I had an odd thought while working on my LotR conversion for Genesys: pikes are technically Melee weapons, but in terms of the game’s mechanics, they act more like ranged weapons. They are incredibly long, and so could feasibly be short range instead of engaged, and aren’t good in really close quarters. So would you stat them as ranged weapons using the Melee skill?

33 minutes ago, Johan Marek Phoenix Knight said:

I had an odd thought while working on my LotR conversion for Genesys: pikes are technically Melee weapons, but in terms of the game’s mechanics, they act more like ranged weapons. They are incredibly long, and so could feasibly be short range instead of engaged, and aren’t good in really close quarters. So would you stat them as ranged weapons using the Melee skill?

no. They have the quality of reach which allows a melee weapon to be used out to short range.

What you would do is give them the range of short, but the difficulty would remain as average. This is the same for whips.

Thanks

I would avoid "ranged" or "short range" for these weapons totally.

I know pole weapons have a larger reach than common weapons, but short is a really long reach for any melee weapon.

Short can reach almost 40-50 meters.

Genesys works very well with abstract things, but there is a limit. A lot of weapons can fit in all the range bands. Engaged also works very with this.

I'd leave pole weapons with engaged range and use what the book suggest:

Defensive : this quality increases the user's melee defense. Good to illustrate that the user can use the size of the weapon to keep the adversaries at a relative safe distance.

During the combat, think that the things are more dynamic and cinematographic. Soldiers are moving all the time, trying to find the right range to hit.

Some weapons can be hugely bigger than others, but each one has it's own qualities to reflect that.

It's possible to create new qualities also, but... for me Defensive is enough to reflect this, for pole weapons.

3 hours ago, Bellyon said:

Short can reach almost 40-50 meters.

Now, my book does tell me: "Short [is] up to several meters [...]", while "[...] several dozen meters [...]" is Medium.

11 hours ago, Daeglan said:

no. They have the quality of reach which allows a melee weapon to be used out to short range.

Technically, there is no such quality, instead:

11 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

What you would do is give them the range of short, but the difficulty would remain as average. This is the same for whips.

as the Razor Whip (G-CRB p. 159) does exemplify.

Conan 2D20 has actually a nice approach on reach differences for melee weapons. If you attack an opponent who wields a melee weapon with longer reach, example: dagger attacks spear, the difficulty to attack is raised. I could imagine a similar approach in Genesys.

8 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

Now, my book does tell me: "Short [is] up to several meters [...]", while "[...] several dozen meters [...]" is Medium.

I've forced a bit. But usually Short can reach 30-40 meters. How I know that? Looking for how far we can throw something, like a spear, granade or something like. And the average combat with pistols are done in 25 m.

It's the limit of short range.

The small distance to start "short" is greater than any engaged combat.

And I think some people are thinking that a long spear (2,5 m to 3,0 m) are longer than what they are in fact. No one hold a spear in one extreme to have a 3 m range of action. Soldiers held the spear almost in the middle or a little behind the middle. So, they have something like 1,5 m of lance in front of the shield. It isn't that bigger than a soldier with a sword. 30, 60, 90 cm... this isn't enought to change the range from engaged to short by any mean.

21 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

I've forced a bit. But usually Short can reach 30-40 meters. How I know that? Looking for how far we can throw something, like a spear, granade or something like. And the average combat with pistols are done in 25 m.

It's the limit of short range.

The small distance to start "short" is greater than any engaged combat.

And I think some people are thinking that a long spear (2,5 m to 3,0 m) are longer than what they are in fact. No one hold a spear in one extreme to have a 3 m range of action. Soldiers held the spear almost in the middle or a little behind the middle. So, they have something like 1,5 m of lance in front of the shield. It isn't that bigger than a soldier with a sword. 30, 60, 90 cm... this isn't enought to change the range from engaged to short by any mean.

Short range could have an upwards range of 10-20 meters. That doesn't exclude 2-3 meters, however, and engaged range is something of a status within short range, rather than it's own range.

And depends on the pike; some used in phalanx-style formations were quite long (upwards of 7.5 meters). They are not close-quarters fighting weapons, and would offer quite a bit of reach in anti-cavalry engagements. A weapon like that could justify a range of short and about 5 ranks of Unwieldy, but it's not out of the bounds of the rules.

I agree there are bigger weapons, but like you said, there aren't for close combate.

But in Genesys, even great swords like the swords we can find in Final Fantasy or animes are great enough to have "short" range.

59 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

And the average combat with pistols are done in 25 m.

How conveniently the revolver's range is presented as Medium, then.

5 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

How conveniently the revolver's range is presented as Medium, then.

I can't remember that. A LOT of pistols and similar weapons of this type have short range.

It isn't just about how far the bullet can travel, but how far it can remain accurate as well

Remember, I said pikes, not spears. Pikes are HUGE, and are definitely not made to be used at engaged range. They are just too long to be practical in close-quarters fighting. They are designed to kill your opponent before they can reach you, often using the phalanx that swordbreaker mentioned. Once an opponent gets close enough, pikes are pretty much worthless. Short range just makes much more sense.

Well, you can create but i guess it would work different than a normal weapon. The reach is almost useless. Focus on a special ability:

When using against a big creature in charge, the oponnent should make a melee regular attack vs dif 3 or 4, maybe some upgrades. A failure would cause x damage = weapon damage + the number of failures. Use the threats to activate critical if you want to.

In FFG's Star Wars game, using the same narrative system, there is a new talent called Extended Reach. This permits the wielder of a two-handed melee weapon to make attacks at short range, at the cost of 1 strain. If you don't wish to simply treat the range as it is handled with the whip, perhaps you could give it this quality as an option.

1 hour ago, Bellyon said:

I can't remember that. A LOT of pistols and similar weapons of this type have short range.

Let me refresh your memory: Table 1.5-5: WEAPONS, G-CRB, p. 91.

The point of a pike's reach was defensive (plus multi-rank attack), so I would work with that quality range than make them "ranged" having to use different skills and target diff.

Multi-ranked attack not sure how that would work in the pseudo-abstract Genesys ruleset.

57 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

Let me refresh your memory: Table 1.5-5: WEAPONS, G-CRB, p. 91.

Thanks. That page just works to show how melee and ranged weapons are different.

Genesys - Core Rulebook:

Rotor Pistol, SHORT, p.154
DEW Pistol, SHORT, p.161
Heavy Pistol, medium, p.166
Light Pistol, SHORT, p.166
Flechette Pistol, SHORT, p.175
Laser Pistol, SHORT, p.175
Plasma Pistol, SHORT, p.184
Slug Pistol, SHORT, p.184

Star Wars - Edge of the Empire (space opera fantasy):
Holdout Blaster, SHORT, p.160
Light Blaster Pistol, medium, p.160
Light Blaster Pistol, medium, p.160
Blaster Pistol, medium, p.160
Heavy Blaster Pistol, medium, p.160

So, here we can see that most of pistols has short range. Check the pages if you want.

The versions with high technology or huge fire power can have medium range, but they aren't the regular versions in most settings.

Perhaps allow the pikeman to attack off-turn. When an opponent closes to engaged range, they're subject to an attack (I'd say the attack should count as the pikeman's next action). I'd allow advantage or a triumph to actually hold the target at pike's length. But yeah, once the target gets past the business end of a pike, the pikeman needs to drop the pike and draw his sword, or skedaddle.

There's something appealing to @DarthDude 's idea of two legitimate close-quarters weapons translating to a penalty for the one that doesn't have reach on the other. Don't go into a sword fight with a dagger. But narrative, cinematic gaming puts that knife fighter on the same plane as the sword fighter, and are considerations such as reach really what the game should be about? Not really for our group, although we wouldn't treat charging a group of pikemen as simply a maneuver.

The conflict here is taking a super-rigid stance on what "engaged," "short," and "medium" all mean.

The kind of pikes being talked about here aren't significantly shorter for it to make much of a significant difference, nor is it going to throw the game out of balance. The fact that FFG recently released a talent that allows any melee weapon that requires two hands to be used at short range means that the developers don't use a super rigid interpretation of ranges; ergo, each group can stretch interpretations a little depending on the setting, weapons, personal preference, and circumstances.

The way I would write these pikes is: short range, couple ranks of Pierce, several ranks of Unwieldy, a very high encumbrance rating (4 or 5), and maybe Inaccurate. Maybe throw in a caveat that says these pikes cannot be used at engaged range, or upgrade/increase the difficulty by X when used while engaged, or something similar.

42 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

The conflict here is taking a super-rigid stance on what "engaged," "short," and "medium" all mean.

The kind of pikes being talked about here aren't significantly shorter for it to make much of a significant difference, nor is it going to throw the game out of balance. The fact that FFG recently released a talent that allows any melee weapon that requires two hands to be used at short range means that the developers don't use a super rigid interpretation of ranges; ergo, each group can stretch interpretations a little depending on the setting, weapons, personal preference, and circumstances.

The way I would write these pikes is: short range, couple ranks of Pierce, several ranks of Unwieldy, a very high encumbrance rating (4 or 5), and maybe Inaccurate. Maybe throw in a caveat that says these pikes cannot be used at engaged range, or upgrade/increase the difficulty by X when used while engaged, or something similar.

The trouble is for pikes or other weapons that are specifically "set" to receive a charge that you can "game" the bypassing of them very easily with Genesys. You're at medium range from them? Spend two maneuvers to move close to short and then to engaged and you've literally danced around them with no more risk than gaining two strain. I'm addressing purely the aspect of them being set here, not being used from "the back rank" offensively, which I think your ruling would handle nicely.

I'm happy that Genesys generally dispenses with opportunity attacks that more "simulationist" games include, but a situation like a hedge of pikes calls for something special. Perhaps not a defensive attack, but instead treat the hedge as a wall and call for an athletics or coordination check to dodge the pointy bits, or else you literally can't close and you're now in range for the pikeman's attack on their turn. In fact I'd say they get a boost to reflect your own momentum is likely to get you skewered.

22 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

The trouble is for pikes or other weapons that are specifically "set" to receive a charge that you can "game" the bypassing of them very easily with Genesys. You're at medium range from them? Spend two maneuvers to move close to short and then to engaged and you've literally danced around them with no more risk than gaining two strain. I'm addressing purely the aspect of them being set here, not being used from "the back rank" offensively, which I think your ruling would handle nicely.

I'm happy that Genesys generally dispenses with opportunity attacks that more "simulationist" games include, but a situation like a hedge of pikes calls for something special. Perhaps not a defensive attack, but instead treat the hedge as a wall and call for an athletics or coordination check to dodge the pointy bits, or else you literally can't close and you're now in range for the pikeman's attack on their turn. In fact I'd say they get a boost to reflect your own momentum is likely to get you skewered.

That's a totally different can of worms to me, though. Aside from having a table of 30 players, there would be no situation that pikes in the hands of individual characters would make sense to me, unless you're using squad rules or mass combat (in which case individual weapon stats are meaningless). There are a couple of other things you could do, such as treat a pike wall as insurmountable terrain or something.

But an individual melee weapon capable of hitting at short range is not an issue whatsoever.

12 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

That's a totally different can of worms to me, though. Aside from having a table of 30 players, there would be no situation that pikes in the hands of individual characters would make sense to me, unless you're using squad rules or mass combat (in which case individual weapon stats are meaningless). There are a couple of other things you could do, such as treat a pike wall as insurmountable terrain or something.

But an individual melee weapon capable of hitting at short range is not an issue whatsoever.

I agree with it being short range, but a pike wall is definitely possible. Players couldn’t make such a wall, but minion groups could. I’ve had my players take on dozens of minions at a time before (after they have gotten a ton of xp of course).

However, I think the pike wall would not be a ability for the weapon, so much as a talent/ability that the minion group wielding the weapon has. In terms of the weapon’s stats, it would be short range.

When I was making notes for a pre-Genesis fantasy campaign, I came up with a new quality for long weapons such as spears and other polearms, possibly even a claymore or large 2-handed battle axe. Lengthy weapons got a Defensive die bonus against shorter weapons. BUT, once the opponent successfully made an attack against the longer weapon, the tables were reversed - the reach attacker now received a setback die. I then toyed around with some long weapons having a secondary, non-Lengthy attack, albeit much poorer - pommel strikes, slapping someone with the staff of your spear, etc. This could be modeled as Johan suggested with the Lengthy weapons reaching out to Short, and the shorter weapons getting a setback to attack until they move into Engaged and give the Lengthy a setback instead, but I don't think it would be necessary.

I have Genesis, but haven't read through it yet. If there isn't something like this available I will probably be using it when I start a fantasy campaign someday and see how it works. It makes it really smart to carry a shortsword or dagger on your hip even if your preferred weapon is a much larger weapon.

My notes also included Lengthy 2 and Lengthy 1 differentiations. Lengthy 2 was for polearms, long spears, and claymores while a regular long sword, staff, or short spear is Lengthy 1. Short swords, daggers, punching, hand axes, etc. were the default Lengthy 0.