Damage and wounding readjustment

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

The sharper the edge, the more concentrated the force is on a narrower cross-section. This increases the ability to cut any substance, flesh, bone or steel, even though it still may not be enough to actually cut steel.

Sharpness only matters if the edge doesn't immediately get blunted on impact and the penetration mechanic is not based on shattering or deformation.

[Balor Patch]

You could almost define crushing damage as any damage that doesn't penetrate armor but relies on blunt trauma. So a 3' steel rod that has an edge might penetrate weak armor but against strong armor it's the same as a 3' steel rod without an edge. Either of those may still result in bruises and breaks if the armor doesn't sufficiently distribute the impact.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sharpness only matters if the edge doesn't immediately get blunted on impact and the penetration mechanic is not based on shattering or deformation.

Sharpness matters until the edge gets blunted, and when it does, then it's no worse than something blunt in terms of penetrating, and you benefited from the sharpness up to that point.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Sharpness matters until the edge gets blunted

Which, when striking hard armor, is for practical purposes instantaneous. Sharpness really only matters if your weapon is substantially harder than the armor you're hitting.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Actually, no, even a battle axe would have a hard time penetrating armor. It's hard to penetrate mail, and almost impossible to penetrate plate, swordsmen wouldn't even bother.

"And as the sea bore the ship forward again, again did she fall foul of the tower; and when she was thus afoul of it, what did one of the two knights do – Andrew of Dureboise was his name – but lay hold with feet and hands to the tower until he got himself up inside it, upon his knees. But when he was inside, upon his knees, the foe fell upon him with axes and with swords and smote him sore; but since he wore his mail armour, thanks be to God, they wounded him not..."
-- Robert de Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople, Ch.74.

In my revised tables, Swords get a *2 multiplier to flesh, while axes get *1.5, but axes have a 50% greater base damage.

I agree with the notion of giving unbalanced weapons much more base damage than a balanced one.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

"And as the sea bore the ship forward again, again did she fall foul of the tower; and when she was thus afoul of it, what did one of the two knights do – Andrew of Dureboise was his name – but lay hold with feet and hands to the tower until he got himself up inside it, upon his knees. But when he was inside, upon his knees, the foe fell upon him with axes and with swords and smote him sore; but since he wore his mail armour, thanks be to God, they wounded him not..."
-- Robert de Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople, Ch.74.

Seems like history agrees with me. :D

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I agree with the notion of giving unbalanced weapons much more base damage than a balanced one.

What's your thoughts on falchions and similar unbalanced swords? as it is now in my revised system they do 20% less base damage than an axe, but have a multiplier of *2, compared to axes *1.5

[Stupid Jedi]

Wouldn't it be simpler to add another damage type (chopping) to distingish between axes and swords?

[sjard]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Seems like history agrees with me. :D

Pretty much. Edged weapons, especially swords, perform in a notoriously poor fashion against any hard target, especially armor.

On the anecdotal side, have you ever noticed some of the old illustrations of battle, when it comes to two important people in armor fighting, they frequently seem to be grabbing the helmet, pulling it forward and using the sword to strike at the now exposed back of the neck? That's about the only real way to do it. Get them to somehow expose unarmored sections and strike those.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Also DR7 is rare, mail is DR4, maybe DR5, plate is DR6, cheap plate is DR5, TL2 rigid armor is DR3 or 4 most of the time.

DR ranges from 3-4 for good layered leather to DR10+ for Hardened-Steel Heavy Plate (up to DR 14 for Heavy Heavy Plate, LT109). The latter is rigid DR, which means that without having an average damage of almost 4d, nothing can harm the canned meat, and that's before the armour multiplier. Not maces, not lances, not even raven-beaks or anti-plating-intended warhammers unless they have AD(2).

DR10 is enough to be mostly safe from SMGs and suffer very mild wounds even from rifles. Make that plate out of titanium, and it gets 1/3 the mass for the same DR.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

What's your thoughts on falchions and similar unbalanced swords? as it is now in my revised system they do 20% less base damage than an axe, but have a multiplier of *2, compared to axes *1.5

They aren't much better than regular swords. I'd just use the falchion rule in LT.