[Runequest] Advice Sought re Damage & H

[Andrew Larsen]

Keep in mind that Bronze Age (and even Iron Age) weapons do not hold an edge
the way modern steel blades do.  The typical medieval sword was not sharp
enough and could not be swung fast enough to consistently sever body parts.
Yes, they could sever a limb on occasion, but it was not the typical result,
esp. if the opponent was wearing chain mail, which is particularly effective
against edged weapons.  Instead of severing a limb, it was much more likely
that a good blow would break a bone (which might, of course, cause the
subject to bleed out, if it was a compound facture).  The limited studies
done on skeletons from medieval battlefields tend to bear this out.  At the
Visby site, for example, only two clear cases of severed limbs were
identified, amid a lot of crushed skulls and the like.
    Hollywood films wildly exaggerate how easy it is to remove a body part
with a swung blade.

Andrew E. Larsen


On 5/28/08 10:20 AM, "Styopa" <styopa1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 5:04 PM, Bjorn Stolen <stolenbjorn at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm not ignoring your experience, and I'm sure that with adrenalin and stuff
>> that people can endure edged combat, but blades are pretty nasty... This one
>> is done by a person probably a lot less well versed in the use of a longsword
>> than the averidge Rune Quest hero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4j3mvrDyQ
>> (I know, it's skinned, and it's not defending itself, but I think this one
>> illustrates what max rolled on the dice is.
> 
> Hi Bjorn,
> I see your point, but I think it's significant to note:
> 
> 1) the first guy is NOT untrained, or he has remarkably natural form.  I would
> suspect that he is a practiced kendo artist, or has trained with medieval
> weapons, based on his arm postures through and after the swing, as well as his
> excellent step-timing.  Also, we're talking a healthy 20th century man who is
> probably a good 15-20% taller, 20% heaver, and 10% stronger than an AVERAGE
> medieval-era fellow.
> 
> 2) they are cleaving a gutted deer.  Granted the viscera wouldn't add much
> resistance compared to muscle, but the deer is also a fairly fragile beast.
> Look at the vertebrae, it's barely the diameter of the man's index finger.  I
> sincerely doubt he could accomplish the same with a boar carcass of similar
> weight, which is much more like a human.  I expect it's CONCEIVABLE that a
> razor-sharp sword, on an unwitting or unresisting target, swung by a strong,
> skilled wielder *could* slice through a person.  But given the averages of a
> d8+1 sword and standard RQ mechanics, a no-strength-bonus person could cleave
> another person in half 25% of the time? (8 or 9 hp to a 4 hp abdomen)
> 
>>  
>> As for daggers; remember that we're talking about serious stuff, not
>> bowie-knives (who do 1d3 dam)
>> We're talking rondelldaggers, like this one, often as long as 40 cm:
>> http://www.deltin.it/i6.htm
>> -or stuff like the scramaseaxes, like this one:
>> http://www.drakkaria.cz/images_items/scramasax---replika-pro-serm_3.jpg
>> -This is 1d4+2 damage :D
>> 
>> Anyways, realism and roleplaygames are seldom a match IMHO, and as I do HEMA
>> myself, I have given up to let all aspects of sparring combat be reflected
>> realisticly in roleplay-rules (but I regard the RQ3 system as one of the
>> better ones for melee).
> 
> 3) I understand your point about the daggers, that's what I was thinking too.
> But the nature of the "+2" means that the MINIMUM damage of that weapon is
> more than the minimum damage of a broadsword?  Than a POLEAXE?  (And BTW, I'd
> agree that anything over 16-18" is really a shortsword, not a dagger, no
> matter what it's named, and anything over 30" is probably a broadsword,
> generally speaking.
>  
> 
> 
> 
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