Song of Swords: Check 'em

Hey Jimmy. Are there many travelers in Vosca or is everyone too sedentary? How are borders handled?

Increase the primary AVs of all metal armor types.

So I've played RoS. How does SoS defer?

I heard yesterday that it was, you know, functional. And not purely for HEMAspergs. I'd like to get my friends who weren't as much into RoS into something similar.

What's wrong with HEMAspergs?

You mean differ, not defer. It's different in many subtle ways that change the gameplay while keeping it similar to Riddle of Steel overall.

Who'd be up for a tournament testing the new rules?

Or at least some random fechts.

If I had to name mechanical differences, SoS feels a lot more modern in how it presents mechanics, and a lot of the stuff (like races) are a lot easier to understand than they were in TROS. Conversely the format creates loopholes that break the game from time to time because there's less wiggle room for interpretation.

The maneuvers are written in a very technical format that makes it totally unambiguous how much you pay and what you do, and as of now the Proficiencies system is a lot less complex, though it lacks the depth of TROS in terms of what maneuvers you can do with what weapons. You can masterstrike as easily with a spear as you can with a longsword, for example.

Talents are a big difference with no analogue in TROS at all. They're sort of like Feats from D&D. They used to have meme names that made them hard to sort through, and they still do, but at least now they have a Title: Meme format that makes it easier to know what you're getting.

Another difference is that SOS was made pretty explicitly to "reclaim" high fantasy by running it through Jimmy's deranged filter of historical autism, Catholic mysticism and severely retrograde political philosophy. The result is Tattered Realms, the setting for which the game was made. So... Expect elves. Not that you have to play with them, it works fine for historical/human only campaigns and you could make your own races easily enough.

Depends on when and if you want characters from me, or participation. If you just want characters I can probably give you some tomorrow, but knowing timezones I won't be able to participate

The tournaments are more a test of character creation than of fechting. Even with new maneuvers the scene is usually dominated by some bullshit. Consider an esoteric ohanedin with Parry 4 and rules of nature. You can't beat that with normal TN 7 sword and shield unless you have a huge CP advantage, which again is mainly char creation and "build", not Maneuvers.

Hmm, maybe we could curate a tournament then, make sure everything is essentially balanced.

Might be too much effort though.

You could run a historical tournament. Do something fun like just see if you can model a gladiatorial contest.

Niggers

Can't stand 'em

That'd be fun. Low amounts of armor, wounds that are persistent through the tournament, no elves.

So am I reading the Stats part wrong or do I have to invest 6 PCP just to get 4s across the board?

the first point in each attribute is free

Wow, I failed at math pretty hard there.

Oh nice.

We tried that before.

Assholes still made retarded murder hobos.

>no maneuvers in the book
What did they mean by this?

>tfw you have to fight the Burd rape-train but you just cut their fucking arm off with 6 STR and the will of Kek

Murderhobos are fun.

It was a glorious day.

the dice were out to murder burds that night

Solution, build "Classes" of gladiators with set equipment lists and cut race (all human), social class (All slaves) and skills (set everyone to 4) from the creation process.

KHOPESH 4 LIFE.

I can dig it.

I'm a HEMAsperg but my friends don't appreciate me jerking off to pollaxes all the time, basically. There's nothing wrong with us, it's just that they're not into all the same things I am, which is somewhat problematic as a ForeverAGM

That's pretty boss. Glad the competition is still alive.

Not going to work without TZMs. TZMs are gone. No one knows how to make a good system with them. So now you just attack every unarmored area.

We could try make stances or use the ones Jimmy gave us a while back. The problem is they become very bloated with rules, such as bonus dice to some actions, negative dice to others changing distances and other stuff. I'm not sure how we could make them simple enough to slot into the basic combat system.

Take a look at the Vom Tach.
As a stance in SoS, it'd probably look like nuetral TZM distances for all but the arms, which would be roughly equal and the back leg which is probably +1. I'd say -3 dice on defense manuevers towards attacks targetting below the hips,
-1d to all thrusting manuevers, -1d to cutting manuevers targetting below the hips and +3/4d to cutting manuevers targetting the head, torso or shoulders.
Also probably more but I'm an idiot. Probably ultra low quality, but what can you do, I'm not home

Sidenote to the guy who made the Audatia TTS mod, you were the second result in Google when I googled "Audatia cards"

>how Riddle of Steel combat works with d6 pools instead of d10s
Just fucking fine, if they did it right. There's nothing inherent to a die size that impacts balance, it just means that other numbers have to be rejiggered.

Bump

>There's nothing inherent to a die size that impacts balance
Lol besides probabilities, design and balancing space and possible room for mechanics attached to them. Remember Evasive Attack? There is no room with d6 to implement anything like that. S&S combat will be barebones with very few maneuvers as it used to.

>Sidenote to the guy who made the Audatia TTS mod, you were the second result in Google when I googled "Audatia cards"
Fantastic! Spread the word around of the mod and Audatia.

There could still be maneuvers like those, but they won't involve TN increases. Instead it'll have to involve rerolls, dropping highest/lowest values, or some other such trickery. The notion of rerolls was discussed heavily on Grand Heresy's forums.

I don't think that Flower of Battle approach to stances is the way to go. As you said, it's very bloated and convoluted. It's certainly not easy to remember mentally how they all work, because you've got pluses and minuses, and who knows how many stances. And they'd have to represent stances with every melee weapon setup in the world, not just two-handed swords.

Look here at how Band of Bastards did it. Although weapons have range, there are no range costs to attack. Instead, if there is a difference in the ranges of the fighters' weapons, whoever begins the Round at their weapon range gets +2 CP. (If they're using Spear or Dagger proficiency, they get +4 CP instead.) In SoS terms, instead of having to pay 3d activation cost to attack a spear-user with your battleaxe, the spear-user would get a +4 CP bonus at Refresh.

Their hit location tables are built exactly like ours - but since they use d6s for location, they can write their tables in this convenient wheel format. It is a bit deceptive in that each arm and each leg counts as a zone, but still in the Arm and Leg zones. (You'll see in a minute.) Now here's what they do about stances.

Anyone may pay 1 die at the start of the Round to "favor" one of the target zones. You cannot attack that target zone. Just straight up can't target it. Shields automatically favor their shield arm zones for free - not the weapon arm, but the shield arm. For the bigger shields, you select 2 or 3 wheels in a continuous group, to favor as well as the arm. So you could favor the Arm, Thigh, and Shin, but not Arm, Thigh, then skip a wheel and cover the Belly.

There are three ways to get around favoring. First is a Swinging augment called Wrap, which works just like our Power Attack or Deep Draw Cut. You pay dice, it lets you attack a favored zone with a regular swing. There is no such equivalent for thrusts, so in rapier fights, favoring is usually safe. Second is to use the Counter Maneuver, as it's explicitly allowed to hit favored zones. Finally you can win at a positioning roll, which is a unique BoB mechanic that happens after Refresh but before Round 1. It's where you can keep your footing on a slippery surface, try to do miscellaneous actions like drawing a new weapon, or create some narrative effect and claim a bonus for it, like slicing a nearby curtain and throwing it at the enemy as a distraction.

...

>vom tag on the shoulder, not over the head / spine

reeeeeeeeeeeeee

9/10
Would hold down by hair and buttfuck

Why is /sos/ so gay?

Manly men impaling each other with hard, long shafts

you can only joke about it for so long before you become it.

Look, this is about my limit for the reciever. I just don't find bara dudes nice aesthetically, and if you don't find this aesthetically pleasing in any respect you're probably broken

...

gamingballistic.com/2017/07/12/vikings-shields-and-game-rules/

youtube.com/watch?v=VgUDDdQWA4Q

gamingballistic.com/2017/07/13/viking-shield-fighting-in-gurps/

This further complicates SoS's approach to Hewing shields.

Jimmy!
Hypotethically speaking, what would happen if Dr.Escher by some accident found himself in control of large quantities of stygian oil?
And I mean really in control.

Cringe.

What?

Im not reading all that.
Just tell me what to be outraged about.

Trying to hack apart shields is a bad idea.

>not reading roland

>On the battlefield, axes were more common than swords

Lol. I mean maybe for the Vikings, as that's what's being discussed, but the blanket statement on the face still makes me cringe. (And frankly, spears would've been more common than either)

Well... if your shield gets splintered (and axes will do that) you're gonna have a bad day at the battle.

It's not about a battle, it's about typical viking age skirmishes. As Roland says if your axe is buried in the other guy's shield you're going to have a bad time.
>(and axes will do that)
Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the axe and the shield. This context is about viking-era weapons, possibly viking-era dueling weapons--there's doubt that the shields in the video could stand up to arrows or javelins. Specifically trying to destroy a man's shield, in an actual battle, with a dane axe, with an ally between you and him, and where everyone has little to no armor, might make sense. But for the 1v1 fights Song of Swords represents, no, specifically trying to break a guy's shield will probably not be useful in reality. That's based on people doing real research and real tests.

How the fuck do I fecht? This shit is deep enough to warrant a guide. How did they even fight in ye olde times?

It's not so much about one guy putting his axe through your shield as it is continues battering and hewing from various opponents.

Yes, common wisdom says shields will probably only last one actual real battle. That is a different effect from specifically trying to Hew an enemy's shield apart instead of trying to hit them.

if SoS is any indicator they were retards about it, leaving much their bodies unarmored

If you want to learn it's a lot easier to be taught than to learn from the rulebook. Come to the roll20 room, someone'll be there to help

>so many people not wearing helmets and codpieces
They literally had no excuse.

I got the mechanics down more or less, I just don't know how to win fights.

It depends heavily on context. Your stats, your weapons and armor, your CP, your talents, and all of those things for the other guy all matter. What specifically is your trouble?

On top of that, your actions in combat make a huge difference, a good hook or blind toss can certainly win a fight for you or at least give you a huge advantage.

Everything dude. I know as little about fighting with a spear as I do with a sword, as I do about fighting naked people or people wearing power armor.

Alright, make one or two characters, give them some kind of weapon or shield, then post them here.

>I just don't know how to win fights
Just try not to die. When this goal is achieved try to wound your enemy or disarm him and force to surrender. Killing is not necessary the best way to win.

This is the best advice, the best way to translate it is to try and go for a 40/60 or 30/70 attack/defense ratio with your dice. Only attack with more dice than you defend with if you're very, very confident you can win the fight by doing so.

Keep in mind that time doesn't stop while you use the iDroid. You can even move around while using it, but pay attention to your surroundings. Any attack has a chance of getting past defenses and inflicting its effects. You want Initiative and you want to be attacking. Even if the odds are low, you have a chance of winning.

>As you said, it's very bloated and convoluted. It's certainly not easy to remember mentally how they all work
>It's certainly not easy to remember mentally how they all work
It's not very hard to remember. Stances give penalties and bonus dice to attacks from certain direction. High Forward is good for thrusting high to the head or chest and at the same time it covers your from overhand strikes (bonus dice to parries) but it's slow to react against upward swings. They do more or less what you would expect from them.
> And they'd have to represent stances with every melee weapon setup in the world, not just two-handed swords.
Just use the same stances. You are making it more complex than it needs to be.

It is hard to remember. You have many such stances, and you have not only pluses and minuses, but pluses and minuses of different values. This means it'll be another thing to have to keep close by when you play to reference and decide which stance you want to use. Maneuvers are the same way. Adopting Flower of Battle stances will add to the bloat in actual play, without solving the issue of T-pose attacking. Something lighter like TZMs would be better, but TZMs as they were weren't good enough.

>You have many such stances
3 Forward Stances
2 Back Stances
Charging
Neutral (default, no modifiers)

That's all. Low Back is usually crap so you can forget about unless you took Accuracy talents and aim to cleave teeth with surprise upward swing to zone VI.
>but pluses and minuses of different values
If stance is great for something (High Forward thrusts, High Back overhand strikes, Low Forward defense against low attacks) it grants 3 bonus dice, if it's good it gives 2 or 1. It's not rocket science.

fechtbump

How would an army use matchlocks in a part of the world where rain is common? Would they be used more for defence where the weapons can be kept dry or would fighting become more of a seasonal thing

The Japanese solution was lacquered boxes to cover the matches during rain. Wasn't a perfect solution but it worked well enough to make matchlocks viable in the wet.

Was this technology scalable to artillery?

Japanese never did to my knowledge. Though I guess there's nothing preventing it?

that is called big-ass umbrellas

Did Crossbows/Longbows still get used while the Arquebus was in service?

yes

Very much lots.

Has anyone shilled SoS to this guy?

Is have both 1h Sword and 2h Sword proficiencies in a single school redundant?

Depends. If you're using a sword with Hand-Off almost exclusively, then yeah, it is. But if you plan on using both a single handed and two handed sword, or swapping around weapons a lot, then no it isn't.

>defaulting from a dagger proficiency to wrestling, pugilism, 1h blunt and 1h sword is only a -1

Makes sense

The wrestling and pugilism makes sense.
Dagger systems are a lot about wrestling and pugilism.

Doug Cole would have an aneurysm looking at SoS. He's a published GURPS author who plays with and writes blogs alongside other published GURPS authors. SoS is an awful mess that buries its combat chapter way in the back, when almost everything leading up to it are character creation decisions which you make based on how they affect your combat capabilities. It's barely edited and unformatted. He'd scoff at it and never look at it again. It'd be interesting to get his take on the grappling rules, so maybe it'd be worth burning that resource.

1h Blunt and Daggers are the most versatile proficiencies.

>use a dagger
>grapple the enemy
>default from dagger to wrestling
>lose all your talents and your school bonuses too
This proficiency system is retarded

I don't think that's how it works anymore.

You should read the book before talking about it