Hey all, this is just my take on weapon damage. Disclaimer: I don't modern fence, historical sword fight, SCA, and haven't made any special study of wounds and penetration.

Anyhoo, after reading discussions on rapier damage [see "TROS Weapon Statistics (ATN, DTN, & Damage)" and "Qualities of Real Weapons"], and studying the damage tables WAY too much, I think there should be ANOTHER damage table. This would be a very optional House Rule.

(I can hear the boos and catcalls already. After all, why make something simple and elegant into Rulemaster?).

In trying to make a realistic set of rules for the rapier, you need to give it an Armor Penalty, higher damage for torso and head shots, and lower damage for thrusts to the limbs.

It strikes me that a lot of weapons would make the same type of wounds. They skewer, but they don't do a lot of slashing on the way in. Narrow headed arrows, polearm spikes, narrow headed spears and pikes, estocs, small swords, rondels, stilletoes, the infamous kung fu thrown chopstick and hair pin ; )

A Skewer or Spike Damage Table would have these qualities:

1) High damage to the head and torso because of the many internal organs to pierce. Medium damage to the throat. Low damage to limbs.

2) Very high pain and shock numbers, until the weapon is removed. If removed, normal pain and shock numbers. (You better take that arrow out of your thigh before you try jogging again).

3) Low BL bleeding numbers. The narrow wound has less chance to hit a blood vessel.

4) [edit. addition] Lower Knockdown. They tend to glide right through.

The weapons would have lower damage ratings than they do now. This would be balanced by their lethality when they pierce the torso or head.

If none of you convince me otherwise, I'll write it up. On the other hand, if you like the idea, give me advice on it. I'd be obliged either way.

Gene

well they do have the puncture damage table...

but honestly why raise or lower the damage?... it sounds like what you are going for is a new way of looking at lethality... well i gaurantee that if you get a punctured temple, you'll think its lethal enough...lol

The main reason is because blade and spike wound has different lethality in different locations.

A sword to the face is very nasty. A rapier to the face will keep on going, and sail right through the whole head. A rapier is better at piercing thin plates of bone (the skull).

A sword to the arm will sever muscles. You ain't gonna use that arm. A rapier will sail on through. That's when the guy with the falchion (read: big meat cleaver) hacks off the arm of the man with the rapier. Using the pierced arm.

Everything I attribute to rapiers would equally apply to narrow headed arrows (esp. bodkins), narrow spike-like spear heads (common on bills and Lucerne hammers), middle-eastern lances, etc.

well as the GM of the game, it would be up to them to interpret how the wound affects the wounded... dont just say... oh the damage raiting says you get such and such blood loss, and such and such on pain...

explain how their characters feel, then if they try and say "my characters too macho.." well since they should probably make a willpower test to even see if they are still on their feet, just combine everything from that thing into a nice scene...

if i get a punctured head because of a rapier, i want my GM to explain to me the lethality... besides, i get a punctured head, and im pretty much vulture bait

I fully agree with what you wrote. But you'll still base that description on the table.

So when a rapier (ST+2 damage rating) does massive arm damage, I think that's inappropriate. A deeply felt description of a "shattered elbow" IS good GMing, but much more damage than the rapier should do to an arm. (Once again, I'm not a swordsman. Maybe a rapier would be likely to shatter bones).

Also, to keep things straight, I'm comparing sword Puncture wounds to spike Puncture wounds. I'm proposing an alternative Puncture Damage Table for spike like weapons, perhaps called "Skewer" or "Spike". If I've been unclear, my apologies.

If it really bothers you that much, just reduce rapier/thin headed arrows/whatever damage to the arms and legs (ST only, say) and increase the damage when the hit is to the head or chest (ST +3 or +4 or +5).

That's got to be easier than making a whole new damage table, surely.

Brian.

well yeh im still going on the descriptions of the table...

and yeh i know a shattered anything is pretty "unrealistic" for a rapier... but the question is this... why is it this way... because you are looking at the level 5 wound to the elbow!......sheesh..lol

i just checked on it, and the only mention on puncture chart for elbow shattered, was on a level 5 wound.... thats a pretty damn grevious wound..

shattered... well i dont know, i havenever taken a shot to the elbow by a rapier... im sure if a single thrust to the elbow caused enough damage to be a level 5 wound, id keep it at shattered elbow, think of the force behind it... then agian under your explaination, it seems as though you'd allow someone more niftys if they went through the arm, and into the chest.... that may be how things work, but you have to be careful

By the way...
I would reinterpret 'shattered' as tendons / ligaments damaged...or for terribly damaging ... results in puncturing an artery (rather than severing etc)
a deep puncture wound in the arm along the bone could cause this.

I'm staying waaayyyy outta this.

Jake

MrGeneHa wrote: Hey all, this is just my take on weapon damage. Disclaimer: I don't modern fence, historical sword fight, SCA, and haven't made any special study of wounds and penetration.

Here's where I've ALREADY gone crazy with this:

I've retyped and rearranged all the damage charts into an MS Excel file, so that they neatly fit onto four double sided sheets.

So making a new set of damage tables ISN'T hard for me. I just rearrange a few numbers and some of the text descriptions. This is about 30 minutes of work.

I get rid of words like "shattered", "serious bleeding", "chipping", reduce Knockdown numbers, and place "internal damage" sooner for torso shots. I'm actually blowing more time discussing it than it would take to do it. (Obviously, I enjoy this forum a bit too much).

I'm also going to re-type the weapon and armor charts anyway for a specifically Imperial Roman campaign, so assigning a new type of Damage isn't a problem either (the Spatha is just an Arming Sword).

But, before I use this idea, I'd like to make sure it isn't completely misguided. Also, I'd love to get any advice on how to do it.

i suppose a new era would be interesting... though im not sure why the spatha would be used, since the common roman legionairre sword was the Gladius Hispanenca... the spanish sword..however i do know that the roman armor also used a lot mroe than just that. spears, pikes, lances, several varieties of swords, and many different kinds of shields and armor..

though i dont really understand why you would feel the need to change the damage charts... everything on the charts is very well balanced against their real world counter parts...

i guess i just dont get it i suppose

prophet118 wrote: though im not sure why the spatha would be used, since the common roman legionairre sword was the Gladius Hispanenca...

i havent been as up to date lately on swords, mainly due to playing alot of D&D.... ya know?... i dont have to get into sword details much in there... though when i play Rune, or now TROS i'll be able to get into swords again

Most of you won't care about this, but...

The gladius is the classic Roman infantry sword. The TRoS Short Sword. The iron and steel of ancient Rome wasn't as nice as medieval steel, so the gladius is short and stout and very hard to break. It's designed to pierce armor without snapping or chipping.

As Rome's foes became less and less civilized (ie armored), they began switching to the longer spatha. At first, yes, a cavalry sword, it was later taken up by the infantry. Like most all cavalry swords, it's designed for slashing. It's longer (25 in vs. 21 in, for example) and narrower. By the middle of the 2nd century, the gladius had pretty much disappeared.

(Hey! I just noticed that in TRoS terms, they're BOTH short swords!). [Later edit] (Forgot to include the length of the handle. The spatha would be a cheap TRoS arming sword, perhaps with with a DTN of 7?).

On another subject, many of the soldiers in the game will be using a very narrow headed javelin called a pilum. Horse archers from the east will use narrow headed arrows.

Bob Richter wrote: The table you're looking for already exists. A puncture wound is a puncture wound is a puncture wound, and a Rapier *CAN* shatter an elbow, tear muscles, or sever tendons, ligaments, or major blood vessels. And generally wreak havoc on a limb just as easily as it would on a head or torso.

well see the thing is, that little notice on the bottom of the book... about being approved by ARMA...

doesn that mean something?...i dont know how much is true about it, or even how much they looked at it..jake could answer that alot better than i ever could

MrGeneHa wrote: Will a thrust from a rapier (ST+2) really do more damage to a thigh than a thrust from a great sword (ST+1) or a cut and thrust (ST+1)?

If you or anyone can present credentials or source material, I'll give your statements more weight. (E.g., "I'm an emergency room physician, and..." or "
Gene

Now I feel like I can get involved.

The puncture damage tables are meant to reflect the fact that thrusts do less damage to the limbs and a lot more the the head and torso--so no modification is needed. As for a rapier shattering a bone on the way through...I don't know, to tell you the truth, but they *are* nasty little suckers and can penetrate a skull (both sides) with minimal difficulty. They were extraordinarily stiff (*not* whippy), and so while it's probably true that a rapier to the arm would do less structural damage than a longsword thrust to the arm, I think in game terms the difference is *completely* negligable, and really amounts to color, as the longsword will penetrate shallow with a slightly broader wound (and only slightly...like less than 2cm...these aren't final fantasy swords, here) and the rapier will pucnture more deeply (again, though, only slightly...muscle and skin puncture almost effortlessly). Make sense?

Ah, credentials...I'm a Western Martial arts instructor (ARMA), and the kid of a doctor who vividly remembers the gross anatomy lab and lots of forensics books. An expert...hell no. Got an idea...yeah.

As for the ARMA approved bit, it was read over by several ARMA members and brought to John CLements, the ARMA director by them, who loved what he heard and played and said "let's endorse this." ARMA generally has an anti-RPG stance, even though many of us play, because we're trying to separate ourselves from boffer groups and the like. That's what makes the ARMA endorsment special. JC attended Origins GameCon with me in July, and we correspond often and frequently, as he visits up here once a year (he's coming in January, btw, for anyone that's close-by and wants to train with him). The "ARMA approved" is really solid. It would have to be to use their logo (something they guard rather closely is their association with others).

Hope that helps.

Jake

Honestly, at this point, I had already been convinced it was a lousy idea. Even if an experienced ARMA person hadn't commented otherwise.

At most, I might lower BL for some weapons in their notes.

Thanks for all the advice, hopefully my next idea will be more usefull!

Gene

I actually did find some reference today online about damage from rapiers to various body parts. I don't consider online sources as totally credible.

http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/bloody.shtml
http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/kill2.shtml

However, these articles do have extensive bibliographies. When I get a chance to hit the other end of Chicago, I'll try to read the books in the U of C Library. That could be a while.

The author of the web article believes rapiers were pretty lousy at piercing bones, and offers citations. In some cases, the skull or ribs bent rapiers.

First off, Bravo! Those are excellent articles. I only skimmed them, but I'm still impressed. I read the bone injury part pretty thoroughly, though, and it left me asking what they were referring to as a "rapier." I'll explain...

See, the term "rapier" is used to mean lots of things, both historically and in the (very different) jargon of academics and (especially) curators. Most properly (note the "most") a rapier had a blade between 3 and 4' long, was *very* stiff, and may even have had a triangular cross-section. I think that for such an item to bend on skull would be greatly unlikely (but possible, I suppose). On the other hand, a small sword, epee, or even italian dueling saber would much more likely bend in such a situation.

At least that's my take on it. On the other hand, I love being proven wrong (or at least slightly so) with good sources.

Jake