Damage types (blunt/sharp/pointy)

[mhd]

Some games distinguish between damage types, and I was wondering whether that's worth it for more realistic (heroic) HERO campaigns. In a simply and non-intrusive way.

Right now we've just go normal and lethal damage, with a hazy distinction (clubs vs. maces vs. hammers).

 

One idea: Make cutting damage use standard effect whereas piercing uses dice. That makes some armor impervious (no swingy high damage results), which ain't too unrealistic.

 

[薔薇語]

To me, if you were going to introduce such a dynamic into your games, you should do it with either defensive power limitations (does not work vs 'stabby' attacks, -1/2) or with vulnerabilities (plus 50 percent damage from 'smashy' attacks). The latter being a rather in-elegant way of solving the issue but might work for creatures who have unusual weaknesses; like how lycans are weak to silver, maybe a Glass Golem is just more vulnerable to Smashy than Slicy and Stabby attacks.  

 

Soar. 

[mhd]

To me, if you were going to introduce such a dynamic into your games, you should do it with either defensive power limitations

That simulates specific (and often nonsensical) vulnerabilities, I'm thinking more about a basic damage type distinction in a fantasy/medieval context. Can't cut through armor, but it works very nicely on flesh. And further distinguishing weapons doesn't really hurt.

[Lucius]

That simulates specific (and often nonsensical) vulnerabilities, I'm thinking more about a basic damage type distinction in a fantasy/medieval context. Can't cut through armor, but it works very nicely on flesh. And further distinguishing weapons doesn't really hurt.

 

You might try defining armor as Damage Negation.

 

I am sympathetic to the idea of distinguishing weapons, but keep in mind Alexander's First Law of Weapon Tables.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders if weapons tables come with weapons chairs

[mhd]

You might try defining armor as Damage Negation.

 

Some of the GURPS guys are doing something similar, to reduce swinginess. Although it does seem much more fun to throw more dice and then subtract from that than do the subtraction beforehand and end up with a 1/2 d6 damage roll. And that still wouldn't do damage types, unless we're talking about different DN for each type. (Or armor having rPD in general and DN/cutting)

 

A lot of the games that have different damage types also have different armor protection vs. each type, although that would be further changes that would factor in the "is it worth it" calculation. With cutting having standard effect, the "armor piercing" property of cutting/bashing would be simulated by the possibility of rolling high enough to bypass. Of course, standard effect is slightly below the average, which might be a factor for some players.

 

I am sympathetic to the idea of distinguishing weapons, but keep in mind Alexander's First Law of Weapon Tables.

Yeah, but in this case there'd be no separate damage types or anything, and if one trusts in common sense at least a bit, there's not even a need to write down what damage types a weapon has (and thus no change at all to the tables).

 

And there'd still be the question of bashing damage and its advantages. I could do N damage rolls, with only rPD counting vis-a-vis BODY. I might need to crunch some numbers.

That might appeal to different players: You want to roll plenty of dice: Pick up a bludgeon. You don't want to roll low: Cut. You're up for some chance to achieve the highest damage possible at times: Stab.

[Armitage]

There's an optional rule in Fantasy Hero and the Hero System Equipment Guide.

 

Bashing weapons gain +1 Stun Multiplier if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll.  Leather and plate armors provide half protection.

Slashing weapons gain +1 DC against targets with no Resistant PD if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll.  Leather armors provide half protection.

Piercing  weapons become Armor Piercing if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll.  Chain armors provide half protection.

[NuSoardGraphite]

For the weapons, you just need to define the SFX. List each weapon as Cutting, piercing or bashing (or perhaps multiple sfx). The define the armor as having more or less protection vs certain sfx.

 

I am thinking about detailing armor more than what has been put forth in the core book and Fantasy Hero. Mainly, adding Normal defense as padding, to mitigate the extremely high amounts of Stun damage killing weapons can cause (I use hit locations and x3 is very common and x4 uncommon but seen at least once or twice per game session) and possibly adding 1 or 2 levels of Damage Negation to simulate heavier armor types practically unbreachable defenses (no more than 2 levels for masterwork heavy plate armor. Maybe 3 level at maximum if the armor is magical)

 

So adding sfx oriented adjustments is no big deal. Maybe cloth and leather based armors have 1/2 defense vs cutting damage (a sharp blade just sclices through) or certain types of banded mail have 1/2 defense vs piercing weapons.

 

But in general, I dont think this is necessary. This functionality is often built into the weapon. On my own weapons charts, Maces are given +1 stun multiplier, hammers are given Penetrating, picks are given AP, Axes are given +1 DC (sheer damage) and swords are given +1 OCV (versatility) and this works quite well.

 

If you have all piercing weapons drop mail armor by 1/2, then this intrudes upon the special ability of the Pick, which is already AP. Any yahoo with a sword can then start thrusting and gain the same benefit. I would prefer the weapon types stay very distinct from one another. Thus that guy in the masterwork plate with resistant defense of 10 is practically invulnerable to sword and Axe, but the guy with the hammer and the guy with the pick gets to shine this time.

[Ninja-Bear]

Look how undead are built for 5th. They have a base defense and then additional defense based on what attacks are less kikely to damage it

I think skeleton has +2 additional armor vs. Pointy weapons for example.

[Ninja-Bear]

Actually wouldn't this be a good use of real weapon (armor) limitation? You could just define an armor with x levels and depending on weapon you could have it reduce its effectivness automatically.

[Mister E]

If all Physical attacks are 1 of 3 SFX (blunt/sharp/pointy) then a (-2) modifier for Physical defenses that only work against 1 particular SFX seems right to me.

[mhd]

Bashing weapons gain +1 Stun Multiplier if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll.  Leather and plate armors provide half protection.

Slashing weapons gain +1 DC against targets with no Resistant PD if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll.  Leather armors provide half protection.

Piercing  weapons become Armor Piercing if the attacker succeeds with a STR (or DEX) Roll.  Chain armors provide half protection.

Sometimes HERO really has a penchant for a needless amount of rolls. Never mind that the armor part of that never mad sense to me.

(I actually do something similar already with my critical hit house rule, though.)

 

As for the others, modifying every armor out there seems like it's definitely way over the simplicity threshold. Never mind that if doing so, one could simple average out the PD stats instead of buying extra limited levels.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I've found that varying the normal PD and resistant PD between armors (and ED) does a pretty good job of simulating different protection levels.  Also giving armor piercing to pokey weapons (picks, for example) helps simulate their ability to penetrate armor.  There are little things you can do with weapon design as well, such as:

• swords get +1 OCV (large attack area, easier to use)
• axes get +1 DC (leverage, hits hard)
• piercing weapons get armor piercing
• hammers, etc get +1 stun multiple
• maces etc get penetrating damage

The result is that weapons feel different without a lot of complication.

 

I do suggest trying out this though: give armor a 15- coverage, and if the roll is missed, then they only provide half protection.  This represents joints, gaps, and weaknesses in the armor.  Particularly well-made or enchanted armor will not have this problem.  This spot can be aimed at with a -5 OCV targeting attack.

[Tasha]

Some games distinguish between damage types, and I was wondering whether that's worth it for more realistic (heroic) HERO campaigns. In a simply and non-intrusive way.

Right now we've just go normal and lethal damage, with a hazy distinction (clubs vs. maces vs. hammers).

 

One idea: Make cutting damage use standard effect whereas piercing uses dice. That makes some armor impervious (no swingy high damage results), which ain't too unrealistic.

That classification is built into the weapons.

Blunt Weapons are either Normal Attacks or are Killing attacks with +1 Stun Multiple.

Slashing Weapons are what is assumed for most melee weapons (ie Swords and Axes) and do straight Killing Damage.

Piercing attacks are either Straight Killing Attacks or do Armor Piercing Damage. (Depends on the weapon and Genre).

 

This is one of those things that are baked into the Weapons Charts and don't require extra Mechanics. It's one of the strengths of the point based system.

 

for Critters that take extra damage or less defense vs certain weapon types those things are part of the creature's makeup (ie Skeletons might have 50% resistant Damage Reduction (ex vs Bludgeoning Weapons like Maces, Quarterstaves etc). Jellies might have the same vs Slashing and Piercing weapons.

[Markdoc]

That classification is built into the weapons.

Blunt Weapons are either Normal Attacks or are Killing attacks with +1 Stun Multiple.

Slashing Weapons are what is assumed for most melee weapons (ie Swords and Axes) and do straight Killing Damage.

Piercing attacks are either Straight Killing Attacks or do Armor Piercing Damage. (Depends on the weapon and Genre).

 

I think most people posting to this thread already know this (Christopher made sort-of the same point in the post above) but the OP (and plenty of other people over time) are looking for something both more detailed and more realistic in the way that weapons interact with armour.

 

For example, spears are excellent weapons for killing people in Chain mail or leather armour, but relatively ineffective against plate. The 2-3 points difference in rDEF doesn't simulate that very well. Conversely, the +1 STUN mult for maces sounds perfectly reasonable ... until you realise that makes them worse for inflicting injuries on armoured enemies than weapons of similar AP and size (a sword, for example) ... which as far as we can tell, is pretty much the opposite of the way they were used in real life. There are a lot of examples like this once you start to look at the mechanics.

 

So I agree we have the tools to simulate weapon or armour types if we want. But I guess the OP's question could be rephrased as "Do we have any ideas on how to do that which is not gratuitously annoying?"

 

I'll admit upfront that right now, I do not, and I have played around with a lot of ideas, including some which are well off into new territory. We can simulate weapons better than we do now - but in most cases, only at the cost of significant added complexity, and frankly, I don't think that's worth the trouble. Usually in a game, we are only interested in the rough outcomes of combat, not the details of specific wounds.

 

cheers, Mark

[Tasha]

Some of the problems with Heroic Weapons come from there being an amazing lack of granularity at the heroic level. 2-6 Damage Classes doesn't give a lot of material to emulate the many weapons of the world. This is magnified by the Killing attack being only 2d6 at this level. Which lead to the whole +1, 1/2d6, full D6 slicing of the attack power.

 

Two things could fix this. One would be to open up Heroic play to more dice of damage (and Ignore Compatability with Supers games). This has issues all by itself.

 

The other would be to change killing attacks to be 1dc ~=1d6 like Normal attacks. The choice would be to count body the way normal attacks do or to count pips of damage and have a new deadly damage stat that was similar to Stun, but only for deadly attacks.

 

IMHO Killing attacks weren't really fixed in 6e, only patched with some ugly mechanics. The real fix would have put the "don't change anything folk" into a tizzy.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Some of the problems with Heroic Weapons come from there being an amazing lack of granularity at the heroic level. 2-6 Damage Classes doesn't give a lot of material to emulate the many weapons of the world.

 

 

I play mostly heroic Hero and this is exactly right, its tough to feel any real range of weapon variability if you have at most 5 ranks to work from.  But increasing that range breaks ... just about everything else, so its not a solution at all.Some of the problems with Heroic Weapons come from there being an amazing lack of granularity at the heroic level. 2-6 Damage Classes doesn't give a lot of material to emulate the many weapons of the world.

 

I'm solidly in the "don't fix what ain't broken, Hero is a great system that doesn't need monkeying with" camp, but the KA dice system has always been twitchy.  Just treating KA as a normal attack with slightly different resolution and defenses would fix a lot of that.  The d3 instead of d6-1 stun multiple didn't really work, despite being less widly swinging. 

[mhd]

That classification is built into the weapons.

Blunt Weapons are either Normal Attacks or are Killing attacks with +1 Stun Multiple.

Slashing Weapons are what is assumed for most melee weapons (ie Swords and Axes) and do straight Killing Damage.

Piercing attacks are either Straight Killing Attacks or do Armor Piercing Damage. (Depends on the weapon and Genre).

So no difference for the latter two categories and everything goes for the former (blunt weapons can be N, -KA with +STUNx or just regular KA). I wouldn't really call that "built-in".

 

Don't get me wrong, my preference for not changing the whole system wholesale is definitely bigger than a desire to shoe-horn this into HERO at any price. But I'm always up for some tinkering and maybe someone had a great idea already -- weirder things have happened. I'm not up for revamping multiple power costs and all that would result from tinkering with some base assumptions, I'm having more than enough trouble with stat boosts vs. skill adders vs. skill costs after expanding the skill system's range. And at least that's not that directly tied to matters of PC survival.

 

My initial spitball with the standard effect has the usual disadvantage that probabilities don't matter in role-playing: If someone rolls in one case and the other doesn't, BOTH will complain about being treated unfairly.

[Markdoc]

I think we are all pretty close to being on the same page here.

 

As far as my preferences go, despite playing mostly Heroic level games, I don't want to break the linearity of the system by making heroic and superheroic incompatible.

 

And as fas as changing things goes, I'm firmly in the "Don't change things for the sake of changing things" camp, but agree that normal attacks, killing attacks, HA and STR formed an ugly knot that should (and could) have been untied in the last revision. The fact that they weren't, is obvious in the rules kludges we have now.

 

One option that I have discussed before and just note here is to eliminate killing attacks as a seperate power, and simply treat killing as AVAD.

If I was going to do that, I'd also clean up AVAD by leaving the basic progression as it is, but taking out the requirement that AVAD attacks do no BOD and instead just requiring AVAD to be puchased for BOD and STUN seperately.

 

That simplifies the damage system, and fixes some of incompatible maths we have now (for example, compare the current price of mental blast, does BOD, with an ordinary EB that works against mental defence and does BOD). It also clears up the whole "adding STR to HKA" debate, since killing now uses the same mechanic as STR and can simply be prorated. But importantly for this discussion, this change offers the ability to do a great deal of finetuning.

 

Under this approach, killing is simply a +1/2 advantage that can be applied to HA so that BOD rolled only goes up against resistant DEF, while STUN goes against full DEF. I don't see this as unbalancing, since you can already create more lethal builds using the current rules - mental blasts that do BOD, penetrating KA, etc., and they don't seem to be problematic.

 

But using this approach you can now tweak weaponry a deal more. For a start, just keeping things in the same range as before, we have 1-6 DC to work with though I think we could actually open that up a bit since damage will be less "spiky". But now you can make a weapon that does killing BOD damage, killing STUN damage or both. You can combine it with other advantages like AP and reduced penetration. And, of course, since killing is no longer its own mechanic, we can drop or tweak STR Min, which was a mechanism originally added to stop the damage of muscle-powered weapons escalating out of control compared to defences. In its current form, it has always led to debate. After all, STR 5 can lift 50 kg, while a greatsword weighs at most 4 kg. That - combined with the other changes - gives you a wider range of options than we have now, without greatly increasing lethality.

 

The downside is that you would need to rework all of the weapons tables, but honestly, that's the work of a couple of evenings. You might also want to rework the armour tables, so that flexible armours like mail or leather provided a mix of rPD and PD, making them less effective against weapons that did killing STUN than inflexible armours.

 

Just off the top of my head, (since I've done the math, but not contructed any weapons tables) you could for example, build slashing weapons using a DC or two more, but making them reduced penetration - ideal for killing unarmoured targets, but not heavily armoured knights, while piercing weapons gain AP and impact weapons do killing STUN. You can mix and match, so something like a Bec de corbin does AP killing BOD and STUN. That makes it an ideal knight-killing weapon, but not as good as a sword against lightly armoured opponents ... which reflects its use in real life. Etc, etc.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Christopher R Taylor]

That's an interesting and I think useful approach.  And, of course, it can be done right now, with the rules as written.  It would take a bit of notation to work up in a weapon table, but I am very strongly leaning toward this approach.

[massey]

I think that expecting a game to accurately simulate real combat with real weapons is setting yourself up for disappointment.  The more I've learned about weapons and armor, the more I've learned that the D&D-style understanding I had before was way off.  It's not just slashing vs piercing vs blunt, it's far more complex than that.  I'm far from the world's biggest expert on this stuff, but I've learned that a lot of my earlier assumptions were off.

 

At the beginning of the year I started a new job where I got paid a lot more, and so I was able to splurge a bit and satisfy an old itch.  So I got into katanas.  I'd always wanted one, and not just a $50 thing you buy at the mall.  So, in preparation to buy some thousand dollar sword, I did as much research as I could.  And then I bought a bunch of different swords.  So for a katana, the type of steel used and the geometry of the blade matter quite a bit.  The "niku" of the blade (the "meat" or thickness of it) determines how it cuts.  A blade with a lot of niku will have a thicker cross-section.  It will be heavier and more durable, but it won't be as sharp.  A blade with very little niku will be very thin, and more likely to bend or break if it hits something hard.  But it will cut like a razor against a soft target.  They make competition katanas today (http://www.martialartswords.com/collections/japanese-swords/products/flame-katana) that are thinner than anything a historical samurai would have used, out of very hard steel (so they keep a very very sharp edge), because the only thing they are supposed to cut are the straw mats they use in cutting tournaments.  You're never going to hit someone wearing armor with one of these.  On the other hand, you can buy something made of a softer steel (so it absorbs shock better and is easier to sharpen) with lots of niku so it's thicker than a traditional sword (http://www.coldsteel.com/Product/88BKW/Warrior_Series_Katana.aspx).  It might handle like a sharpened crowbar, but if you're a fat guy and you just want to go hack stuff up in your backyard with your kickass sword, they're waaayyy more durable than anything historical that you could have gotten.  Historical blades were a compromise based upon the type of combat they were expected to face.

 

Anyway, long story short, there's a lot of variety in just one particular type of sword.  How a katana works against any particular type of armor is going to depend on the shape of the blade.  I wouldn't want to rely on a katana to fight a guy in plate, but especially not one of those competition swords.  Too thin.  But there's a video on that coldsteel link that shows a guy shoving their sword through the hood of a car.  It will be harder to get the right angle to do that against a guy wearing armor, but I have no doubt it could go through if you hit him right.

 

There are too many variables to simplify it down to an easy to use game system.  Including polearms, axes, maces, morningstars, flails, spears, etc, will make it even harder.  Do you want to have a discussion with each player about the exact dimensions of each of his weapons?  Probably not.  You're really getting into an issue where there is real life disagreement about how effective certain weapons were versus certain types of armor, and then trying to replicate one of those positions with game mechanics.  The more work you do to make it "accurate", the more complexities you'll realize you need.  And that's before you get into the fantasy aspect of it at all.

[mhd]

Anyone wants to chime in with some longbow anecdotes? Now seems like the right time

 

But yeah, Markdoc's method seems like a pretty great way, as it actually manages to remove from the game instead of adding spurious new rules & approaches. I knew about that before, but didn't think of it in this particular context. With all the damage working the same way, you can concentrate on modifiers to model different weapons and techniques (whether aiming for more realism or simply gaming variety).

 

On average you'll get more STUN with N damage rolls, so adding some non-resistant PD to armor seems like a good idea to compensate for that. And without killing rolls, even Reduced Penetration looks better as you should be able to simply double the rPD instead of dividing the roll into two.

 

I think I might actually present that to my players in one of the next sessions.

[Markdoc]

I think that expecting a game to accurately simulate real combat with real weapons is setting yourself up for disappointment. The more I've learned about weapons and armor, the more I've learned that the D&D-style understanding I had before was way off. It's not just slashing vs piercing vs blunt, it's far more complex than that. I'm far from the world's biggest expert on this stuff, but I've learned that a lot of my earlier assumptions were off.

I haven't quoted the rest of your post, because I basically agree 100% with what you have posted. But what I'm aiming for is not to simulate medieval combat with high accuracy. For a start we know very little about medieval combat anyway, so "high accuracy" is going to be pretty subjective.

 

What I'd like is a simple system to differentiate weapons so that players have a choice that fits their particular desires, but at the same time does not produce results that flatly contradict what we *do* know about medieval combat. To just take a particularly egregious example, in the current rules, a longbow can do the same damage as a modern assault rifle, and a longbowman can very easily take down a man at arms in full plate harness. In real life, of course, the longbow proved ineffective against fully armoured men at arms and so faded from the battlefield. I think part of the reason this happened is because the original rules writers wanted to differentiate bows (which is fair enough), but the only real tool they had at their disposal (given the way weapons were built) was raw DC.

 

So I guess what I am looking for is something that's reasonably simple to use, gives some flavour, and doesn't make a person with moderate knowledge of arms and armour go "WTF?" Our current system actually does the first 2 pretty well, but doesn't do the last very well, so in the spirit of Hero system tinkering, I'd like to see if I can do better.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Tasha]

Wasn't the reason that Longbows faded from the battle field was more about how long it took to train a competent Longbowman vs the time it took to train someone with a crossbow or even a firearm?

[Markdoc]

Wasn't the reason that Longbows faded from the battle field was more about how long it took to train a competent Longbowman vs the time it took to train someone with a crossbow or even a firearm?

 

No.

While it is true that it takes longer to train a good longbowman than a crossbowman, it also takes longer (much longer) to train good pikemen than spearmen or swordsmen, and Europe was producing pikemen like crazy at the same time as the longbow was fading into irrelevance. And at that point, guns were a new, expensive introduction, restricted to professional military, so were both rare and expensive.

 

In England, the longbow was still used in huge numbers during the Wars of the Roses, but the longbow was soon shifted to a support role, because even longbowmen massed in their thousands could not stand up to the armoured men at arms, who would just charge on foot right through the storm of arrows. It wasn't that the longbowmen of the era were any worse - on the peripheral battlefields of the Wars of the Roses, like Ireland or Scotland, where armour was usually lighter, they were lethal.

 

It's just that during the beginning and middle of the Hundred Years War against France, which was the longbow's heyday, the standard armour of heavy troops was chainmail, and even the best knightly armour of the time was a mixture of chainmail and some plates. The longbow had already lost a lot of its punch by the later period in the Hundred Years War as the French developed heavier armour and better tactics (don't charge the longbows on your unarmoured horse!) - take 'em on foot instead. The same thing happened in Italy where English longbowmen were in great demand as mercenaries (condotta) ... until heavier armour rendered them in efficient.

 

It's not like the longbow suddenly disappeared. England and Wales kept training and producing longbowmen in their tens of thousands for a century after they had lost most of their effectiveness, and in smaller numbers after that. Longbowmen were still in use (albeit in small numbers) during the English Civil War in the 17th century! But by the mid 1400's they had stopped being a battle-winning element and had started to become a support element used to harrass the enemy. They were still effective against cavalry, and very effective against lightly armed infantry.

 

So no, it wasn't training that was the problem - England was still had compulsory longbow training and produced bowmen aplenty for generations after they had lost their primary place on the battlefield.

 

cheers, Mark

[d_ns]

I, too, think that the idea of using AVAD (Resistant Defenses) instead of KAs.

 

Would you handle strength mins and damage in excess of strength mins in the traditional way still?