'Piercing swings' - ?

[bottleneck]

In the game yesterday, a knight was struck hard on the head with a warhammer spike.

So: it's a bashing weapon that inflicts piercing damage. Which table to use?

The concernsus was that we rolled hit locatin as per bludgeoning attack, then used the wound from the piercing table for the most appropriate location.

Any other (better?) ideas how to solve damage for spiked mass weapons (one big spike, not a morning star)?

[toli]

The concernsus was that we rolled hit locatin as per bludgeoning attack, then used the wound from the piercing table for the most appropriate location.

sounds good to me.

[Jake Norwood]

This isn't as complicated at that. Run with it at face value. It's a piercing attack aimed at what body part. It's the same as a thrust, in that way.

Jake

[ultraviolet]

<snip>This isn't as complicated at that. Run with it at face value. It's a piercing attack aimed at what body part. It's the same as a thrust, in that way. </snip>

Are the swinging and thrusting damage effects the same in lethality? This was what I asked my prior post "Cutting damage tables & the other mass weapons". Does one get the right results when using a thrusting table for a swinging attack? Can one hit the places one would normally do, while swinging.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just can't see if this even matters or not :)

[Jake Norwood]

Any differences in damage between swung or thrusted piercing weapons is built into their DR and special effects of the weapon in the weapon's description/stats.

Other than that, I'm not sure I get your question.

Jake

[bottleneck]

This isn't as complicated at that. Run with it at face value. It's a piercing attack aimed at what body part. It's the same as a thrust, in that way.

Jake

Jake, are you speaking 'ex cathedra' here?

The whole issue was brought up with an overhead warhammer swing. The GM said 'no way that can thrust through the lower face', and the player said 'if the spike comes from above it cannot bypass my helmet'. (Using a armor catalogue as reference, we had established exactly what his helmet looked like: a poor design versus thrusts to the face, but superior versus cuts and bashes). So, we reached the consensus outlined above.

But I agree the simplest is doing it as a thrust, then apply common sense  (just remember the common sense)  :-)

[Jake Norwood]

Ah, gotcha.

Well, for simplicity's sake (and that I've seen some wild crap), I would still just stick with the thrusting tables. However the end rule in any system like TROS is that catologuing and percentage-izing reality is beyond digestible RPGs, so you've got to rely on what makes sense around the table. It sounds like you did that, so I think your consensus is right on track.

I never really speak "ex cathedra," at least not intentionally!

Jake