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Old 03-26-2013, 04:15 PM   #61
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
You think necks are more difficult to sever than legs? (I must have thick legs)
Or maybe thickness is not that strongly predictive of how hard a body part is to sever.
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Agree, no neck though (I have it at 25%)
75%, right? Those are the chances of being unable to act, not the chances of being able to act.
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Old 03-26-2013, 04:50 PM   #62
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
...this is why I suggested comparing the number of lines through the face that hit the neck to those that don't. I really don't think that stacks up how you think it does, and the MRI is not helpful unless you're attacking within the plane of the image.
No you talked about lines through the face that only hit face, which is not many. Seriously look at your head adn look at small the are has to be for attacks that would involve a wound entering and existing you head and only staying in teh face.

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I'm not comparing anything to legs. I'm just saying the neck is not in fact 100% stuff which will kill you if broken, or even all that close to it. It's full of important things but I rather think you'd slipped a bit overboard.
Hang on the point was not is the neck 100% made up of vital (i'd be arguing for a straight x3 or x4 if I argued that) just that it has a higher percentage fo immediately important bits than the torso, and that in terms of supportive tissue, bones & muscle etc, it doesn't have as much proportionally or in total as other area's in the body.

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The MRI is down the centerline of the head facing perfectly front. It is not completely irrelevant to the question of what gets hit when you stab or shoot someone in the face but it says a lot less than you seem to think.
Only since the small are in question it really hard to wound someone in the neck and head without hitting the centreline. This is my point, theres not much room for error in there.

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It's relevant to what you posted because you seem to keep insisting that neck wounds in GURPS are not, in fact, dire. Which is flatly wrong if you're using full wounding rules.
I've never said they're not dire, look at the distinction I made again.

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Your thing about bleeding out in seconds if your carotid artery or something is cut, on the other hand, is not relevant. Because exactly like my earlier 'aorta blown entirely out of your body' scenario, GURPS (quite explicitly) models that as a subset of 'you are dead'. A GURPS wound to the neck or neck arteries which does not cause an immediate failed death check is not representative of a gushing major artery wound nor is it supposed to be.
No because torso wound to aorta blown out body is not as Neck wound to catastrophic bleeding.

The there is greater correlation between the second two than the first two.

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
How can that possibly be your point? You keep insisting that neck wounds need a higher wounding factor because they are dire. Which is exactly what "A wound does not need a high wounding factor to be dire" is contradicting.
Read what I said, dire is not immediate, different combinations of rules give different results,

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I don't even know what you think this has to do with the question, since these are quite obviously talking about consequences which include everything GURPS models under bleeding and possibly also the lasting wounds rules which, IIRC, have some 'you die' goodies for neck wounds.
I actually said that, but that's that true for the other wounds as well.

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Neck wounds (just neck, not neck arteries) in GURPS are way more deadly than torso (or abdomen) wounds as currently constituted. The only exception to that is when the torso wound is not a torso wound but rather a vitals wound.
on what scale ultimate demise yes, second by second combat no..

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And if your stats are mostly coming from soldiers wearing body armor (which at least one of your sources appears to be) you're going to see not so much getting shot in the vitals (body armor covers those first and foremost) and quite a bit of cutting shrapnel.
It wasn't chance of getting hit it was survivability of wounds severe enough for them to be there. If your arguing that thorax armour negated the effects of vitals wounds whey were thorax wounds more deadly then abdomen (by almost 3:1)

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It really helps when you keep track of the sub-threads. A few posts back you said: "The face is just the front of the head after all?"

Yes you can be rude if you want, however the face is situated at the front of the head, agree or disagree? How doe that impact on the discussion that wounds though the face will tend to end up in the head and neck.


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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Which it is not, in terms of GURPS terminology. I responded pointing that out. That is all there was.
And that somehow means that the face is not on the front of head?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I really don't know why you said "The face is just the front of the head after all?", since that doesn't seem to address whether or not face-stabbing is a thing, which was what you posted it in reply to.
You asked is face stabbing a thing, I answered that the face is just part of the head, I didn't think I needed to state that hitting the head is seen a positive move in combat

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Rarer than what?
Than hits on the limbs, look if you want to have an actual debate then fine, but this kind of nonsense is just wasting our time.

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And what does that have to do with anything anyway since those are examples of not stabbing people in the face?
The point was combat decapitations are historically rarer then limbs being chopped of, my answer was yes, probably true but that's because the neck is harder to hit than the arm or leg not because the neck wasn't a high value target. If you go back to my first couple of posts here I make this point. In gurps terms a a skill 12 soldier is not going to go for the neck at -5.

I think you knew this

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
...But do they stab people in the face to kill them? Is this just meant as a vague insinuation that surely they might have stabbed people in the face preferentially since they knew about both stabbing and faces?

(There are in fact styles in Martial Arts which include face-stabbing as a technique. The ones I recall, however, are battlefield styles which target the face as a way to avoid armor.)
You mean the styles that involve having to kill people quickly in combat situations?
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Old 03-26-2013, 04:59 PM   #63
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Or maybe thickness is not that strongly predictive of how hard a body part is to sever.
It's not really a negative relationship though is it. i.e all else being equal thicker i more resistant than than thiner.

But your right, structure is important too. Let's see leg: thick continuous long bones that are designed to support the whole bodie's weight, and the rest is almost all muscle (including some of the largest in the body), and the neck is?

So all else isn't really equal either. This is getting a touch desperate isn't it?

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75%, right? Those are the chances of being unable to act, not the chances of being able to act.
Yes sorry my previous post had been chances to act I took it from that

You know what since we've got to 'necks are harder to sever than legs because they are thinner' and an honest to god debate as to weather the face is on the front of the head, I think we've really gone past the point of diminishing returns here,

cheers for the replies but I'm out.

Last edited by Tomsdad; 03-26-2013 at 05:04 PM.
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Old 03-26-2013, 06:00 PM   #64
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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No you talked about lines through the face that only hit face, which is not many. Seriously look at your head adn look at small the are has to be for attacks that would involve a wound entering and existing you head and only staying in teh face.
Er, doesn't look at all small to me. Are you assuming that the direction of the wound is strictly front-to-back or something?
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on what scale ultimate demise yes, second by second combat no..
You just spewed a heap of links which pertain to ultimate demise, not to second by second combat. If you've got references on neck shots being a great way to take people down in second by second combat, that might actually have some relevance.
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Yes you can be rude if you want, however the face is situated at the front of the head, agree or disagree? How doe that impact on the discussion that wounds though the face will tend to end up in the head and neck.


And that somehow means that the face is not on the front of head?
"Is on the front of the head" and "is at the front of the head" both mean entirely different things than "is the front of the head".
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You asked is face stabbing a thing, I answered that the face is just part of the head, I didn't think I needed to state that hitting the head is seen a positive move in combat
So seeing as the question was about reality, not what you infer reality ought to be like, that's really not on point at all. That you think stabbing faces is a superior option is well established.
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Than hits on the limbs, look if you want to have an actual debate then fine, but this kind of nonsense is just wasting our time.
I think you lost the thread someplace, because that doesn't make sense in context.
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The point was combat decapitations are historically rarer then limbs being chopped of, my answer was yes, probably true but that's because the neck is harder to hit than the arm or leg not because the neck wasn't a high value target. If you go back to my first couple of posts here I make this point. In gurps terms a a skill 12 soldier is not going to go for the neck at -5.

I think you knew this
Seeing as decapitations and stabbing people in the face are not the same thing, I think you've once again performed a context reassignment on my words.

Let me try to show you my experience, here:
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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Is face-stabbing a thing? Because I'm not aware of stabbing people in the face being a way anyone remotely serious tries to kill people.
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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Really? The face is just the front of the head after all.
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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
The Face is not just the front of the head, some of that is Skull (or Eye). And, frankly, stabbing people in the head in general isn't something I hear a lot about either. Except the occasional fictional commando-type whose favored kill is a stab to the brain which is absolutely a called shot to the skull at -7 or the eye at -9.
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Well you just answered your own question, it more difficult to do then just hitting the torso, however plenty of MA teach striking to the head, not many sports one teach neck strikes (wonder why), lots of neck holds though.
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I...what? No, I didn't answer my own question about whether stabbing people in the face is a thing. I indicated what forms of stabbing in the head I had ever seen as things, and how they were not examples of stabbing in the Face.
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No the point was such strikes are rarer because they are more difficult.
This was a thread of back and forth. Do you see why this suddenly being about decapitation might be somewhat of a problem?
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You mean the styles that involve having to kill people quickly in combat situations?
Indeed, stabbing people in parts of the body not covered by armor is a highly-preferred way to kill them quickly!

Unfortunately that means that the only thing we might be able to infer about face wounding is that it's better than other places that weren't covered by the armor. Which is not news.
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It's not really a negative relationship though is it. i.e all else being equal thicker i more resistant than than thiner.

But your right, structure is important too. Let's see leg: thick continuous long bones that are designed to support the whole bodie's weight, and the rest is almost all muscle (including some of the largest in the body), and the neck is?

So all else isn't really equal either. This is getting a touch desperate isn't it?
So, I'm guessing when you talked about reading the threads on decapitation, you didn't actually mean reading what was written in the threads on decapitation? Because this exactly was covered in there.

Short form: your assumptions about what makes something hard to chop through may in fact be very wrong.
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Old 03-26-2013, 10:35 PM   #65
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
You think necks are more difficult to sever than legs? (I must have thick legs)
All the available evidence suggests that necks are a lot harder to sever (especially in combat) than legs. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the head being above the centre of gravity and the legs being below it.
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Old 03-27-2013, 12:54 AM   #66
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post

All the available evidence suggests that necks are a lot harder to sever (especially in combat) than legs. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the head being above the centre of gravity and the legs being below it.
My understanding is that it has much to do with most limb-severing blows being downward cuts, which are the most powerful blows normally dealt with hand-to-hand combat weapons. Arms and legs are often extended in combat – to wield weapons and to move, respectively – and therefore present near-perpendicular targets to such cuts. Necks are essentially never struck this way unless someone is kneeling as for execution.

For legs in particular, there's also the secondary factor of them being unlikely to be swept aside by the force of a blow, and thus more likely to be cut. Necks tend to recoil, turning would-be severing blows into shallower cuts.

When you add it up, the most likely cut to the neck in combat is a low-powered side-to-side cut that whacks the neck and gashes it, then slides upward or downward to injure the jaw or the shoulder. The most likely cut to the leg is a high-powered downward cut that bites into the thigh of a front-extended leg and slices through.
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Old 03-27-2013, 01:50 AM   #67
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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MA states that the reality of cutting the major arteries is death in seconds. Reality of bleeding rules in MA is not death in seconds, but death in minutes.
That's a bit of a mis-characterization of what MA says. It says that cuts to major arteries can potentially bleed out in seconds. It uses this to note why attacks to the arteries have a higher damage multiplier and no damage cap for limbs. Which is to say, you can immediately kill someone by cutting the artery in their leg.

For saying that long-term lethality is not what you're talking about, it seems to be what you're talking about. None of those say or even suggest that these wounds are immediately incapacitating. They only state that they're more likely to be fatal... and in GURPS, they are.

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24 pt major wound to the neck 62.5% chance of dying and then the above
50% for a HT10 person. It's a straight HT roll.

Well, 50% chance for immediate death or mortal wound. That's not counting other threats, such as bleeding out.

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Because leaving aside bleeding, I can see no difference between a 8 pt impaling wound to the neck and and to the torso (both -16 hp, no mods for knock-down) only cutting and crushing, has a difference.
You know, for how often you go on about there being few ways to go through the face or neck without hitting something vital (Arteries, spine, brain), I'd like you to consider how few ways there are to go through the chest without hitting the Vitals (Heart, lungs, etc).

The only thing about the neck that would be more immediately incapacitating than a hit to the vitals would be if you hit the spine... which is how it is in GURPS. A major wound to the spine leaves the target paralyzed below that point. Any blow that does not sever the spine, however, is not particularly notable for instantly stopping the target. Within seconds, and with high chances of bleeding out? Sure. But we've already got that.

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Yes I read the same threads, even with all that and more it just gets to enough for an instant decapitation. And yes we all know teh stories of drunk headmen reduced to sawing at their targets, they don't prove what they are cited prove. they prove that drunk people shouldn't play with swords and axes.
Oh come on. I even specifically indicated a perfect setup to preempt the inevitable "stupid drunk" dismissal. No. There are plenty of cases of completely sober executioners still failing to decapitate the target.

And by "just enough" we're talking 2-3 death checks.

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It was a rhetorical point. And bleeding has very much been brought up as the mechanism that satisfies the need here.
It's a rather useless rhetorical point when it's used to argue against a position nobody has taken. And no, bleeding has not been brought up as having anything to do with killing by decapitation by anyone here, except for you. For everyone else, it's been brought up only as a way of noting some of the ways in which neck wounds are worse than torso wounds.

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Show me as it it relates to my "stawman"
I have no idea what you're even trying to ask here...

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Agree, no neck though (I have it at 25%)
It's 75%. It's also in the section you quoted, but you seem to have deleted that line.

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Can you show me you workings?
Guh...

(Chances listed for each roll is the chance of success. Also corrected for using the wrong knockdown-failure-KO target, which I had accidentally set one too high)
Chance to be unable to act next turn:
Leg: 6-point injury. Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT, with failure resulting in stun (50%).
Neck: 16-point injury. Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT, with failure resulting in stun (50%). Before their next turn, they have to make a HT roll to stay conscious (50%) if they wish to act. This leaves a (50% * 50% = ) 25% success rate, or a chance of being unable to act next turn of 75%.
Face: 12-point injury. Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT-5, with failure resulting in stun (4.6%). Before their next turn, they have to make a HT roll to stay conscious (50%) if they wish to act. This leaves a (4.6% * 50% = ) 2.3% success rate, or a chance of being unable to act next turn of 97.7%.
Brain: 24-point injury. Death check required (50%). Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT-10, with failure resulting in stun (1.9%). Before their next turn, they have to make a HT roll, at -1 due to being below -1 * HT to stay conscious (37.5%) if they wish to act. This leaves a (50% * 1.9% * 37.5% = ) 0.35% success rate, or a chance of being unable to act next turn of 99.65%. (For some reason, I had inverted and rounded the wrong way to get 99.3% instead)

Chance to be rendered unconscious or dead:
Leg: Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT; failure by 5 results in unconsciousness. Effective target is HT+5 (95.4%), resulting in a failure rate of 4.6%.
Neck: Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT; failure by 5 results in unconsciousness. Effective target is HT+5 (95.4%). Remaining conscious into the next turn requires a HT roll (50%). Chance to succeed is (95.4% * 50% = ) 47.7%, resulting in a failure rate of 52.3%.
Face: Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT-5; failure by 5 results in unconsciousness. Effective target is HT (50%). Remaining conscious into the next turn requires a HT roll (50%). Chance to succeed is (50% * 50% = ) 25%, resulting in a failure rate of 75%.
Brain: Death check required (50%). Major wound forces a knockdown roll against HT-10; failure by 5 results in unconsciousness. Effective target is HT-5 (4.6%). Remaining conscious into the next turn requires a HT roll, at -1 for being below -1 * HT (37.5%). Chance to succeed is (50% * 4.6% * 37.5% = ) 0.86%, resulting in a failure rate of 99.14% (Which I rounded to ~99%).

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You know what since we've got to 'necks are harder to sever than legs because they are thinner'
And we end on another strawman. Awesome.
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Old 03-27-2013, 03:13 AM   #68
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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My understanding is that it has much to do with most limb-severing blows being downward cuts, which are the most powerful blows normally dealt with hand-to-hand combat weapons. Arms and legs are often extended in combat – to wield weapons and to move, respectively – and therefore present near-perpendicular targets to such cuts. Necks are essentially never struck this way unless someone is kneeling as for execution.
Which explains why, in the majority of accounts I could find, the decapitation was delivered by someone mounted on a horse. There was one infantry example: an unconfirmed account of a Gurka decapitating a Turk with his kukhri while fighting in a trench in WWI. The officer who wrote the report saw the head fly out of the trench but didn't see the two men fighting.
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Old 04-01-2013, 02:51 AM   #69
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

Sorry late reply, had to clear everything at work before going on holiday, and just had the Easter weekend.


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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
All the available evidence suggests that necks are a lot harder to sever (especially in combat) than legs. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the head being above the centre of gravity and the legs being below it.
Maybe but what about arms? And while legs are below the centre of gravity they are hardly rooted to the spot.

Also if by all evidence you mean it happened a lot less, then that would include the difficulties of hitting the target as well as I said earlier?

An effective skill person of 12 has a 50% chance of hitting a leg or arm (before defence) but only a 16% chance of hitting a neck. I'd argue that makes strikes to the neck in combat as pretty much the province of the very highly skilled, and thus comparatively rare.

There's a double effect going on here, not only is an average skilled combatant gong to be much less likely to complete such an attack, knowing this he's also much less likely to attempt such an attack.

Conversely a higher skilled combatant can chose to go for the neck or shave 2 points of his opponents defence with a deceptive attack (there's obviously a lot more to it than just these two options of course, but my point is just being able to do so doesn't mean it would be the choice 100% of the time)

Basically all available evidence seems to be it didn't happen very often is fine as an overall statement for the likelihood in combat, however when that's applied to how hard it is to chop through a neck with a sword in isolation it's like saying gun shots through eyes were very rare therefore eyes must be particularly resistant to bullets.

My point being the GURPS system already takes into account the difficulty of doing something 'in combat' so I'm not sure it needs to count it twice as it were in this particular situation.

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My understanding is that it has much to do with most limb-severing blows being downward cuts, which are the most powerful blows normally dealt with hand-to-hand combat weapons. Arms and legs are often extended in combat – to wield weapons and to move, respectively – and therefore present near-perpendicular targets to such cuts. Necks are essentially never struck this way unless someone is kneeling as for execution.

For legs in particular, there's also the secondary factor of them being unlikely to be swept aside by the force of a blow, and thus more likely to be cut. Necks tend to recoil, turning would-be severing blows into shallower cuts.

When you add it up, the most likely cut to the neck in combat is a low-powered side-to-side cut that whacks the neck and gashes it, then slides upward or downward to injure the jaw or the shoulder. The most likely cut to the leg is a high-powered downward cut that bites into the thigh of a front-extended leg and slices through.
OK I can see that arms are definitely going to be subject to downward cuts more than necks, however you point about necks recoiling would also be true for arms that are sticking out as you say. If not more as there is more articulation and scope for recoil for arms than for necks unless you hitting high up near the shoulder which also happens to be the thickest part of the arm. As for legs if they are sticking out then they would be subject to being swept aside (I.e there would be no bracing effect). You seem to be arguing two mutually exclusive points here.

Either legs are sticking out (like arms) and subject to downward strikes and not braced, or they are more directly under the body and thus not subject to downward strikes? Basically perpendicular strikes to the arm I can see, much more unlikely to the leg unless you're a chorus girl or actually attacking with that leg.

I guess you could have you leading leg is an extended lunge that would be both perpendicular to downward strikes and braced (taking your weight) but even then such extended lunges are going to be rare as they run pretty much counter to all footwork and balance instruction in combat. I'd argue an extended lunge is at the least a committed attack if not an all out attack (and TBF it would seem to fit more under a all out attack long as per MA).

Remember unless its a perpendicular strike any angle more acute than 90 is going to increase the amount of arm and leg that has to be severed. Something more likely from downward strikes to the leg as by definition they are downward.

More over I think you are over stating the bracing effect of legs when talking the bodies weight (i.e being below the centre of gravity) if it was truly the case that legs will take damage enough to be destroyed before moving away from the point of damage, rugby players legs would break before they fell over more often then they do.

If this was being used to describe a small difference on effect than fine but we're not.

If we go back to my example of the blow severing both legs (12 damage) that is a 100% certainty of doing so (assuming the to hit roll was good enough which is factor of accuracy not strength of blow), if the same blow was applied to the neck (and assuming it takes the first HT roll to be failed to indicate a chance of decapitation*) there's only 50% chance of the neck being severed by this blow. Also unless the person is sitting with his legs out stretched this blow is very unlikely to be a downward strike, but a transverse one.

As I said at the beginning of this thread I'm happy to have neck strikes as rare but I think that's adequately shown by a -5 to hit vs. a -2 to hit limbs. I'd argue it should be harder to hit a neck than a skull just for reasons of restricted angles of attack (as you point out) and target size alone.

If the argument is that all theses factors combine to make damaging the neck more difficult then OK but that doesn't seem to be how other small targets are treated in the system. If necks recoil then so do heads from transverse blows, vitals are hard to target due to size, placement and surrounding tissue etc.

*I'd argue death from later failed HT rolls from such would be from bleeding out, decapitation being an immediate effect.

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Old 04-01-2013, 03:00 AM   #70
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Default Re: Face & Neck location damage multiplier

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Which explains why, in the majority of accounts I could find, the decapitation was delivered by someone mounted on a horse. There was one infantry example: an unconfirmed account of a Gurka decapitating a Turk with his kukhri while fighting in a trench in WWI. The officer who wrote the report saw the head fly out of the trench but didn't see the two men fighting.
Well I'd have thought that's more a factor of being on horse makes it easier to target and sever things in general for all sorts of reasons. I.e I'm guessing that's true for arms are well. The rules of mounted combat (via hight difference) gives bonuses to hit* heads, faces & necks and bonuses to damage as well after all. As well as general negatives to defend against (and bonuses to defend making committed attacks more feasible).

*although these are cancelled out of your moving significantly faster than your target.

There's also the point that cavalry troops have for the last couple of centuries (at least although the following distinctions are less clear cut the further back you go) been A). more highly skilled/elite than most combatants on the field, and B). more likely to to be equipped with a weapon capable of attacking in the way being discussed, and C). more likely to be in combat situations were severing necks is feasible at all.

So yes I can well imagine that most decapitations were inflicted by mounted troops, and that might well be because their blows are better placed to do so, but its also because they were better at it, better equipped to do it and more likely to be in a situation to do it.

If I had to guess most decapitations came from foot troops fleeing and being run down by pursuing sword wielding cavalry? However that's because such a scenario stacks in favour of doing so.

Accordingly I go back to point I made to Kromm, if the decision to make necks so hard to sever RAW (especially when compared to legs and arms) is due to a combination of effects other then just the physical effort involved on cutting through tissue, why then do we have rules for those factors separately as well.

Last edited by Tomsdad; 04-01-2013 at 05:11 AM.
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