[LT] Armor and cutting damage concerns

[Ji ji]

Pollaxe is an anomaly per se.

Unbalanced weapons do sw+2 one-handed. +1 for two-handed, +1 for reach 2. -1 for impaling, +1 for crushing w/flanges-spikes. After these base statistic, there are special exceptions (like warhammer, more damage counterbalanced by unreadiness, etc.).

Pollaxe damage, to get consistent with regard to dueling halberd, should be sw+5 cr.

Apart from these consideration, let's consider a sword blow on a mail armor (5 vs cut, 3 vs crush) given by a 12 ST guy (a tough fighter). 2d-1 damage, media 6, 2,8% of blows do 11+.
A cutting blow converted to crushing means:
- less damage, even if we use crushing DR
- no bleeding
- no risk of infection
My PC and NPC care a lot about these things. If not, they die in little time.
Let's look hevy mail's competitors:
Heavy layered leather, fine leather. Better DR against crush, much more heavy and expensive.
Heavy scale. Better DR against crush, much more heavy.
Heavy segmented plate. Better DR against crush, much more heavy.
Mail and plates. A little better DR against crush, a little more heavy.

The only real competitor is mail and plates, that is mail.

Another area of contrast is if all blows (arrows, swords, spears) were able to injure through mail quite so easily, I doubt it would have been so popular considering the weight and cost.

Alternatives are even worst. So what's the point?

However, these are counterarguments to your arguments.
My arguments are other.

If we apply your idea of edge protection, we go for this:
A light club blow makes 2 more damage points than tha same blow with a broadsword.
A round mace (an unbalanced club of 5lbs) makes 2 more damage points than a 4lbs-axe.
A 1lbs baton makes 2 more damage points than a 2lbs shortsword, 1 more than a 3lbs falchion.
A 8lbs oar makes 1 more damage than a 10lbs (...) dueling halberd.

This is not my idea of good simulation.

[Railstar]

Those are good counterarguments, and the modification to the pollaxe would work very nicely to explain it.

I particularly like the point about infections and bleeding, often overlooked in RPGs as tedious but they would be very important to real-life warriors who do not get to skip inconvenient rules that happen to be boring. Armour that keeps you alive even if the blow still takes you out of the fight is still a good investment. So thanks for pointing that out, I have learned something.

Personally I think the club would do more damage than the broadsword, and the mace do more damage than the axe in those circumstances. On the oar I have no comment – I have no idea how hard you can hit someone with an oar. :P On the baton example I think you are right on but that is a fairly clueless guess on my part. Not all damage from a cutting weapon is from the edge going into the target, part of the energy is from drawing the edge across as well.

Anyway, part of why I feel mail should outright stop more damage from cutting weapons is because quite a few cuts and slices can be deadly without having any potential for crushing damage at all. Both of these are very light hits.

First, a slice through a gambeson.

Second, a demonstration of a neck schnitt

With the Szmaty one, the cut got through padded cloth (DR 1), cut through flesh and into bone (although the pig carcass may have been easier to cut). I feel that even light mail would have stopped that cut with no injury at all, but that on an unarmoured target that might be enough to make the arm cut useless. So probably around 4-6 damage total (it might stop the arm, although it is uncertain), which would mean 3-4 cutting damage, but that blow would probably not cause 2-3 crushing damage to someone wearing light mail.

With the neck schnitt, I would expect that to cause significant injury to someone unarmoured, almost certainly a major wound. If we use the x2 wound modifier for cutting damage to the neck, we still need 3-4 base damage first. But if the base damage is 3-4, that still assumes it would do 2-3 crushing damage against light mail.

If we convert cutting damage to crushing before DR, it is harder to simulate abschneiden or effective slicing techniques.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

There's nothing in rules telling that, if my cutting attack is considered crushing cause it doesn't pass over DRcut*2, I had to use DRcut.
It makes much more sense using DRcr.

According to the one who wrote the rules. You are not supposed to to apply it t to the Cr-DR: http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=29

Of course you may use the rules however you want.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

However, these are counterarguments to your arguments.
My arguments are other.

If we apply your idea of edge protection, we go for this:
A light club blow makes 2 more damage points than tha same blow with a broadsword.
A round mace (an unbalanced club of 5lbs) makes 2 more damage points than a 4lbs-axe.
A 1lbs baton makes 2 more damage points than a 2lbs shortsword, 1 more than a 3lbs falchion.
A 8lbs oar makes 1 more damage than a 10lbs (...) dueling halberd.

This is not my idea of good simulation.

This is because applying Edge Protection rules while allowing all cr attacks, even with weapons that clearly don't have a small striking surface with a lot of concentrated weight behind it, to effectively count as good anti-armour weapons.

I give balanced cr weapons a general Armour Divisor of (0.5) and multiply DR by x1.5 against blunt weapons that may unbalanced, but lack a good striking head (the oar, for example).

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by Icelander

This is because applying Edge Protection rules while allowing all cr attacks, even with weapons that clearly don't have a small striking surface with a lot of concentrated weight behind it, to effectively count as good anti-armour weapons.

I give balanced cr weapons a general Armour Divisor of (0.5) and multiply DR by x1.5 against blunt weapons that may unbalanced, but lack a good striking head (the oar, for example).

Another factor with oars or batons or light clubs is that they are made of wood, which might deserve some penalties for weapon material? That could help fix some of the discrepency.