Mounted Characters/units

[Osprey]

What does this guy have the "Unbreakable lance of mass destruction" or an artifact? Is this amount of damage what you want or does it seem to unbalance things?

Seems to me if the lance is made of regular wood, like they are historically, it would eventually shatter which would cut down on the every "round" bit.

Oops, my mistake, he's "only" at x5 charge damage with the lance.

A 10th level Cavalier (so c. 15th level+) gets Unstoppable Charge (x5 mounted charge with lance, x4 with melee weapon).

Yeah, I don't really get Ride-By Attack with a lance, as far as logic and believability are concerned. How do you retain the weapon and still deal the tremendous charging damage? Not to mention keeping the thing intact. Magic lances should have a very high resistance to breakage, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Thus, ironwood shafts, along with the strengthening of enhancement bonuses, would be pretty smart basics.

And you did notice that I was describibg an epic campaign? In epic, the numbers get huge on all ends of the various class and monster spectrums. The champion's charge damage is incredible, but it is only one attack per round, vs. the epic fighter with Dire Charge who runs in to deliver a full attack (5 attacks, hasted) at the start, vs. Maximized, Twinned, or Intensified spells being flung about. Epic combat turns very deadly no matter what class...

Also, I'm not runnign a particularly low-magic campaign, but rather one more in-line with standard D&D and perhaps even a bit more powerful now. It started off resonably low-magic, but in order to keep enemy regents and NPC's challengin, more and more magical gear kept falling into the hands of the victors (the PCs)...and things sort of spiralled away from there. Nowadays, I don't really think my BR world bears a whole lot of resemblance to the low-magic setting being fleshed out for the BRCS project. Finishing its third year (real-time), it has very much become its own beastie, but it's a good time.

Osprey

[ausrick]

The way 3rd ed. handles epic levels, I doubt it would be anything less than a +5 magical lance. it could even be an "Epic" magic item, meaning it can break the +5(+10*) rule of magic arms and armor bonuses and abilities.

Plus, epic characters' abilities are downright almost godlike (some deities aren't even as high of level as some characters using those rules), it seems like you would run into the quandry alot where the things the characters are capable of are super human. I'm sure if Super man charged with a lance he would get atleast x6 damage but "realistically" if the lance wasn't made of some material designed to hold up to his super power, it would probably break, but that kind of realism isn't "fun" in a game if it lets you attain superhero powers but forces realism on the tools of the trade and so doesn't let you use them.

Which is why a lot of people (myself included) struggle with using epic level stuff in settings like Birthright or Ravenloft. Epic levels just start escalating and before you know it your campaign could turn out to resemble Dragon Ball Z more than 15th century europe + magic.

about steering with legs, a DC 5 does seem a little easy, then again, an expert horseman (lvl 1 expert, 4 ranks in ride) is only going to have a 4 or 5 which means he can only steer with his knees 95-100% of the time, and ride it into combat 70-75% of the time. But PC's are about 20 notches above the rest sometimes it seems when it comes to ability. I think the designers were mainly anticipating the use of a shield with that check, or figured that you were penalized for using two weapons enough as it is. (without two weapon fighting and other feats, depending on version of the rules you can be looking at a -4/-10 penalty to your to hit roll) Now me, I can't even imagine trying to ride a war horse into battle at all, but that is because in rl I have probably a 10 Dex and 0 ranks in ride skill. in game mechanics that gives me a 50/50% to ride a war horse into battle. I suppose they assume that since the horse is specifically trained for war it would do most of the work I think an untrained for combat mount though has a DC of 20, meaning it would probably buck me off just for thinking about fighting on it.

plus, the skill system sometimes seems broken for the sake of balance and ease of gameplay at the expense of reality. in D20, I think learning a foriegn language takes two skill points, but to give you a 10% better chance at knowing something in Knowledge (religion) also costs two skill points, and then only if it is a class skill. I had two semesters of religion classes, yet took german for 3 years. I am any where but fluent in german, but I think I would get that 10% bonus to any checks on religion related questions and topics. But I think the guys at Wotc did a pretty good job over all. . . My friend has owned a gaming store for 20 years, I've heard some horror stories about some broken gaming systems he's tested and played around with. all you can hope for is that when people publish a new version of something and keep on refining it, you come out with an improvement as opposed to a de-evolution.

[ausrick]

Question about the Ride-by-Attack feat, does that assume that you ride through the square occupied? what if the square directly behind the target, and to both sides is also occupied? (i.e. tight infantry formation) and I'm thinking more from a rules standpoint. We all know that if you stand in the way of the bus you get ran over (unless there are enough of you to swarm the bus and thus bog it down, at the expensive cost to those ranks who made contact with the bus first).

[irdeggman]

Question about the Ride-by-Attack feat, does that assume that you ride through the square occupied? what if the square directly behind the target, and to both sides is also occupied? (i.e. tight infantry formation) and I'm thinking more from a rules standpoint. We all know that if you stand in the way of the bus you get ran over (unless there are enough of you to swarm the bus and thus bog it down, at the expensive cost to those ranks who made contact with the bus first).

You only get to attack once in the round. So if you attempt to move into an occupied space after you've used your attack (either the normal charge or the trample one) you don't get an additional attack.

You also can't move into an occupied space without an attack of some kind either - so you can't technally use the ride-by-attack if you have no where to continue your movment. Ride-by-attack requires the continued movement to be in a straight line from the point of origin (basically a continued charge).

If you can't move there then it is simply a charge that ends at the point of contact.

[RaspK_FOG]

Overrunning and trampling are important tactical choices for cavalry, especially of the heavy variety... As for lances, well, most weapons should be penalised likewise, then, in a realistic campaign: their hit points (and hardness) should be pitted against the items they face (and their hardness), thus having the occassional club or spear breaking here and there... Yet D&D does not concern itself with such "trivia."

[Osprey]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ausrick
Question about the Ride-by-Attack feat, does that assume that you ride through the square occupied? what if the square directly behind the target, and to both sides is also occupied? (i.e. tight infantry formation) and I'm thinking more from a rules standpoint. We all know that if you stand in the way of the bus you get ran over (unless there are enough of you to swarm the bus and thus bog it down, at the expensive cost to those ranks who made contact with the bus first).


You only get to attack once in the round. So if you attempt to move into an occupied space after you've used your attack (either the normal charge or the trample one) you don't get an additional attack.

You also can't move into an occupied space without an attack of some kind either - so you can't technally use the ride-by-attack if you have no where to continue your movment. Ride-by-attack requires the continued movement to be in a straight line from the point of origin (basically a continued charge).

If you can't move there then it is simply a charge that ends at the point of contact.

I've been wondering if the horse couldn't Overrun/Trample an opponent in the way while the rider attacks the same or an adjacent opponent with a lance or sword? While both character's use the mount's speed for movement, what about the standard action or charge attack? Doesn't the horse get its own, and couldn't that be an overrun (as part of a charge, while the rider does a ride-by attack)?

I think the general assumption with Ride-By Attack is that you attack and ride past the target, not over or through them unless doing an overrun (much like a tourney joust).

[ausrick]

Sounds like they need to make another feat

It makes me wonder though, because obviously the outcome of riding by/through loosely spaced opponents as opposed to a tight formation or phalanx seems quite different. On the other hand, I've understood that a heavy cavalry charge could land you well into the second or third row of an enemy formation before your momentum stopped. In DnD there aren't any rules for momentem, that would be cumbersome and with combat being cyclicle and turn based it is hard to interpret if it means the horse actually comes to a stop at the end of a charge or not. for instance, after running up and attacking a solo individual from horse back, would it really take a feat to keep moving because the horse isn't going to want to stop on a dime anyways? Movement becomes complicated because RPG's are so often geared towards standing and taking turns duking-it-out it can be hard to imagine what is supposedly going on "realistically" underneath.