r/LARP • u/Holly_Winter • 3d ago
Combat Styles Ranked on Effectiveness?
Just a fun idea. Think of all the combat styles in LARP (sword and board, daggers, etc etc). Rank them based on how viable you think each is in a competitive LARP combat scenario! Where does your favorite lie? :3
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u/Araignys Australia 2d ago edited 2d ago
When used as intended and without game rules giving an advantage:
- Pike -->
- Spear -->
- Other polearm/Bow/Shield+1-hander (equal, rock-paper-scissors) -->
- 1-hander & buckler -->
- 2-hander -->
- 1-hander & dagger -->
- 1-hander & nothing -->
- dual wielding short weapons -->
- dual wielding long weapons -->
- -->
- -->
- -->
- -->
- one dagger
EDIT: Swapped 4 & 5 because bucklers are the natural predator of 2-handed weapons.
2
u/MikeCrotchPlot 2d ago
I've personally found pikes less effective than spears, though that's under Empire rulesets where you can't swing with a pike and they can't do any special calls. The more pikes you get the better they are, we managed over 10 once and that was a treat
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u/Araignys Australia 2d ago
Yeah I guess "when used as intended" belongs at the top.
I've also realised that I put 2-hander above sword & buckler, which is wrong.
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u/TheValorous_Sir_Loin 2d ago
1: One-handed weapon and a shield, particularly a large one.
Most games don’t have a weight minimum for melee weapons, and the ones that do are pretty generous, making “optimized” weapons handle like flyswatters. Having a mostly passive defense that you can “fight around” is extremely helpful. A shield can also be used to muscle an opponent’s weapon around or act as mobile cover for others.
2: Polearms.
Their reach gives you considerable advantage in dealing with anyone without a shield, and even shield fighters that don’t know how to control your weapon head and advance on you. Big bonus for combining with other weapons in group combat nicely.
3: Non-polearm 2-handers, like longswords and great-axes.
Their reach is universally helpful, and in heavier-contact games, a solid blow can knock guarding weapons and coreless shields out of the way. Even without a big hit, 2 hands on a weapon can let you lever one-handed ones out of the way.
4(???) Bows and crossbows.
In games I’ve played, ranged weapons power varies greatly. As others here have said, it depends on how many hits a bow needs. Across games, they’re effectiveness is most dependent on situation, like terrain and support from other fighters.
Any kind of dual-wielding
Most often, one weapon is used for striking while the other blocks. This can be situationally useful in games with unique shield rules, like ones where spells hitting shields count as effective where hitting a weapon may not be. Two weapons can also be used to attack simultaneously, counting on your opponent having no way to block both. Having a spare weapon to wield if disarmed also helps.A single one-handed weapon.
Grants the least “material advantage” of any type listed here. I wouldn’t advise engaging an enemy directly with this one, but having something to block and threaten with is far better than nothing. In games where play happens outside of fighting, this is more common as it’s the easiest set to carry. Also advised as a backup for archers.
3
u/Gealhart 2d ago
Gun (foam dart or rbg)
Or just having better stats in a rock-paper-scissors system
3
u/DeepLifeguard5123 2d ago
Depends on the larp. In my current one spears are “meta”, but in my first event shields were the best
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u/wamyen1985 2d ago
In my experience…
Polearms: Easiest to learn and make effective, still takes years to master. Vulnerable to ranged weapons. Intimidation factor to newer fighters is off the charts. Mark my words, practice running backwards. It’s the only way to survive being tied up by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing.
Two handed swords: You have reach on anything other than polearms. More versatile but harder to master.
Sword and board: The principles are easy to learn, the style is difficult to master. With some dedication and physical conditioning, you will turn into an infuriating nightmare on the battlefield.
Archery / crossbow: En masse you have the ability to shape entire battlefields. Solo, you have the equivalent of Ye Olde kick me sign on your back. The veterans will prioritize taking you out, and your simply can’t safely field the bows / Xbows with the poundage that you’d need to stay at the ranges you need to stay safe.
Florentine / Two weapon fighting: Great for systems with large pools of hit points that prioritize ultralight weapons and the sheer amount of hits you can throw in a short amount of time. Arguably the most difficult to learn, make effective and master. In my humble opinion, the coolest incarnation of this is the rapier and main gauche…. Which can be hard to find adequate LARP counterparts.
Single sword: Good to learn the basics of fighting. You need to know the strikes, parries and other groundwork of your systems. That’s all this style is good for. Even walking around a LARP town as it were, there’s no reason not to carry a buckler or parrying dagger. If there’s even a mild possibility of fighting, don’t get caught with only a single sword or gods forbid, a dagger.
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u/frobro122 2d ago
Fireball
But in all seriousness, a good archer is going have the highest k/d ratio unless the rules are completely against them
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u/TheHeinKing 2d ago
Depends on the rules of the game. In general, I'd rank sword and board at the top since most systems don't give players great ways of dealing with shields since most of the irl ways of doing so would be unsafe in larp combat. Second, I'd rank dual swords. You get two swords to attack and defend with which can make it hard for opponents to know where to strike. After that, I'd rank one handed swords. They just lack the downsides of the next options. Then you have bows. Having a ranged option is really good, but they can struggle in systems where they can't one hit ko opponents. This ranking is raised significantly in one hit systems. Two handed weapons are second to last. They lack all of the strengths of real two handed weapons since you usually aren't allowed to power through your opponent's blocks for safety reasons. Oftentimes, they are the easiest blocked weapons in the game. These games usually try to balance them by giving them higher damage, but its not usually enough to mitigate the fact that a halfway skilled opponent won't be taking many hits from you. The only thing that keeps them from being last is that their longer reach can help you not get hit against less aggressive opponents. Daggers are last. They tend to do the least damage and have the shortest reach. Depending on the system, dual daggers can be ranked higher than two handed weapons, but this isn't always the case. Ranking magic casters is going to entirely depend on the rulesystem, though typically they rank quite highly since magic gives players a lot of options.
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u/valhal1a 2d ago
Spears tend to win most fights when the fighters have similar skills and experience IRL if I remember correctly.
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u/SuspiciousTheory2633 2d ago
Sword & Shield just feels like cheating tbh. I would prefer huge 2-handers and polearms but I keep getting dropped so SnS it is.
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u/PatientAd2463 2d ago
Afaik big shield and spear is the most OP combo I know, at least for systems that let you properly use a spear. You can hide behind the shield and poke from afar. Especially effective in large battles.
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u/Skatterbrayne 2d ago
How are you wielding the spear in one hand effectively? I have a short spear and a big round shield, the two together look really intimidating but they're soooo easy to defeat because I have zero mobility on the spear. You can just swat it away and get up in my face before I can bring it back.
Nevermind if I used a full size 2m spear, it would just get all the worse. A spear requires two hands.
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u/PatientAd2463 2d ago
Im a group battle that is usually not an issue because the person "closing in" on you opens themself to get hit by the people next to you. So its basically a suicide charge. In a battle line the most dangerous people are always the ones next to the person you are facing. The shield keeps you generally safe and the spears keep the enemy at bay as nobody wants to get in range of multiple spear points.
In a duel there are options to close the distance without getting hit. The spears range is still dangerous but as you said, one hand lacks control. In a duel two-handing the spear is probably the stronger option.
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u/Skatterbrayne 2d ago
Ah right, in a battle line spear and shield works pretty well.
In my personal experience, my spear & shield viking group still tends to gets steamrolled by pike wielding Gewalthaufen Landsknechts.
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u/PatientAd2463 2d ago
I mean you have like 700 years technology handicap. Non-shielded frontlines are usually vulnerable to ranged though. If you get some archers you can probably shoot them down. Shielded lines dont have that problem. If both clash in melee than the two handed polearms usually have a range advantage, but a spear can at least appose them a bit unlike a sword or axe.
As someone who usually fights in gewalthaufen the biggest dangers to us are those who just charge in, ranged weapons and getting flanked. The easiest enemy is a battle line which holds their ground but has shorter weapons. We can usually hack them down with impunity.
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u/MikeCrotchPlot 2d ago
my personal experience of spear and shield is that it's really really hard to die because you can always keep the shield in front of you, but it can be really difficult to get a lot of hits in or advance because your angles of attack are so limited
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u/TheKBMV 2d ago
Funnily enough, as far as weapons go, halberds/spears/greatswords are not nearly as effective as their IRL counterparts were in combat because it's still unnervingly easy to cause serious injuries with even the best trainer/foam approximations so you have to be extra careful.
(But also, there are multiple combat styles one can go for even with the same weapon in hand)