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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5702773" data-attributes="member: 8835">On Daggers:this was talked about a month ago in a daggers vs. swords thread.  Technicall, a sword DOES more damage.  It's force = mass * acceleration.  attack a pig carcass with a sword, attack one with a dagger.  Which one has more damage?Yes, I only need to pierce you 3".  I can do that with my longsword or a dagger.The argument should never be that a dagger is NOT dangerous.  Simply that it is a highly situational weapon.  Which is why everybody carried one, even if they generally use a sword.However, like the saying, never bring a knife to a gun fight.  It's fine to have a knife.  It's dumb to rely on the knife when everybody else has a longer range weapon.The knife comes into play when you really close in combat and the sword is rendered useless.  Usually because your sword has blocked their sword while you stepped in to knife them.What's really going on in a fight, D&D-wise:let's say all men have 10 hit pointsthe dagger does less damage to a man, but a good pierce can kill (critical)the long sword does more damage to a man, but is generally slashing woundsa short sword is a stabbing weapon, doing more damage than a daggerYou could express that as each weapon having a +/- to hit by its lethality factor.  And the dagger maybe having a higher crit range.When facing like weapons, it's a moot argument.  One guy lives, one guy dies, and might be hurt.In a lopsided fight (sword vs. dagger), if skill is equal, the sword has the best chance because it can keep the dagger back out of its effective range, while still being able to cause wounds itself.Here's a good philosophical test.  You don't know how skilled I am.  You have a dagger.  Would you rather face me unarmed, with a dagger, or with a sword?  Or vice versa, I have a dagger, how would you like to be armed?Unless the swordman sucks and the dagger man is awesome, the swordman has a tactical advantage on reach and damage if he hits.  It is also a fallacy to assume the larger weapon is drastically slower and clumsier. That is a hollywood fallacy when they want to show David take out Goliath.On the topic of hitpoints vs. # of hits to kill (HTK).  Like byronD pointed out, that's what HP originally wasy.  Everybody had 1, until special units came out that needed more.  The concept stuck as it increased and weapon damages were made to vary.So all you're really doing is issuing 6 HP, and weapons do 1 damage each.Here is a different idea, which simulates potential lethality:every body gets 36 hit points.Weapon hits do 6d6 damage.The result is taking damage in the range of a nick (6dam) or a lethal blow (36dam).  It's probable that 2 hits will kill you.I'm relying on the bell curve rolling multiple dice generates.  Obviously, you could do 6d6/6 round up and apply to the standard 6HP PC.  But division is a crappy thing to do to players.If you were really wierd, you could rule that different weapons have different dice piles, so long as their maximum sum = 36.  Thus, maybe the dagger does 1d20+1d12 + 1d4 and the longsword does 9d4 damage.</blockquote>

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