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One thing to remember is that Chainmail rules were used in a wargame, and then imported to be used in a proto-ttrpg, so the rules makes sense the most applied to the former, when a single strike is straight up a kill.

Keeping that in mind, as you also point out, daggers and hand axe have a very low chance to hit an armored opponent, while higher class weapon like two handed swords are arguably the best weapon by a large margin, speaking strictly about chance to hit the opponent.

The lowest class weapon to be kind of reliable is the Mace (Class 3), that if pitted against a 2h sword (Class 10) has a difference of 7 classes, so the mace wielder gets the choice of having first blow OR parry, not both. In this case, it's a gamble: since the 2h sword has higher chance of hitting, you could forgo first strike and parry, getting a counterblow in case of success; or maybe you could go "all in" attacking first...but if you miss, the 2h sword has an higher chance to strike without a parry reducing the roll.

Hi! Reading through Chain of Command I think I found a typo: the parrying section (pg. 187) reads "The ability of a defender to parry depends on how much greater their weapon class is compared to that of their attacker", but it should be "The ability of a defender to parry depends on how much lower their weapon class is compared to that of their attacker".

Also, the weapon breaking in case of a kill score is the defender one, not the attacker one.

The idea being that only similar weapon (or lighter and faster ones) can engage in parrying, with the added possibility for the defender weapon to break, denying an otherwise killing blow.

That's actually how Chainmail works, and it's a great procedure to plug into any OSR games. Chainmail goes even more in depth, with options like passing fire, split movements, charging, and weapon classes (from lighter and smaller to longer and heavier) that influence initiative, parry, and the number of attacks per round. You can find it in FMC's appendix also.

Hi, love the Arcane Foci idea!

Just a couple of questions:

Maybe I missed it, but does Foci regain energy? And if they do, is it during downtime?

Also, you speak about foci being normal weapon (at least damage wise), but how do you view them in your games? Simple weapons charged with energy (like a ritual dagger) or magic devices (like a wand, that could even do ranged attacks)? Or both, maybe with the latter being rarer?

Thanks!