D&D General D&D weapons vs reality

[Quartz]

5 unarmed men with basic training with crossbows and daggers could easily take out a single knight.

There's a YouTube video, The Knight of Hope, which argues otherwise.

 

[Zardnaar]

If you take a look at the videos posted above, slings could do serious damage to armor! Taking a hit in the head even with a helm is not a good idea!

They don't penetrate the armor though.

And you're using a shield as well.

Heavy infantry dominated for a long time because it wss difficult to counter it. Until heavy cavalry and bows with higher draw power came along. Parthia cough cough Crassus.

I used to have a bow only 55 pounds draw. Alot if people struggled to draw it. Range was around 100-150 meters. That's a weak bow.

Fired an arrow over a rugby field into the adjacent field.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

#

5 unarmed men with basic training with crossbows and daggers could easily take out a single knight. The knight can't run them down, the knight can only fight when they engage and eventually he'll tire first. That leaves out pits, killing the horse at full gallop, ropes, maces hammers. Picks and all kinds of things that require far less skill to pull off. And a well trained knight could always be poisoned. And if it takes 4 or 5 tries to kill him you lose 20 poorly trained men. Someone loses a knight and a warhorse that will take 5 years of training and lots of treasure to replace. Even at 100 people to the knight it's a good deal in war. The knight and warhorse easily cost more than a 100 people. Knights only marched around with impunity in the middle ages because people that got caught killing them were executed. But in wars or dealing with criminals all that came off. And modern breastplates that would stop the good crossbows were called tournament breastplates that requires tackle and pulley to load. They were never used in actual warfare. But layering armor and some other advanced in armor did mitigate the crossbow at the expense of making the armor heavier, hotter and more cumbersome. Bottom line the heavier the armor the more necessary support troops where. Knights did not ride around all alone in plate like they did in Arthurian or any other fantasy knight tales.

One bolt under the arm in the knee joint etc and without support the knight was done.

To be fair most crossbows of that time were lower quality and you have to be about 30 or so feet from the knight and you'd be aiming at the gaps in the armor. The high end high powered expensive ones that took far more time to load were far more deadly. The other issue is most knights in those times wore what they could afford. Up in 1600's you'd still see poor knight wearing armour made in the 1400's because it was very expensive. Only the richest and most important wore the latest greatest armor.

Not surprising. The US army still uses Korean era equipment for some units because it's good enough for their job and it's cheap.

Eventually generals and commanders realized a well trained army with less expensive armor and gear was always the better way to go. One man covered in steel was just not cost effective.

Knights generally only wore full harness to actual battles. Even if the knights are on foot, you can't just run away from them until they tire: That's called a rout, and it is something that must be avoided at all costs, since when part of your line collapses like that, so can your battle plan.

There is a misapprehension with some people that maces, daggers, etc were good at taking out full plate. They are not: They are simply some of the least worse options. Getting a dagger into a crevice, or landing enough hits in the same place with a heavy, blunt weapon to start bending the armour significantly is difficult. Picks, clothyard shafts and bolts have the capability of penetrating some plates, but it needs a lucky hit: plate is designed so those sort of attacks will mostly skitter off.
Much harder than killing someone with less armour, even with those weapons.
. . . and all this time, the knight is actively killing you. An unarmoured man taking a hit from the knight is dead or disabled generally, and a full harness of plates allows that knight to fight very offensively. You can't think of it as simply a matter of "spending" men unless you have fanatics on tap: Those men are individuals with their own hopes and fears, and none of them want to be the first couple to die so the others can dog-pile the knight, even if that is the mathematically superior method.

Shooting for joints isn't really realistic. Even if you can hit something that size in target shooting, shooting at someone in active combat renders it mostly ineffective. The rapid and relatively random nature of movement and the very real travel time of your shot means that your target generally isn't where your attack was aimed by then time it arrives.
If you can maneuver to be able to shoot at the backs of the knights, that grants a better chance, but still of the few shots that hit joints: even fewer are going to penetrate: Generally the joints are still armoured, even if less so than those areas that are easier to attack.

 

[AlViking]

#

Knights generally only wore full harness to actual battles. Even if the knights are on foot, you can't just run away from them until they tire: That's called a rout, and it is something that must be avoided at all costs, since when part of your line collapses like that, so can your battle plan.

There is a misapprehension with some people that maces, daggers, etc were good at taking out full plate. They are not: They are simply some of the least worse options. Getting a dagger into a crevice, or landing enough hits in the same place with a heavy, blunt weapon to start bending the armour significantly is difficult. Picks, clothyard shafts and bolts have the capability of penetrating some plates, but it needs a lucky hit: plate is designed so those sort of attacks will mostly skitter off.
Much harder than killing someone with less armour, even with those weapons.
. . . and all this time, the knight is actively killing you. An unarmoured man taking a hit from the knight is dead or disabled generally, and a full harness of plates allows that knight to fight very offensively. You can't think of it as simply a matter of "spending" men unless you have fanatics on tap: Those men are individuals with their own hopes and fears, and none of them want to be the first couple to die so the others can dog-pile the knight, even if that is the mathematically superior method.

Shooting for joints isn't really realistic. Even if you can hit something that size in target shooting, shooting at someone in active combat renders it mostly ineffective. The rapid and relatively random nature of movement and the very real travel time of your shot means that your target generally isn't where your attack was aimed by then time it arrives.
If you can maneuver to be able to shoot at the backs of the knights, that grants a better chance, but still of the few shots that hit joints: even fewer are going to penetrate: Generally the joints are still armoured, even if less so than those areas that are easier to attack.

Some of these posts remind me of the people who claim that a modern tank is easy to take out because "All you have to do is throw a grenade down the tank's barrel." High quality armor was extremely expensive, if it didn't work it wouldn't have been used.

 

[Micah Sweet]

#

Knights generally only wore full harness to actual battles. Even if the knights are on foot, you can't just run away from them until they tire: That's called a rout, and it is something that must be avoided at all costs, since when part of your line collapses like that, so can your battle plan.

There is a misapprehension with some people that maces, daggers, etc were good at taking out full plate. They are not: They are simply some of the least worse options. Getting a dagger into a crevice, or landing enough hits in the same place with a heavy, blunt weapon to start bending the armour significantly is difficult. Picks, clothyard shafts and bolts have the capability of penetrating some plates, but it needs a lucky hit: plate is designed so those sort of attacks will mostly skitter off.
Much harder than killing someone with less armour, even with those weapons.
. . . and all this time, the knight is actively killing you. An unarmoured man taking a hit from the knight is dead or disabled generally, and a full harness of plates allows that knight to fight very offensively. You can't think of it as simply a matter of "spending" men unless you have fanatics on tap: Those men are individuals with their own hopes and fears, and none of them want to be the first couple to die so the others can dog-pile the knight, even if that is the mathematically superior method.

Shooting for joints isn't really realistic. Even if you can hit something that size in target shooting, shooting at someone in active combat renders it mostly ineffective. The rapid and relatively random nature of movement and the very real travel time of your shot means that your target generally isn't where your attack was aimed by then time it arrives.
If you can maneuver to be able to shoot at the backs of the knights, that grants a better chance, but still of the few shots that hit joints: even fewer are going to penetrate: Generally the joints are still armoured, even if less so than those areas that are easier to attack.

Armor, particularly heavy armor, is really unappreciated in a lot of RPGs IMO.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Armor, particularly heavy armor, is really unappreciated in a lot of RPGs IMO.

Mostly because it is underrated in movies and tv. Somebody above talks about shooting for joints but in my opinion, if they are that close, they are closing in and D&D aside one cannot really shoot in melee.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mostly because it is underrated in movies and tv. Somebody above talks about shooting for joints but in my opinion, if they are that close, they are closing in and D&D aside one cannot really shoot in melee.

Yeah, in one of my favorite fantasy RPGs you literally can't without special training.

 

[AlViking]

Mostly because it is underrated in movies and tv. Somebody above talks about shooting for joints but in my opinion, if they are that close, they are closing in and D&D aside one cannot really shoot in melee.

I groan every time you see those scenes where the breastplate is obviously made out of tinfoil because the only thing stopping someone from shoving a sword through their chest and out the other side is the ability to parry attacks. Why would you even bother wearing armor? Almost as bad as the people that say the armor wasn't effective against firearms and then showing the armor that had a cannonball go through it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

5 unarmed men with basic training with crossbows and daggers could easily take out a single knight. The knight can't run them down, the knight can only fight when they engage and eventually he'll tire first. That leaves out pits, killing the horse at full gallop, ropes, maces hammers. Picks and all kinds of things that require far less skill to pull off. And a well trained knight could always be poisoned. And if it takes 4 or 5 tries to kill him you lose 20 poorly trained men. Someone loses a knight and a warhorse that will take 5 years of training and lots of treasure to replace. Even at 100 people to the knight it's a good deal in war. The knight and warhorse easily cost more than a 100 people. Knights only marched around with impunity in the middle ages because people that got caught killing them were executed. But in wars or dealing with criminals all that came off. And modern breastplates that would stop the good crossbows were called tournament breastplates that requires tackle and pulley to load. They were never used in actual warfare. But layering armor and some other advanced in armor did mitigate the crossbow at the expense of making the armor heavier, hotter and more cumbersome. Bottom line the heavier the armor the more necessary support troops where. Knights did not ride around all alone in plate like they did in Arthurian or any other fantasy knight tales.

One bolt under the arm in the knee joint etc and without support the knight was done.

To be fair most crossbows of that time were lower quality and you have to be about 30 or so feet from the knight and you'd be aiming at the gaps in the armor. The high end high powered expensive ones that took far more time to load were far more deadly. The other issue is most knights in those times wore what they could afford. Up in 1600's you'd still see poor knight wearing armour made in the 1400's because it was very expensive. Only the richest and most important wore the latest greatest armor.

Not surprising. The US army still uses Korean era equipment for some units because it's good enough for their job and it's cheap.

Eventually generals and commanders realized a well trained army with less expensive armor and gear was always the better way to go. One man covered in steel was just not cost effective.

Just wanna point out that war bows (not just the famous longbow, either) could pierce plate armor. The only reason crossbows even had a strong place in war was that they were much easier to train someone to use. An equivalent bow was pretty much always better in terms of range and impact and speed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Mostly because it is underrated in movies and tv. Somebody above talks about shooting for joints but in my opinion, if they are that close, they are closing in and D&D aside one cannot really shoot in melee.

Watch good archers shoot small moving targets some time. They don’t have to be dangerously close.

Hell I’m not that good and I can shoot an apple at at least 40 yards, which is plenty of distance to shoot a half-dozen times before you can get to me, and I need to get my axe or mace out.