Armor and Weapon Damage Ratings Tested in Reality

[HockerTJ]

Greetings all I thought I would start a new thread with this topic based on my reading of other threads and my love of real medieval weapons.

I noticed many mods where people have tried to incorporate realism to weapons & armor use and it generally seems more then a little askew... Obviously for those out there that wanting to jump on me for not trying to create my own mod and make my own improvements, this is a discussion meant to help or give general/practical guidelines for changing weapons and armor ratings in game...

That being said I am not really sure how to go about changing these values, though from what I've seen in the threads I am sure it would be relatively easy. The hard part would be in actually deciding how much damage was done by what and how much strength would impact this and how much skill would impact it. Though I think the skill margin is fairly accurate as is, I could be completely mistaken... I believe it is something along the lines of each skill Ex: single hand skill +1 = +2 modified damage... not sure on that though... but +2 or 3 would be along the lines I would call estimated correctness.

Anyways any thoughts that are out there please share them and if you know a way to implement this and help out the modding process for those that want to please share. Here is a link to a site that I found really "educational" on the subject of realistic weapons and armor testing.

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131

 

[Servitor]

If you stick a sword in someone he dies, whether it's now or within the next 24 hours. Armour prevents others from sticking a sword into you.

I wouldn't know the exact values of proficiencies either, though it's not 1 = 2. With 150 One Handed skill, that would do 150 Damage? O.0 or Am I totally misunderstanding you here?

Realism!
Servitor

 

[HockerTJ]

Although in principle if you stick a sword in someone they die, that is not always the case... first off, if the sword is dull and the person is unfamiliar with it's use it is very likely to do nothing more the annoy whom ever they are attacking. Where as if the person is skill with the sword, even if it is dull they could kill you, though not as easily if it were sharp.

I suppose that my calculations are a bit off, considering that yes 150 skill prof would be 300 damage... on top of what you are already doing with your strength and weapon... perhaps if it were then .5 it would make more sense... Though I skill would most assuredly have a great impact on a person would be capable of doing with their given weapon.

 

[janlulhannes]

If you stick a sword in someone he dies, whether it's now or within the next 24 hours. Armour prevents others from sticking a sword into you.
Realism!
Servitor

 

[jik]

I beleive the skills more increase the speed rating of weapons, as slightly increase damage.  Could be more like for every 20 points of skill you get +1 damage +1 speed.

saying that armor prevents a sword from going through you is not interly correct.  it is more to help deflect indrect blows.  A swing that may dig into skin or cut a chunk off might be turned awayby even leather armor.  True if you were to stand there and someone were to jab a sharp blade directly into your gut, most armor would not help much.  But armor does one other useful thing.  In cases with tight fitting armor (such as leather and the like) it can also help stem the flow of blood. 

If you want to be really realistic, anyone that takes a certain amount of cut or pierce damage would die after battle.  Either from loss of blood or by infection.  It's even more damaging for head injuries.  but that doesn't make for a fun game.  I like how someone (I think it was chel) created an injury system, which would deter players from fighting that hail marry battle. 

I would leave the numbers alone.  It seems that this game has been playtested enough by both the dev team, and anyone who (like myslef) bought it early on.

 

[Dain Ironfoot]

Ron Lossey over on MBX would be the person to talk to about this sort of thing. This is very much his favourite subject.

 

[TheWitcher]

Although those tests you've posted are interesting, they're also completely focused on piercing power of medieval weapons and are missing the "flesh and bone" factor as I would call it. I've mentioned it somewhere on these forums already. To put it simply: most of medieval swords during the battle or a duel weren't causing any cuts or external bleeding, but were causing huge internal damage due to nature of chainmail (flexible) and due to nature of plate mail (with enough powerful blow it bends inside and causes a huge nuisance for anyone wearing it and trying to move).

From my experience as an ex-member of medieval re-enactment group (we were using real weight, iron/steel replicas of medieval swords), having three serious injuries (last one stopped me from taking part in the duels and battles) I can only say, that you can have serious internal damage without armour even pierced or destroyed. Imagine, that 4 or 5 kg piece of steel is hitting you (full strength slash) when you're wearing a chainmail on padded vest. Chainmail isn't destroyed, nor the vest, but the power of impact crushes your ribs and causes internal bleeding. Also, any powerful enough hit in the arm can cause arm displacement which puts you out of the fight nearly instantly (at the best - you cannot move your hand and defend yourself or attack, at the worst - you're loosing consciousness because of the pain). Hence the use of daggers and misericordies, which were used to kill the enemy already laying on the ground with crushed internals. Although you must remember, that knights (who were considered as a high society members) wouldn't be treated like that during the battle - they were more useful as a prisoners. That's why the Second Lateran Council in 1139  have banned the use of crossbows against Christian knights for example - because of it's huge armour piercing power and thus leading to inevitable death.

Talking about the skills and attributes in game: theoretically it is strength which should have the biggest impact on the level of caused damage, and weapon proficiency should only affect speed of attack and parry. Also - quality of weapon should have bigger impact on damage (better quality means sharper and stronger blade) but not that huge. Of course thrusting attack should cause the biggest hit points loss and all armours should be less effective against it but you have to keep in mind that most of medieval swords haven't got that much of a thrusting power (exception would be Roman gladius and all rapiers and similar).

On the other hand - every piece of steel - even with fairly blunt edge,s would cause tremendous damage against weakly or completely unarmoured troops.

As to the bows and crossbows I think damage represented by the game is pretty accurate and it should be the bow and arrow type which has a bonus towards damage. Proficiency skill - towards speed and aiming. Strength attribute should affect what kind of bow you can use.

 

[jik]

I still say a bolt to the head is instant death...

 

[TheWitcher]

I still say a bolt to the head is instant death...

If we would elaborate about missile trajectory, is head armoured or not, what kind of bolt is it - it doesn't need to be instant death.

Bolt to the eye - that's instant death.

 

[HockerTJ]

Awesome, that is exactly the dialogue I was looking for.

Witcher / Jik: Truly said, trauma and limb injury were probably the most common ways of death during those times.

I believe you're are both correct on the purpose of skill as well, it would make more sense the it would impact the damage less so the it would speed... but just the same I stand by my point in saying that some one unaccustomed to handling (peasants/recruits) would do a sight less damage then say a trained guard or even a militiamen... Sure someone could get lucky with a swing or thrust or on the opposite spectrum a train soldier could just as easily get over confident, but I have a hard time believing that the average peasant ramble would stand much chance in a pitched battle... in that regards I think it's fairly realistic that when you and even say just you companions charge the looters (peasants with weapons) that they take almost no damage and wipe the earth clean with little or no problems...

As far as steel goes, I'd say it's almost irrelevant as to the type of weapon when in the hands of someone who knows it's use, take for example Filipino stick fighters... or the staff in China... those weapons were used because edged weapons were outlawed for peasants... and yet these peasants were just as deadly... though in pitched battle I am sure the majority would be wiped out.

Witcher : With the tests I posted, they do lack the depth or reality of flesh and bones, I would not say they focus completely on piercing power, as a number of the tests looked at the slashing factor of a weapon, though not against the Mail though. I believe the person performing the test did take into account that it was not a perfect simulation due to not being able to simulate a 200 pound plus adversary and the effect it would have on them...

Jik you could be right without armor a crossbow bolt to the head is pretty sure of instant death, though if the aim is correct and the pull weight is strong, serious injury or glancing blow are just as likely.
Actually one of the comments at or near the bottom of the link i posted made note of how they'd tested a crossbow with about 150 lbs pull was shot at some armor and just bounced off and even shattered in one case I believe, with no evidence of the impact upon the armor might I add.. this was done in Sweden I believe...

 

[Krieg]

WOOT! Im making, or trying to make a realism mod... Thats why i posted before how to change the health to 1.
If you have a full mail armour, and your enemy have a thin leather armour, he cant kill instaltly with a sword slash, though, you can kill him with a sword slash insantly. That kind of things. I realy like the way you can edit the armours and weapons. If you have a higher amour rate than the weapon, that weapon cant cause damage. That is realy cool if you want to make clubs and knifes "compelitely" obsolete againds mail and padded defence.

About the strenght atributes... I want to chage that to almost 0, so that cant change the things so much. Does anyone knows how to change the strength atribute?

Thanks, and great tests Hocker! 

 

[jik]

true, there is alway the random chance factor, as well as the trained at arms factor.  Yes a glancing blow from a bolt to the helmet would not kill, but still hurt quite a bit, possibly knocking you unconcious.  Also, if the bolt's trajectory was off enough to make it "wabble" in flight, even a direct hit could have it glance off armor.

That's what was great about some of the pencil and paper role playing games of my youth.  Each had it good sides and bad sides.  I even created a combat system myself back in the day, based on offensive skill, devensive skill, and a precentage role.  the higher the skill difference on the offensive side, the better chance to land a critical hit (3X damage), or event a solid hit (2x damage).  on the other end of the scale, with a greater defense difference, the more chance of a miss or worse, a critical failure (such as missing and tripping over yourself.

as it would go, striking a hit would mean landing a blow.  A solid hit would be in a more critcal area, such as near an organ (which hurts alot more).  Lastly a critical hit would be one that may actually break bones or some other more crippling damage.  Translated to real life, this would mean that a pesant could (with much luck) land a critical hit on a trained vetran that was very unlucky.

The one thing that I don't seem to see is a damage range.  And because of this, luck and skill are not as apparent here, except (as with proficiencies) with your ability to swing/block/reload faster than your opponent.  I attempted a lot of seiges with one of my older characters.  needless to say I took a crossbow, with 3 slots of large bolt bags.  I would order my troops back, and then I would long shot at the wall guards.  My crossbow proficiency went up fast!  After a while, I noticed that I could shoot, reload and then shoot again, before the target I just hit could reload his next bolt.  This is the best instance of difference between low and high prof. I can give.

If you can work in an item that gives you +500 to a prof. try that out and see the difference with it and another item.  There is a big difference between the swing speed at 100 and 500.

 

[TheWitcher]

HockerTJ: I would disagree with your theory that weapon proficiency should rise the damage capabilities in any weapon. It may increase aiming - both with blades and ranged weapons, but not the damage. Real life example - when I was first holding my bastard sword, bought straight from the blacksmith, it felt too heavy and awkward for proper fencing. But - I could cut in two piece of timber the same way as I could cut it after two years of intensive training. Other thing, though that I couldn't properly aim at mentioned piece of timber. So first time I was trying ten times and scored hit one time (that gives 10% accuracy). But that hit was "deadly" for a timber log. After few weeks I was able to hit 10 times and cut in half 10 logs of timber in a row (which gives 100% accuracy). But they were cracking in half identically as the first one.

Weapon skill gives you following advantages - you can aim to different parts of body (legs, arms, head) and not only chest, you can aim your thrusts where the armour has it weakest points, you know how to pass your opponent's parry, you know how to disarm your opponent, you can aim into opponents weakest spots and cause awful bleeding or pain.

If you got hit with the sword in the chest from skilled warrior or just mere peasant - that doesn't matter - it hurts equally. Only difference is, that if you're skilled enough - you are able to defend  yourself (parry or dodge) or you might hit him faster than he'll hit you.

That's where hit collision should take part. As it is in M&B - you're deciding what part of body you want to hit. So the only purpose of a weapon skill would be to make you swing and parry faster.

Peasants are dying faster, because they don't have an armour, they don't make aimed blows - which could cause bigger (critical) damage, and they swing and parry slower (lack of skill). Also, historical sources  proofs, that peasant groups were deadly for small packs of even heavy armoured mounted troops. They were using pitchforks against horses and tend to shell out knights from their armours using axes. Of course - organised cavalry charge would wipe them in no time.
But imagine one heavy armoured and skilled knight, on foot, surrounded by ten peasants. No way he's able to defend himself from every direction and sooner or later some pitchfork or axe would struck him dead. His disadvantage is being too slow in all that armour, having narrowed visibility angle and being too easy to knock down without any chance to stand up. Their advantages are being faster and having longer weapons.

jik Yeah - old good pen and paper RPGs. Some diceroll combat systems were great, but then some were totally flawed - I remember once killing someone with the sausage during tavern brawl in D&D, because of lucky rolls and multiplying a critical damage. But it's quite difficult to reproduce critical hit system in M&B - only thing is body part hit collision - headshot = damage x5, arms and legs = damage x3, chest = x1. That's it. Connecting it with pierce and slash damage difference it's producing quite good results I think. Thrust hit has more chance to penetrate the armour, slash hit has more chance to deal internal bleeding.

Krieg Lowering HP to 1 is a pure bulls*t. Firstly - one man can stand and fight with many wounds (due to his resistance to pain) and one is already on the ground after one hit.  Secondly - strength skill is important because what I stated in my previous post (strong man can deal way more damage than a weakling - he is simply hitting harder). Thirdly - clubs aren't obsolete against armours or padded jackets at all - see my previous post. Fourthly - even if you're heavy armoured knight and your opponent have just a mere kitchen knife - he can always have a chance to kill you (for example by sticking the knife between the plates - armpit, crotch, visor and few other places). It seems like your vision is a bit to simplistic, no offence.

 

[Krieg]

I knew the club was a bad example. 
Yes, but i want to change the game type, to "not so rpg". More like a strategy game.. (Medieval Total War 2) The soldier have Good armour, and defense skill, survives, the peasant sucks, dies.
And i dont know, but if the damage number is lower that the armour, the weapon has no effect on it, so:
1HP + 50Armor + hit 30 damage=0 (lives)
1HP + 50Armor + hit 51 damage=51 (dies)

Im making it with the vanila HP. I will give you a example:

Unit with padded armour: 45HP + 65 armour + sword hit 80 = 30 HP

I could raise the damage numbers, but would not be as i wished, It is more complicated and confuse. 

 

[TheWitcher]

Yes, because you haven't noticed and changed reduction factors in modules.ini:

# The first three values determine the amount which will be directly subtracted from damage due to armor.
# The next three values determine the percentage reduction from the damage.

armor_soak_factor_against_cut       = 0.65
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.35
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt     = 0.3

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut       = 1.0
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 0.65
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt     = 0.65


horse_charge_damage_multiplier        = 1.0
couched_lance_damage_multiplier       = 0.75

It means, that armour reduces 100% (in your example all 30 points of damage) from the cut. So if you're causing 30 damage to 50 def armour it would deflect all the damage. Soak means how much of the initial damage will be subtracted according to the the type of attack. If you would set reduction to 50% your example would look like this (I'm not including soak in these calculations):

1HP + 50 armor - 30 damage ---------> 50% of damage is deflected (15) and 50% is passing through (15) = -14HP (dead)

 

[Servitor]

Although in principle if you stick a sword >>> in <<< someone they die, that is not always the case...

-_-  Your explanation had better be good.

If the sword is dull and the person is unfamiliar with it's use it is very likely to do nothing more the annoy whom ever they are attacking.

Hell yea, I would be pissed off if someone would put a sword in me.

I still think you would die even if I would put a dull  sword into you though. Granted, It would be harder getting it in you, but you would still die. Probably faster because it's not a very clean cut. Though, if it was a dull blade, I would not even try to pierce you. If it was a blunt sword, I would sharpen it before piercing you with it. If there's no whetstone enarby, or of it isn't even a piercing sword, I would smack your head with it. Or anything I can hit.

but I have a hard time believing that the average peasant ramble would stand much chance in a pitched battle...

Drills, Formations and tactics make the difference. But yes, Average peasant ramble would probably flee lots of sooner than professional soldiers.

I also think that medieval weapons were hardly ever sharp. The sharper something is, the thinner it is as well, and the thinner it is, the easier it breaks. Smith and soldier should know this, and as such make a bit more durable weapon, rather than a sharp one.

Sadly I do not have fancy Re-Enactment experience, I only have experience bashing my classmate with a tree branch of 3 KG at most. I even got some 'Battle Scars' from fighting him on my shoulder... HAH! They were inflicted during a sparring fight of 2 friends beating at each other with blunt tree branches? It bleeded like hell.

 

[TheWitcher]

Sadly I do not have fancy Re-Enactment experience

Ahhhh.. memories... Sadly when I was in re-enactment group digital camcorders weren't so popular...

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=zj8PxOxuoiI
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=uZR_kUFVIYU

 

[italiano]

theoretically it is strength which should have the biggest impact on the level of caused damage, and weapon proficiency should only affect speed of attack and parry.

I agree that current weapon damages don't necessarily  simulate the attack in real life. I thought about scripting blunt damage, but I thought that may have too much of an effect on performance. As for strength, I disagree. A weaker but well-trained fighter will deliver a stronger blow than a strong, untrained fighter. Power isn't just about strength, it's about efficiency of movement. I think it's not relevent either, since the stronger troops in the game will also be the better-trained troops.

but I have a hard time believing that the average peasant ramble would stand much chance in a pitched battle...

I would imagine it is no different than poorly-trained modern militia trying to stand up to professional soldiers. For that reason, it strongly suggests to me (as well as what I've read) that medieval armies rarely contained peasant rabble. If the troops weren't professionals, then they were probably decently-trained militia.

Although in principle if you stick a sword >>> in <<< someone they die, that is not always the case...

-_-  Your explanation had better be good.

Why? Wounds usually aren't fatal, otherwise the death rates would be much higher than those of the injured.

WOOT! Im making, or trying to make a realism mod... Thats why i posted before how to change the health to 1.
If you have a full mail armour, and your enemy have a thin leather armour, he cant kill instaltly with a sword slash, though, you can kill him with a sword slash insantly. That kind of things. I realy like the way you can edit the armours and weapons. If you have a higher amour rate than the weapon, that weapon cant cause damage. That is realy cool if you want to make clubs and knifes "compelitely" obsolete againds mail and padded defence.

About the strenght atributes... I want to chage that to almost 0, so that cant change the things so much. Does anyone knows how to change the strength atribute?

Thanks, and great tests Hocker! 

I'm sorry, but that isn't realistic. People usually don't die immediately, so it is actually realistic that they may need to be struck multiple times. Mail armour vs leather armour, it's still anyone's game. Mail armour will be tougher to penetrate, but skill is a huge influence here as is chance. As jik says, chance is always a factor. An armour higher rated than the weapon leads to no damage? This will cause serious balancing issues.

But it's quite difficult to reproduce critical hit system in M&B

It's hard to make it skill-influenced, but having crital hits is as simple as writing a script that gives the chance of a high damage bonus. I'd prefer it be skill-influenced, not by troop stats, but by the quality of the strike itself. This is why I originally increased the speed multiplier bonus (so good strikes cause huge damage). It worked ok for the player, but not so well for the AI. I then thought about having a script that checks for damage, and if damage is above X then it has a large bonus attached to it. However, that doesn't consider that it often takes time for a warrior to sucumb to his wounds. As said in the blood thread over at mbx, a fatally wounded warrior might last the battle (particularly in M&B's case).

 

[TheWitcher]

A weaker but well-trained fighter will deliver a stronger more accurate blow than a strong, untrained fighter.

Fixed. I'll be still defending my point of view.

Physically weaker fighter can't deliver stronger blow, Zaro. It's against the laws of physics. Strong, untrained fighter can still smash the one who's better trained and cut him in half (or break his skull). There's a question could he be fast enough to score a hit but that's more about agility/dexterity attribute than weapon skill (although weapon skill helps to swing the sword more effectively).

On the other hand - weaker but better trained fighter can deliver quick and very accurate hits in vital areas of the body causing more pain or extensive bleeding (head, groin, armpit etc). He can also dodge easier (again agility attribute) and knows how to parry awkward attacks of the stronger guy.

 

[Krieg]

Sadly I do not have fancy Re-Enactment experience

Ahhhh.. memories... Sadly when I was in re-enactment group digital camcorders weren't so popular...

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=zj8PxOxuoiI
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=uZR_kUFVIYU

Those guys are playing, not fighting to survive..