Re: RuneQuest Digest for Wed, 27 Jan 1993

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From: P A van Heusden (pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za)
Date: Thu 28 Jan 1993 - 12:56:40 EET


> From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
> Subject: Re: RQ III Errata
>
> > From: bell@cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)
> > Subject: RQ III Errata
>
> > BLUNT WEAPONS VS. SOFT ARMOR
> >When a flail, mace, or maul is used against soft armor, the value of the
> >armor protection is halved (round fractions up). Soft armor overlapped
> >with hard armor counts as hard armor.
>
> I'm not sure this makes sense ... padding should stop blunt weapons, but be
> worse against pointed weapons. Blunt, heavy weapons should be better at causing
> damage through hard armour. Historically, the pattern of weapon use reflected
> this. Heavy maces came in to bash through heavy plate. When gunpowder came in,
> people wore little or no armour and favoured lighter thrusting or cutting
> weapons such as the rapier or sabre. I preferred the old crush/slash/impale
> rules, crude as they were.

If you've ever worn chain, you'll see why this rule is in there. Crushing blows get through quite easily, sword points do not. Essentially, someone over here made some home made some chain (damn good stuff, using rings far smaller than those used in the medieval version). Being a bunch of raving psychotics, we tried this stuff out. The two tests were: (1) Take knife (fairly ordinary switchblade) and stab the guy wearing chain. Result: None. It was stopped. Dead. The impact was spread out by the links very effectively. (2) Punch chain wearer as hard as possible. Result: Extreme pain on both sides, the puncher just having hit a whole pile of steel rings, and the wearer (who was wearing no padding) just having had a clump of steel rings forced into his chest.

Conclusion: Soft armour vs. blunt weapons is not too effective. So, why did they use hammers and things against plate? (1) They were easy to make, so the average grunt could stand a chance against a downed knight. (2) Momentum. A war pick is a wonderful thing... tons of momentum, equates to tons of force on a very small point, equates to one hell of a blow. Swords, on the other hand, we just fine for cutting up the peasants, but bounched off anything hard. (Seen Roman Polanski's Macbeth?)

So, I like the new rule. Let me add a further one: Against very hard armours, eg. plate, natural weapons do half damage. There's no way a claw is going to break metal. This means that a knight can go wrestling with a bear... unless he loses his balance (good possibility) or is crushed to death (even better possibility).

> 2. Shouldn't 1 point soft leather be exempt from these rules (7.0 points ENC
> for one point padding seems a little steep!)? I would argue that most hard
> armour would include padding or be worn with padded clothing for comfort.

Agreed.

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