[Low-Tech/Basic] Pick: War Club or Pickaxe

[Blind Mapmaker]

I can see arguments both in favour of and against Cheap (Materials) quality, but I went with Pursuivant in the write-up and only used Cheaply Balanced, which seems certain. Unfortunately real-life quality is quite a bit harder to judge than its GURPS equivalent, but I can certainly see the point about modern big-box hardware store stuff possibly being cheap.

I generally agree on most tools used for combat being treated as cheap like Varyon says, but I'm not sure about the pickaxe. These things are made to strike stone - armour shouldn't be a problem. Would be more of a thing if parries would crop up more often, but with a U parry and a double-dagger that's not going to be much.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

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I could easily see a -3 to hit for an 8 lb. pickaxe/whatever if you're not familiar with it or are trying to use it at Reach 2. Typically, you'd cancel that penalty with AoA (Determined) or a Telegraphic Attack with a full "John Henry" style windup.

A -2 penalty seems a bit more reasonable if you only attack at Range 1 and primarily use a Defensive Grip. As a weapon, a pickaxe is incredibly, unforgivingly tip-heavy and just doesn't move with the same agility as a purpose-built weapon with similar balance. That makes it great for delivering maximum force blows to stationary targets but a real liability if you need to quickly switch from attack to defense or are trying to get through a brief gap in your opponent's defenses.

That's some real interesting stuff here (thanks also to mburr0003 for pointing in a similar direction). What I'm getting is a) Reach 1, 2* is decent and should stay b) there should be some room for a showing that a weapon is "slow". Not sure how to do that without bolting on my house-rules for initiative and this certainly not the thread to do.

Basically there are three options:

1. Give a bonus to defend just like with Telegraphic Attack (thanks mburr0003). Works nicely mechanically, but a little hard to keep in mind. I would add only +1 and you'd still be able to combine it with a Telegraphic attack (for +3 to active defence). Such a trait could also be generalised for some other improvised weapons. You could call it Predictable.
2. Go with a higher skill or to hit penalty. Works well, but skill is a little hard to keep in mind (possibly affecting parry). On the other hand you could buy it off with Exotic Weapon Training. (Just noticed the perk says skill penalty while the tables say to hit penalty. I'm sticking to the perk as it makes more sense).
3. Combine one of the other options with a penalty to parry. Seems reasonable, but fiddly.

I'm tempted to use +1 to defend and a -2 skill penalty (down from the blanket -3 for Action 5, but up from what I used for the write-up above). That feels right for a nice balance between power and cost. You might stick with it for a while if you need to watch starting money, but you wouldn't just keep on using it forever. Does that sound good to you?

Originally Posted by Varyon

It appears I was mistakenly thinking a pickaxe had an axe head, but it actually has an adze head. Something like that is typically going to be a rather poor cutting implement in combat, due to awkward positioning being needed to get it to cut effectively. For simplicity, calling it crushing (but noting it causes bleeding) is probably appropriate, with a note that against a bound and unresisting target - or an inanimate one - it can deal cutting if you position things properly.
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Now for the axe vs. adze head. I thank DanHoward for making us look again since this is really a bit of fuzzy language issue. I'll keep the term pickaxe because it's closest to German (Spitzhacke / Pickel) and a lot of references use it for a pick with an axe-head (probably original meaning) and a lot do so for one with an adze head. Honestly, I am very confused because the translation of pickaxe is always the same, but hey that's languages for you.

I think the axe should probably do the regular purpose-built weapon minus one damage, so we'd be back at sw+3. Should the adze (which is usually not a full-sized one) do the same in crushing? It does not seem very optimised for that, but it does deliver a lot of power in a small cross-section. I like Varyon's suggestion of it causing bleeding and in controlled conditions cutting, but I really don't know about damage and such.

However, looking at properly-sized adze blades, I am tempted to just call it a wash and treat those as axe blades too. Especially with a -2 skill penalty this feels too fine a distinction for GURPS.