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?

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

Mike

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.

Morfedel wrote: At least, thats the impression I had.

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.

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

Jake Norwood wrote: 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 wrote: 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?

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.

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?

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

Mike

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.

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

Jake

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?

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.

ATN? Maybe 5, but you've got a short range and low power compared to the full-sword. And then are you talking "long serpent" or "short serpent?" It's all pretty complicated, really.

Jake

Taking into consideration that I'm not an experienced swordsman such as Jake, but as a kid I did get quite a bit of experience beating the hell out of stuff with sticks and what not (growing up in BFE will do that for ya). I even made a couple of spears and poked things with them, such as the 55 gallon steel drum that was in the woods behind my house. I noticed that when I would "choke up" with my left hand, I would get better penetration on just about anything I tried to stab. I would think that this is the same principle as half swording. My weapons training in Karate and Jui-Jitsu only helped to reinforce this... now, my question is this. It seems to me that the +3 bonus for half swording should apply to any thrusting attack, armor or no. Why not?

Well, technically, it does.

Jake

I thought it might... thanks Jake.