From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #84 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Friday, 29 September 1995 Volume 02 : Number 084 TABLE OF CONTENTS "Aden Steinke" Date: 29 Sep 1995 15:20:09 +1000 Subject: RE: Chopping and Poking Hi All It's good to see the topic of poking vs slashing is still going - martin <102541.3423@compuserve.com> quite reasonably observes >{snip}Similar fights with a cutting weapon allow more, but less leathal action. > >I would think in RQ that slashing weapons should do less damage than thrusting >weapons because the combat round is an abstract (in 10 seconds multiple thrusts >and parries are likely, not one). The thrust when, it happens, should be very >nasty indeed, as my friend can attest. Having seen several knife fights and >having trained in Escrima, cuts are definately unpleasant but are ultimately >less damaging. Therefore, I like the Impale/slash rules. But there is a difference between a one and a two handed weapon slashing, the two handed weapon, like the foil, requires more comitment to the attack, as once in motion it is very difficult to reverse direction and protect yourself if it goes wrong. SPerrin@aol.com noted >2. Don't assume that a Japanese officer's sword in WWII had anything like the >quality (or was used by anyone with anything like the proficiency) of the >samurai blade. Aside from some ancestral blades that were refitted to act as >officer's swords, and a few kendo hobbyists among the officer corps, Japanese >officers had the basic military potmetal ceremonial blades and no particular >training in using them. It's very easy to botch a decapitation. True, the gunto blade may be from railway stock with welded steel fittings at the bottom end, or hich chromium steel as in the naval swords.... or may be made in the traditional manner (more rarely, though the katana I purchased for iaido is from @1941 and still traditional). Definitely it is true that without practice even cutting bamboo can be botched, and the level of skill of the WW2 Japanese offficer was not the same as a samaurai from the age of the warlords. > That said, I don't believe in blades that cut seven opponents at a time, >either. Not seven opponents, seven torsos :) blades were test cut on bodies, the habit of going out and testing your new blade on a passing peasant normally only allows you to chop up one. But yes Stian, the maximum damage of a quality katana vs unarmoured flesh that is below shoulder height and not moving should be 84 (including strength bonus of the tester). More seriously folks, there is no way the same amount of mechanical advantage can be delivered in a lunge with a sword (as opposed to running at someone) - so why does an impale do so much more damage? Frederic Moulin makes the point that >Now don't you forget that the only weapons of the dark ages that made his >way into the modern armies arsenal are the dagger, and the spear (in the >form of the bayonet at the end of a gun). This is, IMHO, a tribut to the >efficiency of impaling weapons. But they also use sharpened shovels (Nth Koreans especially) for slashing, and the issued knife (bayonet) is usually an edged blade (albeit issued blunt), spike bayonets are a relative rarity. Aden ------------------------------ From: Malcolm Cohen Date: Fri, 29 Sep 95 9:38:11 MET DST Subject: RE: Chopping and Poking Aden claimed: > More seriously folks, there is no way the same amount of mechanical advantage > can be delivered in a lunge with a sword (as opposed to running at someone) - I suggest you reconsider your mechanics. In a lunge, the weight of the body is behind the blow. This is not possible when swinging, where all you can get on your side is angular momentum (and the "mechanical advantage" is against you). And also: > the issued knife (bayonet) is usually an edged blade (albeit issued blunt), > spike bayonets are a relative rarity. Presumably for the same reason that spear heads were blades (and that we have dum-dum bullets); to do more damage after penetration. For low velocity impaling weapons, it seems a reasonable idea to have edges so that your weapon is not just a spike, it makes a bigger wound (and sharpish edges make the bigger wound more efficiently) without losing much of the penetrating power of the spike. - -- ...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K. (malcolm@nag.co.uk) ------------------------------ From: Frederic Moulin Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 11:07:07 -0400 Subject: RE: Chopping and Poking >But they also use sharpened shovels (Nth Koreans especially) for slashing, and >the issued knife (bayonet) is usually an edged blade (albeit issued blunt), >spike bayonets are a relative rarity. The russian partisans used axes during second word war, and found that a blow on somebody's head was working very well too. It is true that most modern bayonet have cutting blades, specially in the western armies, but it is mostly to allow them to be used as tools (to eat, cut ropes...) and not to enhance their fighting ability. Most of the fighting knives are really dagger: double edges straight narrow blades, sometime with a place for the user to put his thumb on the blade, allowing more strenght to be put in the thrust with the blade parallel to the ground, so that it passes right between the ribs to the heart. And please do not forget that the AK-47 and its chinese counterpart use "nail" bayonets: A long narrow triangular spike, very close to the old italian rapier blade. And if I remember well, they are still the most widely used assault rifle today. Fred. ------------------------------ From: martin <102541.3423@compuserve.com> Date: 29 Sep 95 14:14:38 EDT Subject: Stabbing/slashing Good point about the two handed slashing weapon, they should do a lot of damage. I always thought it was odd that a spear should do massive amounts more damage simply becasue its mounted on a longer pole. The head is the same and if anything the weight would slow down the thrust. The main purpose of the pike is as a defensive weapon not an offensive one. Therefore, I play that pikes do 2hspear damage, their advantage is in reach, not power. I find it unfair to think that a Greataxe should do the same as a pike, all that weight of moving metal should be very nasty. At the same time, slashing weapons in my game use the melee table, while impaling weapons use the missile table for location. So, though slashing weapons do lots more damage on normal hits, they tend to hit limbs rather than the immediately fatal locations. Adens point about heavy weapons being difficult to stop once committed is good. Did anyone see Rob Roy. The fellow with the rapier was slicing up the big chap with the Claymore, he was getting in several cuts and small stabs to the one big hack of the claymore weilder. Its a pity that couldn't be better simulated in the combat round. Martin ------------------------------ From: Sandy Petersen Date: Fri, 29 Sep 95 17:08:33 -0500 Subject: Re: impales vs. slashes >If RQ is right, why do swords have edges in the first place? Because a good strong cut is effective, too. The problem is that modern fencers, when they use their so-called sabers, use a blade nearly as light as the epee and just flick the blade across one another's body. Note the scimitars used in the near east for centuries -- they are very carefully designed so that the curve of the blade exactly follows the sweep of a man's arm as he moves it through an arc. Thus, a scimitar blade would normally cut very deep indeed, without any need for special manipulations of one's arm. If your opponent is wearing armor, a thrusting blade loses a heck of a lot of its effect. It's much harder to get a good strong thrust going than a heavy-handed hacking blow. This is why there were very few thrusting blades during the middle ages. Only the estoc that I can think of offhand, and it was intended to be braced against your shoulder, which has GOT to limit your combat ability with the thing. Another problem with armor is that a thrusting blade tends to get caught on the armor and is hard to pull back out. This is also true of flesh to a lesser extent but, for instance, in the American Civil War it was remarked on that if you stuck an enemy soldier in the belly with your bayonet it was impossible to withdraw the weapon (because his abdominal muscles would clamp down on it), and you invariably lost your rifle. Also note that in the American Civil War, a complex fencing technique was taught using the bayonet. HOWEVER, when soldiers actually came together in hand-to-hand combat, they almost invariably clubbed their muskets and swung them. This actually proved more effective than bayonets. For one thing, when someone's swinging a 12-pound 4-foot staff of iron and hardwood at you, there's really no way to parry. You just have to hope he'll miss (which he won't). The one exception to this preference for clubs over bayonets was recorded at the battle of Spotsylvania, in which soldiers, crazed with bloodlust, clambered atop a bulwark separating the two forces and would fire their muskets down into the seething mass of enemy, then throw the musket as a spear (after which another musket was handed up to him and so forth until the fellow was speared off the bulwark or shot down, which didn't usually take long). If your opponent is carrying a shield, the thrusting blade is seriously impaired, too. I've watched plenty of SCA combats (Steve many many more of course), and I note that these guys generally slash with their blades rather than thrusting. I don't think it's because they're a pack of idiots. That said, I think the ideal situation for thrusting vs. slashing weapons is for thrusting weapons to normally cause less damage, but upon a "good" hit (presumably missing bones and sliding in deep, or finding a weapon spot in the armor) to do significantly more. This gives players a cool choice -- should I use a thrusting weapon on the basis that occasionally I'll deliver a crippling blow, or should I go for the slashing weapon? Choices like this are fun. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #84 ****************************** This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists. WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html