[GH] Damage Done by Weapon Type

[Finarvyn]

I'm looking at page 15 of Supplement I Greyhawk and thinking about the "Damage Done by Weapon Type" table.

I guess what bothers me is having two sets of numbers: damage against man-sized, and damage against larger opponents.

Big critters have a lot of hit dice, so why should weapons also do more or less damage against them? (Daggers and axes, for example, do fewer points damage against big guys but polearms do more damage.) This seems like an extra rule that just makes the game more complex than it needs to be. I'm not advocating going back to the "all weapons do d6 damage" days, but do we really need to dual-stat weapons in OD&D?

What do you think?

[foster1941]

I think the idea is that while big size (and thus more hit points) enables you to withstand considerably more bludgeoning damage and flesh wounds a spear or sword that penetrates to the heart or other vital organ will still kill you just as dead -- the greater damage against large-sized creatures doesn't represent doing more damage, it represents doing the same damage comparatively, after factoring in those creatures' greater hp totals. The reasoning, I think, comes from the Man-to-Man chart in Chainmail with its separate attack values for horses -- small and bludgeoning weapons (daggers, hand axes, maces, etc.) have basically no chance to kill a horse, but larger piercing weapons have just as good a chance to kill a horse in a single hit as to kill a man -- since the horse in D&D has more hp than a man, that means the weapon must do "more damage" to the horse than to the man.

[Finarvyn]

Logical argument, foster1941. I guess the follow-up question is: in a nice simple OD&D campaign, is such a distinction of damage by target size an improvement or a rule to slow the game down?

[crimhthanthegreat]

I think that it should be used if you use Greyhawk and Exceptional Strength and suchlike. It does slow the game slightly when you first start using it but not after you do it long enough. We use it in one campaign, but not in the others.

[foster1941]

admin said:

Logical argument, foster1941. I guess the follow-up question is: in a nice simple OD&D campaign, is such a distinction of damage by target size an improvement or a rule to slow the game down?

IMO, hassle to slow the game down. I'd drop it -- just keep in mind that large creatures will be a little tougher to kill than they otherwise might. Perhaps consider allowing spears, lances, and pikes to do double damage against large (horse-size or larger) opponents on a Charge or Set.

[crimhthanthegreat]

foster1941 said:

admin said:

Logical argument, foster1941. I guess the follow-up question is: in a nice simple OD&D campaign, is such a distinction of damage by target size an improvement or a rule to slow the game down?

IMO, hassle to slow the game down. I'd drop it -- just keep in mind that large creatures will be a little tougher to kill than they otherwise might. Perhaps consider allowing spears, lances, and pikes to do double damage against large (horse-size or larger) opponents on a Charge or Set.

It doesn't really slow the game down much if you use if for awhile. OD&D has few enough rules that anything you use very much you tend to memorize. Especially things like the damage that weapons do. The great thing is that you can keep trying things as many different ways as you want to until you find what works for your campaign.

[calithena]

I think damage creep leads to hit point creep leads to the system blowing up out of control. If you want to let two handed weapons do a little more to compensate for the shield, OK, but no weapon should probably do more than 1d10 in the OD&D framework (unless magical) or else the average 35 hit points of a balrog or 66 of an ancient red dragon (IIRC) become meaningless.

[foster1941]

I'm in favor of giving bigger/two-handed weapons a bonus to hit and smaller weapons a penalty to hit (based on averaging out the values from the Chainmail Man-to-Man chart and Supp I weapon vs AC chart):

Dagger*, hand axe, spear*: -1 to hit
Mace, hammer, sword*, battle axe, pike: no adjustment
Military pick, morning star, flail, pole arm*, halberd*: +1 to hit
Two-handed sword, mounted lance: +2 to hit

*+2 to hit against prone opponents with AC 2-5

This serves to differentiate the weapons (and give people reason to use something besides daggers) without the complication of multiple dice-types or the inflationary aspect of giving larger weapons extra damage-dice.

[calithena]

Yeah, the bonus to hit is a pretty good idea. (Considers altering his house rules...)

I like to balance out daggers and clubs too. It feels wrong giving them a -1 to hit though. Also, I do like adding a little damage for high strength.

Have to consider this...but not too hard...