Pointless battle? Knight vs Rapier.

[tauman]

Hmmm...I don't know why so many people think that the rapier was a tiny little weapon with a small, fragile little blade that was easily broken. While some of the later (i.e. second half of the 17th century) rapiers were beginning to get fairly small and light--the earlier ones were pretty heavy. Properly used, a 16th century and early 17th century rapier can (and was designed) to parry the heavier blades of other types of swords. It is a "real sword." Yes, they could break (as can any sword), but these weapons were designed for rigorous use beyond the light bladework of a modern foil. Of course this doesn't mean I want to face a fully armored opponent with one...

Of course there are exceptions to every "rule," and if you look you'll find lighter rapiers even from the 16th century.

Steve

I keep hearing people talking about thrusting through a chink in the armor, pit shots, etc,..... While that MIGHT be possible, chances are the Rapier would bend into worthless trash or break LONG before that was possible (fragile blade folks, intended to thrust into soft yielding flesh...not substantial enough to take even a single parry from a real sword without being destroyed....DESTROYED! Thrusting it at an unyielding armor likely would have similar results), the reality of the situation is that even if that situation DID miraculously happen, you'd STILL be holding a broken haft or a bent and worthless piece of trash afterwards as his falling body weight would be sufficient to destroy the blade unless you managed to get that sucker out of him as quickly as you got it into him. Taking a Rapier into combat against armored opponents carrying real swords is too ridiculous to even be labeled laughable.

[Dain]

Tauman said:

Hmmm...I don't know why so many people think that the rapier was a tiny little weapon with a small, fragile little blade that was easily broken. While some of the later (i.e. second half of the 17th century) rapiers were beginning to get fairly small and light--the earlier ones were pretty heavy. Properly used, a 16th century and early 17th century rapier can (and was designed) to parry the heavier blades of other types of swords. It is a "real sword." Yes, they could break (as can any sword), but these weapons were designed for rigorous use beyond the light bladework of a modern foil. Of course this doesn't mean I want to face a fully armored opponent with one...

Really? I've never heard of a Rapier with a stout blade. Are you sure you're not referring to the Rapier's predecessor "the cut and thrust blades"? I'd be interested in looking at whatever resource you're referring to because I've not seen or heard of such a Rapier in all my readings as of yet.

[Jake Norwood]

The term "rapier" means a lot, but the capo-fero style "true" rapier that we're referring to in TROS could get pretty heavy in the hilt, and had a very, very hard, rigid blade. Cutting with it could actually break it.

Parrying a larger sword should be a problem if the parry is executed properly--to deflect, not stop, and with the "forte" of the blade. On the other hand, I believe that occassionaly cut-and-thrust sword users could attack the rapier itself and break it, but I don't have any citable research at the moment.

Jake

[BPetroff93]

Parrying a larger sword should be a problem if the parry is executed properly--to deflect, not stop, and with the "forte" of the blade.

Jake, I assume you mean "should not be a problem"?

[nsruf]

I never got that result, actually. The only way for that to happen (that I can see) would be for Cut n Thrust Kid to allocate most or all of his dice to a first exchange attack on one round.  If he maintains even 4 or 5 pool he remains unhit, with initiative, indefinitely.  Can you reproduce the result you got and post the relevant exchange(s) so I can see what happened?

It shouldn't matter how many dice the Kid has left if both attack simultaneously. In this situation, either the faster of the two skewers his opponent, or the kid's blow glances off the armor and he gets cut down a moment later.

[Turin]

It shouldn't matter how many dice the Kid has left if both attack simultaneously. In this situation, either the faster of the two skewers his opponent, or the kid's blow glances off the armor and he gets cut down a moment later.

That's pretty much my take as well.  As long as the Kid is not attacking with enough dice to pierce Steel's armour, the simutaneous attack option is best for Steel.  Don't worry about buying initiative either.  Just don't spend to much in the first exchange attacking if you have the initiative, as Kid has enough CP to soak off most of these attacks.

The only way Steel could not bring the conclusion to a sucessful close is if kid full evades constantly and does not try to fight, or if kid gets some real good rolls and slows steel down enough through pain and fatigue.

I would think some taunting at the start would be a good idea as well.

[Emiricol]

I wonder if the simulator is returning faulty results, then.  I'll run through the exercises once more, using hardcopy and my own dice, and post the results.

[Emiricol]

To update this thread (apologies for the resurrection, but I think starting a new thread just to post what I've found out would be spammy) - I did finally beat the knight.  I had to learn to use the maneuvers better.  

For example, a feint with only a couple dice allocated got the opponent to just take the attack (ho hum, can't get through my armor!).  Allocate rest of dice. I tried it three times, and twice resulted in taking out the knight's CP, but once resulted in immediate death to the Cut n Thrust Kid.

So to sum up: maneuvers make a big difference :)  The key is in learning when to use which maneuver.

[Deliverator]

Hey is there a version of the combat simulator available for Macintosh?  I'd love to try it out.

Matt

[Jake Norwood]

Emiricol-

Awesome.

Deliverator-

Mac user, huh? AFAIK, there is no Mac Version of the simulator. Sorry.

Jake

[Rattlehead]

Not sure if this is adding anything useful to the thread, but....

Some months ago Wolfen and Draigh and I were dueling on OpenRPG pretty regularly. I used Julianos (case of rapiers,leather jack or no armor) and they used armored characters.

Wolfen used Tiberius (did I mis-spell it again?) and in those combats Jules came out pretty even. Tiberius had chain if I recall... Jules and Tiberius are in OBaM if you want to see the exact stats...

Against Draigh's characters (a variety of steel turtles) I had little trouble winning roughly 2 out of 3 fights if I recall correctly. Until he learned to use full-face helms, then it got ugly.

Lots of full evasion and thrusting for the face, mainly.

In the end, the rapier wielder can hold his own against an armored opponent quite well as long as two criteria are met:
1) They have to be clever and fast.
2) The armored opponent must have some area where the rapier can penetrate.

With regards to #2 above, there were many successful hits with Jules where I struck the face but the d6 hit location roll put the hit on an armored part of the head and thus no damage was done. But I don't think any suit of armor was ever created that didn't have at least a small gap somewhere. You have to be able to move in that suit after all...

Never underestimate the rapier. There's a reason they were outlawed in many places during their age. They are deadly in the extreme and armor is far too expensive for it to be common.

If you want to modify rapiers against various types of armor, I'd say that they'd get bonuses against leather and chain, due to their ability to pierce it so easily. Against plate I'd say they would have no ability to penetrate - you have to aim for the gaps. For scale mail it would be somewhere between chain and plate depending on the size of the scales... LOL...

Personally, I feel that the revised edition of the game has incorrectly modelled rapiers. The original printing has a much more accurate representation of their lethal nature...

Brandon

[Draigh]

@ Rattlehead

Remember that bout where I countered your silly rapier with a pommel to the throat?  Man, that was classic...

[Rattlehead]

Yeah... that was pretty harsh.... Counter is nasty...

B