[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by PDF:

In fact the distinction between "crush" "slash" and "pierce" damage is quite artificial, weapons apply kinetic forces on a more or less large area, that's all !

No... it's force over an area, force over a line, and force at a point.

For normal, human-wielded weapons, you can (making broad generalizations) also say this:

Crush: High momentum, low kinetic energy, area impact.
Slash: Mid momentum, mid KE, sharp line impact.
Pierce: Low momentum, high KE, sharp point impact.

There are exceptions - a lance acts as though it has high KE and high momentum, for example - but these categories work pretty well for normal weapons... and the ones that don't fit perfectly could still be dual-typed. Monster damages have to be shoe-horned, or a "Generic" damage type could be used for things that just don't fit very well.

As for archers, pikeneers, and knights being unbalanced... yep Faced with skeletal hordes, you'd be toast, unless the archers had backup maces (like crossbowmen sometimes do) or the knights used blunt secondary weapons. Faced with death-by-zombie, you'd better hope the archers and knights had sword backups, because stabbing and shooting zombies has little effect, regardless of what you may have learned playing DOOM.

Facing that army with living people, I'd use swordsmen with tower shields... another strong anti-pierce unit. Their only fear would be cavalry trample, and DOMII knights don't get trample Virtually immune to arrows, and hopefully able to get inside the pike killing zone by deflecting the piercing tips with shields (pikes are long and clumsy, while shields give better leverage), 2 parts of the army would be rendered ineffectual. The knights would have an upper hand based on the hooves, secondary weapons, and heavy armor, but tower shields should be helpful versus lances as well. And at any rate, knights are expensive.

Arioch: I have no saber, but having mastered neko-fu, my hands can crush, pierce, and slash. If only I could make them length 5, I'd be a perfect warrior... but I don't really have to worry too much, as my powered battle armor and Awe +10 keep me pretty safe

-Cherry

P.S.

Even though from my descriptions, it sounds like I want my swordsmen to slice through pikeneers like my knife-fist does through the butter that composes mere mortals, I seriously want the modifiers to be moderate. As in, overall, the tower-shielded swordsmen would be able to face down 20% more pikeneers or archers than before, due to the pierce-bonus of a tower shield, assuming that a tower shield gets a pierce bonus.

[ October 13, 2003, 19:38: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]