Realism; Strength is not important for swordsmanship(?)

[Drop Bear]

conciser this you are likely impacting the target a lot more than the dice would indicate, it's just your blows are glancing off or striking protection at an angle that is absorbed by the protection.

in my miss spent youth I was a mediocre archer, as part of an experiment using a (then) modern low end sports bow, I got to shoot arrows at recreation Cloth & Leather Armors. I was hitting a man sized target at 20m in excess of 80% of the time, less than half those hits struck home because slight variations in angle of impact glancing off the armor or with non penetrating embeds. at 30m (60% hits 40% penetration) & 40m (40-45% hits around 35% penetration) my hit rate was down but my penetrations per 100 arrows (my arms where very sore by weeks end) stayed roughly constant. at around 50m penetration drooped of a quite a bit bit due to range attenuation of impact force (and the fact my hit rate was down too).

so Skill is your chance of landing a telling blow, Damage is how much you mess them up when you do land that blow.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

IMO it does. With enough skill you can hit more precisely, which means you can bypass armour or hit more damaging targets. The net result is you do more damage. It's not direct like the way ST does but, but its a constant enough effect to count IMO

Right. And that is even more true (at least, more sensible) with bowmen. More you are skilled, more you are able to hit a far target. Hitting a far target requires precision, of course (DX, in GURPS). But it also requires strength, in order to stretch the bow to give the arrow enough speed.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by cdru

This is modelled in GURPS: Forced entry allows you to hit harder against inanimate objects

I'm not sure that, as GM, I would allow to use Forced entry to cut wood with an axe but, no matter, I do agree with you: there are a lot of ways to model specific strength in GURPS instead of just buying a high ST level.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Gerrard of Titan Server

To Gollum
Sure. I understand that a character with low ST can buy advantages to increase damage with a bastard sword. However, that doesn't answer my question: Is it realistic that that a ST 13 char does twice the damage as the ST 7 char with a "bastard sword", witn no further chargen to affect bastard sword damage, and all other chargen being equal? Should Strength really make that big of a difference absent specific chargen to increase sword damage?

Be careful. In GURPS basic attributes, the difference between 7 and 13 is huge.

7 is almost "crippled" (6 is). And 13 is almost "amazing" (14 is). So, the difference between ST 7 and ST 13 is the difference between an old lady and a very strong warrior.

The fact that a strong warrior is able to inflict twice the damage that an old lady is able to inflict sounds perfectly realistic.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Gollum

7 is almost "crippled" (6 is). And 13 is almost "amazing" (14 is). So, the difference between ST 7 and ST 13 is the difference between an old lady and a very strong warrior.

The fact that a strong warrior is able to inflict twice the damage that an old lady is able to inflict sounds perfectly realistic.

Quoted for truth.

I study HEMA, and yes, when I'm cutting milk jugs with a sharp longsword, my size and strength sometimes allows me to make better cuts than some smaller people in my school.

Also, I've had to train my hand and wrist strength to keep from getting injuries and limit fatigue when practicing with swords.

That said, I agree with most HEMA people that strength is FAR less important with swords than it is with unarmed fighting. Good edge-alignment and proper technique has a great impact on the quality of a cut, it doesn't take much force at all to pierce someone's organs with a thrust.

I'd propose the following changes for realism:

1. Subtract 2 from all weapon damage.
2. Add Trained Strength to Weapon Damage (e.g. Technical Grappling), so that a skilled individual gets those two points back.
3. Change Swing damage to a flat thrust +2.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Right. And that is even more true (at least, more sensible) with bowmen. More you are skilled, more you are able to hit a far target. Hitting a far target requires precision, of course (DX, in GURPS). But it also requires strength, in order to stretch the bow to give the arrow enough speed.

Yep I think it's more true of bowmen than melee because if you lack the ability to draw a bow that is powerful enough to reach your target, all the accuracy in the world won't matter you still won't hit.

What I really think is true is that while we tend to look at these things as completely separate in these discussions, the reality is they end up being liked just by the practicality of real life.

So yeah in GURPS it's possible to build a DX15, ST5 adult with Skill +10, in reality that combination of things won't happen with a human swordsman*.

(however because it's GURPS it has to be able to accommodate the non human and non realistic, i.e. no human swordmaster is likely to have the above build, but a hobbit one might).


When it comes to modelling humans, especially one's who excel at something I try and go for a holistic approach that brings in several factors. Because the reality is when your training very hard at something there tends to be a lot of synergy with several factors.

So while my preference is for stat normalisation, which means I won't have C14th English archers walking around with ST20 in order to pull heavy bows, but neither will I have them be ST8 and have +12 in a technique that allows them to.

Instead I tend to give them a combination of things that working together given them a combined ability to do a thing. Archery is great example of this as there is a pretty coherent set of advantages that build on each other and narrow in specificity.

TBH I've found a nice side effect of this approach is that I tend to avoid the knock on issues that can come with very high scores in advantages that have a wider scopes. e.g my English HYW archers know to avoid arm wrestling a 1,000lb polar bears!



*yes OK may soem outlandish culmination of events could give you this, but I suggest it wouldn't be a static ongoing situation

[Anthony]

The claim that strength is unimportant to melee combat skills is generally a claim made by people who want to sell lessons in melee combat skills to people who don't want to do strength work. Strength, at least in specific muscle groups, is not really necessary for accuracy, but it absolutely affects power and speed.

[Mailanka]

I, for one, am not really convinced all this fussing over how much damage a strong character can do really matters all that much. A broadsword deals sw+1 cut or thr+2 imp. An ST 9 character daels 1d imp and 1d cut. A character with ST 12 deals 1d+1 imp and 1d+3 cut. In the first case, the average damage from a stab is 7 damage (10 for the vitals), and deals ~5 damage. The stronger character deals an average of 9 damage on a thrust (14 on a shot to the vitals), ~10 damage on a cut.

Any thrust is sufficient to deal a major wound to the vitals. A shot to the vitals whether strong or weak, will result in someone passing out in seconds and then likely bleeding out and dying. A cutting attack is almost enough to inflict a major wound on the average character for the weaker character, and is enough to knock someone unconscious and cause them to bleed out.

In short, a single blow from a strong or weak character is sufficient to effectively defeat most characters. Weak characters will need to stab again, or use an All-Out Attack or use Extra Effort, to really take a character out, and will have trouble defeating high DR, while a stronger character can afford to use more Defensive attacks and still deal decent damage, or can afford to deal decent damage without spending as much fatigue, and has a better chance of defeating DR (though I think one would make the case that, realistically, a sword edge is just not going to defeat hard armor whatever your ST).

I noticed this in Cherry Blossom Rain. I was curious if I could stat "realistic" female characters in regards to ST and still keep them effective, so we had a female samurai with ST 9 and one male samurai with ST 15. The ST 9 samurai was perfectly able to keep up, via extra effort and very precise strikes (and, to be fair, chi powers/skills). If someone said "Skill matters more than strength for swordplay," I'd say that's an accurate description of how GURPS handles swordplay. But it's not true that ST doesn't matter in GURPS when it comes to swordplay, but I think I'd be surprised if physical strength didn't matter at all to real swordplay, though I think "what strength is" is a complicated question.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I, for one, am not really convinced all this fussing over how much damage a strong character can do really matters all that much.

The real reason for strength typically isn't damage; it's control, endurance, and speed. The simplest way of handling that in GURPS would probably be to just cap weapon skill based on ST vs weapon ST.

[Bruno]

This smells of the usual argument about martial artists not needing strength, because of mad skillz yo.

Use of a muscle-powered tool reduces, but does not eliminate, the need for strength on a given task. Heck, even guns, which aren't muscle powered, still need some strength to carry and operate (particularly longarms).

Strength is less important for a swordsman than for a martial artist, because the sword gives you leverage (bonus damage) and concentrates the striking edge (giving you cutting or impaling damage).

But to say that it's somehow not important is just as goofy as saying it's not important in boxing or judo.