What penalties do you get from a weapon dangling from a lanyard? Can you Fast-Draw a weapon dangling from a lanyard?
DF Adventurers, p. 24 / DFRPG Adventurers p. 111 have only the following to say about lanyards:
"Lanyard, Chain. Lets you retrieve dropped weapon on a DX roll. Each attempt requires a Ready maneuver.
And that's it.
In my own campaign, I allowed someone to Fast-Draw a weapon from a dangling lanyard. It's stuck as a basic ruling, although it's not actually a rule. That's had some very cinematic moments - PCs regularly take turns like this:
- Drop lanyarded weapon.
- Fast-Draw a potion and drink it.
- Fast-Draw the sword (at a cumulative -4 for multiple attempts.)
You can substitute other actions in there, too - throwing a potion, drawing and throwing a weapon, etc. It's very awesome, but also can get a little wonky. Even if it's not the same turn, the weapon hanging from a lanyard never seems to do anything but hover out of the way, as if a dancing weapon released into the same hex. It's right there for use, entirely out of the way.
There should be a penalty for the weapon hanging there, though, to any and all actions done with the hand which has the weapon lanyarded to the wrist.
Given that the basic set rules for grappling give a -4 for grappling, and weapons of large to small sizes have hit penalties of -3 to -5, it occurs to me that might be a way to go. Having your arm grappled is pretty bad, but doing anything with a hand while a weapon dangles from it - especially razor-sharp swords, spiked chain weapons, axes (!), some of which will be Flaming, poisoned, dripping corrosion, etc. - is going to be hard.
I'm debating either -4 flat to doing anything with the same hand other than readying the weapon (which takes a DX roll, as above, and a Ready maneuver) or a -3 for a small weapon, -4 for most, -5 for large weapons. It would even be fair - not popular, but fair, to apply that penalty to a Fast-Draw roll. So you dropped your broadsword and want to re-ready it and strike back on your next turn? Fast-Draw (Sword)-4. Want to do it slow-and-steady? Flat DX roll. Want to do it really slow and steady? I'd allow automatic success in two turns with a crouch, extra hand free, or other way to steady the weapon.
Any thoughts on this? I like lanyards and I'm fine with heroic reality . . . but I didn't give you 250+ points, DX 14+ on almost everyone, and supernatural support to mollycoddle you. And it should be less-than-ideal to use a hand or arm with a weapon dangling freely from it. I'm leaning towards the scaled penalties so I don't have people lanyarding on SM+1 greataxes and being only as impaired as the guy with a lanyard on his shortsword.
The dedicated could always buy a technique to buy off a penalty for having a weapon attached to a lanyard. I'd personally force them to define techniques down to specific situations/skills- no -4 from a lanyarded weapon while lockpickicing, or climbing, or only the fast-draw penalty, etc
ReplyDeleteI think that's appropriate in a realistic game, but in a cinematic one, it's probably a flat perk.
DeleteThe problem with lanyards is the unpredictable center of gravity tugging at your wrist. Since having your arm grappled has the same degree of unpredictably from the viewpoint of individual with the grappled arm I think it reasonable that the penalities would be similar.
ReplyDeleteI don't see improving doing things while being tethered as a realistic technique. A hard cinematic technique however? Sure considering what been depicted in various fantasy settings like wuxia.
It's that unpredictability - and the fact that any weapon will in an awkward position for your body in general - that I'm thinking of with the penalty.
DeleteI think having different penalties for different sized weapons makes a fair bit of sense and I think the overall penalties make sense as well. The players in my campaign are all still pretty new and haven't started to wonder about this idea yet but I like the idea and may use that as a basis in my game. Plus Aldwyn never lanyards anything and subscribes to the Vryce style "golfbag of swords" philosophy.
ReplyDeleteI think the varied penalties are fairer, but -4 for all of them is easier. Solves the whole "But is a longsword medium or large? Is it medium or large for Hayden, he's kinda short" line of questions during a session.
DeleteI certainly bought off the penalty for writing with a flashlight on lanyard at a previous job pretty quickly, so I don't have any issues with non Muggle heroes doing stuff with a sword on a lanyard
ReplyDeleteYou know, we always assumed a lanyard was on your breastplate or belt, not on a wrist strap. Belt from mountain climbing gear, breastplate because that was what old knights used to use for their polearms.
ReplyDeleteGiven that there are mountain climbers who have died with lanyard pickaxes impaling them during a fall (since they tend to flail around), we have considered that an excuse to change falling damage types to cutting or impaling, and to upgrade acrobatic/jumping failures to the equivalent of critical failures.
A poleaxe chained to your breastplate has to be bad in close combat (GURPS close combat).
Your ruling makes sense for the wrist straps, these other situations might provide some inspiration for alternate uses or alternate penalties.
Attached to the body makes sense to me for pistols or weapons carried by horsemen, but it seems more dangerously awkward for a footman than a wrist mount would be. GURPS doesn't specify, sadly. I do like changed damage type ruling a lot.
DeleteMost of the reconstructed lanyards I have seen are chains mounted to the breastplate
ReplyDelete(Or in this case, to the brigandine torso armor)
https://pin.it/rmsi66sbhoyhy7
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/XGtDtKxynsOG9hzIlgIIMxFs8hEgmxA0naNhmTjqoVPeGLBccKUwqgQvhkwUelKZ7IYuVLVpmRiLDplmlVZJ3K_S1B6R9wmFBFKddGcvbwC9nYTSq-8Q6V4
DeleteUgly link, but that's William Shorts at Hurstwic showing a spear being used with a lanyard on the back wrist. For many of the stabby motions used, it doesn't get in the way much. If you have to reverse grip priority and suddenly lead with the rear hand, it gets ugly FAST.
Attached high on the torso makes a lot of sense, but like I said above, GURPS doesn't specify. And ours are clearly on the wrist because that's how we've ruled in our DF game for 9 years now.
DeleteI suppose I could allow either/or, but I'm not sure off the torso is really better . . . I keep picturing a longsword with a lanyard long enough to let you wield it two or one handed freely, but not then being tangling up your feet if it's loose at any time you move.
The only time I've ever seen a lanyard used in a game was specifically me in a Cyberpunk game and the lanyards were 'retracting cords to the holsters" that would auto retract if the pistol left my hand... because in those games no ever reloaded during a firefight.
ReplyDeleteBut otherwise I've never seen a lanyard used once in over 35 years of gaming.
So many critical fumbles drop weapons lanyards are hyper essential gear
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteIf a DX roll is needed to Ready it at all then yes, Fast-Draw should be penalized at best. An Akimbo perk would seem to bypass most of the problem though.
ReplyDeleteBased on Peter going the Grappled route, I disagree that an Akimbo Perk would suffice.
DeleteI would accept a specific "Lanyard Trained" Perk to do away with the Ready roll to re-ready. Possibly base it on a Technique and make it a Power-Up (but if I went this route it would also overcome any penalties to using the hand that is lanyarded).
"There should be a penalty for the weapon hanging there, though, to any and all actions done with the hand which has the weapon lanyarded to the wrist."
ReplyDeleteYes... but...
Since Readying from the floor has no penalties or rolls, and there is even a Technique to instantly Ready a weapon from the ground (Toe Flip), I wouldn't assess penalties to Ready the weapon.
However... for everything else? Yeah.
I'm kinda surprised you're not treating it as a Grapple by something with ST equal to the Minimum ST for the weapon (times 1.5 for two-handers). I figure going the TG route would be right in your wheelhouse. This would also preclude complaints of "But I have it lanyarded to my waist/chestplate" as it would just be a grapple to that area.
"Since Readying from the floor has no penalties or rolls..."
DeleteSorry, I meant in the "has no rolls if spend two turns crouching and picking it up". The Lanyard obviates the need to crouch and replaces the penalties of a Toe Flip with a straight DX roll.
In fact, if someone had "Not Without My Weapon" and a Lanyard and dropped it or were disarmed, I'd give them them a +4 to the Ready roll.
I specifically said the penalty wouldn't be for the Ready roll. Going off of CP is tough - that means extra rolls to determine penalties for a very common action - and then rolling again the next time it happens. A flat penalty is much easier!
Delete"A flat penalty is much easier!"
DeleteUnderstood. It's how I'd roll.
Interesting. I would agree that it feels believable that there should be a penalty to rolls other than the attempt to re-ready the weapon. Variable penalty feels right, but flat -4 is simpler as you say.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't allow the re-ready to be a free action, though. Seems to me that a weapon hanging from the wrist shouldn't be as quick as drawing a sword from a scabbard.
In your example, you used a potion. On p.28 (DF) or p.114 (DFRPG) of Adventurers it indicates drinking a potion in hand takes 2 Ready actions; one to un-cork and one to imbibe.
Yeah, we changed it to one second to un-cork and drink. It's too annoying at two turns. We just kept the one second rule we'd been using since, I don't know, 1994 or something.
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