"How many weapon types?" Topic

This conversation is brought to you courtesy of Andrea Sfiligoi's Mutants and Death Ray Guns, which has ZERO types of close combat weapons--your character probably has a knife, sword or rock: doesn't matter--and 25 types of ranged combat. Gimli's axe, Legolas' knife, John Carter's longsword and Luke Skywalker's lightsaber are all the same, but a distinction must be maintained between the laser rifle and the electric rifle. In fairness, Sfiligoi's Song of Blades and Heroes has no weapons distinctions for either close or ranged combat. So…

1) For a simple game at figure=man, how many types of close combat weapon should be distinguished?
2) How many ranged weapon types?
3) Are there periods in which one or the other should be abstracted away? If so, which?

For melee, three will get the job done. Knife/dagger, 1 handed weapon, 2 handed weapon. You can include modifiers such as 2 handed weapon does +1 damage, pole arms strike first in melee, etc.

Ranged firearms would have more granularity to their effective ranges. Derringer, pistol, shotgun, smoothbore carbine, smoothbore musket, rifled carbine, rifled musket, modern rifle. You could do away with the carbine having their own range bands and just say at X distance carbine are -1 to hit and at Y distance they are -2 to hit.

Then you need something for thrown weapons, slings, and bows.

For ranged weapons, differentiate based on two factors: range and rate of fire. Do you then want to rate for deadliness (a small caliber derringer vs a large minie ball)?

For hand to hand, maybe differentiate on ease of use (smaller and one-handed) and damage. And some melee weapons can be thrown at very close range (knives and small axes, etc.).

Agree three is most you need for close quarter

For ranged depends on the period – we do Grand Tactical so things like bow/crossbow and for later musket, carbine, rifle musket, cannon

Would never have 25 types – too many!

4 for melee, add long spear/polearm that allows fighting from behind a shieldwall or generally striking an opponent not in immediate contact.

Arguably 5 including smacky weapons that can also be thrown: javelin, hand axe, etc.

To be fair to Mutants and Death Ray Guns, melee weapons are all factored into a figure's Combat rating. A few weapons have special rules or modifiers. The 25 types of ranged weapons occur because each has different special rules.

At a minimum a game needs two types of weapons. Ranged and melee.

In practicality I would say you need as many as are required to reflect significant differences between weapons at teh game's chosen scale of abstraction and detail.

The fewer figures on teh table the more weapon types I will accommodate. Just look at 40K Rogue Trader for lots and lots of weapons…

To me it entirely depends on the desired game experience and whether those differences are going to affect both the playability and aesthetic of the game.

Example 1: A big part of Anno Domini 1666 is the differences between the various factions as well as the abilities and traits of the individual characters. Close combat is also very dynamic. Thus, making distinctions between a rapier and a saber or a stiletto and a main gauche is both desirable and necessary.

Example 2: A game like Brother Against Brother doesn't have the same level of individuality despite also being 1:1. However, for an ACW game to still feels necessary to distinguish between rifled musket and smoothbore musket, likewise carbines, and also to take into account breechloaders and repeaters.

There is an oft overlooked miniatures game that seems to be what you are discussing, broadly: 2e BattleSystem Skirmishes $4.99 USD for the PDF; hardcopies can sometimes be found on e-Bay. It is based on 2e AD&D RPG rules, but it simplifies combat, drastically speeding up the RPG version. It is also strictly intended as a miniatures game, though it does have a veneer of RPG over the top; the RPG veneer is easy enough to strip away…

For a combat example, a Fighter has (roughly) 1 Hit/Level, and every successful Hit takes away 1 point; an 8th level Fighter only has 8 Hits before he dies! The To Hit is based on 2e AD&D's THAC0 system, which is simple math -- it not as difficult as the nay-sayers make it out to be, not by a country mile… It varies the amount of damage inflicted by weapon size and type, a little, but not a lot (that would slow combat down, reverting back to the RPG approach which is far more complex, and S-L-O-W t-o r-e-s-o-l-v-e…

If you are looking for a pseudo medieval rules set for mini's gaming, 2e BattleSystem Skirmishes is a good place to start. You can ignore magic entirely; you can ignore all fantasy elements as well. It does have black powder weapon rules, I believe (I shun black powder in my fantasy games, so I ignore these rules entirely). Cheers!

I don't know should. But I know "is" for QILS, the game we play:

1) At the simplest level, there are 5K+ close combat configurations

2) 200K+ ranged/close combos (<1K ranged only).

3) I don't know what your period definitions are.

I've recently created my own generic science (fantasy) fiction set.

I broke down combat into two forms— Melee and Shooting.
I have stats for 10 melee weapons, 5 bio-melee weapons (to cover claws, teeth, and horns), and 20 shooting weapons, plus grenades.

I did this by thinking about the sorts of things a typical miniatures is shown carrying, but classifying these in a generic way. So if you look at a miniature and think "that weapons is clearly a laser rifle" then you use the Laser Rifle stats. If you think it's a Plasma Rifle (whatever that is), then use those stats. As long as everybody playing agrees, who cares what the manufacturer says?

As for melee, I have:
Ba'atlax (hmmm… wonder what that is?)
Bayonet
Blade
Chainblade
Lasersword
Power Axe
Power Claws
Power Cutlass
Power Punch
StarStaff (hmmm… wonder what sort of warrior minion carries that?)

And for beastie sorts:
Biters
Chompers
Rippers
Slicers
Stabbers

Each has advantages or disadvantages in hit probability and number of potential hits, as well as effectiveness against armor, and potential restrictions on use (a Ba'atlax requires two hands/tentacles, a Bayonet has to be attached to a shooting weapon). Thus no two weapons are the same. Pick your faves.