In fantasy land, circumstances are of course different to our own. A man might have a hundred times the strength, or be a twenty foot giant. His enemy might be a human, sure, or he might be a lizardman with its built in scaly skin, or a dragon with thickened bones and musculature meaning that a spear can't even get through its flesh.
So here's the question. What real world weapons would have a more significant application in a fantasy setting? Alternately, what new ways of putting a knife on a stick could change man vs orc (or whatever) combat?
Josiah Watson
Polearms seem like they would be an asset vs. anything large and with a thick hide or scales. Same principle as a boar spear or w/e but magnified in scale. It might be that you would prioritize the absolute strongest penetration with ranged weapons over any other attribute.
For actual dungeon crawlers I think their gear would be totally different to what we normally see. Would you get a fully armored knight with sword and shield crawling around hundreds of feet below the earth? I feel like delvers would favor mobility and sword weapons that don't need a lot of room to use - short swords and spears, hatchets, crossbows and pistol crossbows. I don't know if they'd use a shield or if they'd just wear heavier armor on patches of their bodies - gauntlets, helmet, stuff like that.
Jackson Ortiz
I think we'd see shields, yeah, at least for parties expecting lots of humanoid foes with crossbows. Folks already used to heavy armor would probably still wear it simply because it's what they know, and I've seen that backflip in plate video enough times to know that heavy armor isn't always restrictive. I think it'll depend to an extent on the person, on what's available to them, and what they're expecting.
I do think you've a good point with weapon selections.
Austin Sullivan
It's trash, but the Goblin Slayer manga that was posted around here for a few weeks had some decent points on how someone might equip themselves to fight in warrens.
Austin Gutierrez
Against large, thick creatures, you would probably go for weapons that excel in hacking and severing, with highly pendular arcs of motion to maximise the force of impact. Impractically large axes, cleavers, etc.
If the creatures in question had certain weakpoints you could reliably target, you might go for a spear or very long rapier designed for precise strikes at its arteries or eyes or what have you.
Parker Murphy
What is your objection to Goblin Slayer? I mean yeah its jap shit, but i thought it was pretty funny and had some good bits.
Luke Bennett
I just think it's bad, feel free to enjoy it yourself. It's a pretty bottom-rung manga to me.
Nicholas Price
Fair enough, i mean it wasn't like top tier shit by any means, but honestly there hasn't been a good jap high fantasy for a long time in my opinion. Honestly it feels like there hasn't really been anything particularly good coming out of japan or the west for a while now. May i ask what colors your opinion?
Joshua Rivera
If you took a snapshot of the world in any age before 1800s (even after this is true, but it's more true the further back you go), you'll find that during the same time, weapons were very different in every society, Even inside small regions like Europe, you had great variation on the roughly same 'tech level'. Iberians favored short swords and throwing javelins from horseback, and while the Spanish adapted a lot of the lessons of heavy cavalry to 'medium' cavalry, with sometimes a heavy armored knight in a not armored horse, Portuguese prefered lighter knights able to fight on foot and on horse, serving as a mobile infantry as much as cavalry, according to needs.
Then we move to France that was reliant on heavy cavalry to an extreme, sometimes. Don't let the english fool you, it was effective 99% of times, and the tea drinkers still brag about the 3 times it wasn't in a 100 years conflict. And british has some heavier infantry and longbow galore.
That's without even looking further east. Italy, Scandinavia, Lithuania, The Byzantines... This happened because they had different climates, resources and enemies. Culture too, sure, but that's just carrying development made in the past because of those factors.
So what I'm saying is that if you want to develop on this, we won't have a single answer. But maybe picking specific places and their challenges and resources, we can craft some clever ideas.
William Roberts
Feels like cyclical shock shit, like the cockroaches on mars manga or that one about the human guy who has to bang all the fantasy princesses (if you replace shock for ecchi).
Can't really agree with your fantasy opinion. You have like Magus Bride, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Dungeon Meshi, Berserk (still). Westernwise there's Autumnlands, Seven to Eternity, probably more stuff I'm not reading. Peter Milligan is doing a fantasy comic about a Roman centurion with Valiant, Britannia.
Blake Howard
Yes the Britons only had successes 3 times in a 100 years long conflict :^)
Any map of the conflict will surely confirm this ;^)
Thomas Mitchell
MUH UNQUIE-CHUCKS
Good for close quarter encounter and channeling your inner Bruce Lee.
Cooper Gray
The Point ISS Stratosphere Burj Kalika Empire States building Really tall tree Your head.
Ethan Green
>the points :^D
Ayden Wilson
Dragonslayers should be competent mounted archers. Maybe also use some kind of grappling hook cheese.
Caverns and dungeons should have cramped passages and other spaces that don't allow you to carry large objects through. Also if you don't have to submerge yourself fully in water to get some places your DM is doing it wrong. Hand to hand, light weapons, and grappling need some more love in this context.
Fire is way too handwavy in its application. It's kind of a big deal in a siege. And some dungeons should have a siege-like feel.
Michael Adams
Goblin Slayer is basically OSR, the manga in my opinion.
Justin Bailey
You think? Not sure it really represents Yoon-Suin or Maze of the Blue Medusa or whatever.
Eli Rogers
Sorry to drag some -4 Str shit in here, but I was thinking, would the existence of flying mounts lead to an increase in the amount of women in the military? If you're riding a gryphon or a wyvern or something, especially in a dangerous situation, you'd want to shave off as much weight as possible. Since women tend to be smaller and lighter than men, seems to me like a sensible military would employ them for the job.
Realistically, you're not going to be able to do much effective archery while sitting on the back of a creature who's giant wings are flapping up and down on either side of you, so the two main uses of flying cavalry would be dropping things on people and getting behind enemy lines/fortifications. The former you don't need much strength, and again you want the rider to be light so you can carry more ammo, and in the latter case if one assumes a limited amount of flying mounts due to expense or whatever, you can only send so many and those will have to be more along the lines of sneaky saboteurs and snipers and such.
Blake Evans
Depends. Do they still cavalry charge, but from the air? You're going to want as much weight behind the rider as possible.
Ryan Stewart
I don't think flying mounts=more women in military. In a realm of multiple races if your civilization is convinced on using only males then you could simply pick from another race. For instance, Humans could mount Halflings on the back of flying mounts if weight was an issue. Not to mention most flying mounts are, commonly, large creatures or bigger (by the rules and general common sense you want to ride something bigger than you).
Secondly, you can perform archery perfectly well on a flying mount because birds and bats don't always flap their wings. They're perfectly able to glide through the air and ride warm air shafts for lift.
For dropping things, you are piling heavy/dense objects on a creature's back and I hope you're packing more than one ammunition. With that being said, what about weight? You just got back into the weight problem.
That leaves carrying troops to the back lines like chariots of ancient Greece did. This is entirely plausible. I don't see it being used often for the reason you noted. As such, having a flying cavalry regiment that swoops in and plucks/spears/lances the enemy and retreats before being hit. They're knights and, historically, predominantly male. Granted you might get some Joan of Arc/Jeanne d'Arc or maybe the mounts bond better with those mounted units, like elves to unicorns.
Personally I see magic being a larger contributing factor to women employment in the military as it doesn't matter so much about your physical status as it does your training/mental. Sending large fireballs into enemy ranks? Good thing fireballs aren't gender preferential about their casters.
Eli Gomez
>In a realm of multiple races if your civilization is convinced on using only males then you could simply pick from another race.
Contrariwise, if your civilization doesn't have some bizarre cultural reason due to religion or something, a setting with multiple races would probably ignore gender division of labour, since racial divisions would be far more significant. Men stronger than women? So what, all humans are still stronger than all elves or all halflings. Any argument you want to make about women being less mentally/emotionally suitable to a military life? Your human men are pussies compared to dwarf or orc women.
Maybe if you have a setting where the different races barely interact, but most Veeky Forums fantasy settings are pretty cosmopolitan.
Matthew Morales
Women's relative absence from organized military units has a lot less to do with the actual killing than -4 strength lets on. It's usually more to do with family (for instance getting to land grant level might preclude bearing children to pass that land to) and gear weight (which might not be a problem if you were rich enough for land and horse, but see again the former). Women are weak, sure, but killing isn't as hard as people who have never done it like to imagine.
If you want women on the front line, what you really need are less state-like groups (barbarians would kind of conquer and settle simultaneously, bringing women and children along), families that make it easier to dump kids on another caretaker or pick up heirs by other means than birthing them (avuncular child rearing springs to mind), give an alternate route to upper ranks (say, military academies for a professional standing army), allow commanders to bring wives along and allow said wives to succeed them (not as uncommon as you'd think, but more common in the age of sail with women learning to navigate from their husbands), or the like.
Nicholas Hernandez
I think you would be able to have archer from flying troops. You'd either train the mounts so you shoot in a glide, or you'd harness them such that the wings wouldn't interfere with the shot. Not having a 360 field of fire wouldn't matter so much when return fire is very difficult and you will generally be able to choose the angle of fire/approach.
Grayson Diaz
Man, even in settings with a lot of bullshit impossibly cool martial arts, chucks get shafted most of the time.
Kayden Reed
Haremshit, I've seen some complain about not enough elf rape, etc.
