What is your opinion about the major risk of unhorsing when jousting or fighting on a horse. For example, a very good rider would have an ml of 80 average with a good horse ini of 60 would mean that you have 6% of being unhorsed and maybe killed ust before jousting or charging... It looks really dangerous to me and not exactly the idea i have of jousting where 10% of jouster would fall even before being struck by their opponent

I think it's not overly dangerous by any means as compared to real life, at least as far as the chanced of being unhorses. After all a 6% means a rider on average is struck 17 times and falls once- I actually think that is a bit low.

BTW - Are you talking about HMG or HM3?

Not sure where you are getting your numbers from, though.

Initially, the roll is made against riding, with a CF resulting in an unhorsing before they joust. I am not sure if this is Subject to PP - but with a ride of 75 and no penalty, there is a 5% chance of being unhorses (automatic on CF). I think this is indeed high for no combat taking place. I'd suggest a second roll required on riding with MF/CF menaing unhorsing - this reduces the chance of being unhorsed before you even attempt a strike down to about 1-2% based on the above (I also like HMG rolls here, where the quality of the horse also plays a role, using their INI).

After that, the Unforsing roll is required upon a sucessful strike. It also seems that even a strike on a shield where the shield makes it's WQ roll also requires an unhorsing roll - at least that is how I have played it.

Then with a sucessful stroke where the pole does not break, if Blunt impact excedes strength, an unhorsing roll is required in addition to the normal one. As impact will often be A*2, an unhorsing roll may not be that uncommon here as the weapons base "B" value adds to this.

So with a rider with 80 ML riding, and a PP (1/2 that of normal), you have maybe a 30% chance of being unhorsed (MF and CF's both mean unhorsed here), and maybe an additonal roll maybe 1/4 of the time, as there are A*1 strikes, and the shield will provide 1D6 "cover" even if failing it's WQ, but all of this is dependent upon riders strength.

So maybe on average a 35% chance of being unhorsed after a sucessful strike.

Now, a 2d6 roll from a canter is not that dangerous, though I's only allow armour 1/2 of values for an unhorsing roll.

A CF however can be dangerous, and this is about a 20% possibility on an unhorsing. If at the canter that 5d6 - a 20 blunt impact would not be uncommon. This would result in a fair amount of 13+ Injuries, which are a G4 to most areas of the body, a K4 in some areas. This results in a bleeder, often a permanent reduction in a stat, and the possibility of infection with a grievous blunt wound.

This I do think is a little too much. Maybe reducing the impact here by 1D6 makes more sense.

Butreally, I am not sure of your question - what part of the jousting process do you think is "too dangerous"?

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Hi, thanks for your reply. Actually i was talking about Hm3 where if you riding while on battle, you have to test your riding+horse ini/2 before making any action, meaning that you have quite a high risk of being unhorse at any time. One of the player who has a riding skill of 75 with a horse ini of 60, would have 6% of risk being very seriously hurt by a fall. I think your idea of a second test on a specific table makes lot of sense. A cs/ms would just mean that you cannot get the horse doing what you want and a Mf/cf would be the unhorsing. As well the penalty of 10% when failing a commanding your horse on a mf seems really to light. In this case anybody even with a riding skill of 5 could be able to charge on a horse just getting a malus of 10% on his attack...

Yeah, I agree with you here. Heck, with 3 passes usually required, there is about an 18% each party would lose due to falling off their horse before the charge

This would lead to some amusing tournament results, particualrily if both fell off their horse prior to the commencement and were both disqualified



CS/MS on the second roll might lead to some embarrasment, that's about it. "Are you TRULY ready to begin the joust, Sir Kight???"



Yeah, this is why I like HMG, there are a few options for this, the "command rolls" are based on either the lowest of riding, rider INI, or Horse INI, or you can base it on the average. My thought - Use the average, but it cannot be more than 10 points greater than any individual ML.

I'd think it makes sense actually to average even Weapon ML's with this command ability, perhaps the same no greater than 10 above the lowest ML. You may be really good with a sword - but if you can't ride well or have a horse that does not respond well, you will not be very effective.

Both HMG and HM3 have "command rolls" that are to be performed in combat, HM3 uses only riding ML, HMG uses the Steed Ini/Rider Ini/Riding average. If the roll is not sucessful, the steed does not do what the rider intended. A lot of rolls, but it makes sense, and I like the HMG better for this.

Another option to decrease the amount of rolls and handle in a more abstract fashion would be to forget the command checks except in unusual situations (Charging a pole armed infantry man, a camel, elephant, etc., Leaping over a barrier, etc.). This could be accompliched By averaging the HMG Team Ini with the riders weapon skills.

I also think the amount of D6 rolled for falling off a horse damage might be a bit too severe - particualrily if using my thought that armour should only protect 1/2 in falls (I use the same for grappling). Lowering the damage by a D6 would make sense it seems.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Hi All,

I've been reading through the HM3 rules recently, thinking to maybe start a game at some point (I used to play HM1 as a kid). I was struck by the issue raised in the earlier post. Given a competent rider (Riding 80) and a trained horse (Initiative 60), there's a pretty high probability of the horse throwing the rider (CF occurs with 6% probability given Riding EML 70).

Given this, a posse of 17 knights who showed up at a battle, and stood in a line waiting to charge (resting) would see one of their number fall off his horse each round. Heaven forbid they should actually charge, win some tactical advantages and some of them end up having to check more than once per round!

There seem to be some experienced HM GMs/players here. What do you do about this rule? Am I missing the boat on the Steed Command Check (combat 21, reiterated when jousting is discussed in combat 26)? Do you ignore the automatic unhorsing on a CF? Even given the recommendation above to allow a second check to bring the horse under control leaves fairly good odds (1.8% in my example above) of falling off a horse while simply standing around or manoeuvring outside of combat.

Any advice gratefully received.

Cheers

T