TL4 vs. TL7 melee weapons

[AlexanderHowl]

A ST 10 person deals only 1d cutting and 1d-2 impaling with a good shortsword (at least when using the ST from Basic). That gives a 50% chance of a major wound with a successful cutting attack against an unarmored average HP target or a 33% chance of a major wound with an impaling attack against an unarmored average HP target (50% chance with a successful attack against the vitals). However, the majority of targets during a battle will have head and vital armor, so going after the limbs are probably the best bet for a major wound.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

By transmitting enough force (and thus damage) to underlying structures, and that can most definitely include vital organs. MA allows Cr weapons to target the vitals they don't get the injury multiplier but do get the knock down bonus. They don't often do that by physically entering the body as deeply as imp or cut weapons though. But they go about inflicting damage in a different way.

Deforming your outsides so that they do the dirty business of squeezing your insides until they burst is a pretty valid way of delivering injury.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

That said hang about in A&E long enough and you'll see enough blunt "crushing" objects pulled out of people, and the difference between Pi++ and Cr get especially blurry at times.

The biggest difference between Pi++ and Cr is probably defined as one of speed, but you don't have to fall that far to impale yourself on a 2" diameter cut-off branch end, as long as there's enough length of branch for you to "keep falling" once you've hit it, rather than getting to dissipate some of the energy on hitting other branches or the trunk or the ground.
Which happened to an unfortunate tree trimmer in the city here when I was in highschool and made the news (they survived, also proving that humans can be crazy tough)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Deforming your outsides so that they do the dirty business of squeezing your insides until they burst is a pretty valid way of delivering injury.

Yep, and good reason to allow crushing injuries to bleed as well. The sharp ends of broken bones being pushing in organs etc

Originally Posted by Bruno

The biggest difference between Pi++ and Cr is probably defined as one of speed, but you don't have to fall that far to impale yourself on a 2" diameter cut-off branch end, as long as there's enough length of branch for you to "keep falling" once you've hit it, rather than getting to dissipate some of the energy on hitting other branches or the trunk or the ground.
Which happened to an unfortunate tree trimmer in the city here when I was in highschool and made the news (they survived, also proving that humans can be crazy tough)

Yep, and iI guess hand held weapon don't ever really get up to enough speed. (or maybe one's that do would be better described as Pi?)

And for large projectiles that cross from Pi++ to Cr generally speaking sheer amount of damage makes it moot against human scale targets.

But I do think the extra rules in MA to allow Cr attacks to target the vitals is a good addition. They don't get all the benefits of Pi or Imp, but the implications are serious enough (Instant knockdown effects and difficulty in treating without surgery) to demonstrate reality enough for my tastes.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A ST 10 person deals only 1d cutting and 1d-2 impaling with a good shortsword (at least when using the ST from Basic). That gives a 50% chance of a major wound with a successful cutting attack against an unarmored average HP target or a 33% chance of a major wound with an impaling attack against an unarmored average HP target (50% chance with a successful attack against the vitals). However, the majority of targets during a battle will have head and vital armor, so going after the limbs are probably the best bet for a major wound.

Short swords are Thr+1 in LT (but I was wrong in my initial post anyway, its not 5 in 6 chance of a major wound to the vitals, but 4 in 6). The thing is for me is that any vital injury gives a knock down chance, so you get a chance of a knockdown even on the remaining 2 in 6.

But yeah I agree about the armour point.

Part of the reason I like GURPS combat is makes choices important. Do you try and go for unarmoured limbs over armoured vitals etc, etc. (and IMO a big part of armour's benefit is that it limits your opponents options, forcing them to go with suboptimal choices, which in turn can often free up your own choices in response).

of course limbs themselves are -2 to hit.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Yep, and good reason to allow crushing injuries to bleed as well. The sharp ends of broken bones being pushing in organs etc.

When people claim that crushing wounds don't bleed, I point out that flanged and spiked maces count as doing crushing damage. Yes, 'blunt' weapons won't generally cause massive bleeding from the great vessels, but they can cause bleeding that'll need medical attention.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Rupert

When people claim that crushing wounds don't bleed, I point out that flanged and spiked maces count as doing crushing damage. Yes, 'blunt' weapons won't generally cause massive bleeding from the great vessels, but they can cause bleeding that'll need medical attention.

Yep, even less full on sources of Cr damage can bleed, however the lower tha damage, and the less hard edged the blunt object is I tend to take view based on where the hit is.


i.e flanged cr mace doing 1d+4, yeah that bleeds!

1d-3 bare fist punch to basic torso probably not even if you roll a 6, but the same punch to the vital's yeah if it's a good roll*

1d-1 kick to the vitals, yeah that's more likely to bleed

you could probably just say CR injuries of 2 or less don't bleed unless they hit something bad.


*I have my own house rule for vitals here anyway