Swords and plate

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

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Often when we're gaming we look for "How much flesh is cleaved?" But even looking back at that video with that sword, the guy thrusted a Thr+1 weapon with what's probably average or near average ST into steal armor and went through an inch. No, he didn't run the guy through, but an inch on a point like that is quite a bit! He probably did an all out attack to get that depth, and if you look at something between DR6 and DR9 for plate, that's probably accurate for damage where most would be absorbed and maybe 1 or 2 points of damage CAN get through (Not on average).

Leaving aside questions about the quality of armour being used*, don't forget that under the plate there was also an arming garment.

If you want to get an idea of how good they were against piecing take a look at this. It's about crossbows that fire with far more energy than swords get thrust but you get the idea.

And of course it was a combined effect, a point that's had its penetration reduced to an inch through plate is a lot easier to withstand than a point without the intervening plate. And of course there's not really many places on the body where an inch of penetration is going to be much of a problem in the short term.


*sorry which video are you referring to, I seem to have missed it.

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Things break down more when you are forced to classify things so rigidly into damage types. Take a mace for example. How do you quantify such a thing? Some with nobby spike, some with "Fins"... morningstars... they have +n damage, but they can only be cut, crush or impaling. Real life isn't so rigid.

Yep that's certainly true, in reality a lot of things are going to be on a sliding scale of various GURPS damage types.

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Also, GURPS doesn't track things like bone bruising from strikes or skeletal durability. People sometimes focus on bleeding as an external phenomena too. They don't realize contusions can be as bad as lascerations! Bleeding inside your body is still bleeding! Blood vessels aren't the most sturdy parts of our evolution. Cracked bones and such can be debilitating!

I certainly consider bleeding from CR damage (and blunt trauma through armour come to that) at my table, In fact internal bleeding can be worse at low TL's because it will sometimes need surgery.

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Not to mention something rarely said is even if an attack doesn't get through armor, not every attack need be the killing blow. You get hit with a sword at full power and that will SUUUUCK. Not all of that is even more than jarring, but jarring injury is all it takes on a battlefield to leave you messed up. How many football players get concussions?

Thing is swords just don't transmit that much force, (certainly nothing like what footballers withstand in tackles)

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Most the videos I watched on this subject seem to show the blunt trauma and the features I don't think GURPS models well is what will do you in versus literal slicing through flesh.

Personally from every weapon I saw, it seems the best thing to use against someone coming at you in steel sheets is a warbow. Arrows seem to regularly piece plate armor quite a bit more effectively than I thought they would. I'd also like to mention, impaling attacks seem to get trapped in the armor quite a bit.

Not sure about arrows regularly piecing plate, what have you been looking at?

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I guess at the end of the day, there's a point to make. If armor was useless they wouldn't wear it, and if weapons were useless against it, people with armor would win every time.

In abstract these are both true. However a couple of points:

1). armour was not ubiquitous or when present always full coverage i.e your opponent may not be armoured, or bits of him might not be armoured, so hit those bits. A halberd blade will easily mess up someone's unarmoured leg, and it won't matter much if they have a breastplate on.


2) not all tactics against armoured target involved trying to penetrate past their full armour (see the earlier examples of this in the thread)


3). Reality is not ever completely cut and dried, given enough heavy blows from a halberd I'm sure plate will eventually fail. It's just even taking that into account in a combat situation the difference between compete invulnerability and effective protection from such blows is pretty moot. Which is also why I'm fine with the occasional point of damage getting past in favourable circumstances. i.e an absolute position is rarely a correct one.