Rejiggering Muscle-Powered Weapon Damage

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

So, going back to Ze'Manel Cunha's MoS table, if a ST 10 Broadswordsman made a successful cutting attack, and if we say that a one-handed cutting attack has a base damage of 3, then the swordsman's final damage would be 4 (base 3 + 1 for the broadsword), then modified based on the MoS for a ST roll: On a ST roll of 3, he gets +1 damage (MoS 7) for 5 total ("all but the heaviest sword cuts"); on 4-5, he gets +0 (MoS 5-6); on a 6-7, -1 damage; 7-8, -2 damage; etc.

So, two questions:

(1) Is that, conceptually, how a MoS-based damage approach would work? Constant Base Damage + Weapon Modifier + ST MoS Modifier? Or is it Variable Base Damage (by roll or by ST) + Weapon Modifier + ST MoS Modifier?

(2) What happens if you fail your ST roll? No damage, or just an extension of the damage penalties?

Not quite, there's no ST roll, the MoS is based on the to hit skill roll.

As an example, if a ST 10 swordsman has a Broadsword skill of 14-, and we say that a one-handed swing attack has a base damage of 3, then the swordsman's final damage would be 4 (base 3 + 1 for the broadsword), modified by the MoS of the hit.

With a 14- skill this would mean that if he:

Rolls 14 ... Dmg is 1
Rolls 12-13 ... Dmg is 2
Rolls 10-11 ... Dmg is 3
Rolls 8-9 ... Dmg is 4
Rolls 6-7 ... Dmg is 5
Rolls 4-5 ... Dmg is 6
Rolls 3- ...Dmg is 7

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Not quite, there's no ST roll, the MoS is based on the to hit skill roll.

As an example, if a ST 10 swordsman has a Broadsword skill of 14-, and we say that a one-handed swing attack has a base damage of 3, then the swordsman's final damage would be 4 (base 3 + 1 for the broadsword), modified by the MoS of the hit.

With a 14- skill this would mean that if he:

Rolls 14 ... Dmg is 1
Rolls 12-13 ... Dmg is 2
Rolls 10-11 ... Dmg is 3
Rolls 8-9 ... Dmg is 4
Rolls 6-7 ... Dmg is 5
Rolls 4-5 ... Dmg is 6
Rolls 3- ...Dmg is 7

Ah, I see what you were getting at now, and why the table you originally provided didn't have anything below MoS 0. But then, what's the point of ST from an offensive perspective (other than to use heavier weapons, which isn't that big of an advantage)? Shouldn't a ST 14 warrior with a broadsword be capable of hitting harder than a ST 10 warrior? (Or, for another example, we could go back to the Halfling and Ogre example.)

For example, the skill roll to hit, followed by a ST roll with (just to throw numbers around on a fairly abbreviated range instead of trying to cover all possibilities—I haven't actually crunched anything as I'm pressed for time at the moment):

MoS   -5  -4  -3  -2  -1   0   1   2   3   4   5   6
Dmg   -2  -2  -1  -1  -1  +0  +0  +0  +1  +1  +1  +2

... etc.


I know that you're a proponent of extending the Skill-based damage bonus of Weapon Master to apply to all attacks (instead of being limited to WM), and something like the above wouldn't necessarily preclude having skill also play a role. It just seems like ST should be have a part to play as well.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

Ah, I see what you were getting at now, and why the table you originally provided didn't have anything below MoS 0. But then, what's the point of ST from an offensive perspective (other than to use heavier weapons, which isn't that big of an advantage)? Shouldn't a ST 14 warrior with a broadsword be capable of hitting harder than a ST 10 warrior? (Or, for another example, we could go back to the Halfling and Ogre example.)

I think the point is that the base damage for thrusts and swings is still based on ST. His method just replaces "swing damage = 1d" with "swing damage = 3+(MoS modifier)". A higher ST warrior would have a higher base damage.

This works well for human-centric ST levels, but can't really handle ST outside the 6-20 range. Now, if the MoS damage modifier is a percentage of base damage... But that runs into the issue of GURPS being so very granular. It could work if you allow fractional damage and HP totals for small creatures, but that's probably too complicated.

[Kuroshima]

A Spanish RPG game named Anima, Beyond Fantasy has (on top of a system that is rather like the bastard child of Rolemaster, with some simplifications, and without the metric ton of tables) a system that I personally disliked, but that might make sense:

You had your base weapon damage. This was a function of your weapon, and your ST. This is a single number, with no randomness. The character sheet also has a space for noting the multiples and submultiples if this value, in 10% steps. When you attack, both your and your opponent roll, adding attac/defense, and consult on a table. That table gives you the percentage of your damage that you inflict.

What about this?

The ST table represents your expected when you have MoS5. MoS 0 gives you 50% of the damage (glancing blow) with each point of MoS giving you +10% of your base damage. Treat each +1 to damage from a weapon as giving you +1 to MoS, IF you make your roll. AoA (Strong) gives you +4 to MoS for damage calculations only, while AoA (Determined) gives you a +4 bonus to hit, but this bonus does not influence MoS for the purposes of damage. Telegraphic Attack also does not change your MoS for damage purposes, as AoA(Determined). Minimum damage is 0.1 base damage. Round damage to the nearest value, remembering that non-crushing damage is min 1. Critical hits have a minimum MoS for damage purposes of 10, before applying modifiers. Per die damage bonuses become MoS bonuses for damage purposes equal to twice the per dice bonus.

You thus get a table such as this.

Thus, an ST 15 man (a big brute, damage 8 sw/4thr) with a small knife (sw-3 cut/sw-1 imp) deals:
MoS 0: 2 cut/2 imp
MoS 5: 6 cut/4 imp
MoS 10: 10 cut/6 imp

Armed with a Mace (sw+3) he would deal
MoS 0: 6 cr
MoS 5: 10 cr
MoS 10: 14 cr

Seems workable, but certainly too complex for me.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

Shouldn't a ST 14 warrior with a broadsword be capable of hitting harder than a ST 10 warrior?

As vierasmarius pointed out, ST determines your Base damage.

So a ST 14 swordsman with Broadsword skill of 14-, has a final damage of 6 (base 5 + 1 for the broadsword), modified by the MoS of the hit.

With a 14- skill this would mean that if he:

Rolls 14 ... Dmg is 3
Rolls 12-13 ... Dmg is 4
Rolls 10-11 ... Dmg is 5
Rolls 8-9 ... Dmg is 6
Rolls 6-7 ... Dmg is 7
Rolls 4-5 ... Dmg is 8
Rolls 3- ...Dmg is 9

Originally Posted by Landwalker;1245752 (Or, for another example, we could go back to the [URL="http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1244862&postcount=14"

Halfling and Ogre example[/URL].)

Ok, the Halfling has a base of 1, the Ogre has a base of 8, with a knife the Halfling is still at 1, with a mace the Ogre is at 12 (base 8 +4 Maul).

With a 25- skill this would mean that if the Halfling:

Rolls 15-16 ... Dmg is 2
Rolls 14 or less ... Dmg is 3

With a 10- skill this would mean that if the Ogre:

Rolls 10 ... Dmg is 9
Rolls 8-9 ... Dmg is 10
Rolls 6-7 ... Dmg is 11
Rolls 4-5 ... Dmg is 12
Rolls 3- ... Dmg is 13

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Part of the problem is that GURS, as a universal system, need to cater to both gritty realistic low tech games, and 4-color Supers games. It needs to keep characters differentiated at the low tech angle (so the big strong guy is different that the small agile one). having each point of ST increase swing damage by 1 step (slightly less than 1 point of average damage) on the table (in the 10-27 range) makes a lot of sense.

No disagreement here. I think that the only way you'll get both the "good" that is differentiation and eliminate the "gee, that's too much damage" would be to do something like double DR, HP, and bow/bullet damage when calculated with the various methods that rescale by reality. That would make it possible to have a realistic figure be ST/10 thrust and ST/5 swing, so that your ST 10 guy is 1d thrust, 2d swing, while your ST 20 guy is 2d thrust, and 4d swing. But those 7 points of "naked" thrust damage would rescale to the RAW DR3.5.

Also, I remember hearing that low tech deal much of their damage as a function of their momentum, instead of their kinetic energy (the main component of the damage for bullets). Since you're much more knowledgeable on this, can you chime in, and either confirm or dispel this, DouglasCole? It also makes the weapons act as an ST multiplier much more sensical...

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

feels like overkill after the ST adjustment. Would the weapon mods as per die be enough? eg 2d-1 with a +1 mace becomes 2d+1?

Sorta to the both of you: the scale of melee damage is tough to quantify, since it's basically the +1 ST = +1 swing damage scale that was referred to earlier.

Bullet and bow damage are very much KE based for penetration; that's probably true of melee weapons as well, which means they won't penetrate very well. In terms of blunt trauma, that's how the momentum comes in, and what's not really present right now in GURPS without some work.

The scale I posted above is effectively an energy scale as well . . . it scales linearly with ST or sqrt (Basic LIft), which is to say sqrt(Force). Assuming you're applying that force over your reach (a constant distance), one could make the analogy to penetration.

The reason I went with +1/3 of a die for each +1 on the tables? well, it sort of is that right now for many weapons. thr+1 in the 1d regime is about +1/3.5 points, or . . . 1/3 of a die. Making it a multiplier to ST instead of straight damage is quite the multiplier: 1.76 times the force . . . that might even be too MUCH.

[Landwalker]

That does seem a bit complex, Kuroshima, although the gist of the idea may not be so bad.

And thank you for the explanation / illustration of the MoS thing. That certainly clears up any uncertainty I may have had.

What I thought was meant when the MoS issue was originally brought up—which might also be the reason I liked it—was a MoS based on a ST roll in replacement of the usual damage roll. There would be a certain base damage, period, across all ST values. That base would be modified by a weapon modifier, and probably by an attack-type modifier.

The below started out as a "quick example of what I'm thinking of." Four and a half hours later, it's ended up being a mostly-completed alternative damage system:

Base Damage: 2 (Yes, you heard me. 2. You'll see why in a minute.)

Swing Modifier: +1
Thrust Modifier: -1
2H Modifier: +1

Weapon Modifiers: On a one-to-one basis with RAW.

ST MoS  -20 -19 -18 -17 -16 -15 -14 -13 -12 -11 -10  -9  -8  -7  -6  -5  -4  -3  -2  -1
Damage  -5  -5  -4  -4  -4  -4  -3  -3  -3  -3  -2  -2  -2  -2  -1  -1  -1  -1  +0  +0
       
ST MoS   0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  [+4]
Damage  +0  +0  +0  +1  +1  +1  +1  +2  +2  +2  +2  +3  +3  +3  +3  +4  +4  +4  +4  [+1]

So, let's look at a few examples.

The ST 10 Broadswordsman
Roll                 3   4-7   8-12  13-16  17-18
ST Bonus to Damage  +2    +1    +0     -1     -2
Total Damage         6     5     4      3      2

Digging into the numbers a little bit more, we find that the swordsman will hit those figures about 0.46%, 15.7%, 57.9%, 24.1%, and 1.85% of the time. 97.7% of his swings deal between 3 and 5 damage.

It also means that he will only beat the DR 4 of Fine Mail or Medium Scale about 16.2% of the time, and then not by very much. A bit of padded cloth should fix that up just fine.

Average damage for the ST 10 swordsman is 3.89.

So how about for stronger swordsmen?

The ST 12 Broadswordsman
Roll                 3-5   6-9  10-14  15-18
ST Bonus to Damage    +2    +1    +0     -1 
Total Damage           6     5     4      3 

The ST 14 Broadswordsman
Roll                 3   4-7   8-12  13-16  17-18
ST Bonus to Damage  +3    +2    +1     +0     -1
Total Damage         7     6     5      4      3

At first blush, the ST 12 jump doesn't appear to be doing a whole lot. But then, look at the percentages behind it and compare to ST 10: 4.6% for 6 damage, 32.9%, for 5 damage, 53.2% for 4 damage, and 9.3% for 3 damage. Not only is there no possibility of dealing only 2 damage, but the ST 12 swordsman will beat DR 4 on 37.5% of his blows—more than twice as often as the ST 10 swordsman. He's also ten times more likely to deal the shared maximum of 6 damage. 95.4% of the ST 12 swordsman's swings will do between 3 and 5 damage, but all of the remainder is above that range. The average damage is 4.33.

The ST 14 swordsman, meanwhile, has a clear edge. His odds: 0.46% for 7 damage, 15.7% for 6, 46.3% for 5, 35.6% for 4, and a meager 1.9% for 3 damage. He will beat DR 4 a solid 62.5% of the time. Average damage is 4.77. Here, 97.7% of the swordsman's blows will deal between 4 and 6 damage (compared to 3 and 5 for the ST 10 fighter). Average damage is 4.77.

So, how about that ST 20 ogre?

ST 20 Ogre, SM+1 Two-Handed Mace
Roll                 3-5   6-9  10-13  14-17    18
ST Bonus to Damage    +4    +3    +2     -1     +0
Total Damage          14    13    12      10      9

Again, the percentages: 4.6% for 14 damage, 32.9% for 13 damage, 46.3% for 12 damage, 15.7% for 10 damage, and 0.49% for 9 damage. 95% of his blows will be between 11 and 13 damage. This ogre's average damage is 12.25. Ogres (or at least, well-armed ogres) are scary things, even for a man in heavy plate.

By comparison, the average damage on a successful attack for Ze'Manel Cunha's ogre above—if that ogre had also been using an SM+1 two-handed mace instead of an SM+0 one—is about 12.18. With SM+0 maces, the average damages are 10.25 (here) and 10.18 (above).

------------------------------
Some Wrap-up Thoughts

* I love the reduced variability.

* For Committed and All-Out Attack (Strong), my inclination is to have them give +2 / +4 to the ST roll. This would put the ST 10 guy on equal footing with ST 12 and ST 14, respectively, which is the same as in RAW. Yes, the absolute impact is lower, but when variability is low and armor is in play, that could be a very important boost.

* By the same token, and for the same RAW-relative parallel, I would give things like Defensive Attack and similar damage-adjusting options (Defensive Grip, Reverse Grip, etc.) the same treatment: Double whatever their usual effect is, and apply it to the ST roll.

* If you wanted to add a skill-related bonus—and that might not be a bad idea when your margins are this low— you could say that Skill at DX+1 gives +1 to the ST roll, and Skill at DX+2 or better gives +2 to the ST roll. Weapon Master would double that bonus to +2/+4, putting the Skill DX+2, ST 10 Swordmaster on equal footing with the DX+0, ST 14 hack-and-slasher. Which, once again, is the same relative effect as Weapon Master currently has.

* I deliberately omitted an example for the ST 5, Knife-wielding Halfling. This is because the best roll he can get is MoS 2, which gives +0 to damage. He's operating at Base 2, +1 for swinging, -3 for the weapon, so his damage at MoS 2 is zero. Once he hits MoS -3 on a roll of 8, his damage is negative, and it goes downhill from there. If he thrusts, he's in the same boat: Base 2, -1 for thrusting, -1 for weapon. The lesson? ST 5 halflings shouldn't be using SM-2 small knives anyway. Of course, cutting and impaling attacks that beat DR can't do any less than 1 damage, so he's still capable of harming an unarmored opponent. However! If he uses an SM-2 broadsword (MinST 5, +1 cutting, per LTC 2), his damage ranges from 1 (on a roll of 16-18) to 4 (on a roll of 3-7). So a properly-equipped SM-2, ST 5 halfling can still smack somebody, provided they have , at best, light armor. If fighting a large or decently-armored opponent, though, the halfling will want to avail himself of an SM-2 dueling glaive, long spear, or similar weapon (to get the +1 for a two-handed attack).

* Unarmed fighting—especially at DX+0 skill—is just plain bad, with Base 0 damage after the Thrust and "Weapon" modifiers. Refer to the ST 10 broadswordsman, but subtract 2 from all of his damage results. That said, I don't think that this is unreasonable, either, especially for Average-ST, basically-unskilled punchers who aren't making Committed or All-Out Attacks.

* No, this doesn't eliminate the damage roll. It just replaces it. I'm okay with a mechanic that ends up with a net +0 total rolls involved.

* The MoS table above is actually completely unnecessary—I just presented it to show lots of numbers together for an eyeball look at how the ST MoS broke down. All it really is is the formula "Modifier = 1/4 MoS, with half-points rounding towards zero."

* The progression of average damage largely meets the criterion of making damage scale linearly with ST. For a SM+0 broadsword (which I'm using as a constant in this case just to avoid negative-damage results for very-low-ST figures): From ST 1 to ST 4, each +1 ST gives +0.25 average damage. From ST 4 to ST 7, each +1 ST gives +0.24 average damage. From ST 7 to ST 14, each +1 ST gives +0.22 average damage. From ST 14 to ST 17, each +1 ST gives +0.24 average damage. From ST 17 and up, each +1 ST gives +0.25 average damage.


And there that is.

Whew.

[jacobmuller]

Where I'm at myself: ST based damage more linear, Sw approx 1.5*Th, Weapons mods are relative, MoS affects damage.
To reduce the ST dam variable, you could make all damage dice Averaging dice (1 = 3, 6 = 4), but Sw damage is a fraction lower.

Margin of Success: for MoS 0 = 1/2 damage; for MoS ≥5 +1 per die.
Weapon damage mod is per 2 dice, which has little effect until ST20 Sw, unless you apply it as +2 weapon dam for a 1d attack is just +1.
ST based damage Dice: Thrust = (ST x 0.45 – 3) /3.5; Swing = (ST x 0.68 – 3) /3.5.
The change to Thrust only comes in at the high end.
The change to Swing begins at ST11, with lower damage until ST45.

ST	Thrust	Swing	ST	Thrust	Swing	ST	Thrust	Swing	ST	Thrust	Swing	ST	Thrust	Swing
1	1d-6	1d-5	14	1d	2d-1	27	3d-1	4d	40	4d+1	6d+2	110	13d+1	19d+1
2	1d-6	1d-5	15	1d+1	2d	28	3d-1	4d+1	45	5d	7d+1	120	14d+2	21d
3	1d-5	1d-4	16	1d+1	2d	29	3d	4d+2	50	5d+2	8d	130	16d	23d
4	1d-5	1d-4	17	1d+2	2d+1	30	3d	4d+2	55	6d+1	9d	140	17d	25d-1
5	1d-4	1d-3	18	1d+2	2d+2	31	3d+1	5d-1	60	7d	10d	150	18d+1	26d+2
6	1d-4	1d-3	19	2d-1	2d+2	32	3d+1	5d	65	7d+2	11d	175	21d+2	31d
7	1d-3	1d-2	20	2d-1	3d-1	33	3d+2	5d+1	70	8d	12d	200	25d	35d+2
8	1d-3	1d-2	21	2d	3d	34	3d+2	5d+2	75	9d	13d	225	28d	40d+1
9	1d-2	1d-1	22	2d	3d+1	35	4d-1	5d+2	80	9d+2	14d	250	31d+1	45d
10	1d-2	1d	23	2d+1	3d+1	36	4d-1	6d-1	85	10d	15d	275	34d+2	49d+1
11	1d-1	1d	24	2d+1	3d+2	37	4d	6d	90	11d-1	16d	300	38d-1	54d
12	1d-1	1d+1	25	2d+2	4d-1	38	4d	6d	95	11d+1	17d	350	44d	63d
13	1d	1d+1	26	2d+2	4d	39	4d+1	6d+1	100	12d	18d	400	50d+2	72d+1

example (HR= house rule): Longsword Th+1 Sw+2 for
ST12 1d/ RAW 2d-1 HR 1d+1, gives 1d+1/ RAW 2d+1 HR 1d+2 and
ST17 1d+2/ RAW 3d-1 HR 2d+1 gives 1d+2/ RAW 3d+1 HR 2d+3

[Gudiomen]

I'm going to commit a little heresy here, I'm going to suggest that using non 6-sided dice might get the variability down and make armor more effective.

For this exercise I decided to use the same scaling up of sw damage as we use for thr damage, only give it a little advantage. That way swing damage is a little more attractive in raw damage terms, but doesn't take off on a whole level of it's own as the table goes on.

The assumption is +1 point of average damage per 2 levels of ST, I kept them going up for add and even numbers separately for sw and thr, so that you always get something up with you increase ST.

Variability of damage was reduced to 33% (I felt it should be more variable than firearms, but not so variable as it is).

Here's what I got:

               Thr                     Sw
ST1     -3 to -2 (1d2-4)       -2 to -1 (1d2-3)
ST2     -3 to -2 (1d2-4)       -1 to 0  (1d2-2)
ST3     -2 to -1 (1d2-3)       -1 to 0  (1d2-2)
ST4     -2 to -1 (1d2-3)       0 to 1   (1d2-1)
ST5     -1 to 0  (1d2-2)       0 to 1   (1d2-1)
ST6     -1 to 0  (1d2-2)       1 to 2   (1d2)
ST7     0 to 1   (1d2-1)       1 to 2   (1d2)
ST8     0 to 1   (1d2-1)       2 to 3   (1d2+1)
ST9     1 to 2   (1d2)         2 to 3   (1d2+1)
ST10    1 to 2   (1d2)         2 to 5   (1d4+1)
ST11    2 to 3   (1d2+1)       2 to 5   (1d4+1)
ST12    2 to 3   (1d2+1)       3 to 6   (1d4+2)
ST13    2 to 5   (1d4+1)       3 to 6   (1d4+2)
ST14    2 to 5   (1d4+1)       4 to 7   (1d4+3)
ST15    3 to 6   (1d4+2)       4 to 7   (1d4+3)
ST16    3 to 6   (1d4+2)       4 to 9   (1d6+3)
ST17    4 to 7   (1d4+3)       4 to 9   (1d6+3)
ST18    4 to 7   (1d4+3)       5 to 10  (1d6+4)
ST19    4 to 9   (1d6+3)       5 to 10  (1d6+4)
ST20    4 to 9   (1d6+3)       6 to 11  (1d6+5)
ST21    5 to 10  (1d6+4)       6 to 11  (1d6+5)
ST22    5 to 10  (1d6+4)       6 to 13  (1d8+5)
ST23    6 to 11  (1d6+5)       6 to 13  (1d8+5)
ST24    6 to 11  (1d6+5)       7 to 14  (1d8+6)
ST25    6 to 13  (1d8+5)       7 to 14  (1d8+6)
ST26    6 to 13  (1d8+5)       8 to 15  (1d8+7)
ST27    7 to 14  (1d8+6)       8 to 15  (1d8+7)
ST28    7 to 14  (1d8+6)       8 to 17  (1d10+7)
ST29    8 to 15  (1d8+7)       8 to 17  (1d10+7)
ST30    8 to 15  (1d8+7)       9 to 18  (1d10+8)

I'm not a fan of using different dice at all, I don't have them, but we do have optional rules for use of even cards and more exotic things, so what the hell... and I use the computer a lot in the game table, lately... so rolling these on the PC is trivial, most virtual tabletops support weird dice too.

For thrust, it maintains the same damage progression and the same average damage (except on higher levels, because GURPS adds more dice, changing the progression slightly, while I used a flat +1 to average damaage, starting at 2.5 average damage at ST10).

For swing, I used the same progression as thrust, only slightly displaced, which means that swing always does +1 or +2 damage compared to thrust, but that's about it.

This has the nice side-effect of making each +1 to ST equal in benefits, before, even numbers got you only +1 to sw, and odd levels got you +1 to sw and thr.

Anyway, food for thought, chomp away...

[phayman53]

I was thinking about a different way of increasing the effectiveness of armor. I think with the edged weapons doing blunt armor rule armor acts relatively realistically; fine mail, for example, stands up fairly realistically to an average swordsman's average AOA (ST 11, 2d-1, averages 6 dmg, so 2cr dmg gets past DR, this seems realistic enough to me, only cutting through on an 10-12 dice result, or 1/6 of the time). The problem comes with spears and average AOAs. I think impaling weapons should have a similar rule for armor as cutting weapons, only maybe something like they need to defeat more than 1.5 DR to do their full impaling dmg, otherwise it is cr. I have seen video demos of people trying to stab through mail with what would be an AOA (holding a sword by the hit with one hand and the blade with the other and stabbing, the mail was over boiled leather on a pig carcas), the result was the blade penetrated a little, so would have cut and hurt, but no "impaling". The result of this new rule would be that a ST 11 warrior AOA one handed with a spear against fine mail for the same 2d6-1, again averaging 6 dmg, but the DR threashold for impailing is 1.5*4=6, on average the attack will only do 2cr dmg, but will not penetrate the mail and impail the wearer. A two handed thrust, however, will on average, but this is okay woth me given that a spear is designed as a penetrating weapon.

There are a few reasons that I like this change. First, it is a way of increasing the effectiveness of DR without having to change firearm dmg as it is piecing. Second, this means that impaling weapons also realistically do some damage to an armored person before they impale him (like Frodo in Moria :-) ). Third, it seems to still retain the impailing weapon advantage vs armor over cutting weapons without making it unrealistic (got to do 10 dmg with a lance now to pierce jousting mail instead of just 7, but 7 to 9 still hurts). Fourth, the ST progression stays the same, so no weird useless ST values for damage and no change in point value for ST. Finally, the weapon damage vs HP stays the same, which I like. A ST 11 spearman stabbing me in the torso with no armor is going to probably end the fight even if no vitals are hit.

Thoughts?