Weapon & Armor Damage

[Christopher R Taylor]

Oh yeah, its awful seeing what people do with swords in films.  Perhaps the worst is that they aim at each others swords when fighting, instead of their opponent.  And there's a lot of blocking with the edge, which is a good way of cutting notches in your blade, or, as we have discussed, even breaking it.  Swords will not, unless enchanted, slice through a chain easily, if at all.  For that matter its really, really hard to decapitate someone with a sword unless its built for it, they're really exposed, and you get a heck of a swing.  

 

But it looks cool, so we have a choice as GMs: do we want gritty, Medieval-accurate swordplay, or cinematic badass swordplay?

 

The same thing goes for weapon and armor damage.  If you want a game where the heroes never have to worry about fixing their armor or swords, their equipment doesn't break or degrade, and they can wear their armor all day long, well cool.  If you don't, its time to have some mechanism to make things go wrong.  I prefer this latter sort of game, myself.

[Markdoc]

Oh yeah, its awful seeing what people do with swords in films.  Perhaps the worst is that they aim at each others swords when fighting, instead of their opponent.  And there's a lot of blocking with the edge, which is a good way of cutting notches in your blade, or, as we have discussed, even breaking it.  Swords will not, unless enchanted, slice through a chain easily, if at all.  For that matter its really, really hard to decapitate someone with a sword unless its built for it, they're really exposed, and you get a heck of a swing.  

 

But it looks cool, so we have a choice as GMs: do we want gritty, Medieval-accurate swordplay, or cinematic badass swordplay?

 

The same thing goes for weapon and armor damage.  If you want a game where the heroes never have to worry about fixing their armor or swords, their equipment doesn't break or degrade, and they can wear their armor all day long, well cool.  If you don't, its time to have some mechanism to make things go wrong.  I prefer this latter sort of game, myself.

 

I gotta admit, as a GM, I lean towards cinematic badass swordplay. Not quite anime or wuxia levels, but definitely not terribly realistic.

 

cheers, Mark

[bigdamnhero]

But it looks cool, so we have a choice as GMs: do we want gritty, Medieval-accurate swordplay, or cinematic badass swordplay?

Yeah, I tend toward more cinematic myself most days, but I've played/run some more realistic games and enjoyed the heck out of them too.

 

Another thing we haven't mentioned is the "This sword has been in my family for generations" trope. Not realistic, but a big part of most fantasy stories.

[Ninja-Bear]

I keep meaning to bring this up but I swear that the real weapon limitation has some notes on weapons csre and koseing uts effectiveness if not cleaned. No hard rules but sort of a way to roleplay it if need be.

[Ninja-Bear]

I keep meaning to bring this up but I swear that the real weapon limitation has some notes on weapons csre and koseing uts effectiveness if not cleaned. No hard rules but sort of a way to roleplay it if need be.