House Rules: Farming and kitchen tools as weapons

by Lowell Matthews, CarlVMWebr@aol.com

From lrm@osuunx.ucc.okstate.eduMon Jun 9 12:42:51 1997 Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 17:28:24 -0500 From: Lowell Matthews Reply to: rolemaster@tower.clark.net To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Companions again... (farm tools)
Howdy!
>  ONLY: I have no idea which attack tables to use for those tools!
> pitchfork, scythe, hand sickle and others...
> 

My opinion is far from official, but I would say:

All of these tools are likely to break when used as weapons.

Pitchfork: Assuming the tines are iron, use the spear table, with mods something like -30/-10/-20/-10/-10 from plate to no armor (the tines can poke through the holes in mail).

Scythe: This is a two-handed weapon, so use the THS table with mods in the -10 range for metal armors and 0 for leather or none as they are quite sharp, they are somewhat fragile and easy to fumble with.

Sickle: Use the scimitar table, probably without mods or with a generic -5. They are as sharp as scythes, less fragile, and much easier to use. In fact, the Oriental (Japanese) weapons called kama or kusarigama are based on sickles.

Wood Axe: Use the hand axe table for 1HS with a -5 to -10 mod and the battle axe table for 2H with a -10 to -15 mod; should break about twice as often as a war axe.

Large Knives: Use the dagger table with a -5 to -10 mod and maybe a max result less than 150 (135?). For smaller knives reduce the max.

Carpenter's Hammers: Use the war hammer table with a -5 to -10 mod; should break about twice as often as a war hammer.

Miner's Pick: Use the war mattock table with a -5 to -10 mod; should break about half again as often as a war mattock.

Pruning Hook: Use the pole arm table with a -10 to -20 mod; should break about half again as often as a pole arm.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. In a country where all weapons are forbidden, even hunting weapons like spears and bows, the deadliest instruments are probably sickles, hammers, and axes, in that order.

Best wishes, Lowell


From CarlVMWebr@aol.comMon Jun 9 14:03:23 1997 Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 12:10:45 -0500 From: CarlVMWebr@aol.com Reply to: rolemaster@tower.clark.net To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Kitchen wepons was Re: Questions

In a message dated 97-03-01 12:42:21 EST, you write:
<< << 1) How do I work improvised weapons?  One of my players wants a
character 
  that uses kitchen implements as her weapons, like frying-pans, 
  rolling-pins, and kitchen knives.  I figure that I will just use regular 
  weapon tables with penalties, like:
  Frying pan = mace -30
  Rolling pin = club -40
  kitchen knife = dagger -10 >>
 ************************************* >>

Here is what I think would be consitent with Arms Law.

Cast Iron Frying pan       -  mace  -5 
Rolling pin                -  club  +0
Parring or steak knife     -  dagger -10
French knife               -  dagger +5
Meat Cleaver               -  falchion -20
wooden Serving spoon       -  mace -40
various glasses            -  brawling or RM2 small bash atack if fail breakage
                              then add an extra slash critcal of one
                              additional severity
Cutting board              -  acts as a small shield and a medium bash attack -15
                              Throwing range -5/-15/-50
Medium Iron kettle with a handle
                           -  morning star +10  double fumble plus +20
                              to fumble roll -20 to any balancing maneuvers 
                              all criticals are Krush
Small Iron kettle (coffee maker, tea kettle, coal carrier)
                            -  morning star -5   all criticals are Krush
Pizza Dough                 -  medium Grapple attack +5 instead of extra hits
                               for criticals make the extra hits a culumitive
                               minus for fine manipulation doesn't hold 
                               grasp unless the dough also 
                               works as glue (yuck chewy pizza that
                               sticks to your 
                               mouth) if critcal indicates chest, head or
                               neck treat as
                               Pizza in the eyes or suffication (-40 to
                               do stuff or 5 hits/rnd and 8 exaustion 
                               points per round)
Poker                       -  javilin with +5 to disarm others and +5 to
                               normal shield bonus
Also things heated  soups, hot kettles, pokers, and coals might do a
heat critical, maybe an A for just boiled and a B for red metal.

Long live the Cook!

David Phillips PhillChip@aol.com


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