Stone weapons

[thalcos]

I'm writing an Ice Age adventure, and as every cro-magnon would expect, there's an encounter with an angry, wounded mastodon.

What I can't figure out though, is how stone weapons are remotely effective against the thing. According to Basic, elephants have DR 4, so I gave my woolly one a DR 5.

Also according to Basic, stone weapons get an armor divisor (0.5). This penalty effectively gives my mastodon a DR 10. With a two-handed spear doing thr+3, these poor, early hunters need ST 17 before they can even dream of hurting the thing.

Am I missing something? Rules-as-written, those cavemen really ARE better with clubs.

[Donny Brook]

My opinion is that DR4 is too high for an elephant.

[Keampe]

So, a Stop Thrust does +1 damage per 2 yards the opponent moved and an All Out Attack can add +2. This is probably the basics of hunting a Mammoth for GURPS rules. The other is to panic the beast over a cliff - also likely done. In either case hunting Mammoths or any other large, dangerous game was most likely done in a group, with a plan and with preparation. Some of the group herding them towards hidden people with spears for example.

In any case, no matter the world, stumbling across a wounded, dangerous animal when you haven't prepared for it is extremely hazardous.

- Shane

[Varyon]

I'd place the rule of stone weapons getting AD (0.5) the same place as the rule that bronze weapons are cheap compared to iron (realistically, good bronze was comparable to ~TL3 or TL4 steel). Now, giving them that poor armor divisor against metal armor is probably fine, but against an elephant's (or mammoth's) Tough Skin, or someone wearing leather? I'd ignore the poor armor divisor in that case.

Granted, DR 5 is still a pretty serious deal (GURPS Animalia suggests mammoths would have DR 4, but that's not a huge difference). There's a very good reason ancient humans tended to drive the beasts into traps (man-made or natural). Attacking one that is wounded but still mobile is probably a deathwish unless you have a small army (probably using a few decoys to keep its attention while the rest throw copious numbers of spears at it with All Out Attack (Strong)) or are cinematically competent. A rather long spear might be possible to set against a charge (letting the mastodon's massive ST work against it), but there's still a very good chance of whatever brave soul mans it being trampled or otherwise squashed.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Three things come to mind.

1. I don't think you have to increase the mammoth's DR to 5. We don't have unaltered mammoth skins to test with, but it may very well be that elephants have tougher skins because they're hairless, while mammoths may have softer skin under all that fur, making it a wash on DR. Keep it at 4 in good conscience.

2. Hunting a mammoth tends to involve some people distracting the mammoth while others run up behind it, stab it, and run away. In game terms, this means they're not expecting an immediate counter-attack on that turn and do an All Out Attack (Strong) for +2 damage. If they're ST 10, they hurt the DR 4 mammoth a little less than half the time. If they're ST 11+, it goes up to over half the time.

3. Hunting a mammoth also tends to involve the expectation of doing very little damage at any one time. The goal is to get the mammoth bleeding and tiring itself out. This involves lots of little hits over a long (in combat terms) period of time. If they're doing just a point or two of damage at best, that's...realistic may be too strong a word, but close enough.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Three things come to mind.

1. I don't think you have to increase the mammoth's DR to 5. We don't have unaltered mammoth skins to test with, but it may very well be that elephants have tougher skins because they're hairless, while mammoths may have softer skin under all that fur, making it a wash on DR. Keep it at 4 in good conscience.

2. Hunting a mammoth tends to involve some people distracting the mammoth while others run up behind it, stab it, and run away. In game terms, this means they're not expecting an immediate counter-attack on that turn and do an All Out Attack (Strong) for +2 damage. If they're ST 10, they hurt the DR 4 mammoth a little less than half the time. If they're ST 11+, it goes up to over half the time.

3. Hunting a mammoth also tends to involve the expectation of doing very little damage at any one time. The goal is to get the mammoth bleeding and tiring itself out. This involves lots of little hits over a long (in combat terms) period of time. If they're doing just a point or two of damage at best, that's...realistic may be too strong a word, but close enough.

Something else to keep in mind is that humans are nature's Determinators. We have insane heat dissipation (and thus stamina) compared to most other animals, meaning a lot of the time a hunt would consist of wounding an animal, chasing it as it runs away, attacking it again when it stops to rest and chasing it some more, and basically continuing this until it collapses from a combination of blood loss and sheer exhaustion. A mastodon with FP 0 or lower is a lot easier to stab in a vulnerable location. The situation of a mastodon who is wounded but raring to fight would be one of the most dangerous situations for hunters to get into.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by thalcos

I'm writing an Ice Age adventure, and as every cro-magnon would expect, there's an encounter with an angry, wounded mastodon.

What I can't figure out though, is how stone weapons are remotely effective against the thing. According to Basic, elephants have DR 4, so I gave my woolly one a DR 5.

Also according to Basic, stone weapons get an armor divisor (2). This penalty effectively gives my mastodon a DR 10. With a two-handed spear doing thr+3, these poor, early hunters need ST 17 before they can even dream of hurting the thing.

Am I missing something? Rules-as-written, those cavemen really ARE better with clubs.

Loose the armour divisor. Stone weapons are damn sharp. They'd run into trouble against rigid armour because they're brittle but mammoths don't have rigid armour.

[zoncxs]

Ice Age people should have ST 11-12 if they are hunters, you do a lot more physical activities than today.

ST 12 means thrust is 1d-1.

A long spear in two hands is 1d+2 imp AD 0.5 in a TL 0 world.

An AoA Strong makes that 1d+4 imp AD 0.5.

Damage range is: 5-10 imp AD 0.5.

After DR 4 (doubled because of AD): 0,0,0,0,1,2 imp

Injury (after DR) is: 0,0,0,0,2,4 injury



Now, With an Atlatl, you can deal sw+1 imp with a javelin.

ST 12 means swing is 1d+2.

An Atlatl throwing a javeling is 1d+3 imp AD 0.5 in a TL 0 world.

An AoA Strong makes that 1d+5 imp AD 0.5.

Damage range is: 6-11 imp AD 0.5.

After DR 4 (doubled because of AD): 0,0,0,1,2,3 imp

Injury (after DR) is: 0,0,0,2,4,6 injury


You would have at least a group of 6 people hunting a Mastadon. Have like 2 scouting ahead, looking at where the animal will go, and the rest attacking and herding it to a trap or location they can lock it in to kill. No one should get so close that they can get hit. Everyone should be using long spears or throwing weapons.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by thalcos

I'm writing an Ice Age adventure, and as every cro-magnon would expect, there's an encounter with an angry, wounded mastodon.

What I can't figure out though, is how stone weapons are remotely effective against the thing. According to Basic, elephants have DR 4, so I gave my woolly one a DR 5.

Also according to Basic, stone weapons get an armor divisor (2). This penalty effectively gives my mastodon a DR 10. With a two-handed spear doing thr+3, these poor, early hunters need ST 17 before they can even dream of hurting the thing.

Am I missing something? Rules-as-written, those cavemen really ARE better with clubs.

I feel like I read something "real" somewhere that hunting them was more spooking them and chasing them off a cliff to kill them.... fire might have played a part?

Im not a paleontologist or what ever, I just seem to remember something educational that explained it that way.

Might be that you really dont need to poke em with a stick, or maybe GURPS is spot on and this is why they hunted them via the wiley coyote method.

[thalcos]

Originally Posted by bocephus

I feel like I read something "real" somewhere that hunting them was more spooking them and chasing them off a cliff to kill them.... fire might have played a part?

I've read that they've found evidence of mammoths with spear wounds on their bones, and also that they've found ivory spearheads inside others. Whether early man was poking them to death or just driving them into a better trap is tough to tell.

For my adventure, I think I'll reduce the DR down to 4. I'm tempted to just get rid of the (0.5) armor divisor for stone weapons (otherwise, I think everyone is going to dump their spears for wood clubs), and just hand-wave a -1 damage to them after a battle with something with "armor."