[Discuss] : choice of weapon

[Rob McDonald]

On Nov 7, 2007 3:42 PM, J. Stephens <jstephens at rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why do we want to hear of how great someone can swing a lance instead of sword?  I have a hard time mentally picturing a couple nobles swinging long pieces of wood at one another.  hehe

Jousting is done on horseback, so very little swinging of the lance
was done. You had to carefully aim with the lance, then lock it under
your arm to hold it steady as you rode past your opponent and attempt
to knock them off the horse. Only nobles jousted, and they held
tournaments, so jousting as a duel would make sense.

It would also help to increase the usefulness of jousting as a skill,
because at the moment swordfighting hogs the limelight, due to its
massive versatility. It helps in battle, tournaments, assassination
attempts, assassination defence, monster fights and duels, whereas
jousting is only of use in battle (with you using cavalry as a unit)
and tournaments with jousting.

Since training is expensive the higher the level you go, it seems
unfair to punish people who are challenged to a duel simply because
they chose to train jousting over swordfighting, when it could so
easily be an option.. Especially since, as I already pointed out, they
lose out in assassination defence situations.

And a last reason: having it as an option would help to liven up
duels, since at the moment, they will often be a foregone conclusion
in cases of large skill differences. If jousting was an option, it
would mean that a challenger would have to think about it first, since
a weak swordfighter could well be a great jouster, and therefore
choose to joust.

I'm tired of seeing high-level swordfighters issue challenges to lower
level ones, often in the aftermath of a battle, knowing that the other
person must either accept and suffer an injury or refuse and suffer
the repercussions of that. I've been in that situation and it's simply
an unfair lose-lose one. If people could choose to joust, it would
help to break the deadlock that higher-levels can have in that way.