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

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.

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.