Preface:  I'm posting this now because of a particular game development snag, in that my system makes some non-standard distinctions on weapon skills in the interest of threading a thin line between simple rules, tactical options, and "good enough" simulation.  It would also be helpful to make a distinction between things that are purely weapons versus "small arms" or "tools" that could serve as a weapon.  However, for purposes of the question, feel free to treat it more broadly than that, as anything on the subject is of interest.

I'd like to know more about the similarities and differences of the family (or families) of weapons that primarily consist of swung weapons with a relatively short haft, and business ends that are more blunt, flanged, picks, or the like instead of blades (i.e.axes, sword, etc.)  With flails, I think I have a fairly decent understanding, at least for fantasy gaming.  

Is there really much difference between a hammer, mace, pick, and so forth for gaming purposes.   I mean, they were all made to deal with heavy armor, right?  

Is the old D&D-style "footman mace" and "horseman mace" useful, other than just as a flavorful designation of size?  That is, is there an appreciable difference in how you would use one on foot?  (I get that, like the sabre, the techniques from horseback will be different to keep from breaking your own wrist or leaving the weapon in the target.)

Is a morningstar nothing more than a heavier mace with a particular set of flanges on it, but being strong enough, you'd use it like a heavy mace?

How does all this fit in with clubs (but not more specific weapons such as a staff)?  Is the club the "small arms" equivalent of some of these items?

Finally, just how hard is it to learn use such weapons well, compared to blades, axes, etc?

Scholgladiatoria on Youtube is a font of info. Basically mace & warhammer are similar anti armour basher/crushers. A pick is more specialised. A club is more an improvised weapon.

Quote from: S'mon;1127469Scholgladiatoria on Youtube is a font of info. Basically mace & warhammer are similar anti armour basher/crushers. A pick is more specialised. A club is more an improvised weapon.

Gotta second Scholgladiatoria as one of the best channels for information about historical weapons and fighting styles. Skallagrim is also a good channel with a more hands-on approach testing out and reviewing weapons. Shadiversity is also a good channel as well with a more geeky academic focus, sometimes discussing RPGs as well, and also general stuff about Medieval life, even castle construction and such. The Metatron is yet another channel along that vein that discusses weapons from a more martial arts PoV, including Japanese weapons and armor. If you wanna go down the rabbit hole those are probably the top four.

From a RPG PoV I'd probably give crushing weapons a lower baseline damage than blades, but some sort of benefit against armor--either armor penetration (for systems where armor gives DR) or an attack bonus against armored opponents (for D&D and systems that use AC). Some type of knockout or knock down mechanic might also work as well. The old Marvel Super Heroes RPG (FASERIP), for example, would give blunt weapons a chance to knock down or slam opponents on a "Red" (critical success) result, but also gave edged weapons a chance to insta-kill on the same result.

A pick would probably be a hybrid between these: lower baseline damage and bonus vs armor, but chance to insta-kill instead of knock on a critical success.

Skallagrim is an elitist ass and I went from enjoying his stuff to absolutely despising him. Considering the amount of stuff he gets wrong when being derogatory I have to look back at his other stuff and question it heavily.

Quote from: Omega;1127481Skallagrim is an elitist ass and I went from enjoying his stuff to absolutely despising him. Considering the amount of stuff he gets wrong when being derogatory I have to look back at his other stuff and question it heavily.

Yeah, I no longer follow Skallagrim, he is too much of an asshole. I'd recommend Scholagladiatoria, Metatron, Shadiversity and Lindybeige, with Scholagladiatoria the most authoritative for weapons. Metatron knows a ton about Roman stuff, Shad and Lindy are very much autodidacts - they may be less reliable but you can follow along with their learning process and I don't find them insufferable the way Skall can be.

Quote from: S'mon;1127469Basically mace & warhammer are similar anti armour basher/crushers. A pick is more specialised. A club is more an improvised weapon.

Intuitively that sounds about right, though the line between what is a club, a warclub, and a mace will get a bit blurry.

Quote from: Bren;1127545Intuitively that sounds about right, though the line between what is a club, a warclub, and a mace will get a bit blurry.

Blurry isn't a problem for me.  Identifying the area of the blur is really the goal, because my system already has the solution for that in its goal of very targeted and limited complexity.  So your statement is very helpful!

Best way I can explain is to show places where I'm reasonably happy with the lines I've drawn.  Let's say that there are some skills:  "axe, hatchet, dagger, blade".  (You could easily make the argument that I should be calling "axe" "war axe" and "blade" "sword", but roll with it for example sake.)  Then I might have part of a weapon list like this:

Hand axe - hatchet skill
Axe - hatchet skill, axe skill
Battle Axe - axe skill

Knife - dagger skill
Dagger - dagger skill, blade skill
Short sword - dagger skill, blade skill
Arming sword - blade skill

When I start trying to write the skills and weapons for hammers, maces, clubs, picks, etc., it gets a little cumbersome.  I go back and forth, for example, on whether or not to leave "pick" skill out entirely and just roll it into "hammer"--not least because of the hammer/pick combo weapons.  The fuzzy line on mace and war club tells me that I want something like this:

club - club skill
war club - club skill, mace skill
light mace - club skill, mace skill
mace - mace skill
morningstar - mace skill (hammer skill?)

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1127547Blurry isn't a problem for me.  Identifying the area of the blur is really the goal, because my system already has the solution for that in its goal of very targeted and limited complexity.  So your statement is very helpful!

Best way I can explain is to show places where I'm reasonably happy with the lines I've drawn.  Let's say that there are some skills:  "axe, hatchet, dagger, blade".  (You could easily make the argument that I should be calling "axe" "war axe" and "blade" "sword", but roll with it for example sake.)  Then I might have part of a weapon list like this:

Hand axe - hatchet skill
Axe - hatchet skill, axe skill
Battle Axe - axe skill

Knife - dagger skill
Dagger - dagger skill, blade skill
Short sword - dagger skill, blade skill
Arming sword - blade skill

When I start trying to write the skills and weapons for hammers, maces, clubs, picks, etc., it gets a little cumbersome.  I go back and forth, for example, on whether or not to leave "pick" skill out entirely and just roll it into "hammer"--not least because of the hammer/pick combo weapons.  The fuzzy line on mace and war club tells me that I want something like this:

club - club skill
war club - club skill, mace skill
light mace - club skill, mace skill
mace - mace skill
morningstar - mace skill (hammer skill?)

This is kind of a contentious subject since different people draw the line at different places when it comes to defining how specific skills should be. But my take is that all skills (in general, but specially weapon skills) should be general and specific functions treated as specialties that modify the base skill.

People can sometimes get  nitpicky about subtle differences between weapons but the reality is that biomechanics can be very similar and it's pretty much impossible to train on one type of melee weapon without inadvertently becoming better than baseline at melee combat in general. Granted, you might be better with the specific weapon(s) you've trained with but you will also be better with other weapons than someone who's had zero training on any weapon because a lot of moves are practically the same regardless of weapon, with only minor adjustments to compensate for differences weight distribution or reach. The best, most effective and simple way to present this in terms of the game rules is to treat melee (or ranged) combat as a universal skill and specific weapons as specialties.

You might further break down specializations into weapon groups (swords, clubbing weapons, etc.) and specific types of weapons (katanas, rapiers, katars, etc.), perhaps turning them into multiple tiers (I use "Proficiencies" and "Masteries" in my system). Weapon groups I'm considering using include:

Melee Weapons

• Short Blades (Knives)
• Long Blades (Swords)
• Clubbing Weapons (Clubs, Maces & Hammers)
• Picks & Axes
• Pole Weapons (Staves, Spears & Polearms)
• Shields (Buckler, Small, Medium, Tower)
• Whips & Chains

Ranged Weapons

• Archery (Bows, Crossbows & Slings)
• Firearms (Handguns, Rifles, Shotguns, Heavy Weapons)
• Thrown Weapons (Throwing Knives, Spears, Javelins, Axes, etc.)

Quote from: S'mon;1127502Yeah, I no longer follow Skallagrim, he is too much of an asshole. I'd recommend Scholagladiatoria, Metatron, Shadiversity and Lindybeige, with Scholagladiatoria the most authoritative for weapons. Metatron knows a ton about Roman stuff, Shad and Lindy are very much autodidacts - they may be less reliable but you can follow along with their learning process and I don't find them insufferable the way Skall can be.

I've heard some criticism of Skallagrim before but haven't watched his content recently often enough to notice anything egregious. Guess he's put his foot in his mouth one too many times. I agree that Scholagladiatoria is the most authoritative, though, but some of the others can also offer valuable insight for purposes of coming up with game rules and stuff for the game.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1127553This is kind of a contentious subject since different people draw the line at different places when it comes to defining how specific skills should be. But my take is that all skills (in general, but specially weapon skills) should be general and specific functions treated as specialties that modify the base skill.

People can sometimes get  nitpicky about subtle differences between weapons but the reality is that biomechanics can be very similar and it's pretty much impossible to train on one type of melee weapon without inadvertently becoming better than baseline at melee combat in general. Granted, you might be better with the specific weapon(s) you've trained with but you will also be better with other weapons than someone who's had zero training on any weapon because a lot of moves are practically the same regardless of weapon, with only minor adjustments to compensate for differences weight distribution or reach. The best, most effective and simple way to present this in terms of the game rules is to treat melee (or ranged) combat as a universal skill and specific weapons as specialties.

You might further break down specializations into weapon groups (swords, clubbing weapons, etc.) and specific types of weapons (katanas, rapiers, katars, etc.), perhaps turning them into multiple tiers (I use "Proficiencies" and "Masteries" in my system).

I'm doing something similar, with a "Talent" and "Skill" breakdown for your "Proficiencies" and "Masteries" except, I've got the need for two different items where you have Melee Weapons.  Most of mechanics are embedded in the "Talent", with the "Skill" doing very little but topping off accuracy (admittedly, a very important part).  Mainly, though, the "Talents" are not exactly typical RPG game items, and in this case are a bit more than weapon groups.  (There's only 25 groups in the entire system.  They are less than classes but more than skills.)  In short, I had all the melee weapons under one Talent for some time, but play testing proved it was too broad for the system.  Which leads me to the problem of distinguishing those blurry lines between weapons, so that I can, for example, put "clubs" as a skill in talent and "mace" as a skill in the other.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1127547Hand axe - hatchet skill
Axe - hatchet skill, axe skill
Battle Axe - axe skill

Knife - dagger skill
Dagger - dagger skill, blade skill
Short sword - dagger skill, blade skill
Arming sword - blade skill

Interesting...that gets around the extreme specificity for weapon skills that one sees in Runequest (at least in RQ2 and RQ3) without going all the way to 'it's all just the same melee skill.'

GURPS Martial Arts is also a comprehensive breakdown of various armed and unarmed fighting styles including mace, hammer, and pick.

A mace was effective again chainmail and other form of flexible armor. The damage is more about bruising the target up  and breaking bone. Things that chian doesn't protect against well. Hammers and Picks take the fighting style maces but makes it effective again plate armor by focusing the force of the blow on a narrow area to break through the armor.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1127569I'm doing something similar, with a "Talent" and "Skill" breakdown for your "Proficiencies" and "Masteries" except, I've got the need for two different items where you have Melee Weapons.  Most of mechanics are embedded in the "Talent", with the "Skill" doing very little but topping off accuracy (admittedly, a very important part).  Mainly, though, the "Talents" are not exactly typical RPG game items, and in this case are a bit more than weapon groups.  (There's only 25 groups in the entire system.  They are less than classes but more than skills.)  In short, I had all the melee weapons under one Talent for some time, but play testing proved it was too broad for the system.  Which leads me to the problem of distinguishing those blurry lines between weapons, so that I can, for example, put "clubs" as a skill in talent and "mace" as a skill in the other.

That's along the lines of what I'm going for, only I'm calling them "Skills" instead of "Talents". I also considered calling them Talents as well, but thought against it cuz "Talents" is typically used in most games to mean "quirky benefits". I settled for Skills for now cuz it's more commonplace and works as a good placeholder I could change later (maybe to Disciplines, as I called them for a while), but they basically represent broad areas of activity rather than a specialized task (as skills do in most skill-based systems).

The idea came about while trying to extrapolate character classes into skills to create a class of general skills mechanically comparable to D&D's THAC0 or Combat Modifier, which I always considered to be the defining characteristic of warriors. I figured that if I distilled the core essence and functions of every class into something expressed in terms of task resolution I could create something comparable to a character class but with the flexibility of skills. I also originally considered using something like the old D&D weapon mastery rules (Basic, Skilled, Expert, Master, Grandmaster) but to cover specializations for all skill functions, so characters would have a baseline value based on a general skill (called Disciplines at one point) and a bonus based on their level of mastery of specific tasks. But I ultimately simplified it to Proficiency (+2 to broad specialty) and Mastery (extra +2 to narrow specialty).

The ability hierarchy is Attribute > Skill > Techniques & Powers, where techniques are further broken down into Knowledges (stuff that requires training), Proficiencies (broad specialties like swords), Masteries (narrow specialties like rapiers) and Special Techniques (quirky stuff like dual wielding).

Additionally, some skill functions that are considered "skills" in most other games are treated as Powers in my system, since "Powers" mechanically mean "anything that allows you to generate a game effect"--regardless of the power's origin or "Theme", which can be Trained, Innate, Gear or Paranormal. So the ability to craft an object such as a weapon or armor, for example, would be a Trained Power that allows you to generate the Create Object effect for the appropriate type of object. And the power's level is based on the related skill's level (Craft skill in this instance).

Innate and Paranormal powers are based on skills as well, so powers and skills are intrinsically tied. And while the "Skill" themselves are very general, more specific functions are still covered by Techniques and Powers, which provide a lot of additional options for customization.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1127555I've heard some criticism of Skallagrim before but haven't watched his content recently often enough to notice anything egregious. Guess he's put his foot in his mouth one too many times. I agree that Scholagladiatoria is the most authoritative, though, but some of the others can also offer valuable insight for purposes of coming up with game rules and stuff for the game.

If anything Shadivirsity is even more of an elitist ass. Skallgrim just seems to have hitched his ride to Shads little nasty bandwagon and I trust his stuff even less. I havent checked back in a while with Skallgrim. I'd like to think hes gotten off that elitist kick. Shadiversity I wont look at ever again. His stuffs worthless because he has to piss on everyone else to make his own fetish look big.

And this seems a recurring problem with the HEMA crew and even Metatron's gotten in on the act. A level of elitism I just do not like at all and drags down viable discussion and examples.

Quote from: Omega;1127615Shadiversity I wont look at ever again. His stuffs worthless because he has to piss on everyone else to make his own fetish look big.

Shad's fetish? Castles? DRAGONS?