Swords in a Crunchy System

[Bill Reich]

Over-Valuing Swords

I want to ask three main questionshere.
Have I over-valued, made too useful,swords in my Glory Road Roleplay Rules? There is a related question here: Do game designers in general over-value swords? However, that isn’t very important to me right now and it is too difficult to answer quickly without looking at agreat many rules sets. So, it isn’t one of my main questions.
The second question is, is there a reasonto over-value swords. I realized early on that many early game designersunder-valued missile weapons and I know they had their reasons. Maybe there isa genre reason to over-value swords.
The third main question is: what shouldI do about it.

Let’s compare Glory Road swords with other weapons of the same or similar handling weights. Let’s compare thegood old Arming Sword, the one-handed broadsword of the medieval period, withan axe of the same handling weight as the edge of the sword. The sword has more reach with the point and that’s fine. It has the same reach with the edge andthat’s good also. I’m mostly comparing edge versus edge anyway. The axe has amuch larger handling penalty because its striking surface is smaller and your opponenthas to worry about the point, so that’s ok too. However, the axe only does onecategory of damage more than the edge of the sword if the wielders are the samestrength. That’s a small difference. 2D10+2 versus 4D6 for Strength Bonus three characters
.
With those other advantages, why was the sword relegated to sidearm status (except for polearm-sized swords) when good armor became common? Well, this sword was not suitable for two-handed use buteven the longsword was generally considered a backup weapon to something with more percussive impact. Given that the amount of damage in the system directly impacts whether the weapon hurts someone through the armor, maybe I am giving swords too much damage.
Both these sword edges and axes are chopping weapons and can easily be compared. We roll the damage, subtract thearmor value and then double and apply the result.
A mace or a hammer will do aboutthe same damage as an axe but we only subtract half of the armor value. Then we apply the result without doubling.
A few swords, such as the katana,depend on the drawing cut. For them, we subtract double the armor andthen we triple the result and apply it.
Some sword points do armor piercingpoint damage and have a damage type similar to blunt weapons and they areuseful against armor.
Most sword points do stabbing pointdamage, which works like cutting damage.
So, what’s the problem? For acrunchy game to have swords still be the weapon of choice for many player-charactersfeels like it ought to be problematical.

Well, is there a reason toover-value swords? Swords are the glamour weapon of fantasy literature. The fact that they were not the battlefield weapon of choice did not mean that they couldn’t be carried by far-traveling adventurers. And a sword, unless we aretalking about a huge two-hander, is handy to carry around. Finally, a sword is often the status symbol of a noble or an officer. So, I think it should retainits status as at least a favored sidearm.

So, what is to be done? Well, I could easily reduce the damage of swords, at least their edges. Weapon stats are on the website on a PDF, not on the core rules that are commercially available.And I could put a note on DriveThru that I had done that. GMs could change or not as they choose. Or I can leave it like it is. They do call (part of) thegenre Sword and Sorcery, after all.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Swords are cool. There's a reason why we have countless legends of magical swords, and comparatively few legends about any other magical weapons. If you want the player characters to be cool, by letting them carry swords around, then swords need to be mechanically better than the alternatives.

If you force players to choose between being cool-but-underpowered (swords) or boring-but-efficient (axes and spears), then they will choose the latter but they won't be happy about it. It's better to design a game in such a way as to avoid created that conflict of interests.

 

[Fox Lee]

Personally, I'm dead against it. Players should be able to choose the weapon they think is cool, not have the system decide which one is cool, and therefore make it the mechanically superior choice. If they think swords are the coolest, they will be biased towards in a balanced system anyway.

But if you want to push players into choosing swords, then, yeah, this is a way to achieve that. If homogeneity is the desired result, it will probably work.

 

[Jhaelen]

Historically, I think, swords became the melee weapon of choice for a reason - if you could afford them. They're the perfect all-purpose weapon, equally well suited for attack and defense.
Other types of melee weapons may be better for a particular situation, but having a sword is never 'bad'. So, for a system striving for realism, it makes sense that swords are the most commonly chosen weapons.

Most inferior weapons only continued to be used because they were cheaper and easier to produce in high numbers. This is basically true for all weapons resembling or derived from tools and implements. And that's another important reason why swords are superior: these things have been designed for combat, they don't have any other purpose than killing people.

(There's a third broad category of weapons: Weapons that have been originally designed for hunting. These work best for their original purpose, i.e. when used against animals, but can be used with some success against more intelligent, armored foes, too.)

But I wouldn't be worried about a lack of variety: swords come in all kinds of types and sizes. Some have curved blades to be better when used used from horseback, some are short and meant primarily for stabbing, some are really huge and can chop off a horse's head, some are long and thin to fit through the gaps in an opponent's armor, etc.

 

[Bill Reich]

Thanks for participating. I finally decided to make all sword edges do cutting damage, rather than have many of them do axe-like chipping damage. They actually roll more damage now than axes of the same handling weight but they are resisted by twice the usual value of the target's armor. Whatever damage does get through is tripled. That makes sword edges pretty useless against plate and against a few well-armored monsters, only marginally useful against mail, but otherwise murderous. I have a paragraph about what a character can lug around and that, coupled with a sword's advantages in speed and reach, over shorter hafted weapons, should keep swords pretty popular. If worse comes to worse, most swords have points that are useful, to varying degrees, against armored foes.

Frankly, I didn't want a system where weapon choice had no practical impact.

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[GMMichael]

If worse comes to worse, most swords have points that are useful, to varying degrees, against armored foes.

Frankly, I didn't want a system where weapon choice had no practical impact.

Maybe I've been watching the wrong FoolTube videos, but I thought swords were garbage against (good) armor? If you want to cut through metal armor, you use an axe or an arrow. Better yet, try something that bludgeons.

Realistically, though, since bare hands or an unlucky bump to the head can kill a man, weapon choice doesn't have a practical impact. What really matters is an attacker's desire to do harm.

 

[Derren]

Maybe I've been watching the wrong FoolTube videos, but I thought swords were garbage against (good) armor? If you want to cut through metal armor, you use an axe or an arrow. Better yet, try something that bludgeons.

Realistically, though, since bare hands or an unlucky bump to the head can kill a man, weapon choice doesn't have a practical impact. What really matters is an attacker's desire to do harm.

Assuming you mean plate you have to be very skilled to hurt someone with a sword as you have to carefully hit the weak points of the armor. Heavier weapons can sinply crush or pierce through while lighter weapons like daggers can hit more weak points (you wont be able to squeeze a sword through the helmets eye slits for example). Fighting with a sword against plate looks more like wrestling than a swordfight.

Also, arrows are very bad against plate, too and usually fail to penetrate even at very close range.

 

[Bill Reich]

Maybe I've been watching the wrong FoolTube videos, but I thought swords were garbage against (good) armor? If you want to cut through metal armor, you use an axe or an arrow. Better yet, try something that bludgeons.

Realistically, though, since bare hands or an unlucky bump to the head can kill a man, weapon choice doesn't have a practical impact. What really matters is an attacker's desire to do harm.

Where does it look like I am saying swords are good against good armor. In fact, I am saying the opposite and changed my rules to better fit that.

Your last statement fits very well two guys in a parking lot where one of them is playing "I'm going to shove him" and the other guy desires to do harm. Weapon choice has massive practical impact when both sides desire to do harm.

 

[GMMichael]

Where does it look like I am saying swords are good against good armor.

Probably the part about tripling damage. I guess I read it wrong.

Your last statement fits very well two guys in a parking lot where one of them is playing "I'm going to shove him" and the other guy desires to do harm. Weapon choice has massive practical impact when both sides desire to do harm.

Yes, in the real world, weapon choice matters when two combatants are armored up and trained in certain schools of fighting, or they're using team tactics that require particular weapons.

In the role-playing world though, weapon choice is only as important as the systems you have to support it. Even then, some games undermine their own combat systems by making damage, instead of technique, king.

Since it sounds like you're putting a lot of thought into your combat system, I'm sure you won't fall into that trap.

 

[Bill Reich]

Cutting weapons triple the damage that gets through the armor. Since one cannot cut good steel armor, that almost always results in zero damage. On the other tentacle, even a 2D10 blow on your bare body is a terrible thing. An average hit will put most people below zero, although not in much danger of death if attended to, and a maximum will very likely kill. A _bit_ of armor will reduce damage but, then again, most people with most swords in this system do more than 2D10 damage.

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