Sissies Shouldn't Fight

[SeeleyOne]

In my house rules I decided to take the same penalty that Ranged Weapons have for low strength and implement them to further penalize melee weapons.

I share it here with others that might also be interested in making low strength penalize the Fighting roll.

Traits 4000

~ Find minimum Strength and apply penalty if needed.
foreach pick in hero from WeapMelee
    if (#trait[attrStr] < eachpick.field[wpDie].value) then
        eachpick.field[wpPenalty].value = #trait[attrStr] - eachpick.field[wpDie].value
    endif
nexteach

After I made it I looked at how the Ranged Weapons did it and the script was essentially the same.

 

[zarlor]

As a HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioner I don't like that kind of rule. Limiting the weapon die to Strength, per the rules, is plenty enough of a penalty, IMHO. In the real world weapons are the great equalizer (then again daggers do plenty nasty damage the real difference not being in the damage they can do but in the range you have to be at to use them.) So something like a sword does a ton of damage without having to have a lot of Strength behind it. I can see something of an argument on that front for blunt weapons, but definitely not sharps. Do some test cutting with sharps and you'll quickly find that technique massively trumps brute strength. Nice bit of coding, though, if you really want something like that in your setting.

 

[SeeleyOne]

I was thinking about the when someone that is too weak to lift a sword effectively tries to do so anyway. The attack is clumsy and easy to defend against. However, it could also be argued that they had Fighting at d4-2 because they clearly did not have the skill in the first place.

 

[zarlor]

Too weak to lift a sword? Maybe for a kid, so maybe someone with d4 Str only, but I agree that should probably be better noted as a modifier to Fighting. Heck with d4 in Strength the max damage you can do anyway is d4+d4 with any weapon since your Strength already limits the weapon die. Otherwise most swords, even longswords (not the D&D definition of a longsword, mind you, but the real thing which is probably better thought of as a hand-and-a-half sword, if you will) only weighed between 2 and 4 pounds. Anything heavier and it's too cumbersome to wield. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7FU4SIW8qI&list=UUQ1EIQW6WvzZD7SUKKhfYwQ for some coverage of some of those kinds of myths, if you're interested.)

 

[SeeleyOne]

Hmmm, it seems to me that the penalty to hit as noted above is better as a situational penalty for using a weapon that is too big. Like how a Halfling is better using a broadsword with two hands than one-handed. It is not so much strength as awkwardness.

Anyway, the code is there for reference if needed for some reason. Your argument has convinced me that I am ignoring the awkwardness variable, or rather misplacing the penalty.

The size of the weapons are not implemented into Hero Lab for Savage Worlds. It is easier to just say "He uses two hands on that" and just remember it than to code in that option. The same goes for which hand is holding which weapon, or using a one-handed weapon in two hands.