Half-swording and chain mail

[Lebo77]

OK, half-swording give you a +3 damage against hard armors, right?Chain-mail gives you 4 points of armor right?  (Effectively reduceing the armor to a 1) Now leather (not hard) gives you 2 points of armor.  This does not make a lot of sense to me, why should you get less protection from chain then leather just because the attacker has the extra "punch" you get from half-swording?  If half-swording just added 3 to the damage flat-out I would understand, but why do it this way?

Also, if you alf-sword a long-sword, does it add 3 to the damage of just thrusts, or can you cut in half-sword "mode"?  The changes to ATN apply to thrusts or cuts or both?

[Mike Holmes]

Is chain considered "hard"? I thought it wasn't.

Mike

[Morfedel]

From what I gathered, "hard" armor was never really explained well.

I thought of hard armor is anything composed primarily of rigid plates and segments. Scale male, plate mail, a coat of plates, etc.

At least, thats the impression I had.

[Mike Holmes]

At least, thats the impression I had.

Me, too. Something that could be punched through more easily with half-swording because it's rigid. So plate at 6 gets reduced to 3 which makes chain better against this, which is due to the flexibility. I think that makes sense. Jake?

Mike

[Ashton]

I thought the half-swording bonus was also because it made finding the gaps in "hard" armor easier to find, i.e. around the joints where the various pieces fit together, something that chain is less likely to have.

As an aside- it would probably not be inconceivable to design a house rule where certain styles of armor (or even pieces fashioned by a specific armorer) might reduce the benefit of half-swording (due to things like chain being used to protect joints where rigid plates are not practical). This would make half-swording against plate as effective as against chain, and puts yet more emphasis on the "accuracy" gift.

Kind of takes it away from the generic "I own a suit of plate mail" feel, though it would make armored characters even more difficult to kill.

[Jake Norwood]

Hard armor, to me, is anything I don't want to get hit with. That includes Chain.

For plate, the bonus is for gaps. For chain, it's just to punch through. It all works the same.

Jake

[Lebo77]

Hard armor, to me, is anything I don't want to get hit with. That includes Chain.

For plate, the bonus is for gaps. For chain, it's just to punch through. It all works the same.

Jake

OK, so chain is hard, but if half-swording is about looking for gaps, why can't you do the same thing against leather, and if it's about punching through then why can't you punch through leather as well?  I am not nit-picking here.  My players are going to ask these questions and I need answers.  Any ARMA people out ther who can enlighten us on "Half-swording theory"?

[spunky]

OK, so chain is hard, but if half-swording is about looking for gaps, why can't you do the same thing against leather, and if it's about punching through then why can't you punch through leather as well?

One could argue that leather's protection comes from its consistent structure, that its as hard to pierce or cut, regardless, whilst chain offers less protection to thrusting attacks.  However, TROS has not defined armor as having different values for different attacks.  Thrusting attacks were very effective against both leather and chain, and a nice solid mace the best for bashing in plates.

I suppose you could make the game more "realistic" by further defining armor values, as in HarnMaster, but I think it would slow the game down.

One thing to consider is making dramatic judgement calls in the fight, depending upon the player's narration.  Thus, a player calling out, "I make a half-sword attack to his VI," is not going to get much of a bonus, as opposed to the player that says, "I slide my left hand up to the cross bar to guide my blade through the slit in his helm, and damn his eyes!"  I'd give the latter all the bennefits of the maneuver, plus a couple dice for sheer vim.

JMHO
Philip

[Lebo77]

OK, not to wake the dead or continue to belabor the point, but the second quetion in my original post was never realy addressed.  Can you cut in half-swording mode, or can you only thrust?  If you cut do you get the +3 anti-armor bonus?

P.S. Just for kicks I am going to playtest a halfsword rule that makes half-swording only give a +2vs. plate and +1 vs. chain.  That way the progression is Leather:2 Chain:3 plate:4.  Wearing better armor is still an advantage, but now simply less os then before, makeing more sense realisticly.

[Caz]

Cutting at 1/2 sword'll hurt your hand.  Newtons law and all.  And if you tried, it'd be far less powerful.  You can SLICE though.  I'd like to hear how that would work.  Same cutting damage as for a fighting dagger?

[Mike Holmes]

Lebo, simpler to remember would just be to halve all armor against Half-Swording. Round whichever way seems sensible.

Mike

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I allow alot of bashing with the pommel and use of the cross to pierce with half sword as well, when using the cross I just use the warhammer stats with range of hand.

[Jake Norwood]

No cutting. If you "slice" I'd use the damage of a knife cut, maybe plus a little.

Jake

[Lance D. Allen]

Also remember that some swords designed for such tactics have a ricasso grip, or just a completely dull (as in, not even butter-knife sharpness) section near the crossguard of the sword. Think William Wallace's sword from Braveheart. I wouldn't think that you'd have to worry about cutting your hand.

What would the ATN for cutting at half-sword be, Jake?

[Salamander]

I think that in regards to the halfswording thing, I would merely count it to overcome the armour. So in the case of Harness we would see the halfsword thrust defeat 3 points of armour, and against chain the same thing, as they are both in excess of the three additional points granted by halfswording. Against leather armour I would simply say it would negate the two points of the armour, but not really add to the effect of the thrust on the body. The thrust is designed to overcome the armour, not get any deeper into the guy, as a thrust as deep as 3-6inches (7.5-15cm) will kill you quite dead.