Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 17:14:34 +0100
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Digest for Thu, 28 Jan 1993
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---------------------
From: pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Digest for Wed, 27 Jan 1993
Message-ID:
Date: 28 Jan 93 10:56:40 GMT
> From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
> Subject: Re: RQ III Errata
>
> > From: bell@cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)
> > Subject: RQ III Errata
>
> > BLUNT WEAPONS VS. SOFT ARMOR
> >When a flail, mace, or maul is used against soft armor, the value of the
> >armor protection is halved (round fractions up). Soft armor overlapped
> >with hard armor counts as hard armor.
>
> I'm not sure this makes sense ... padding should stop blunt weapons, but be
> worse against pointed weapons. Blunt, heavy weapons should be better at causing
> damage through hard armour. Historically, the pattern of weapon use reflected
> this. Heavy maces came in to bash through heavy plate. When gunpowder came in,
> people wore little or no armour and favoured lighter thrusting or cutting
> weapons such as the rapier or sabre. I preferred the old crush/slash/impale
> rules, crude as they were.
If you've ever worn chain, you'll see why this rule is in there. Crushing
blows get through quite easily, sword points do not. Essentially, someone
over here made some home made some chain (damn good stuff, using rings far
smaller than those used in the medieval version). Being a bunch of raving
psychotics, we tried this stuff out. The two tests were: (1) Take knife (fairly
ordinary switchblade) and stab the guy wearing chain. Result: None. It was
stopped. Dead. The impact was spread out by the links very effectively.
(2) Punch chain wearer as hard as possible. Result: Extreme pain on both sides,
the puncher just having hit a whole pile of steel rings, and the wearer (who
was wearing no padding) just having had a clump of steel rings forced into
his chest.
Conclusion: Soft armour vs. blunt weapons is not too effective. So,
why did they use hammers and things against plate? (1) They were easy
to make, so the average grunt could stand a chance against a downed
knight. (2) Momentum. A war pick is a wonderful thing... tons of
momentum, equates to tons of force on a very small point, equates to
one hell of a blow. Swords, on the other hand, we just fine for
cutting up the peasants, but bounched off anything hard. (Seen Roman
Polanski's Macbeth?)
So, I like the new rule. Let me add a further one: Against very hard
armours, eg. plate, natural weapons do half damage. There's no way a
claw is going to break metal. This means that a knight can go
wrestling with a bear... unless he loses his balance (good
possibility) or is crushed to death (even better possibility).
> 2. Shouldn't 1 point soft leather be exempt from these rules (7.0 points ENC
> for one point padding seems a little steep!)? I would argue that most hard
> armour would include padding or be worn with padded clothing for comfort.
Agreed.
---------------------
From: SPB1@vms.bton.ac.uk (Ghost Dancer)
Subject: Rumour
Message-ID: <9301281157.AA23077@Sun.COM>
Date: 28 Jan 93 11:56:00 GMT
"Blue Moon Plateau used to be a Mountain but during their hunger the Trolls ate
it"
._
/! \ Alternative
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