switching between bow and sword

[DullandRusty]

Hey all, I know I saw this touched upon before somewhere in a thread but couldn't find it in my brief search.

How do you guys manage weapon switching for bow and swords? I'm looking mainly at the elf. Do you allow him to bring in each then declare at the start of his turn? do you charge a 1 turn penalty for switching (making the switch his action)? do you only allow one of the weapons to be chosen at the start of the quest? I have a dual wielding elf player (short type swords only) but the player wants to carry in a bow as well as it could be mounted on his back. What is the most common protocol for this situation?

[Tott]

i make them spend an action swapping, which means they cant attack that turn. but i do have a skill that alows you to swap if you sacrafice movement instead.
(in my home rules, players earn 1 skill point per successful quest and that skill would be 3 skill points.)

[Gold Bearer]

Most people just allow them to freely switch between weapons.

The only issue with this is if they're also allowed to freely pass items between each other. Imagine they're in a corridor and the front hero shoots, then the next hero moves one square in front of them, takes the bow/crossbow/anti-matter powered dual core plasma rifle and then shoots again, then the third hero does the same.

The rule I used is that a hero can take (with permission) or give (you'll need to decide if they can do both at the same time) any amount of items from a directly adjacent hero as their main action. It solves the problem, it's fairly simple and it makes total sense.

[clmckay]

I let them switch between weapons freely.

We do have "inventory slots" though, so they have to choose between their hands and their back slot. So they can't carry every weapon known to man and freely cycle through all of them. Choices must be made when they start out.

[Pancho]

I let them switch between weapons freely.

We do have "inventory slots" though, so they have to choose between their hands and their back slot. So they can't carry every weapon known to man and freely cycle through all of them. Choices must be made when they start out.

This is what I do too. I let heroes switch weapons freely but have introduced equipment slots (i.e. left-hand, right-hand, one weapon strapped on back, head, body, feet etc).
And they are not allowed to swop weapons with other heroes because each piece of equipment requires at least a little bit of training with it to use effectively before the quest begins. I accept that this is a bit of a fudge because items discovered during a quest can of course still be used, but its my rationale and I'm sticking with it.

I have introduced a mule "mercenary" card for use during my later quest packs, which can carry unlimited items, but the heroes need to be stood next to the mule and expend an action to grab something from it, and if that mule slips down a crevasse etc, then say good-bye thousands of gold coins worth of goods....

[knightkrawler]

I introduced icons for one-handed and two-handed. Every equipment card has one of both.
My rule says that during one ROUND (not turn!) a hero can use either two one-handed cards or one two-handed cards for your actions and your defence.
Note that a shield is one card though it might be used as often as you want to defend with it during a round.

For your case: shortsword is one-handed, bow is two-handed (like every projectile weapon), which means you can use the bow, but no shield for a complete round after that.
If you attack with the shortsword, you can use the shield for defending any attack against you until you have used the bow.
That effectively embeds a punishment for switching equipment AND covers the one hand/two hand debates.

[The Admiral]

For me it depends on what weapons are switching. I consider an Elf with a Bow/Crossbow to be quite able to hold this weapon in one hand while drawing a one handed sword or axe. He can just as easily sheath this to go back to firing his Bow/Crossbow. If the Elf however wanted to switch to a sword and shield, or to a two handed weapon, this would entail removing the shield from his back, or placing the crossbow on his back. In this instance he must take an action to facilitate the change.

I suppose I am just trying to picture what is happening in reality, and how easy these actions would be.

[mitchiemasha]

Bonus Actions: Sacrifice 1 rolled Move d6 to
Re-Equip: Change equipped weapons/armour.
Give/Receive: Weapon/potion to/from another whilst passing or adjacent. Both may Re-Equip for free.
Climb: Table/chair/ladder. Table is 2 squares, giving a larger area to attack, be attacked, opponent -1Cd6.

In Character Creation A player can give their Hero skills up to the value of their mind. Some of these skills have other bonus actions.

The loss of 1d6 to Re-Equip isn't too much of an impact but enough to prevent multiple swaps in 1 turn. A weapon can still be passed about via a clever group if cause calls, but... We have damage "roll black shields equal to the weapons power!" doing so will soon see it broke. Swapping every turn to cheat the core mechanics (as in the original) will now slow them down, which with the fear of rolling double 1's and the EW earning Chaos Tokens, not such a good idea.

We also have inventory slots, these are limited by Body, a Barbarian would have 8. The lower slots can be made into half slots, all represented via the graphics on the character sheet. Some items are equipped 'off hand'. The way the character sheet columns line up, it's easy to quickly reference what's equipped and your total combat values. Attack values are wrote to the left of an item, Defence to the right, placing them inline under the relevant combat box, A or D. There's a lil tick box on each of the 'equipable' slots. This way there's no need to rub out the item and write it in to an in hand slot, one simply moves the tick/'X'.

Please check the blue links out.

[Daedalus]

Hey all, I know I saw this touched upon before somewhere in a thread but couldn't find it in my brief search.

How do you guys manage weapon switching for bow and swords? . . . What is the most common protocol for this situation?

Like Gold Bearer said . . .

Most people just allow them to freely switch between weapons.

Jafazo had started a similar topic, perhaps the one you had seen before. My full response is found here, which addresses some of the issues brought up in this thread. Here's an excerpt following a lot of rules citing:

. . .

TL;DR So here's everything I choose to regulate gear swapping:

• Passing an item is done in addition to an action, at any time during a Hero's turn.
• A Hero may pass one item on his turn to another Hero.
• A Hero may put in-hand, stow, put on, or remove one or more items as if passing them to himself.
• A Hero can pass a potion, artifact, weapon or any other item to another Hero only if the 2 Heroes are in adjacent squares and neither Hero is adjacent to a monster.

. . .

The first and third points apply to a Hero switching weapons. Basically, I see the NA rules as supporting a Hero freely switching weapons.

This thread has also seen swapping issues brought up. My post from the other topic had more concerning that:

. . .

Regulating passing also mitigates shennannigans mentioned in this topic:

• A battle axe can be passed, but tougher or lucky monsters prevent this through adjacency if they aren't killed outright.
• A crossbow can be passed, but the unlimited arrows must be passed separately on another turn. At best, a loaded crossbow can be shot, reloaded, and passed for a one extra shot only.
• Monster positioning and random Hero movement conspire to make efficient use of a passed weapon rare.
• Swapping full gear load-outs one item at a time takes too many turns to reasonably work within a battle.
• With ordered turns, it takes 2 turns for a passed item to be returned and ready for use.
• A free hand must be available to receive a passed item. This may require an equipped item to be dropped if it wasn't stowed on a previous turn. Dropped items can only be picked up if a Hero is on the same square space where the item was dropped.

[lestodante]

Always so many interesting ideas!
My suggestion is: if you want to keep the game semplicity still alive, allow the player to swap weapons, but it will cost him half of his turn: it means that he can
1) swap weapons and move (or viceversa)... or
2) swap weapon and attack (or viceversa).
But he can't do all the 3 things in the same turn (move+attack+swap); he must sacrifice 1 of the 3.
Anyway, you don't need to apply the penalty if there are no monster on the board (game will be more fluent).