Stab, cut, or smash?

A minimalistic weapon v. armour hack.

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Weapon type matters less than you might think for hurting an opponent. A sword doesn’t cut through plate armour, but it does stab through mail between the joints better than a mace. But it might be easier to do some damage to plate armour with a mace than a sword. The differences aren’t drastic, but they are there.

So what if we want weapon choice vs. armour to matter a bit in our game?

I’ve cooked something up that fits a game like Into the Odd, Cairn, or Mork Borg - games where damage scale is based on the size of a damage die. You could easily hack this for OD&D, B/X, or related games e.g. Wolves Upon the Coast.

~if you like cool weapons, check out our new module for Mork Borg, M1: Blood and Salt, it’s got some fun ones in there~

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Weapon Basics

I like Into the Odd’s two categories of weapon: regular weapons inflict d6 damage, and heavy weapons (two handed) inflict d8 damage. Some weapons might be able to do both configurations e.g. a longsword.

It’s also got a nice rule about attacks being Impaired or Enhanced. Attack from a significant advantage → roll a d12 for damage. Attack from a significant disadvantage → roll a d4 for damage.

This is our baseline.

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Armour Types

There are four types of armour.

No armour: Nothing that provides meaningful protection.

Leather: Leather armour or thick fabric (like a gamberson). For creatures, a hide.

Mail: Chainmail or scale armour. For creatures this means having hard scales.

Plate: Metal plate armour for humanoids. Natural plates for creatures.

You can map any armour to these categories. Dragon = plate, ooze = leather.

Shields are good for protection regardless of weapon type.

Optional Rule: Shields being good for protection regardless of weapon type isn’t strictly true. Flails are rather good at getting past shields. If a weapon is suited to getting past a shield, then it bypasses the shield if the damage roll is even ~thank you Symbaroum for this neat rule~

Weapon Types

Let’s use the three classic categories of weapons - based on the main way the weapon is intended to injure.

Slashing: Slices. Swords, axes, daggers.

Piercing: Punctures. Arrows, spears, rapiers.

Bludgeoning: Smashes. Maces, flails, warhammers.

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Weapon vs armour

A sword can be used for stabbing, slicing, and even bludgeoning. Basically, weapons are versatile. This means that the advantages of weapons, like a mace being slightly better suited to attacking Plate, should be moderate.

If you use a weapon type suited to an opponent’s armour, the damage die size increases by 1. For the die sizes outlined in the section above on Weapon Basics: regular weapons d6 → d8, heavy weapons d8 → d10.

All weapons are suited to no armour (obviously).

Slashing weapons are suited to leather.

Piercing weapons are suited to mail.

Bludgeoning weapons are suited to plate.

That’s it.

You can do this for sci-fi too. Ballistic weapons are more effective against energy shields and lasers are better at beaming through bulletproof vests.

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Done

A simple hack that accounts for weapon type vs armour type. It adds some complexity, but this seems like a clean(-ish) way to do it for me. It empowers players to make decisions that give them a moderate edge i.e. bringing the right tools and picking the right targets in combat.

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Recommedations

Book: The Cairn 2e Warden’s Guide is available (for free)! I’ve looked through and on first impression, it’s one of the best GM tools to come out of the NSR space in recent memory. The tools are lean, focused, and practical. Yochai Gal knocked it out the park with the one. Go read it.

YouTube: Questing Beast has reviewed both Nightmare over Ragged Hollow and The Hounds of Hendenburgh (both coming from the Merry Mushmen). Ben gives a detailed breakdown of each adventure, so go see if they are right for you. The slip cover looks very cool!

Did you catch our announcement for M1: Blood and Salt? It’s our first Mork Borg module and you can get it now.