Random thoughts about weapon types vs. Mobs

[Hunters' Moon]

I know that there is no true difference,besides swing speed and base damage per hit,between the weapon skills. To that I ask how am I just as likely to take down something like a stone elemental with a dagger as I would with a war hammer or maul? Or to take down a dragon just as well with a smith's hammer as with a pike or spear? Not that I am asking for it here,but I think it would be interesting that weapons would be more effective against certain mobs and less effective against others.

 

[Dan123The123Man]

I guess the same question could be asked in regards to swinging a halberd towards another players throat in a player vs player situation... Wouldn't their head just fly off their shoulders and blood spray everywhere? lol

 

[hungry4knowhow]

... Wouldn't their head just fly off their shoulders and blood spray everywhere? lol

That would be awesome....just sayin'

 

[Dan123The123Man]

yeah, and then the decapitated person falls to their knees and sits there for a good 3 seconds before slowly falling over to the side (or forward, but I thought it may look better to fall to the side when u lose the head). Kind of like the scene on the movie "300" when the guys son had his head knocked off his shoulders and the guy (apparently I don't know the name lol) slowly died. Then the father of the son (don't know his name either) went into some kind of rage and started slicing and slashing and jabbing, gutting, cutting, and chopping through the "immortal" dudes. lol

 

[hungry4knowhow]

oh What happens next Dan! Do Tell!

 

[Hunters' Moon]

I guess the same question could be asked in regards to swinging a halberd towards another players throat in a player vs player situation... Wouldn't their head just fly off their shoulders and blood spray everywhere? lol

I agree with this. I guess as long as the blow wasn't parried or dodged.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Just for the sake of discussion,lets say that the armors and weapons made available to us had an extra "mod" that went something like this:

Leather and Studded Armor(full suit): +1 to +3 dodge against slow weapons. Two-handers,polearms and x-bows. Nil dodge bonus against moderate/fast weapons that have a base swing speed of 3s and faster. Nil damage reduction against all damage from all weapons.

Ringmail and Chainmail Armor(full suit): Nil dodge against all weapons. Damage reduction 10%-15% above the normal "all 70's" against all weapons.

Plate Armor(full suit): -1 to -3 dodge against all weapons. Damage reduction 20%-25% above "all 70's".

Shields: Buckler-Effective against daggers,all cleavers,skinning knives,bows,short bows.(+1 parry/dodge)
Weak against all two-handers and all other bows.(-1 parry/dodge)
No damage reduction.

​

Kite/Wooden/Metal Round/Bronze Shields- Effective against all one-handed sword weapons. Also effective against wooden clubs and smith hammers.(+1 to parry/dodge)​

Weak against all x-bows and the Yumi.(-1 to parry/dodge)​

Damage Reduction: 5-7%​

​

Order/Chaos/Heater Shields- Effective against all bows,polearms,two-handed weapons,and all mace weapons.(+1 to parry/dodge)​

Weak against daggers,cleavers and all fast swing speed weapons that are 2.75 and faster.(-1 to parry/dodge)​

Damage reduction: 10-12%​

​

 

[hen]

Just for the sake of discussion,lets say that the armors and weapons made available to us had an extra "mod" that went something like this:

Leather and Studded Armor(full suit): +1 to +3 dodge against slow weapons. Two-handers,polearms and x-bows. Nil dodge bonus against moderate/fast weapons that have a base swing speed of 3s and faster. Nil damage reduction against all damage from all weapons.

Ringmail and Chainmail Armor(full suit): Nil dodge against all weapons. Damage reduction 10%-15% above the normal "all 70's" against all weapons.

Plate Armor(full suit): -1 to -3 dodge against all weapons. Damage reduction 20%-25% above "all 70's".

Shields: Buckler-Effective against daggers,all cleavers,skinning knives,bows,short bows.(+1 parry/dodge)
Weak against all two-handers and all other bows.(-1 parry/dodge)
No damage reduction.

​

Kite/Wooden/Metal Round/Bronze Shields- Effective against all one-handed sword weapons. Also effective against wooden clubs and smith hammers.(+1 to parry/dodge)​

Weak against all x-bows and the Yumi.(-1 to parry/dodge)​

Damage Reduction: 5-7%​

​

Order/Chaos/Heater Shields- Effective against all bows,polearms,two-handed weapons,and all mace weapons.(+1 to parry/dodge)​

Weak against daggers,cleavers and all fast swing speed weapons that are 2.75 and faster.(-1 to parry/dodge)​

Damage reduction: 10-12%​

​

The system is already way over-complicated as it is mate.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

1. As someone else has pointed out, the system is complex enough as it is.

2. Realism is of limited value when you're talking about fantasy things. Not no value to be sure! But limited value. RL blacksmiths of the medieval or renaissance eras didn't have, for example, Valorite ore or Imbuing, and RL no boiled leather or studded leather armor was made of dragon hide. While there's some things that shouldn't be allowed to become entirely fantastical I, for one, am prepared to keep the effectiveness of shield designs (to cite just one example) at that level. If we start pushing in the realism direction with that level of detail, the first thing that'll have to happen is a lot of adjustments to mounted vs non-mounted and armored vs unarmed combat. Also a bear should be at least as fearsome as a drake. And, dear God, wouldn't an old-school knights' cavalry charge be awesome? (Please do not take this as "Galen proposes a cavalry charge code." Indeed I'm pretty much saying the opposite.)

3. Even if we were to shoot for great realism for more things, scholarship has come to many varying conclusions about medieval combat.
Here are some examples.

• The medieval battlefield was a chaotic place, with no strategy save for when to do the cavalry charge. Oh, wait, no, we've changed our mind, there was actually a great deal of strategy it just doesn't match modern expectations, so we screwed up our analysis earlier. Sorry about that!
• The Knights were not skilled swordsmen, they pretty much hacked and smashed randomly. Oh, wait, we now see that they were very skilled, it's just that they weren't skilled at impressing us: They were skilled at surviving and winning fights. Sorry about that, we allowed Hollywood expectations to inform our scholarship, so we screwed up our analysis earlier.
• These Knights were clearly no good at fighting on foot. Oh wait, we've suddenly found all these manuscripts that suggest exactly the opposite. Not only were they trained to fight both on-foot and mounted but they were superb at it. Sorry about that one too!

In other words: Realism may not be as realistic as you think in part because there's not as much agreement as you'd think on what was real.

4. Remember that RL medieval accounts of battle were, it seems, often themselves fantastical. Various accounts of RL battles have the sword doing certain things they couldn't possibly have done IRL. Cut through solid plate helms. Cut through an entire horseman, from shoulder, to thigh, then keep going and also cleave the horse in half, thus cutting rider and horse in half with a single blow. Doesn't it make sense to base our fantasy as much, or more, on medieval fantasies about their own era as on the reality of that era? And if a sword could cut through horse and rider with one stroke surely it could cut down a stone elemental.

*shrugs*

-Galen's player

 

[hungry4knowhow]

...And if a sword could cut through horse and rider with one stroke surely it could cut down a stone elemental.

*shrugs*

-Galen's player

I think I saw something like that offered on an infomercial once.

 

[Driven Insane]

oh What happens next Dan! Do Tell!

If you haven't seen it, go watch it. Not the greatest film of all time, but some awesome fight scenes.

Sorry, go back to overly complicating the game and would require an army of Devs to implement...ie... never gonna happen

 

[Mirt]

For real realism there would be no leather armor as it wouldn't work. Also for leather to be hard enough to stop any kind of blow it would have to be so cured as hard as it could be and it would still do nothing compared to metal.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I think I saw something like that offered on an infomercial once.

*sighs*

The particular example you cited is from the legends of Charlemagne; highly fictionalized accounts of French fighting off invading African Muslims from Spain.

If memory serves similar things were said about the early stages of La Reconquista, the long Crusade to drive those same African Muslims from Spain. (The famous El Cid was a famous warrior from the earlier stages of that long conflict.)

The sword cutting through a metal helmet was actually from a probably fictionalized account of a battle in the Wars of the Roses.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

For real realism there would be no leather armor as it wouldn't work. Also for leather to be hard enough to stop any kind of blow it would have to be so cured as hard as it could be and it would still do nothing compared to metal.

Not necessarily true. Boiled leather was used, with varying degrees of effectiveness, for a long time. And remember that steel or treated wood or some other stuff can be sewn within the leather. (Hence scale; studded; etc.) There's sites and documentaries with all kinds of detail. If nothing else it was used as an additional layer.

Even more importantly: we also have stuff in UO they didn't have IRL: Leather armor made from dragons, which do not exist IRL, and magically enhanced in some way (either through Enhancing, Imbuing, or Runic Crafting), which also did not exist IRL.

-Galen's player

 

[Mirt]

Not necessarily true. Boiled leather was used, with varying degrees of effectiveness, for a long time. And remember that steel or treated wood or some other stuff can be sewn within the leather. (Hence scale; studded; etc.) There's sites and documentaries with all kinds of detail. If nothing else it was used as an additional layer.

Even more importantly: we also have stuff in UO they didn't have IRL: Leather armor made from dragons, which do not exist IRL, and magically enhanced in some way (either through Enhancing, Imbuing, or Runic Crafting), which also did not exist IRL.

-Galen's player

The steel mounted onto leather was steel armor in fact most of the real suits . In fact they are really early fomrs of plate as even with plate you would wear an arming suit under it to keep your skin from being rubbed off. Leather seems like it would be cheaper but think about it from this perspective. If it gets wet its going to seriously damage the curing. Suits like that would never have been viable for more then a few months and to be honest the primary real life weapon of the time period were spears which would go through leather like a knife through a leather jacket. I agree that dragon leather is unknowable but in truth most of the myths that leather armor existed have already been debunked in actual history books. It came about due to weathering of Roman statues. Leather armor as the primary system of stopping blows is a work of fiction. Now studded armor did exist but it was the metal that was sewn on that was the armor not the leather in any way that was just a backing. Additionally studded armor didn't last long as it was rapidly replaced by either chain (in the west) or scale (which was very popular in the east even after plate came of age in the west).

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The steel mounted onto leather was steel armor in fact most of the real suits . In fact they are really early fomrs of plate as even with plate you would wear an arming suit under it to keep your skin from being rubbed off. Leather seems like it would be cheaper but think about it from this perspective. If it gets wet its going to seriously damage the curing. Suits like that would never have been viable for more then a few months and to be honest the primary real life weapon of the time period were spears which would go through leather like a knife through a leather jacket. I agree that dragon leather is unknowable but in truth most of the myths that leather armor existed have already been debunked in actual history books. It came about due to weathering of Roman statues. Leather armor as the primary system of stopping blows is a work of fiction. Now studded armor did exist but it was the metal that was sewn on that was the armor not the leather in any way that was just a backing. Additionally studded armor didn't last long as it was rapidly replaced by either chain (in the west) or scale (which was very popular in the east even after plate came of age in the west).

Nothing that I've ever seen or read until just now has ever suggested to me that leather armor didn't exist at all. I'll confess that I haven't done a lot of reading on Roman armor yet; not sure how much it interests me, frankly.

I guess you allowed yourself significant wiggle room by saying "as the primary system of stopping blows." And that's a matter of opinion and perspective.

An historian quoted in a BBC documentary about the famous knight William Marshal said something that made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew about armor, and that was this: The important part of mail armor (chain mail) wasn't the mail, it was the cloth padding underneath. That was what absorbed the shock of the blow; the chain was solely there to protect the cloth from lacerations.

Was he right? Was he exaggerating? I haven't the slightest idea, but the point was that it made me rethink what armor did an awful lot.

What was the primary system of stopping blows? I think at the end of the day the point was that the primary system was whichever part worked.

So for Samurai armor, was the important part the treated wood? The leather? The metal sewn in between the leather?

Whichever one did the job.

We looking back have said a lot of contradictory things about it over the years. Some still persist in thinking that knights in plate had to be hoisted onto their horses with cranes; I read it just-recently in a semi-scholarly work about the Crusades. Given that no other source I'd seen said that was anything other than a Hollywood invention, I was rather skeptical. The point, however, is that knowledge of historical armor has varied a lot over time.

And then of course there's the raw fact that most of this armor was a lot more effective against accidental death from a glancing blow than it was against a very determined, skilled foe who wants to kill you. All of it had its weak points.

-Galen's player

 

[Mirt]

Nothing that I've ever seen or read until just now has ever suggested to me that leather armor didn't exist at all. I'll confess that I haven't done a lot of reading on Roman armor yet; not sure how much it interests me, frankly.

I guess you allowed yourself significant wiggle room by saying "as the primary system of stopping blows." And that's a matter of opinion and perspective.

An historian quoted in a BBC documentary about the famous knight William Marshal said something that made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew about armor, and that was this: The important part of mail armor (chain mail) wasn't the mail, it was the cloth padding underneath. That was what absorbed the shock of the blow; the chain was solely there to protect the cloth from lacerations.

Was he right? Was he exaggerating? I haven't the slightest idea, but the point was that it made me rethink what armor did an awful lot.

What was the primary system of stopping blows? I think at the end of the day the point was that the primary system was whichever part worked.

So for Samurai armor, was the important part the treated wood? The leather? The metal sewn in between the leather?

Whichever one did the job.

We looking back have said a lot of contradictory things about it over the years. Some still persist in thinking that knights in plate had to be hoisted onto their horses with cranes; I read it just-recently in a semi-scholarly work about the Crusades. Given that no other source I'd seen said that was anything other than a Hollywood invention, I was rather skeptical. The point, however, is that knowledge of historical armor has varied a lot over time.

And then of course there's the raw fact that most of this armor was a lot more effective against accidental death from a glancing blow than it was against a very determined, skilled foe who wants to kill you. All of it had its weak points.

-Galen's player

One samurai armor was not very effective at all. Most blows went right through it. While the arming suit worn under it absorbed the shock that doesn't matter as much as the blood loss from having a sharp object go into you. Additionally all the arming suit did was disapate that to some extent. That is why maces remained effective and became the primary weapon even after gothic plate came into existance. Armor was created to prevent not a glancing blow but to shield someone from those attacks. It really was designed to ward off blows and it continually improved in doing that. Eventually it took gun powder to make it obselete and then mostly due to the high cost involved. At least that was the old story armor is coming back to modern war with modern body armor that actually has plates of ceramic that do most of the heavy lifting today.

 

[hungry4knowhow]

*sighs*

The particular example you cited is from the legends of Charlemagne; highly fictionalized accounts of French fighting off invading African Muslims from Spain.

If memory serves similar things were said about the early stages of La Reconquista, the long Crusade to drive those same African Muslims from Spain. (The famous El Cid was a famous warrior from the earlier stages of that long conflict.)

The sword cutting through a metal helmet was actually from a probably fictionalized account of a battle in the Wars of the Roses.

-Galen's player

I was more making a joke about late night infomercials that sell knives that can cut through anything. But thanks for the history lesson nonetheless. I enjoy it.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

One samurai armor was not very effective at all. Most blows went right through it. While the arming suit worn under it absorbed the shock that doesn't matter as much as the blood loss from having a sharp object go into you. Additionally all the arming suit did was disapate that to some extent. That is why maces remained effective and became the primary weapon even after gothic plate came into existance. Armor was created to prevent not a glancing blow but to shield someone from those attacks. It really was designed to ward off blows and it continually improved in doing that. Eventually it took gun powder to make it obselete and then mostly due to the high cost involved. At least that was the old story armor is coming back to modern war with modern body armor that actually has plates of ceramic that do most of the heavy lifting today.

I have encountered no source that says "samurai armor was not very effective at all." I'm not exactly disputing the contention, I'm not qualified to, as finding it odd that I hadn't encountered it.

I've also encountered no source that says the mace was ever the primary weapon, though multiple sources confirm that it was extremely effective, largely by crushing the bones underneath the armor. (Though I guess I haven't found anyplace that says the mace was not the primary weapon.)

Armor being primarily created to defend against glancing blows or accidental death is my own supposition, based largely on the fact that there seemed to be no way to keep out the death stroke, no matter how good the armor. So either the armorers were foolish and thought they could overcome the basic logic of violence with innovation, or they were basically thinking "well, this year let's make it just a little bit harder to die by accident." I couldn't possibly test my supposition without using primary sources that I have no intention whatsoever of ever dealing with.

I think the quilted padding worn under the mail was cited by the historian I referenced as being the important part of the armor because at that time the outer armor was chain, which wasn't terribly helpful when a guy was stabbing you, only if he was slashing at you.

The one thing that keeps amusing me the more material I absorb on this stuff is the alarming amount of subjectivity and uncertainty. Two books, side by side, can say opposite things and the more-recent book can easily have the more-outdated information, merely depending upon what sources that particular author finds more-reliable. A lot of people still insist on basing most of their information off of the old BBC Terry Jones "Medieval Lives" and Crusades series. To a lesser degree his Barbarians series. That stuff is useful but, well, Terry Jones has his project, and isn't terribly afraid to shift his framework --and selectively represent his information-- to better pursue that project.

At any rate.....While somewhat useful these discussions can't be controlling when talking about fantasy contexts; merely suggestive.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I was more making a joke about late night infomercials that sell knives that can cut through anything. But thanks for the history lesson nonetheless. I enjoy it.

Yeah I actually figured that, but couldn't stop myself from posting.....Sorry. Let's face it; here on Stratics it's often best to post offensively: The life you save may be your own.

And I'm glad the myth-histories I presented were enjoyed along the way.

-Galen's player

 

[Mirt]

Galen if this is something that your curious about and your looking for light texts Osprey books should cover you. If your looking for more in depth work there is no single source but you might to well looking at things covering the riseing art of war. I am taking the mace as a primary weapon from the sheer volume of them found and in existance. The mace was the leading weapon of the knights once gothic armor came into existance. For those not wearing armor it has been various polearms but that hasn't really changed since the Classical period. Yes eventually you can kill someone in armor but that armor is going to deflect most of those blows for quiet some time. Much as a shield would. This meant that you had to hit an unarmored opponent once against hitting an unarmored one once. Armor was very expensive believe me nobody was willing to spend on a frivolus thing that didn't really work (as you can see by the sales of bullet "proof" vests in the US Civil War. Fedual Japan armor was more a product of circumenstances then design. It could help deflect a glancing blow which is why it was used and it could offer some (very slight) protection against the slashing weapons that were common in Japan but the lack of iron ore made things in Japan very unique from a historical perspective.