Turtling Rule

[General Maximus]

Good point on the side attacks. I would say if you are standing right beside them and you hit them in the back, that is a back hit. So 180 degre's to the back is a back hit. 180 degre's to the front is a front hit.

Basicly, if you are in front of me and I see you, the hits to my back are front hits. If I see in my prefial or not at all, you are hitting my back. Note: this is based if I'm looking straight ahead.

[Atrum Draconus]

I really don't like that proposal, so rarely are people standing still looking straight forward and it creates a loophole for cheese weasels. I ca swivel my hips enough without moving my feet that the "back" portion of a 360 would essentially be cut down to about 90. Not to mention that was how backstab used to be and it was changed because some people who will remain nameless would go as far as diving through the air to get "behind" someone.

[General Maximus]

Personaly, I would love to remove all directional attacks/defenses from the game. It is to subjective in the middle of combat!

Main reason for directional defintion is parry, hold ground, and defensive matrix. Figure a fix to them and directional defensives/attacks are gone.

The only reason I do not like wrapping is unskilled folks will smack people in the head. You need to know what you are doing to wrap safely.

And when wrapping you typicaly hit on top of the shoulder and some times slightly below that. Is that considered a back hit? I know I got hit on the back of my shoulder a few times becasue I was swinging my weapon which opened me up for a back shoulder hit. Is it truely a back hit. I would say no. Others say yes.
Others say a hit to the side of the rib cage is a back hit. When is a back hit a back hit? You know when you get squarly hit on the back, but other times when it is on the side or slightly on the side/back, is it a back hit.

Folks will go what with benifits them the most. So what is a back hit in FH??

[Atrum Draconus]

I definitely agree that unskilled wrapping is dangerous, but to me no more so than unskilled shield use. And shields because of their much higher mass can carry much larger force behind it even at a much lower acceleration. To me shields are the most dangerous things on the field, I can baseball swing most weapons and they'll leave a welt, get caught with a shield, especially on the un padded front and you can easily get a concussion. if you are going to make a max size shield in this game and the only legal targets you present are the shins and the top of your shoulders expect to get hit in the head a few times a game or expect people to use their own shields to protect their heads while they hit your shins.

I think we can for the most part agree that the latter of those two scenarios is not only lame but dangerous. The other is a function of having such a huge advantage in weapon fighting.

[Zeira]

If you are in front of me and hit me in the back, I will count it as a back hit has long as your hand did not go past my torso area. If you are able to get your hand past my torso odds are you are charging at that point.

[Rhul]

Only hit the side of the person you are facing. Yeah, it's subjective, but pretty basic to follow the essence of rule.

Also, only attempt to hit someone if you can directly see your weapon strike them. Stops most of turtling and swinging blindly around corners, and follows the rule of "safety first, cool second".

If for some reason we ever had to change our shields to be Dagorhir shield style (not that I would ever see it happening, as this discussion is mostly hypothetical), I would gladly help anyone who wanted to change their shield over.

It's basically just attaching several layers of blue foam to the standard wood base with carpet tape, and then sewing a quick cloth cover that drawstrings closed around the back of the shield.

I'm even thinking of making a new cover for my shield (which I believe is currently with Mike--thank you Mike!) which will be brown with a grey trim and center boss sewn on. Add some 'rivets' with silver sharpie, and woodgrain with a brown one (like Durgan's hammer), and you have a wooden shield with a metal rim!

[Zeira]

I'll probably be getting a Dag style shield for next year.

Oh...Can you use a shield and spear together and still gain the benifits of the Pikeman discipline such as Impale and Weapon Focus?

[Wyrmwrath]

"As a good guideline, the shield can be no taller than the owner’s shoulders when they are kneeling, and no wider than their shoulders with their arms at their sides. "

When I made the suggestion to add this since it worked well at IFGS and a few other larps, I may not have made a point as far as width. It’s to the round of the shoulders as opposed to the width of the arms. That tends to make the shields of fluffy players to wide. For those that remember the orc tribe; Marvin, Tiny, and myself used three shields built like this. When hefted it left shin targets and still some area on the arms, especially the weapon arm. If its still an issue, just change the rule to two inches smaller than knee to shoulder and to narrower than shoulder to shoulder. The shields will still be useful but much harder to hide behind.


1) Require Dagohir style shields. This would eliminate, or at least lessen, the chance of injury when fighting a person with a shield.

I assume this means a 100% foam shield. You could just ban wood ones and allow plastic foam edged shields. The plastic will have much less mass and be more flexible, there by diminishing collision kinetic energy.


A) With this requirement we could discuss shield bash as a skill.

Or just add that press does damage when used with a shield. It’s simpler.

2) Create an alternate way to destroy shields other than through the empath channel skill. This would give a mechanical way to "fight" the turtle" I am thinking something like a 5 count to destroy a shield or perhaps when faced with a turtle you swing 1 crush (no more or less).

Weapon shatter for 1LP, unless its a master crafted shield or held by a man at arms; then the shield gets one floating shatter resist that can only be replaced by a crafter in between combats (simulates the better design/skill of wielder respectively) if a man at arms has a mas crafted shield he gets 2 floating resist shatters. Add it to Barbarian(replace Fear), Man at arms(add it to the shield skill), Knight(replace Imp CBR)


3) If you ever hit a person in the face with a shield you are insta dead with no chance of rez.

I think the perp should also get pink bellied by everyone.... but that’s just my sinister side...



"I think the current shield rules allow them to be too big for safe fighting"

Well what makes them isn’t unsafe isn’t their size...its their users unrefined shield use skill. In larps that have used that rule in the mast they have events on a monthly basis and the shield users have more time to hone their skills and get pointers from older more experienced players at the safety marshal supervised fighter practices.

"Then if you pick up a shield phys rep you don't have to worry that it's too large and it easily measured if there is a question of whether it's too big. "

How hard is it to kneel down and see if the phys rep is to tall or to wide?!?!?! Seems easier than searching for a measuring tape to me!

Few other points I picked up in my 30 years of boffer weapon use, construction, safety marshalling and LARPing:

1) If your extended hand can touch someone your facing in melee your too close for LARP combat, your weapon should be the only thing that can reach them.

2) Safety rules aren’t for eliminating boo boos, they are for reducing them as much as possible in a hobby where you run around like dorks and hit others with PVC and foam. Its a contact activity folks, bumps and bruises are going to happen, tough it out.

3) Player skill with the phys reps ALWAYS has a better affect at reducing injuries than rules and construction methods. Start having safety marshal supervised fighter practices in between events. Maybe even schedule more one days so the players can stay in practice.

4) Orc are our friends...unless you have beer or mutton, then all bets are off!

5) The best way to slow combat down and eliminate machine gunning is to change the verbal to 'X normal damage" where normal is replaced by silver, magic, fire, crush, vorpal etc.... or any combo of the proceeding. If it takes longer to say it you will HAVE to take longer to do it.

6) The evil mastermind is always the shifty elf dressed in red......

[Goonter]

5) The best way to slow combat down and eliminate machine gunning is to change the verbal to 'X normal damage" where normal is replaced by silver, magic, fire, crush, vorpal etc.... or any combo of the proceeding. If it takes longer to say it you will HAVE to take longer to do it.

That sounds fair.

[celegar]

i dont think machine gunning is really the issue here, and it hasnt been a big problem almost at all. although i believe it gets brought into light more than it should due to people not understanding exactly what machinegunning is(namely they mistake people calling numbers clearly and quickly as machinegunning, where it would only be machinegunning if they were swinging much faster than the numbers could cohesively be said. keeping in mind that people must still get a minimum 45 degree arc on swing makes it so that only fist wielders could even get possibly close to machinegunning without violating the 45 rule as well)

[GM_Chris]

That is a good point. I think people get frustrated when fighting a very quick player and then theur gut reaction is to call machine gunning.

[General Maximus]

Point! A skilled player with good equipment can swing very fast even to the point of other people thinking they are machine gunning. Some of the short length latex weapon are fast!!!!

And lets face it, one is so easy and fast to say.

I would say, if you can understand the call and feel the hit, take it no matter how quickly it was deliveried. This will typicaly apply to short weapons and smaller. You can not swing a long sword as fast as you can say one, so no biggie there.

Another of my pet pevies is folks calling out safety rules during combat just to get safe hits. Roll with the scene and than bring up the issues during the lull. I would only bring up the safety issue if some one is getting hurt or will be hurt with the person actions. Let scene flow
And take the damage to your best ability. Not taking damage is just cheez from hits that are some what questionable with in the safety rules. The safety rules are there to keep people from getting hurt, not to give you free hits.

[cole45]

I disagree.

Only take damage from legal swings, and tactics. Give no advantage to unsafe tactics. We don't want to encorurage unsafe behavior. The focus should be on safe play period.


also, if you've been called 3, or 4 times.....it might be time to think about it.

also, when you get called on it, people stop and think about it, breaking them from that amped up adrenlin surge. letting somone just push and shove their way around the field is unacceptable.

[General Maximus]

I agree with you to a point. Truely extrem safety breaks must be called out so people don't get hurt.

But minor safety violations call outs just hurt the game. And not taking damage is, well, cheezy.

And who's subjective call is it if a hit is legal or not?? Try to call machine gunning on a person in the dark with a black sword. How can you tell if they are swinging 45 degree's or not.

Safety rules are there for safety, not an in game advantage.
If a person is fighting unsafe to gain an in game advantage, that person needs to taken aside and talked to and if continues, that person should not be allowed to come back.

Everyone will break the safety rules from time to time while fighting. It happens, it's combat!! As players it is our goal to fight safe to the best of our ability and be fair so everyone has fun.
Not taking damage from some what questionable safety break's is not right.

Play fair, play safe, have fun. It's a game.

[cole45]

But minor safety violations call outs just hurt the game


Sorry, no such thing as a MINOR safety violation. These rules are in place for a reason. Again, calling them out breaks the tempo, resulting in calmer fighting.