Staffs, polearms, endcaps and butt spikes

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Flowergarden

Problem I have here is Staffs are TL0, but for some reason have metal endcaps. Okay, maybe it's a legacy issue.

And there, you are definitely over-thinking.

At some point, somebody typed in a description of the staff which said it had endcaps. Does this mean that no staff in history, anywhere, ever lacked endcaps? Of course not. That would be nonsense on stilts. Honestly, I don't know why the original writer typed that, when I suspect that a frame-by-frame check on a selection of martial arts movies would show that most staves aren't depicted with endcaps, but it was probably a way of saying "Staves are manufactured as weapons, they aren't just random sticks, so anyone who asks why they cost money when anyone can pick up a stick in any forest should SHUT UP AND GO AWAY".

Of course, they missed the fact that it technically created a contradiction with the GURPS tech level system; games writers are not frickin' logical machines, and we do miss stuff sometimes. They'd probably have deleted the bit about end caps if this had been pointed out, but at heart, they'd likely have been thinking "This is pedantry and anyone who gets this pedantic about exact wording in these rules should SHUT UP AND GO AWAY".

Sigh.

The formally correct solution here is to delete the bit about metal caps and replace it with three or four paragraphs of discussion of carefully selected materials, wood quality, well-finished staves having ends shaped for optimum striking effect, and most of this stuff being below the resolution of the rules system (along with single vs. double-edged sword blades, hilt design evolution, and a thousand other things you'll find discussed at great lengths by hoplologists).