Advice wanted: 3.5 weapon sizing

[TheAuldGrump]

Given the pissing contest I am beginning to hope that this thread gets closed. I have used both sword and pike in a recreation group (historic rather than SCA), both of the sides are exaggerating their cases far beyond reality. And spending way too much energy insulting each other. (Though Andor is closer he still exaggerates.)

Pikes were used against infantry, but were much more effective against cavalry. The swords were used on those people who had gotten inside of the pikeheads, where the reach actually counted against the effectiveness of the pike.

By the time of the Romans adopting the long sword the bulk of the Roman army was no longer what the Romans themselves would call Roman (which was only those people who came from the city itself), and yes, discipline suffered.

In the end it was a combination of armor for those who could afford it (a warhammer with 'beak' was better at getting through armor than a sword was) and a movement towards missile weapons that could be fired en mass that ended the use of the sword as the primary weapon. Armor itself was swept aside by the massed missile fire. While armor could protect against the missile fire to an extent it did much less to protect the horse, and the best armor relied on the horse for mobility.

The key to both the sword v. the pike and the dagger v. the sword is to to be close enough to use them effectively, and yes, more knights were killed by knife strikes to the bowels than sword strikes - but these were generally done after the knight was down, surprised, or held in a clench so that neither his sword nor his shield came into play. One of the primary uses of the pike on the other hand was simply to keep the enemy from coming at you in a tight wall, those who did get through the pikes were handled better by the sword.

The Auld Grump

 

[Staffan]

5) aims at areas most likely to suffer from internal bleeding/sepcis poisoning/vital organ shut down (works uner the rib cage rather than through the clavical).

As Terry Pratchett put it in, IIRC, Pyramids: "The way to a man's heart goes through his stomach."

Even if said little people live behind bigger folks patrol lines, scouting parties can evade them unless the patrols are on high alert. And lets not forget the lions (cougars), tigers (wolves), and bears...

Oh my!

 

[DungeonMaster]

There's plenty of modern data on deep slash wounds.

So why don't you provide a link? Both the WHO and DWB websites have nothing like what you're talking about.
The best I could find was the infections related to cosmetic piercings and slashing AIDS funding.

Slash wounds open up. Their depths and boundaries are fairly well defined.

I'm not a doctor, I'm a physicist. I asked my one of my doctor friends from university what in hell this meant today over lunch. He says he has no clue. Or more specifically the one saying this. He also thinks this discussion is nuts. And that both those organisations aren't in the least bit interested in what you claim. And that I am wasting my time and breath.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not everything in the world is online.

I'm not an MD, I'm an attorney/MBA who grew up in a medical household, with friends & family in ERs and medical practices around the world- ranging from EMTs to Nurses to MDs. I've also done my share of emergency treatment of wounds from things like large shards of glass or removing broken needle tips (from a discarded needle, no less- I never go barefoot in public).

If you apply gentle force to either side of a slash wound, you can detect its limits- its depth and breadth- for suturing...generally speaking.

By way of contrast a puncture as small as a pinprick- through the wrong tissue, can lead to hemorhage, sepsis and death. You can't just spread a puncture to determine its depth. Two wounds that look identical to each other on the surface could differ in depth by several inches.

In either case, its not easy- a deep slash could nick a kidney almost invisibly, etc., but its stilll easier to see the extent of a wound

 

[ARandomGod]

As entertaining as this p!ssing contest is, gentlemen, I've got something for the original poster.

You have a group of relative newbies. Please, PLEASE don't throw all the complex stuff at them. They could give a toss what the physics and game-balance justification is, if they want a little Frodo-type guy with a sword, just tell them how much damage it does and be done with it.

I promise you that trying to do everything in full detail will just drag down the excitement for them. It's not like 1d6 vs. 1d8 is going to break the game.

Anyway, good luck with your game!

Mwa ha ha.

Of course that's what they want. My original response stated that I've played it both ways, and it doesn't seem unbalanced to ignore the weapon size rules in general. It's quite intuitive. If your halfling wants a one handed rapier, it has to be halfling sized. If he's willing to weild it two handed then human sized works fine. It didn't seem to be a big balance factor, it doesn't hurt the game any to play it that way. And it is simpler to many people.

On the other hand, I've played with the official rules, and while I dont think they make "sense" in many occasions, and they leave me frustrated often (Me: "What the Heck do you mean I can't use this human sized magic dagger?!? I clearly Can!" GM:" Sure, -4 penalty") , it also was playable.

So do what you like and don't worry about it overmuch.

Of course, having said THAT, I'll go on to debate my point. I'm on these forums largely to entertain myself with text socialization, even if I do use them in a large part for game ideas and information.

 

[Storyteller01]

As Terry Pratchett put it in, IIRC, Pyramids: "The way to a man's heart goes through his stomach."

Oh my!

Oh my indeed

 

[Storyteller01]

Of course, having said THAT, I'll go on to debate my point. I'm on these forums largely to entertain myself with text socialization, even if I do use them in a large part for game ideas and information.

So maybe work a combo of the two? Small weapons do exist (yep, they do make weapons for themselves) but relax or negate the sizing penalties(Maybe incur the -2 if the weapon is two sizes larger, and giain an addotional -2 for each size after?).