Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

This thread might be what you're thinking of; I'm going through it now. The trick was to search with them as just one word.

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

One of these days I'm going to have to mention to Casper how often I see that video of his posted on forums. Nice guy, fun to train with. Too bad he lives a couple hours north of me so I don't get to talk with him as often as I'd like.

After I get up I'll have to dig through my storage bins. They should have the URLs on the printouts. Unfortunately, a good chunk of them will be in the members only section of the ARMA website.

Actually, this is not true. In order for this to happen you have to purposely stop the motion of the blade, then pull while applying pressure. A normal swing will have just as flat of an impact with a curved blade as with a straight blade.

Here is one of the articles in question that goes into the mathmatics of sword impacts. Sword Impacts and Motions

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

You're maybe thinking of something like this one or this one?

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

http://www.thearma.org/spotlight/GTA...d_impacts3.htm

Specifically addresses draw cuts and curved blades. Great find, Sjard!

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

For what it's worth, Miyamoto Mushashi says that slicing and hacking are inferior to cutting. But he's also not a fan of thrusting either. People who underestimate the effectiveness that a straight edged sword has at cutting through flesh should watch test cutting done with swords. If you can, you should test cut.

I don't think the curved sword is much better than the straight sword, unless the curvature is on the inside of the blade, in a fashion similar to the falx, Kopi or similar weapons.

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

Agreed. The type of damage against flesh is slightly different but the end result is the same. There is definitely no difference between the damage delivered by a straight blade and a curved blade. both are equally capable of both cutting and hacking. FWIW it doesn't matter what sort of sword you have or the type of cut you deliver you have little chance of cutting through any kind of armour - even padded cloth. Low Tech has introduced an Edge Protection rule to reflect this.

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

just an ignorant gaijin here, (who doesn't have English as his mother tongue). What do you mean by cutting here? I mean, let's see if I've got it: Slicing is dragging the edge over the target, while chopping is making the edge impact the target. It doens't seem to leave any otion for "cutting"...

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

In light of the excellent article linked by sjard, I'm going to mark my system with a Cinematic stamp. It's up to GMs if slicing is automatic for curved swords, or if both curved and straight swords are by default hacking and can be used with the Slice Technique.

As an aside, part 2 of that article includes a justification for the improved swing damage Weapon Masters enjoy. As is noted, the point at which an impact does the maximum amount of damage can be calculated (based on, amongst other things, the target's mass). Weapon Masters are simply able to accurately estimate this point from just seeing their opponent, and with sufficient skill (DX+1 or DX+2) can strike very close to it.

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

Curious. Will Edge Protection apply to axes and halberds as well as swords? Intuitively, I would guess that axes would punch through armor better than swords, and the basic rules reflect that somewhat, since axes do slightly better damage than swords.

Re: Slicing vs Hacking
 

Gatting hit with a fancy European sword, or getting hit with a fancy Arabic sword, or getting hit with a fancy japanese sword; it all ultimately boils down to math:

Acceleration modified by how long the blade is
mass of the blade itself, modified by where that weight is
how sharp the blade is for it's ability to focus that force to a small area. Modified by the first two factors

Mathematically there will be essentially no difference between straight vs curved, but huge differences in the rest of those factors.

As for drawing a cut, since it does not increase the total energy the damage should stay the same, but the SEVERITY of that damage may change- having a 1cm deep cut across 10cm of your body may be much more lethal then having a 10cm deep cut over 1cm of your body, however that assumes uniform resistance over the body, a 1cm deep potential cut across the ribs or forehead may just be a minor annoyance and lurid scar, whereas a 10cm potential cut to those places may be instant death. On the plus side a drawn blow may be more difficult to parry or dodge because it is covering a much larger area. I believe I would allow this technique to be used by any balanced cutting weapon wielder:

Draw cut Hard technique; default -5
User MUST target the vitals (add the regular penalty for targeting vitals to the difficulty of this roll), if successful the target parry/dodges at -2, and the final damage modifier is considered (.5)impaling rather then cutting.

Since the damage is applied to the vitals either way that is the difference between a *3 damage multiplier (*2 for vitals, *1.5 for cutting) and a *4 multiplier (*2 for vitals *2 for impaling) on damage, which would make this an effective weapon for either instantly dispatching unarmored foes, or for whittling down very healthy unarmored foes.