Does a Great Axe do 2.5x the Damage of a Dagger?

[GMMichael]

When you make a judgment on how lethal a weapon is, and then express that judgment in terms of dice, something interesting happens: you can compare how lethal a weapon is in terms of how lethal another weapon is.

In the titular example, chopping someone with a great axe is just as damaging to the human body (psyche?) as stabbing that someone 2.5 times with a dagger. (These particular numbers are based on my system of tiny weapons using a d4, and two-handed weapons using a d10).

According to the Gallagher test, a watermelon agrees with the above findings. But is it fair to treat humans and watermelons the same? What about a steel-backed dire turtle?

In my games, the 2.5x difference only applies in combat (mode), and relies on the logic that says a machine gun will kill someone much faster than a pistol will. It's a sort of life-expectancy statement, but it's also a nod toward Damage-as-Meat; just ask the watermelon.

How many dagger stabs equal a great axe chop in your game? Do you treat humans and watermelons the same?

 

[MGibster]

There's a good point here - especially because there's games that don't do this. I played a session of Fate Accelerated tonight, and that game does not have a concept of normal weapons having different damage they do. The weapon enables action in this game, but does not alter the result after that.

I used to be strongly against such a system believing it to be absurd but I've come across to thinking Fate does a pretty good job handling action. Fate is a game where you can emulate the sword vs. gun fight Spike and Vicious had at the end of Cowboy Bebop or make sure that nimble knife fighter and the heavily armored spearman isn't a one sided fight. Concentrating on enabling action instead of differentiating damage is rather elegant I think. i.e. I wouldn't use it for every game but it works for what Fate's trying to accomplish rather well.

 

[Marc_C]

That is why you need a system for armour Damage reduction and Piercing damage for weapons who can somehow bypass armour (protection).

 

[Umbran]

I used to be strongly against such a system believing it to be absurd but I've come across to thinking Fate does a pretty good job handling action. Fate is a game where you can emulate the sword vs. gun fight Spike and Vicious had at the end of Cowboy Bebop or make sure that nimble knife fighter and the heavily armored spearman isn't a one sided fight. Concentrating on enabling action instead of differentiating damage is rather elegant I think. i.e. I wouldn't use it for every game but it works for what Fate's trying to accomplish rather well.

We can take that one step further, and look at Tales of Xadia (the upcoming Cortex game set in the world of the animated series The Dragon Prince).

From the playtest docs... the game does have a notion of equipment, and that equipment does have a die rating (d6, d8, ot d10 - there's not a lot of granularity) - so some weapons are better than others, however...

The game doesn't work on a HP system. It has stress tracks. If a character overflows a stress track, they are "Stressed Out", and no longer capable of action in a scene. There are six kinds of stress, and only one of them is Injury. Another is Exhaustion. The others are Corruption (specific to a type of magic in the setting), Afraid, Anger, and Anxious.

End result is that, in a conflict, a good history book can be as dangerous as a spear. With a good narration, a skilled orator with that book can inflict, say, Anger or Anxiety as much as a sword will inflict Injury. Being baited into spluttering anger renders you as ineffective as a sword to the gut.

Honestly, Fate does this same thing - stress is stress, whatever its form.

 

[Deset Gled]

I used to be strongly against such a system believing it to be absurd but I've come across to thinking Fate does a pretty good job handling action. Fate is a game where you can emulate the sword vs. gun fight Spike and Vicious had at the end of Cowboy Bebop or make sure that nimble knife fighter and the heavily armored spearman isn't a one sided fight. Concentrating on enabling action instead of differentiating damage is rather elegant I think. i.e. I wouldn't use it for every game but it works for what Fate's trying to accomplish rather well.

It works well if you want a game that is heavier on narrativism. It works poorly if you want a higher degree of simulationism, which seems to be what the OP is asking about.

 

[Emerikol]

...Cortex game...

Honestly, Fate does this same thing - stress is stress, whatever its form.

I was just reading about cortex as a system and found it had some interesting ideas. It's kind of the dice pool heaven if you will. Most games like this though are going to use plot coupons which they do and which I don't care for much. Still it could be one of those games I might play riding in the back of a station wagon cross country and just ad libbing it. Not my cup of tea for what I consider my form of serious roleplaying but a one day diversion.

I love the Fate dice. (or the FUDGE dice whatever). I own a few sets and I keep wanting to make up some reason to bring those dice into one of my other games.

 

[Umbran]

Most games like this though are going to use plot coupons which they do and which I don't care for much.

I don't know why you'd think that. Seems like an unfounded assumption, to me.

Not my cup of tea for what I consider my form of serious roleplaying but a one day diversion.

I don't know what you mean by "serious roleplaying". The series it is based upon is about family, death, honor, corruption, racism, and several other not-at-all-funny subjects.

 

[Tonguez]

I agree with this.

But it depends on context. In an artificial context where you'd have a poor test subject that would stand still and give you one calculated strike with either a dagger or a battle axe, I don't think that the battle axe (even though it has more kinetic energy and is much more destructive) would necessary be more lethal. Without being hindered, it's unlikely that a stab from a dagger wouldn't be fatal.

But in the context of two people fighting, dodging and exchanging blows; if I had to bet money as to which weapon landing a hit would be deadlier, I would 100% put it on the battle axe. There is, in my mind, much more chances that a blow from the axe will be fatal.

For people wearing armour although axes and swords have reach and a better chance to hit a person, daggers are more deadly because a skilled knife user can get the blade through the defense to cause actual damage to vitals.

I suppose you could have daggers overcoming AR or perhaps Sneak Attack bonus is suppose to model that but I’d prefer that all weapons do the same damage and the other factors like reach, weight and piercing were modelled in other ways

 

[Emerikol]

I don't know why you'd think that. Seems like an unfounded assumption, to me.

Bennies, fate points, hero points are what I am calling plot coupons. Anything meta that players decide for their characters in a way their characters would be oblivious of if they were real.

I don't know what you mean by "serious roleplaying". The series it is based upon is about family, death, honor, corruption, racism, and several other not-at-all-funny subjects.

I mean serious in terms of high commitment. A game you play for months even years is a high level of commitment so I want to go for the best form of game I can get in those instances. If I am playing a one shot, I might try any game because it's one day and I can essentially treat it just like I would playing a board game. I prefer my flavor of roleplaying when I'm doing an extended campaign.

 

[Bagpuss]

You know, normally, this is the unrealistic assumption that everyone makes... that causes their "realistic" house rules to fall apart.

Realistically, there are a handful of important vital organs and/or blood vessels that piercing/slashing/crushing is almost immediately fatal with... practically the entirety of other physical trauma only serving the purpose of degrading the victim's endurance and morale and making them more vulnerable for one of the former kill shots.

D&D doesn't model any of those things.

Is any of that realistic? No. Does it satisfy the need for deeper tactical decisions in weapon choice? Yes.

Millennium's End, a modern counter-terror RPG, had a go at simulating that (as did I think Phoenix Command), where it would have hit locations and depending on penetration you could shatter bones, cause bleeding or injure organs. I guess it all depends on what you want genre conventions you game to reflect.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Do you treat humans and watermelons the same?

Yes. Because in my world, humans are made of watermelon.