Serrated Sword

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Dexion

I think about curved sword/knife and tulwar of India where this type of blade were common.

Curved swords are made to streamline a cutting edge. India was a cavalry culture and cutting blades which can get as good a blow in while a horse was galloping past, preferably by slicing rather then chopping would prefer curved swords. Some cooking cutlery is serrated and useful for cutting meat which is essentially what this is. But I don't remember seeing diagrams of serrated tulwars.

[Tomsdad]

I'd have thought that since serrated blades work by sawing at the thing they are applied and relying on prolonged contact to so that, that actually as a swung cutting motion they'd not be very good (however with a draw cut that's more passing the edge over and down into the target they'd be better).

I definitely agree with points about leaving harder to repair wounds (no nice straight edges)

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Not a sword or knife, but carnivorous animals with blade-like teeth (sharks, monitor lizards, non-avian theropod dinosaurs, sebecid crocodylomorphs) usually have serrations along the edges. The serrations are usually attributed to adaptations for helping the teeth cut through skin, muscle, and sinew (although the mechanism for this is usually not described).

It has also been noted that the profile of the teeth tips on Komodo monitors and many theropod dinosaurs have the profile of a scalpel blade, with the individual teeth acting like serrations.

Similarly, the steak knives I am familiar with have serrations, which help it to cut through meat when drawn back across the meat. I'm not sure how well the "constant pressure with drawing motion" translates to a sword cut, however.

Luke

Isn't part of the teeth thing to help maintain a grip (especially with slippery conditions and food)? i.e the serrated edges acts a kind of barb once the tooth has entered the target.

Some birds have serrated beaks as well.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Isn't part of the teeth thing to help maintain a grip (especially with slippery conditions and food)? i.e the serrated edges acts a kid fo barb once the tooth has entered the target.

No, animals that bite and hold have either straight conical teeth (when they need to resist a LOT of stress, like crocodiles) or backwards-slanted teeth (like pythons) which hold on and help you swallow prey whole.

The poster-children for serrated teeth are sharks, which grab and shake shake shake to tear a hunk off, leaving the prey to bleed out while they nom the bit they have.

[Sam Baughn]

I've been working on a 1-page expansion for Fantasy-Tech 2 covering various things I expected to see in that book but weren't included. One of the items is serrated blades.

I had them as +1 damage with a (0.5) AD (based on the trident rules), bit of extra cost, penalty to fast-draw, thrusting attacks with the same blade can get stuck like a pick. Was considering some kind of rules for being good for armed grapples, acting weird in blade-on-blade parries and so on, but thought I made them complicated enough already.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Bruno

No, animals that bite and hold have either straight conical teeth (when they need to resist a LOT of stress, like crocodiles) or backwards-slanted teeth (like pythons) which hold on and help you swallow prey whole.

My point wasn't about holding on for a long time under stress, just stopping slippery prey (whether thats fish or fruit) from slipping free.

Originally Posted by Bruno

The poster-children for serrated teeth are sharks, which grab and shake shake shake to tear a hunk off, leaving the prey to bleed out while they nom the bit they have.

That's true, and as Lwcamp said serrated teeth certainly help with that as well i.e I'm not saying it's either/or, but both (but obviously what's most relevant in each instance will depend on which animal is eating and how that go about it)

although I should point out not all sharks have serrated teeth, but then not all sharks eat that way either of course.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Dexion

I think about curved sword/knife and tulwar of India where this type of blade were common.

Do you mean wavy blades like a flamberge? There are a few of those in India and Iran, but I would not give them special stats ... cutlers pick some blade design which works well, skilled buyers pick a blade which meets their specific needs and preferences, and exactly which does not matter. GURPS does not try to represent the difference between a Roman spatha and a 17th century Walloon sword or Pallasch, both are Thrusting Broadswords (with a Partial Basket Hilt on the later if you are using optional rules).

[Humabout]

If the OP really just wants serrated weapons to do more damage, I'd treat them as Ethnic Cool weapons. If reality is suppose to impose on things, I suspect that serration would give a fractional armor divisor and a penalty to heal the wound. On impaling blades, it'd also use the Pick rules for getting stuck and maaaybe do half damage coming out. I'd seriously doubt any extra damage is done with a swing without empyrical evidence to the contrary, and I'd question it on impaling weapons.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Isn't part of the teeth thing to help maintain a grip (especially with slippery conditions and food)? i.e the serrated edges acts a kind of barb once the tooth has entered the target.

Some teeth certainly are adaptations for holding slippery prey. However, as Bruno already mentioned, serrated, blade-like teeth appear to be adaptations for cutting flesh. Sharks were mentioned, the other living animals with such teeth are the monitors, which use their teeth to rip and saw out large chunks of meat in a similar fashion (when they can't just swallow them whole).

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

My point wasn't about holding on for la ong time under stress, just stopping slippery prey (whether that fish or fruit) from slipping free.

Teeth of any form certainly help puncture and hold on to squirmy, slippery prey. However, predators that primarily eat slimy, squirmy, slippery food (like fish or worms) don't have bladed, serrated teeth. They have conical or hooked teeth, usually circular in cross sections and without serrations. Those animals that do have bladed, serrated teeth are those which commonly prey on large animals, generally not heavily armored, and which often cannot be swallowed whole.

As you might guess from the picture next to my forum handle, I've kept large monitors as pets for some time. They can inflict horrific wounds on their food (which is usually pre-killed these days) while they shake it and thrash it in order to subdue it, or hold it down with a claw while yanking with their jaws in order to dismember it. This is not as efficient as the carnassal action of the carnivorans, but is effective enough in its fashion and certainly much better at taking meaty things apart than the round cross section teeth of snakes. Video clips of feeding Komodo monitors (with bladed, serrated teeth) versus feeding crocodilians (with conical, peg-like teeth) suggest that the dragons are significantly more atp at dismembering carcasses and biting out chunks than the crocodilians.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

although I should point out not all sharks have serrated teeth, but then not all sharks eat that way either of course.

True, and I thought about putting in a disclaimer as I wrote that, but was more interested in getting across the main idea than picking apart details. Similarly, not all monitors or theropod dinosaurs have ziphodont teeth (a technical term for these steak-knife shaped teeth, although usually recurved the wrong way. Sharks, with their triangular teeth, are not ziphodont - although tiger sharks are getting close; most monitors, many theropods, and all known sebecids are or were). So for completeness, the sharks I am thinking of are the charcharhinids and lamniforms (lamnids, hammerheads, threshers), Ziphodont teeth is basal to the theropods, present in the most primitive form, but secondarily lost or adapted to other forms of teeth in many groups (including birds, oviraptors, ornithomimids, therizinosaurs, and the giant tyrannosaurs). Among the monitors, the sub-genus Odatria have simple conical peg-like teeth while the sub-genus Polydaedalus have blunt, crushing teeth, as does the Dumeril's monitor. All the rest that I can think of are ziphodont (although I might be missing some - there are a lot of monitor species). All the sebecids I am aware of were ziphodont.

Luke

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Some teeth certainly are adaptations for holding slippery prey. However, as Bruno already mentioned, serrated, blade-like teeth appear to be adaptations for cutting flesh.

Note that a jaw with multiple teeth can itself be seen as a serrated edge, just with very large serrations.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

A laceration from a serrated edge is likely slower to heal than a cut from a straight edge. I might consider giving -1 to First Aid and daily healing rolls.

The wound might be bit nastier since a wound from a serrated blade might involve more area, but - assume it's clean and the surrounding tissue isn't damaged - it will heal more quickly for the same reason.

Clean cuts heal slightly more slowly than ragged-edged wounds, although the difference might be small enough that it makes no difference for game purposes.

But, given that a combat wound isn't likely to be clean, and that a ragged wound is more likely to harbor "bad stuff" that doesn't get removed by bleeding or First Aid, Dan's ruling makes good sense.

It's also worth specifying the type of serrations:

Small serrations, like those on a kitchen knife, probably don't make enough of a difference to alter the weapon's game stats. Typically, serration is a way to turn a Cheap blade into a Good one - at least when used as a tool.

Saw-like serrations might allow you to slowly erode DR if you can use the weapon like a saw and the material you're trying to cut is softer than the material used to make the blade.

Big serrations, like on a macuahuitl or a Micronesian shark tooth sword, might be good for +1 to Intimidation, but -1 to any task which requires a clean edge, like avoiding having your weapon bound by an opponent's blade. Thrusts with such a weapon might require a ST roll to avoid having the weapon get stuck in the victim. DR of rigid armor might be increased by 1 (or 10%) vs. such a blade.

Due to all the additional stress points and the difficulty of tempering such a blade, it might be no better than Fine quality until you get to TL7-8, and might have a slight penalty to avoid breakage.

Cost to make a serrated blade will be greater than for a normal blade as will cost and time required to sharpen it.