Reducing melee weapon weight

[z0boson]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I think it depends heavily on the weight of the weapon. For light weapons, the effect of weapon weight is outdone by the weight the person is putting into the strike (fist loads improve damage by serving as or making the hand into a more efficient striking surface). For heavy weapons, weapon weight does matter, but only up to a point, as eventually you'll hit a weight where your muscles hit their peak and thus cannot impart any more kinetic energy into the strike.

The simplest solution is what Dan has suggested - no effect on thrusting damage. Alternatively, take the weight of the character's arm (~5% character weight; if the character has Striking ST, Arm ST, etc, you may want to use a higher base weight) and add in the weight of the normal weapon. This is the default "striking weight." Now work out the heavier/lighter weapon's "striking weight," divide it by the original, and take the square root of it. If the weapon had a +1 or better damage bonus, this is the multiplier for it; if it's 0 or less, just use that column from LTC2. You may wish to cap out the total weight to represent the muscles hitting their peak; 1.5x weight might be appropriate (so for a 200 lb character, he hits his peak at 15 lb striking weight).
Note you aren't likely to get much of an effect - for a 200 lb character, going from a theoretical weightless weapon with a +3 damage bonus to a 5-lb version of the same (character's maximum) changes that +3 to a +4 (+3.66) - were that bonus instead a +2, there would be no change (+2.44). For simplicity, I'd say stick with Dan's advice.

As for swing damage, that's a horse of a different color. In that case, weapon weight is striking weight, so multiply by the square root of the weight multiplier (or use the chart from LTC2). A thrusting broadsword (sw+1 cut, thr+2 imp) made of orichalcum (1/3 weight) would have its swing damage multiplied by the square root of 1/3, or .58, which results in no change (+1*.58=+.58, which rounds up to +1). Wielded by a 200 lb character, it goes from a striking weight of 13 lb to a striking weight of 11 lb, for a .85 multiplier; the square root of this is .92, so no change there either (+2*.92=+1.8, which rounds up to +2).
MinST for the weapon is 5 (less than 2 lb means 6, but blades typically have a slightly lower MinST, and this is right at the breakpoint between 5 and 6). Its breakage properties depend on how the GM envisions orichalcum - it should probably use its original (3 lb) weight, at a minimum.

Thank you for the advice - this is indeed a good formula to get an idea of the order of magnitude of the effect. This means that light weapons don't suffer much from a further reduction in weight, while heavier (swing) weapons are better left to their original weight. I guess that makes sense because this is the reason they were designed with more mass in the first place. I would also imagine that swing weapons with the center of mass close to the striking point (like hammers) are more affected than weapons with the CoM closer to the wielders hand (like swords). But this effect is probably already taken into account by their higher swing damage modifier.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I think it depends heavily on the weight of the weapon.

The basic problem is that the total force that can be applied is limited by your grip strength, unless the weapon is structured so that you hand physically cannot slip forward (which runs a risk of injury if you hit something hard) -- you can only transfer your arm kinetic energy if your grip doesn't slip, and you can only transfer your body kinetic energy if your arm doesn't yield.

Typical armor requires 30-150J to penetrate to a depth of 10mm or less, meaning the force required is 3,000-15,000N. That is far more than human grip strength or arm strength. Flesh is much much less resilient, and grip/arm strength is reasonably likely to be sufficient.

[fifiste]

Katar style grips etc. are probably specifically a design to counter this?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The basic problem is that the total force that can be applied is limited by your grip strength, unless the weapon is structured so that you hand physically cannot slip forward (which runs a risk of injury if you hit something hard) -- you can only transfer your arm kinetic energy if your grip doesn't slip, and you can only transfer your body kinetic energy if your arm doesn't yield.

Typical armor requires 30-150J to penetrate to a depth of 10mm or less, meaning the force required is 3,000-15,000N. That is far more than human grip strength or arm strength. Flesh is much much less resilient, and grip/arm strength is reasonably likely to be sufficient.

In GURPS, reduced grip strength is a hit penalty, rather than a damage penalty. While the latter is realistic, it would be more difficult to make into a gameable approximation. I think my guidelines are probably close enough.

As for armor penetration, that's more an issue with ST-based damage in GURPS than anything else, and is another thread (or rather threads) entirely.