Should Plate Armor be Harder to Penetrate?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by mhd

Did someone work out the pitiful ST table we'd need to have to bring muscle-based damage in line with guns? (Given this system/forum, I'd consider that a given and would actually consider betting on the person(s) involved)

It's also quite likely that at some stage for potential solutions, logarithms are involved, right?

The answer is yes, but I'm digging for the threads.

EDIT: This looks like it collected the right stuff, at a glance. You probably won your bet.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by mhd

It's also quite likely that at some stage for potential solutions, logarithms are involved, right?

That's how I came up with my ST table, though A) damage scaling was a secondary issue and had nothing to do with the choice of logarithmic scale, and B) you don't need to even know what a logarithm is to use the table.

Logarithms are incredibly handy for creating a ST table, as it makes ST rolls actually work the way they are supposed to.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The objection is indeed to the claim that "very different levels of an attribute produce a numerically almost same effect" can be "working as intended", as in RPGs it is desirable to have meaningful differences between characters.

I think you're going to have to support this assertion that having characters with the same stats or even doing the same damage range equates to not having meaningful differences between them.

I get that it it truncates the range in abstract, but honestly I've been role-playing for 25+ years now and I can't remember hearing of or seeing a single instance of anyone ever saying "Nah I can't play this character they have the same Strength as Bob's or do the same damage as Sue's".

No one is saying all ST's and damage's should be equal, and if you don't like the idea of a truncated range of ST leading to potentially more overlap between character's stats that's fine. But we're not talking about some kind of central pillar of roleplaying. If nothing else GURPS as a RPG system actually provides lots of different ways to distinguish between similar of the same core stats.


(it's not even the only way to 'fix the problem', I actually favour looking at DR directly as that's the area where some have an issue, and to me that would seem the best place to start.)

[acrosome]

Keep your campaign TL3. Problem solved. :) That's what I do.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by mhd

Did someone work out the pitiful ST table we'd need to have to bring muscle-based damage in line with guns? (Given this system/forum, I'd consider that a given and would actually consider betting on the person(s) involved)

It's also quite likely that at some stage for potential solutions, logarithms are involved, right?

I've got something from a long time ago: https://gamingballistic.com/2012/12/...theory-part-1/

I revisit it periodically in different ways, but the direct answer to your question (satisfying or no) from my prior writing is at this link.

[GODSLAYER]

Man, this thread blew up since yesterday.

Thanks for all of the awesome replies guys.

Just to clarify: I don't really care about game balance, etc. I was just wondering how accurate you thought the current rules were?

Also, thanks for pointing out the rules for armor in Low-Tech. I think those are probably what I'd want to use if I wanted more realistic armor.

I guess I could re-word my question as:

I've read that melee weapons just aren't getting through hardened steel plate armor. Would you say this is accurate? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, or Jason Momoa, penetrating hardened steel plate armor with a sword? With a War Pick?

I'm not asking about game balance. I'm just wondering from a realistic and historical point of view. If you don't think they are getting through it, should the DR values be changed?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by GODSLAYER

I've read that melee weapons just aren't getting through hardened steel plate armor. Would you say this is accurate?

Depends on what you mean by 'getting through' and what sort of plate you're looking at. You can say a few things fairly reliably:

1. You are not going to cut a hardened plate with weapons of comparable advancement. It's only possible to cut materials that are softer than the edge you're using, and thus a hardened steel edge cannot cut a hardened steel plate.
2. This does not mean an edged weapon cannot penetrate plate, it means the penetration mechanic is not cutting -- most likely it's shattering or tearing. This is of interest for two reasons. First, edge sharpness is nearly irrelevant. Secondly, it favors a dense, compact, extremely rigid penetrator -- an axe or pick, but not a sword.
3. This also does not mean that failure to penetrate armor means no injury. If you put a dent 2" deep in a helmet, even if the helmet is not penetrated, the skull on the other side of the helmet will be none too happy.
4. The effort required to breach plate is significantly dependent on the size of the breach. Optimized tools for armor penetration are rigid, not terribly sharp spikes -- picks, punch daggers, polearm spikes, and so on.
5. Armor is designed against specific threats. Armor designed to stop a sword might well be penetrated by a pick, as it doesn't need to be very thick to stop a sword. Armor of proof designed to stop a musket ball, or jousting armor designed to stop a lance, will not be.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by GODSLAYER

I've read that melee weapons just aren't getting through hardened steel plate armor. Would you say this is accurate?

I think 'it depends' is probably the best answer here. I don't think there is a solid consensus on the subject but it's probably fair to say that the best steel plate was close to immune to penetration by melee weapons in a battlefield situation. Which is not to say the wearer was not in any danger.

Originally Posted by GODSLAYER

Is Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, or Jason Momoa, penetrating hardened steel plate armor with a sword? With a War Pick?

I think it's correct to say that no plausible human can ever swing a sword hard enough to simply cut through high quality plate. Being unusually strong just won't make enough of a difference.

Also, if you're just talking the effect of an impact on a plate-wearer, a normal strength human would probably hit harder with a pollaxe, than any man alive would hit with a one-handed sword. Leverage and weapon design makes a big difference.

Lastly my guess is that the heaviest hitters would likely be tall, athletic men with expert weapon skills (i.e. a combination of strength, explosive speed, leverage and precision), probably not so much bodybuilders like Arnold.

[ErhnamDJ]

Every time this topic comes up, people jump to defend the accuracy of the damage table at ST 10.

ST 10 isn't fine. It's just as wrong as the rest. 1d-2 might not seem like much, but you get a static bonus from All-Out Attack and from the weapon.

A ST 10 man with a heavy spear (a presumably not uncommon weapon historically) deals 1d+2 damage. That increases to 1d+4 if he uses an All-Out Attack. That's 5.5 and 7.5 damage, respectively. Those skewer a man in armor quite well.

A large part of the problem here is that the bonuses from both the weapon and the All-Out Attack option are static.

A ST 5 child can more than double their damage by using All-Out attack (from 1d-4 to 1d-2), while the strongest man in the world notices a much smaller proportional increase from using the same option. That doesn't make any sense.

And I don't have any idea what's going on with the weapons. Why does switching from a regular spear to a heavy spear give you a radically increased ability to penetrate armor? The only explanation I can come up with is that the rules are assuming that you can accelerate both of them to the same velocity and so the heavier spear is delivering more energy. Alternative explanations would deal with the spearhead itself; perhaps the spears that do more damage have hardened heads or points more suited to penetrating armor, but then the question becomes: why not put the same head on the regular spear if it performs better?

I think it's quite clear that these are game mechanics that aren't based on anything in the real world, and that aren't intended to simulate any part of reality. The only way to differentiate the weapons is to have some of them deal more damage than others. But the game isn't granular enough for that, assuming this was even the right way to model weapons in the first place. As I showed above with the example of the child and the strongman receiving the same static bonus, that really doesn't make any sense.

And this isn't a problem unique to GURPS. I've seen this in other games as well. I'm reminded of one game where a particular pistol dealt significantly more damage than other comparable weapons because it managed to creep over the arbitrary line into the next higher damage category the designers were using to determine the weapons' damage.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

And I don't have any idea what's going on with the weapons. Why does switching from a regular spear to a heavy spear give you a radically increased ability to penetrate armor? The only explanation I can come up with is that the rules are assuming that you can accelerate both of them to the same velocity and so the heavier spear is delivering more energy. Alternative explanations would deal with the spearhead itself; perhaps the spears that do more damage have hardened heads or points more suited to penetrating armor, but then the question becomes: why not put the same head on the regular spear if it performs better?

Are you really baffled by the proposition that hitting somebody with a bigger, heavier object can be more damaging? Because that's not actually as strange as you're making it out to be.

Now, it is true that those numbers likely were not assigned with 'penetration of armor' as the main metric in mind, even though per GURPS mechanics they really should have been.