[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by safisher

I see this come up a lot, but Edge Protection is a spectacularly bad rule. It's too complex and it punishes well known armor-piercing weapons like axes and polearms.

Such weapons were not well known armour piercing weapons because of their cutting blades. Well known hand held armour defeating weapons were weapons that used ether very narrow pick heads (often targeting weak point or chinks that an axe blade would not be suited to do) or blunt impact on weak points as well. I'm not even sure that you'd call axes well known armour piecing weapons at all.

Originally Posted by safisher

You want to speed play and change as little about the game as possible. EP changes all kinds of assumptions about what DR is -- and in GURPS, DR protects from injury.

A simple rule, for those persuaded that swords should never cut through armor,

It's not so much we're persuaded just on a whim, it's that all the evidence points to the fact, if you can produce evidence to the contrary that it regularly happened, I think we'd be happy to look at it.

Originally Posted by safisher

would be to give all sword-like weapons swing damage an armor divisor of (0.5). Put it right on the weapons tables. Thus, it changes as little as possible, and has predictable effects. You might compensate your swordsmen, if you were so disposed, by treating all sword thrusts as (2)

That would make it far too easy to thrust through armour. A ST10 chap with a broad sword would be capable of thrusting through a DR9 jousting breastplate a third of the time

Originally Posted by safisher

and give them the +2 for targeting gaps that estocs and stilettos get.

Ironically those are well known armour piecing/defeating weapons, and they were because they were used in that manner. I.e. targeting chinks etc. The thing is they were specifically designed for that purpose being specialised developments of weapons. Historically thee were other tactics for less specialised weapons in order to get the same benefit, half swording with swords that have rigid tapered points (and half swording gives the same bonus to target chinks in MA)

Originally Posted by safisher

Thus swordsmen will attack armored foes with thrusts, and will save their edges for unarmored targets. It may overplay both a little, but it's aiming at getting the right tactics going.

I think I'd say giving thrusting attacks AD(2) vs. armour is rather more than over playing it. And given the ubiquity of spears on the historical battlefield, would have pretty much rendered armour irrelevant, which wasn't the case.

The current chinks rules already play to thrusting attacks as they are limited to Pi & Imp, thus larger restricted to thrusting attacks when it comes to melee weapons.

I think that you're suggesting this more from a game balance point of view in order to balance swords against armour? Which is fine from a game balance point of view. But I think historically swords (and lots of weapons) were just sub optimal against armour.

Originally Posted by safisher

Now, if you wanted to have swordsmen in armor batter on each other, with some effect, one might also count blunt trauma damage against all armor, not just flexible, and treat sword swing damage as crushing for that purpose only. Thus, a swordsman could bang on an armored knight and do some damage, giving them the feeling of accomplishment, rather than utter futility.

That would remove one of advantages that crushing weapon enjoy against armour over cutting weapons, which is why those well know armour defeating pole arms you mentioned earlier often had crushing heads for armour rather than using their cutting heads. I quite like the idea of adjusting the flexible / non-flexible hard distinction though There was recent thread on this (actually it came up in the resurrected portion of this thread, post 141+)

Originally Posted by safisher

I'll note also that the rules for attacking joint articulation (Targeting Armor in LTC2) were designed specifically to allow plate armor to have some weaknesses. Ditto the armpit location -- using the +2 for gaps, above, and +4 for a telegraphic attack, as well as "crippling" attacks on legs and arms, it's possible to take the knights down.

Again that is historically one of the main ways you defeated chaps in plate, that's how you get round the sense of utter futility you mentioned.


It actually goes to half the point of armour, yes it stops damage. But the follow on to that is it forces your opponent to rely on a narrow and difficult (thus disadvantageous) set of tactics to defeat it

e.g Yes penalties to hit chinks can be compensated for by telegraphic or AoA attacks. But the armour wearer can capitalise on that. Moreover if I'm in armour that my opponent has to use TA or AoA to get around and even then it's not a sure thing, I myself can use Committed or AoA's at less risk (with AoA even if you can defend the downsides for me getting hit back afterwards is less because of my armour). Or say I know you need to go with half swording or grappling, then I'll keep my distance and punish you when you are forced to move in as you can't trade blows with me at longer reaches.