Okay, so I’ve been going through the book and I’m finally getting my head around the skill system. Now, tinkerer that I am, I immediately start thinking about Armorer and how the factors work with building a new weapon.
So.
If I’m reading this right, I pick all the factors that apply and then add them up. Does that work in the case of weapons?
I mean, for example, supposing I decided I want to build a spear that also has the Useful quality. Ahh, maybe it’s like a boar-spear, for example. Can I do that? Would I just say it’s a spear so that’s 2 from the spears and missiles factor, and Useful is 2 from the paw-to-paw factor, so it’d be obstacle 4 to build such a weapon? Is that the way it’s meant to work?
What about a weapon that’s both Short’n’Quick and Hooked? Ob 6?
Or a spiked shield? Protection plus Deadly equals Ob 5?
Or am I just doing this all wrong?
(By the way, Handy – as the staff – doesn’t show up on the list. I’m guessing it should come in at 2, about the same as Useful?)
(I only know this one off the top of my head.) You can forrage for a staff as it’s just a suitable stick. It’s within nature too so should be readily available for most mice.
Right, but that only gets you a basic staff. The question was aimed more at adding Handy to some OTHER kind of weapon, or perhaps for figuring the cost of a staff that has an additional quality. For example, a Useful staff would be a suitable stick that’s been carved and smoothed until it’s perfectly balanced and straight.
The issue here is not the weapon’s forging and skill of the weapons maker. It is in the design of the weapon itself.
Through out our history many have tried to improve on the sword and shield (Along with other weapons) and it always came back to the basics. Becuase even though some had novelty second uses it proved to be cumbersome or it made the weapon too fragile becuase of weak points.
So mice with medieval blacksmith skills trying to be creative will not have as much luck as you would expect.
Of course this is fantasy game so if you want to throw reality out the window make up what ever you want, but you won’t find justifications for these “unique weapons” without some crazy high armor test, ob 9-11, or they find a legendary weapon.(Like the Black Axe that gets its special quality becuase of its weight. Only a very few can wield it properly.)
Sooo you’re saying you pretty much can only make the standard weapons in the book and nothing more?
I find that hard to buy, honestly, especially because the armorer skill is written the way it is, with different obstacle values for different parts of the weapon. If they intended you to just make one of the standard weapons, it would say something like:
“Factors: Weapon - dagger, sword, shield or spear, bow…”
Of course this is fantasy game so if you want to throw reality out the window make up what ever you want, but you won’t find justifications for these “unique weapons” without some crazy high armor test, ob 9-11, or they find a legendary weapon.(Like the Black Axe that gets its special quality becuase of its weight. Only a very few can wield it properly.)
Actually it’s bringing reality INTO the game that I’m looking at. In real life there were dozens of models of polearm (as any old school D&D player knows) that were designed to do different jobs. In game terms, that could come easily by modifying a halberd to be something other than an axe-spear. For example, a glaive is more like a sword with a really long handle that can double as a spear, and one could easily model a guisarme (which has a hook on the back of the bladed tip for pulling riders off their horses) by making a spear that can Versatile into a Hooked weapon.
And there’s more than just polearms to look at there; a spiked or bladed shield is an old idea. And even moreso for a mouse; if you’re planning to use a shield as your primary weapon, you might’s well put some pointy bits on it, right?
Ok, let just say it is your game and do what you will. I am just bring some real life knowledge of weapons into this discussion. Like the idea of a bladed Shield. In theory it seems like it will be very deadly, but in reality they were no more deadly since wielding them was cumbersome and ineffective. The main use of the spikes/blades on the shields in reality were to dissuade people from charging you.(+ to def)
And yes you can make a Glaive. But its function would be almost identical to a Halberd. It would be too cumbersome to gain the useful trait. Just like a two handed sword, like the Claymore will lose the useful trait and gain the deadly trait.
If you look at the Black Axe’s special traits you will see it gives the wielder the ability to attack animals two steps higher.(also + to the success to attacks but has the same - to defend and faint do to its weight.)That’s about it and this IS the legendary weapon of the territories.
Having players going around making weapons more powerful than the weapon of Legends like they are falling out of a dollar store is a bad idea. That is not what Mouse Guard is about. If you are coming from D&D I can understand it will be hard to understand that fighting and killing is not the main point to Mouse Guard and one should focus more on obstacles for the players instead of better weapons to kill things with.
I am not trying to insult anyone but unfortunately games like D&D and movies have really twisted the reality of how weapons really work.
As the rules are written, you do exactly as you asked Escher. Similiar questions have gotten asked on the board, and have been answered by Luke. It is important to note, that if you could not stack mulitple abilities on a single weapon, a mouse could never make a bow, as it needs both long range and hard to defend.
As to Murphy’sLawyers points, I have to disagree. While the focus of Mouse Guard should not be on fighting and killing, it should be about characters goals. If a character wants to be become a master weapon crafter, possibly even one day create a Legendary Weapon, it makes perfect sense for them to continue to try to improve there skill through harder and harder practice.
So, while one can describe the base weapons however they wish (My halbed is a halberd, your’s is a guisarme, and Ted’s is a Luceren Hammer), it is perfectly reasonable (as the bow example shows) to craft a weapon that has multiple traits to represent its function.