STR and Armor, a brief analysis (LONG POST)

[Dauntless]

I'm surprised no one's commented about not taking the combat into context. When I hear stuff like this, it reminds me of when people claim that one martial art style is better than another, or one weapon is better than another. I realize that the post was intended to showcase that under strategy has a lot to do with effectiveness, and I agree. But whenever we create scenarios like these....you have to examine the scenario itself. All good experiments must consider how the environmental variables can impact the outcome.

 

For example, some people think that the sword is the supreme weapon of the combat field. Well, with the samurai, it was their primary weapon because they used it on horseback (which is why it has a slight curve like a sabre) but it was also a good dismounted weapon too. But all other things being equal, a samurai would not want to face a skilled opponent with a spear out in the open. Indeed, if you asked a samurai what the best weapon was, he'd probably give you a wide-eyed stare. Samurai were a practical lot, and if they felt anything could give them an advantage, they learned it. That's why samurai were skilled not just in one or two weapons, but in many. And they even trained for situations in which they weren't armed, or were ambushed (the art of Iaido was started partially in response for the need of a samurai to defend himself while in a sitting posture, and aiki-jiu-jitsu was created as a means for a samurai to defend himself without a weapon or armor against an opponent with a weapon and armor).

 

IFor the Chinese, they felt that the spear was the king of weapons, not the sword. The vikings favored the axe, and many knights preferred maces or other clubbing weapons as opposed to cutting weapons like swords. All weapons and martial art styles were designed with a specific context in mind. You wouldn't want to use Tae Kwon Do in tight narrowly confined spaces. You probably wouldn't want to use judo on rocky broken ground. You don't want to fight an opponent of equal skill with a shorter weapon than his in open terrain, but in a more confined space like dense woods, a short weapon will have the advantage. Etc. etc.

 

When people pick a preference for something, they tend to forget the context of the situation. Take for example sickle cell anemia. Normally this would be a disadvantegous genetic trait....but it confers an immunity to Malaria, which is a good thing. So even the notion "survival of the fittest" has the notion of a specfic context. Look at the jurassic period with the extinction of the dinosaurs....who survived? Mammals that weighed less than about 50lbs. Not the big huge dinosaurs that easily could have ripped them to shreds in a stand up fight.

 

There's no such thing as a better fighter under all circumstances....just a better fighter under certain circumstances. The good fighter must learn to maximize his strengths while capitalizing on his opponents weaknesses. And if the fighter can't do this, sometimes it's the better part of valor to know when to fight another day. But like I said earlier, if every combat the GM makes is a Gladatorial style combat with the environmental conditions always the same....that's pretty boring combat. As Bruce Lee once said, it's not the style that's important, but the artist.