[Set]

Hey guys, been missing. Those last few days were crazy. (And the rest of the week is going to be equally maddening.)

Anyways...

Originally Posted by apoc527

Excellent post, Set! I particularly enjoyed the small font commentary. Very entertaining.

10/10 would read again/more.

Also, I was also curious about the tip slash. I see your point, but I think a tip slash is really meant to simulate very low-powered (minimal leverage) cuts with just the tip of an otherwise non-cutting weapon.

For my money, the actual throat cut here should use the normal sw damage for a knife. (Daggers, OTOH, don't do sw cut damage, so tip slash would be appropriate there.)

Thank you very much :D

So, I used tip slash because for me, I see swing damage as doing more damage because you are quite literally swinging your weapon, using your arms and weapon's length as leverage. You can't really do this if your dagger is in someone else's throats. Or on your throat, for that matter. But I strongly advise against this course of action.

Of course, slitting someone's throat should probably do more damage than a tip slash, but I wanted to go strictly by the book. Maybe in my tables I'd rule it as doing the same damage as the impaling (no -2 reduction for slash).

Originally Posted by Varyon

Neck armor can be distracting, as well as potentially restricting head movement, both of which directly interfere with a sentry/lookout's job (and make it easier for the infiltrator to sneak up on him). Wearing Neck armor also makes things only slightly more difficult for the infiltrator when stabby time comes around - he still has to grapple the target from behind to prevent him from calling out (this can be - but isn't advised to be - avoided if the sentry is completely unarmored, as it's difficult to shout with a collapsed lung), and after that slipping the knife into the gaps in the neck armor - or failing that just stabbing the sentry a few times in the face - isn't much more difficult than stabbing the neck would have been to start with. In other words, the cost isn't worth the gain.

Leather stocks and mail coifs may be an exception here, however, but the former isn't great protection (DR 1 IIRC) and if you can afford to put your sentries in mail coifs for the modest improvement, their chest armor is still pretty well guaranteed to be better than that on their necks, so the infiltrator is more likely to be able to get through with a neck stab than with a vitals stab.



Eh, I consider that as a case where the sentry has failed at his job, but managed to make the most of the failure by alerting the other guards. There's a reason I snuck that "arguably" weasel-word in there, after all.

Yep, the neck is usually way less protected than the torso - in fact, the torso is usually the most protected area - maybe the skull can be more protected, but usually not by non-vision-restricting helmets.

In any case, the intent of my technique is mostly to look cool and be realistic, all the while sticking to the books' rules and not changing anything - and still being able to down someone in a single turn. In my opinion slitting someone's throat is way more stylish for a rogue than grabbing someone by the neck and going all stabbey in the kidneys. I wasn't aiming for a optimized damage.

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Realism aside, going purely by TechGrap rules, if the intent is to set up a swing-cut to neck with a knife, what does grappling the head (-3 to skill) do which grappling the torso (-0 to skill) doesn't?

Both provide referred control to the neck. Both allow the control points to be spent to reduce hit penalties or enhance damage.

I'm pretty sure that Fairbarn states that you must grapple someone by the neck to silence them. However, I take that from a post in some other thread, since I don't have Fairbarn or TechGrap. Correct me if I'm wrong.