[Fantasy] Using some damage and armor divisor houserules

[simply Nathan]

I'm planning on running a DF game...eventually. And even though it's going to be my first time GMing I've been spending years hammering away at houserules and trying to digest as many on offer from this very forum as I can to decide whether or not to adopt them.

So for weapons I've decided to use mostly a limited selection from GURPS Lite and the Basic Set, with very few favorites of mine from Martial Arts. I'm giving shortswords +1 to their thrusting damage and axe/mace and flail weapons +1 to their swinging damage.

I'm still using the basic damage table rather than any of the alternatives I've read or written.

I'm giving the human baseline a single level of DR with Tough Skin for free, doubling the DR of armor (which I'm only allowing to be purchased in full sets), and ignoring split DR. My armor table basically goes "Heavy Clothes, DR 1; Cloth Armor, DR 2; Leather Armor, DR 4; Mail, DR 6; Scale, DR 8; Plate, DR 12" ignoring things like cost and weight.

I'm giving impaling weapons an armor divisor of (2).

Right now I've got an Armor Divisor of (0.5) on sword and sickle cuts which brings up the first question: Should I also give this Armor Divisor to axe cuts?

I don't know if axes should perform significantly worse against armor than maces do, though maybe they should. Perhaps that extra +1 damage over the Basic Set stats is enough to demonstrate how much better they'll be than swords even if they share the same armor divisor.

So for my second question: is it double-dipping to give sword slashes a poor armor divisor and double the general expected DR in the same campaign? Doing a little math in my head makes it feel like it's probably going too far, with leather armor and tough skin combining to give DR 10 against sword slashes, which seems rather excessive. Were I to keep only one of them it'd be the doubling of DR.

[mr beer]

Double DR + 0.5 armour divisor = swords are useless.

Although if impaling is (2) and cutting (0.5), I guess swords are useful vs. armour after all, but will just be exclusively thrusting weapons.

My guess is that axes are slightly better than swords vs. chain, if only because I think the blunt trauma damage would be worse. Plus I think a pollaxe would be capable of breaking chain, don't know for sure though.

DR+1 seems excessive for baseline humans unless you are increasing damage as well.

[mlangsdorf]

My experience as a DF GM is that beginning delvers do between 1d+4 (Dwarf Cleric with an axe) to 2d+7+ (knight weapon master with a sword). Common beginning monsters like orcs have DR 2 (heavy leather), and so the cleric averages 6-9 injury and the knight averages 18 injury.

With your system, the orcs are going to have DR5, and the cleric is going to 4-6 injury and the knight is going to do 6 injury (or 1d+5 im... so ~14?). Anyone, monsters are going to be a little more resilient and damage is going to matter more. Combats will last a little longer. All things considered, I'm in favor of it, but you're going to want to start with fewer monsters per PC and ramp up slowly as you get a better idea of the effects.

I do think you get slightly better results by doubling DR and using Edge Protection (from Low-Tech). That puts the knight's cutting injury against the orc at 9 (he penetrates DR5, but as a crushing attack at x1 injury). You can distinguish between axes and swords by setting the Edge Protection threshold for axes at x1.5 instead of x2, so the same knight with an axe would do 15 injury (penetrating DR5 as a cutting attack at x1.5 injury).

I wouldn't increase damage, as DR characters generally do plenty of damage and there isn't much HP attrition: it's all Active Defenses and unconsciousness rolls in my experience.

[simply Nathan]

Yeah, don't really need to up damage in general; the Basic Set's Sw and Thr damage tables are pretty generous from the outset, and there's also Weapon Master, All-Out Attack(Strong), Mighty Blows, Fine and Very Fine weapons, equipment equipment enchanted with any of Might, Puissance, and Penetrating Weapon, and so on.

I am giving most Axe/Mace, Two-Handed Axe/Mace, Flail, and Two-Handed Flail weapons a +1 to their damage, unbalanced polearms a +1 to their swing damage, and shortswords +1 to their thrust damage.

I have come to the decision not to give cutting blades the armor divisor. I'm now mulling over Edge Protection (a rule I'm not particularly familiar with, but do understand). The point is to make swords, axes, spears, and so on all roughly equally interesting weapons of choice and have armor performance feel a little more realistic than the default.

The level of Tough Skin which characters get for free is a result of doubling DR - armor divisors say to treat human skin as DR 0.5 before multiplying so a general x2 on DR means that DR 1 is free (I think I'm going with total DR 4 on the skull rather than DR 5).

[Balor Patch]

Are you allowing the Dwarven weapon modifier? My impression is that it already makes axes better than swords. If axes also gain more damage and less punishing edge protection then swords may be obsolete and used only in ancient artifacts.

[simply Nathan]

I wasn't planning on using the Dwarven and Elven modifiers for any equipment, even though my sensibilities are primarily Dungeon Fantasy (my "Elven longbow" is a Composite Bow). I feel like it takes away something from the flavor of impact weapons to make them as parry-friendly as swords.

And even so, axes wouldn't quite replace swords entirely; swords get thr/imp while axes don't and sw/cut which spears don't. Still not sure about using Edge Protection, much less about giving balanced and unbalanced weapons different math for it.