their prey along for days before moving in for the kill. They can be found everywhere, but they are territorial, and rarely group together except in small gangs--often presumed to be family units, though no infant trolls have ever been seen.

>Next Post: What Giants actually are.

Giants are rarer than the above-listed creatures. To begin with, it isn't known if they reproduce at all. It may well be that those who exist now are the only ones who have ever been--or will ever be. Giants also don't share much in common with each other, aside from the fact that they're... Really big. Really big, and made of stone and earth. Some are bipedal--man shaped--others are bestial, some cannot move at all, and can be mistaken for strange rock formations or hills.

The giants are creatures from a previous age, that much is agreed upon by all. The Helians were aware of them in ancient times, and may have even worshiped them as gods at some point. Because the great creatures move so slowly, and so rarely take action, they made for pretty good gods.

But they do, from time to time, grow agitated, or hungry, or bored, or something. They don't really emote much--it's hard to tell what they're thinking, and they certainly don't explain themselves. A giant may awaken at any time--a hill that overlooks your hometown may one day stand up, shake the moss from its back, and then step on your house on its way to wherever its primal urges lead it.

Sometimes they kill, for varying reasons. It may be malice, or it may be the fear an elephant has for a rat. A few giants are intelligent enough to use weapons, which they often hide beneath them as they slumber. The single largest single object of Silversteel ever found was a crude mace fashioned of the stuff that was wielded by the giant Londokaius (named by the people he terrorized) who was slain by the mortal hero Thrasymachus, who tricked the giant into losing its feet, and then slew him with five spears, one after another, thrown to him by his kinsmen as he stood on the creature's neck and thrust them into its face. The Mace of Londokaius was melted down and made into the White Temple of Helion, a symbol of peace between the Orredin and Humans who shared the Empire, and was lost to the sea in the cataclysm.

How many are there? Are there few enough of these things left that they're all known, or are there unknown giants?

I knew that pouring another glass of Jack tonight would yield more good things.

I've gotta go now but when I get back I'll try and figure out how to update the wiki with this stuff if no one else has already done so.

You glorious legionnaire, Jimmy Rome.

Please do. I'm also going to do a piece on the Technocracy tonight, for our 3 or 4 Ballad fans.

That's a lotta silversteel.

are you a bad enough dude to put on a burdinadingdongadin diving suit and steal a sliver the silversteel of the silver steeple?

Jimmy, underwater fighting rules when?

So these things are colossi?

Can humans enter into Iron Glades without contaminating them? Can they be "scrubbed down" and made magically safe? Or do outsiders have to wear protective gear, like Burdinadin do on the outside?

With added paint on top, yes.

If they are made of stone and earth, how did a dude with some Spears even hurt it?

How does one kill them if they're made of earth and stone? Do they have weak spots or what?

He found its weak point.

Jesus, was that a really light ball or is that bitch a fucking amazon?

Well, he broke four spears doing it. That sounds pretty hardcore.

If i remember right rental bowling balls are colored by weight and i believe pink is 6 pounds

Oh. That's not so bad. I remember my uncle owned one and it was way heavier than that. I didn't know they got that light.

like it's literally for children. if you look at the video you can see some green and blue which are normal sized while hers is about 80% their size

They usually sanitize humans who want to enter (think radiation scrubbing and a rough loofa to remove dead skin cells) but other than that it isn't a problem unless you get too many humans in one place. Like a hundred of them in one room or something.

The chief issue is that humans have a very distinctive smell that Burdinadin tend not to like, largely because they grow up in totally filtered and sterile environments, so everything seems really pungent to them. They're very polite about it though, and normally just mask the constant mandatory cleansing as concern for the outsiders' health. The ones who deal with humans often usually get used to it.

One final question. Do the Burdinadin have any sort of naval presence? Sea bases, Glades built on islands (specifically the Slivers), research ships, things like that?

I'm pretty sure they have a glade on the ocean floor.

Like everything else they do, it's probably a bad idea.

Hand-Tree anyone?

Probably got goddamned ironclads

I hope not. The setting's ridiculous enough without literal Sealab

>a hill that overlooks your hometown may one day stand up, shake the moss from its back, and then step on your house
Implies that many are not recognized for what they are.
There are probably also cases where a hill is said to be a giant, but the local people think it's mere superstition and don't believe in giants. And while in that village they might be wring, there might be similar local superstitions in a town two villages over, where the relevant hill really is just a hill.

I've just done it, but for future reference it's really easy to do. There's a "contribute" dropdown in the upper right part of the site, select "new page". Give it an appropriate name, select "blank" and copy-paste the text dump in. That's enough to have helped out, and you can click the button to finalize, but it would be more thorough if you give it an appropriate category ("monsters", "people", "military units", and "culture and science" cover like 90% of entries), put double square brackets ( eg [[Trolls]] )around anything that has its own page or seems like it ought to, and fix any typos or bits that are responding to previous posts in the thread.