Advice for poor would-be adventurers

The primary weapon of the Legionary was the shield.

I don't think a quarterstaff would be very effective against a full plate, those things are well padded. Maybe if you get a good swing with a metal-shod one but getting a good opening to do so without getting stabbed or wrestled yourself wouldn't be plenty.

That is wrong.

It's frustrating how people underestimate the shield, it probably got used more often through history than the likes of a club and spear. Hell, maybe not in a battlefield but you still see shields being deployed by some forces.

The shield's primary use was to protect the individual from missile attacks.
Spears are the universal weapon until the common use of firearms.
Even then bayonets were still utilized like spears.

They had javelins as a throwaway weapon. Their main weapon was the gladius and shield.

...

there are surviving accounts of swords being sold at auction for as cheap as a pence, but if even that is too much a quarterstaff is still effective and you can make yourself.

probably in a place and time where there was a glut of swords.

Hunger, thirst and heat are you biggest enemy. Overextending yourself to the point you don't have enough ration to make the way back and having bad luck at foraging (assuming you know how to properly forage without getting poisoned) is worse than facing a band or orcs.
The heat can exhaust you before even seeing action, more so if you properly cover yourself to avoid dying to some ridiculous reason like surprise snake bite.

Spears beat swords, all things being equal. Range, price, as good as any sword at going through weak points in armor depending on the specific spear... all in all it's a better weapon, made downside is lugging the thing around and not being able to hide it easily.

Adding to this, be realistic on how much loot you can carry back. Being unable to fight or flee because you're carrying too much gold or being picked off by some no-name mook because you're overencumbered is a really embarrassing way to go, especially if you already killed the goblin chief.

What are you talking about? If confronted with a superior force, just leave what you cannot flee with. Did you think people chained themselves to their loot?

It's cheaper and faster/easier to make as well, materials provided.

I did mention price, after all. Price is a function of labour, time, and materials, among other things.

>just leave what you cannot flee with
Sometimes it's too late when you realize. Especially in a fantasy setting.
>Did you think people chained themselves to their loot?
No, but they overestimate how much they can flee with.

...

Forgot to say, that crystal clear riverstream? Probably full of shit and worms. If in your world adventuring is so common some chuckefuck peasant do it there probably at least some vague idea that boiled water is safer to drink than that shit. Listen to common sense.
Speaking of common sense, if you actually get somewhere and the locals tell you to not go to cave of no return, don't go to the cave of no return. You will probably slip while descending some sloped rock, break your ankles and die a lonely death.

>If confronted with a superior force, just leave what you cannot flee with
>If you do not have enough rations for a return trip, turn back
>If you don't think your odds of surviving a job/quest are high, don't take it
Surprise, people overestimate their own capabilities, especially the go-getters that decide they would rather fight deadly monsters than learn from a guildmaster or farm. The entire thread outside of the sword/spear argument is just reminding would-be heroes that even they have to adhere to common sense constraints before they become deadly.

If there's healing magic in your world, learn that if possible and if not get someone who can cast those to go with you, even if you have to give daily blowjobs.

There is no such thing as a safe room until you make it that way. Check your corners, search carefully, and make damn sure you know every entrance, exit, and trap in a room before you leave it. Preferably before you enter it, if you last that long.

If you haven't seen at least 3 walls, a ceiling, and a floor, there's something probably waiting to eat Mr. Sparky McStarobes before he can become a godling in training.

If I was starting out with shit all, say I was a peasant who wanted to go adventuring I'd gather my friends and train everyday. I'd take what equipment we have and go searching for some treasure. We'd take a little and go back to buy better gear and then repeat. Gotta work your way up

Maybe they did but I still think a spear is better. Look at the phalanxes of old, they used spears. That's how Alexander won the majority of his battles

How did the Romans kill people with a sword and shield? Isn't it more advantageous to use a spear and shield for a longer reach?

While we are the subject, choke points are your friend. There is no fighter alive that will survive 20 to one odds for very long, even against goblins trying to use daggers or mindless undead. Even a fairly average warrior can win 1v1 many times in a row, however. A doorway is good, a bend in a tunnel is better, because then those bastards cant throw or shoot things at you as easily.

Usually by either forcing their enemies to come to them over fortifications or by breaking their formations with early balista and volleys of pilum, then crushing forward under the cover of their shields and simply shoving spears aside until they were close enough to stab with swords. Worked great when a lot of their opponents were still using bronze weapons or simply lacked their discipline and cohesion.

Don't forget to look up.

They won because they were more organized than their adversaries.

Not really, bro. You just drop the sacks you don't want to run with. If you can't determine what is reasonable in the first place, no amount of preparation will help you.

>sword/spear argument
Not much about an argument. The people arguing the swords > spears don't know swords, spears, armor, or any other comparable thing.

Bad at managing your finances? Become a monk! No worrying about spending coin on weapons or armor, and any loot you do pick up you can sell because you sure as shit won't want it.

Frees up a lot of gold for ale and whores.

With an heavy shield like a scutum the rules are slightly different, the crush is a very specific combat situation and in formation you can leave the spearing to those behind you.

>The shield's primary use was to protect the individual from missile attacks.
That's why you picked a shield. Once you had it, it's primary use was whacking and pinning people.

The primary use of a shield is to provide cover. Small cover for your hand/wrist, in the case of something like a buckler, or large cover for entire formations in the cast of grouped scutums.

>You just drop the sacks you don't want to run with.
Surprise, bro: like much of your regular gear, some of your loot might be worn, strapped on or tied around you instead of carried. None of which will help you much if you're ambushed before you can cut it off and run in the first place.
>If you can't determine what is reasonable in the first place, no amount of preparation will help you.
Thank you for restating what I said earlier.

Swords worked well with how the Romans fought

>Surprise, bro: like much of your regular gear, some of your loot might be worn, strapped on or tied around you instead of carried.
That doesn't make any sense. The natural behaviour of any human traveler is to have a clear distinction between gear and "stuff". Only a child or a moron goes around with an unmanageable number of nonessential things strapped or tied to their body, doubly so in dangerous territory. This behaviour is directly observable in all human-traveled regions, eras, and cultures of the world.

Your picture proves my point, actually. That porter's load is born by ONE strap, for convenience, and can be dropped at a moment's notice.

Yeah, I don't know what that guy is thinking. They've clearly never carried a load in their life and are just naively trying to prove their assertions after the fact with weak Google-fu.

>That porter's load is born by ONE strap
I don't have a picture of his front, but not necessarily. This dude's got three, two of which he's either going to have to either very carefully remove or carefully cut off to remove them.
>The natural behaviour of any human traveler is to have a clear distinction between gear and "stuff".

>not choosing the lucerne version
>pleb taste

>This behaviour is directly observable in all human-traveled regions, eras, and cultures of the world.
Right.

That dude is wearing it by the one forehead strap. The two ropes at the side are for balance while picking up / putting down the load and aren't attached to him. The two shoulder straps are for the backpack that serves as a cushion, and is not only not particularly heavy or bulky, but easy to shrug off while running.

The whole point of that method of carrying loads is that there is one forehead strap for carrying. Lol it's so hilarious watching you defend your ignorance that I don't even care anymore, keep thinking the way you do.

>This behaviour is directly observable in all human-traveled regions, eras, and cultures of the world.

mhm

Poor falseflagging questfag, have a (You) from the bottom of my ass

You're proving his point even more, you know. Do you really think that those people, if attacked, would struggle to drop the load when fleeing? That they would forget which things were gear and which were cargo? lol

>That they would forget which things were gear and which were cargo? lol
Yeah, I can totally see the separation between cargo and gear. I'll be this dude right here will just cut all his straps, cut loose his "gear" and go right on his way.

But go on, keep digging yourself into a hole.

Funny how the "gear" and the "cargo" seem to all be bundled together, almost as if they were the same thing.
Almost as if you were pulling the distinction between gear and cargo out of your ass.

I don't understand how a person can think the way the guy posting the pictures does. Every culture grew out of an environment where sometimes you have to carry heavy loads and sometimes you have to move quickly, and switching between these two modes is a not unforeseeable thing for people to have to do.

It's why people laugh at those clueless chumps who wear too much photography gear and can't handle it, carry too many books and wobble all over the place, or overburden themselves in some other way they can't handle. It's a huge trope in media, because it's a sign of incompetence and unpreparedness.

He doesn't have any weapons, armor, or riding implements presumably because he doesn't consider himself have any such especial needs. It's all cargo packed for transportation, nothing is visibly ready to hand for use.

Not really. The people who were using walking sticks in your earlier picture don't have them bundled into their packs, same with wristwatches or hats being worn. Spare hats are just that, spares, and so get packed.

>I'll be[t] this dude right here will just cut all his straps, cut loose his "gear" and go right on his way.
When faced with lethal force, yes, he'll shrug off his pack whether he plans to run or fight. Not seeing how this reinforces your point.

>It's why people laugh at those clueless chumps who wear too much photography gear and can't handle it, carry too many books and wobble all over the place, or overburden themselves in some other way they can't handle. It's a huge trope in media, because it's a sign of incompetence and unpreparedness.
see Surprise, a lot of people setting out on their first adventure might be unprepared chumps. They might come from cultures where pack animals are very common, or might come from urban environments where this has never been an issue. And the whole point of this thread is to explain to them what not to do.
Which, mind you, makes it particularly silly that you simultaneously argue that human behavior all around the world automatically avoids these pitfalls while bringing unprepared chumps who walk right into them.

Show me a culture of unprepared chumps, then. Being unprepared means you have not sufficiently absorbed those parts of your culture that will prepare you for this universally foreseeable task.

The point is that this divide between cargo and gear you claim is common in apparently all cultures doesn't exist. When you cut loose, you drop everything, which is almost as bad as if you cut nothing loose at all.

>cut all his straps
Why would he do that? Do you also cut your backpack straps when you need to get out in a hurry? The load is carried just by the forehead strap, lol.

>Show me a culture of unprepared chumps
And no, I'm not aiming this at Americans in particular, but at urban culture in general. Do you think the average suburbanite or urbanite knows how to carry gear securely or knows what to bring to a hike? Where do you think said unprepared chumps come from?

In a case where a person has no gear that they need ready to hand, of course it won't be there to compare.

Do you think that posting a photo of a person with no arms is sufficient to disprove the idea that people wear their arms on opposite sides of the body?

Or, you know, your culture doesn't have to face the problem of hiking through dungeons carrying significant loads without pack animals or wheeled vehicles.

Lucerne hammers are stupidly optimized but the Bec de corbin is pretty much a straight upgrade.

>In a case where a person has no gear that they need ready to hand, of course it won't be there to compare.
Yes, surely he would never need the provisions, tent or supplies he's carrying. All of that is disposable and some other porter happens to be carrying all important gear.

Their bags are easily dropped if they need to flee. Gear like glasses, hats, watches and camera are all readily available and also easy to discard.

What do you think you are disproving with this picture? They appear to be satisfying the principles very well.

Asserting that most people understand the concept of reasonable load is not the same as asserting that all types people can carry all types of loads.

>Check Oberyn vs the mountain in game of thrones

Someone like , , , or would all need to cut off their backpack straps in a hurry. Or are these all your so-called clueless chumps who failed to heed the lessons of their respective cultures?

Yes, if attacked for his life he will tend to leave it or drop it to fight. If it's the case that he needs ALL of it to survive, then the earlier advice of "be reasonable about what you can carry" doesn't apply, because it's not unreasonable because all of it is essential. If it's not essential, your criticism doesn't apply.

No they wouldn't. Youtube a video of someone actually using those types of harness and you'll clearly see how easily they come off.

It's a single forehead strap for a reason.

>What do you think you are disproving with this picture?
Find an average person living in the city and ask them to pack for a hike in the appalachians without looking anything up, see how well they'll do.

>Asserting that most people understand the concept of reasonable load
The assertion is that not everybody among those most people have learned how to deal with that "reasonable load" in the same way an Andean or Himalayan porter has, or in a way that would work in a foot-only environment like a dungeon. A mongolian might never have to learn how to carry their equipment on them because they have pack animals; a modern suburban european might never have to learn how to travel with all their provisions strapped to them because they have a car. A sherpa's idea of a reasonable load is what he can feasibly carry on his back; an American's is what he can hold in his SUV.

Look at those linked pictures again and notice the absence of a forehead strap in all but every picture but the last, who is also wearing a backpack.

>If it's the case that he needs ALL of it to survive, then the earlier advice of "be reasonable about what you can carry" doesn't apply, because it's not unreasonable because all of it is essential.
Ah, so suddenly you are arguing that rather than it all being useless cargo, that all of it is essential gear.
Has it occurred to you that both what he needs to survive and things he probably doesn't need, like changes of clothes, are both in that pack, and that your mythical division between cargo and gear is just that?

You are confusing "equipped gear" that you need readily available with "packed gear" which you have stowed.

Do you by chance think that this is a mythical distinction as well?

Backpacks also shrug off, as a quick search will show even if you are somehow unfamiliar with the concept.

The backpack has already been explained in a previous response, which you have obviously not bothered to read.

I am not interested in that distinction to begin with; if your argument is that packed but essential gear can be disposed of, then you run the risk of losing essential food and supplies, as listed in ()
If your argument is that packed gear is essential, then my picture accomplishes its expressed purposes, proving that the distinction between packed cargo and packed gear in at least some cultures is entirely nonexistent in spite of your arguments to the contrary.

>Backpacks also shrug off
Not the way they are bound as tightly to as much weight as they are shown in the previous pictures that you have obviously not bothered to look at.

Actually you were the one who argued it was essential gear. Do you expect someone to ignore the scenario you described? And when they address your point, you treat it as some sort of "gotcha" moment? What kind of discussion is that supposed to be lol?

>Actually you were the one who argued it was essential gear.
Are you saying that nothing carried on his back is essential then? If not, then what I said previously applied.
>And when they address your point, you treat it as some sort of "gotcha" moment?
You did not address my point, you veered off to some tangent about packed and carried gear entirely irrelevant to the question at hand. I merely felt necessary to address it, given how you seem to be ignoring my responses to your original, absurd assertion that every culture is supposed to be able to tell you what is a reasonable load for an individual travelling on foot without pack animals.

Sometimes keeping your colours and your whites separate in the laundry is not possible, or not expedient. This doesn't mean that the distinction is nonexistent.

If you need more gear than you can safely escape with, then you're dead anyway if you get caught by hostiles.

I've born those kinds of harness at weight over 80 kgs, so you are not going to convince me by making empty claims.

This is legitimately the most autistic argument that Ive seen on Veeky Forums for a while.

>Are you saying that nothing carried on his back is essential then? If not, then what I said previously applied.
None of that is more essential than your life. When pressed, a human tends to prioritize their life in the short term as "more essential" than something they theoretically need to survive in the long term. You WILL ditch a heavy tent when chased by a bear; you can always try to recover it later, or try to find alternate shelter, but in any case it is not worth your immediate life.

>You did not address my point
Then you have not clearly stated your point.

>every culture is supposed to be able to tell you what is a reasonable load for an individual travelling on foot without pack animals
When did I say this?

>ignored responses
Which responses do you feel have been ignored? I would be glad to try and address them specifically.

Always ask yourself "Why?' before you take a job.

Why does this protected, cushy noble want the goblins in the next Barony over dealt with? Is he just nice?

No, he knows that killing those goblins will allow the more competent Orcs nearby move in to the Barony and begin wreaking havoc on his political enemies.

And if that Baron finds out who is responsible, who's first on his shit list? That's right. You.

If your employer wants a no-questions-asked job done, or refuses to give out information freely, consider taking a different job.

Absolutely nothing beats planning, preparation and strategy at keeping you alive and making you rich.

>This doesn't mean that the distinction is nonexistent.
It means that the distinction is unimportant, both to the individual who carries it and with regards to this argument
>I've born those kinds of harness at weight over 80 kgs, so you are not going to convince me by making empty claims.
Along with your degree in gorilla warfare, I'm sure.

>dagger stick.
You know, I'm getting really tired of all these ridiculous and unrealistic weapons that get posted on Veeky Forums. I mean, come on. who in their right mind would think that putting a dagger on a stick is in any way relevant to battlefield tactics? Might as well put a katana on a stick, for all the good it'll do you.

Pay attention in history class. Nowhere is it recorded that dagger-sticks were in any way useful.

report to the centurion for your disciplinary beating for failing to learn proper legion tactics!

>When did I say this?
>Being unprepared means you have not sufficiently absorbed those parts of your culture that will prepare you for this universally foreseeable task.
>Every culture grew out of an environment where sometimes you have to carry heavy loads and sometimes you have to move quickly, and switching between these two modes is a not unforeseeable thing for people to have to do.
Both argue that deciding the optimal amount of weight that can be carried on foot is something that every culture is capable of doing, which is obviously untrue, given If there is a single culture in this fantasy world where transportation is not accomplished entirely on foot, then there is a reason to caution new adventurers (who may be from said culture) not to carry more than what would be reasonable to a normal individual, as in , rather than immediately blithering on about it somehow being common sense or some crap about being chained to their loot, as you stated in

No one is arguing that.

>It means that the distinction is unimportant, both to the individual who carries it and with regards to this argument
How so? You merely state this, without justification. One doesn't really follow the other, in any way.
>Along with your degree in gorilla warfare, I'm sure.
Carrying a heavy load is not really something to brag about, you know. In any case, I'm not going to pretend to not know something that I do know just because you mock me for it.

>None of that is more essential than your life. When pressed, a human tends to prioritize their life in the short term as "more essential" than something they theoretically need to survive in the long term. You WILL ditch a heavy tent when chased by a bear; you can always try to recover it later, or try to find alternate shelter, but in any case it is not worth your immediate life.
And yet, if what you said in is true, every non-moron and non-child in the world will distinguish between gear and "stuff." Gear such as the shit that will keep you from
>Overextending yourself to the point you don't have enough ration to make the way back
Point being that there are many cultures that do not make this distinction, and as long as there is a culture that does not make this distinction it is helpful to make the common sense argument that one should not overestimate one's ability to carry loot and escape with it in a timely fashion.

>your ranger can probably find some fun plants that will help with staying awake when you're on watch, side effects are usually less terrible than you imagine.
might as well face it, you're addicted to SKUB

Those two quotes don't say the same thing, though. The knowledge that you might have to drop your shit and run does not translate into the functional knowhow to bear all loads.