12-08-2014, 03:21 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
What is the basis behind the damage modifiers of impaling weapons? What makes swords get increased damage with length and thus increased ability to penetrate armour?
|
12-08-2014, 03:28 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
|
Re: Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
Swing weapon damage reflect weight and length, length adding to damage due to leverage. The damage of a swung weapon the weight of which is balanced evenly along its length (such as a sword) is poor at penetrating armor: this damage only adds to armor penetration because a realistic system would be very difficult to use.
Thrust weapon damage seems to reflect weight. Thrust impaling damage specifically may also reflect the wound channel created by the weapon's head, although a weapon with a larger head also penetrates armor less well, and now we're right back in "how much detail do you want to model" land. In conclusion, use Super Edge Protection (link below) and, if impaling weapons still aren't getting the penetration you think they deserve, reduce the EP to .5 x DR for fibrous armor and most metal armors, and 1 x DR for plate armor. http://jetgurps.blogspot.com/2014/04...adding-to.html |
12-08-2014, 03:39 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
Is completely irrelevant unless using something like a pick. The thread is about comparing impaling damage.
Quote:
While an interesting set of rules, I'm thinking about relative penetration, not whether armour is penetrated well in absolute terms. |
|
12-08-2014, 03:48 PM | #4 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
|
Re: Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
Quote:
Quote:
So, impaling penetrating relative to other damage, or the penetration of one particular impaling weapon relative to another? SEP doesn't address the latter, it's true, but I think it's still worth using to model the fact that weapons either penetrate armor and inflict serious harm, or fail to penetrate and their damage is limited to blunt trauma. |
||
12-08-2014, 04:18 PM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
12-08-2014, 04:58 PM | #6 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
The very idea of armor divisors hadn't been invented when melee-weapon damages were first eyeballed, with the implication that the game's original damage model was relatively insensitive to penetration. It would be kind to say that damage adds approximate both penetration and wounding effects . . . really, they're primarily measures of wounding. Right or wrong, that's the choice SJ went with in GURPS First Edition (in fact, in Man to Man), and we've stuck with it ever since.
As a result of this model, the wider the blade, the bigger the damage add for being impaled by it: a skinny 1-cm-wide fencing blade or an awl-like javelin does thrust+1, a fatter sword blade up to around 2 cm wide is thrust+2, a 4-cm-wide greatsword or a spear gets thrust+3, and the broadest boar spears and the like ("heavy spear") are thrust+4. Realistically, thicker blades would be better handled with fixed damage, progressively worse armor divisors, but correspondingly better wounding modifiers. However, that isn't the current GURPS model for thrust impaling damage. You could revisit this. If you did, you would have to revisit all melee weapons – thrust and swung, blunt and sharp – and grade armor divisors and wounding more finely. That would be an edition-level change, and one that pulls away from the current industry trend toward simplification, so I wouldn't bet on seeing it happen "officially."
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
12-08-2014, 05:36 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Impaling Weapon Damage Modifiers
Quote:
|
|
Tags |
low-tech, low-tech companion 2, martial arts, sword, swords, weapons |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|