Troll Lord Games

My next campaign is going to be based in sort of an Aegean-type geography that's really not quite out of the Bronze Age. Ironworking, which has the advantage of being able to more mass produced, is not really into play yet; for most folks bronze is as good as it gets. A couple of points on this:

-Bronze is not cheap. Only high-ranking princes and nobles will have anything close to full suits of armor. Heavy linen, leather, and some "mix n' match" sets are usually about as good as it gets.

-Longswords are rare, very rare. Spears, shortswords, daggers, darts, slings, shortbows--these are much more common for a warrior.

-"Star-Iron" will be sort of my quasi-mythic element for this, since historically it was in usage far before smelting of iron was commonplace. I figure I'll throw in some bonus for it; still working that out. We're talking quests to go find the stuff, etc.

-There is coinage, though it's not nearly as refined as that you might see in a pseudo-medieval setting. I'm using the amazing And A 10-Foot Pole's coinage/Bronze Age references, which are Tin Pieces<Copper Pieces<Bronze Pieces<Silver Pieces<Gold Pieces, with Electrum thrown in at the rate of 5 Silver=1 Electrum.

So, my question to you is, what else would you adjust or chance to get the Bronze Age feel for a C&C campaign? I'm working on armor and shields right now. I've looked at old books such as Green Ronin's Trojan War, but I'm not sure I like how they do their piece-by-piece armor; I want something simpler. I'm not sure where to go on shields.

Armor AC Bonus
Heavy Linen +1
Heavy Linen/Leather Mix +2
Hides +3
Leather +3
Studded Leather +4
Leather/Bronze Mix +5
Full Bronze (incredibly rare) +6

Small Shield (Leather/Wood) +1
Small Shield (Bronze) +2
Medium Shield (Leather/Wood) +2
Medium Shield (Bronze) +3
Large Shield (Leather/Wood) +3
Large Shield (Bronze) +4

Feedback/thoughts/impressions are most welcome! I'd be happy to send a zip of the setting/map so far (just fluff, no mechanics) to anyone who'd like a copy; PM me!

zacharythefirst wrote: Small Shield (Leather/Wood) +1
Small Shield (Bronze) +2
Medium Shield (Leather/Wood) +2
Medium Shield (Bronze) +3
Large Shield (Leather/Wood) +3
Large Shield (Bronze) +4

Feedback/thoughts/impressions are most welcome! I'd be happy to send a zip of the setting/map so far (just fluff, no mechanics) to anyone who'd like a copy; PM me!

Not sure why you would make Bronze shields more effective than steel shields...

Do you mean from the C&C main book? Because steel doesn't really exist in any sort of usable quantity in this world.

Honestly, I'm trying to balance AC so between not having heavier armor available, PCs won't still be sitting ducks. That's why I'm tweaking shield effectiveness. But all feedback/alt suggestions are welcome!

zacharythefirst wrote: Honestly, I'm trying to balance AC so between not having heavier armor available, PCs won't still be sitting ducks. That's why I'm tweaking shield effectiveness. But all feedback/alt suggestions are welcome!

Instead of changing all the armour rules it would be better mechanics to give the more primitive weapons minuses. IE: a bronze sword has a -1 to hit when compared to the base +0 for iron based weapon of same type...

But here's the issue I run into with that.

1) Bronze is way, way, WAY more common than iron at this particular epoch. I want the default assumption for a common weapon (say a bronze dagger) at +0. Iron weapons are rare, and likely won't see much use. I guess it's in how you look at it, but assigning the most common weapon material in the game a -1 seems to be an unnecessary layer, so to speak.

2) Bronze and iron both had their pros and cons. Depending on how they were smelted, iron was generally more brittle than bronze, but during the tin shortage, the smelting of iron proved to be cheaper and did not require both copper and tin, as bronze did. There are HUGE debates on certain history board on the relative merits of each. For gaming purposes, I want to make "Star-iron" something a level above, but as far as common iron weapons, they aren't plentiful, nor are they necessarily superior.

Thanks for the feedback/brainstorm session so far!

zacharythefirst wrote:But here's the issue I run into with that.

1) Bronze is way, way, WAY more common than iron at this particular epoch. I want the default assumption for a common weapon (say a bronze dagger) at +0.

In that case leave everything the same. All shields except for Iron and the like should have the same AV as in core rules.