They are comparing their knowledge of physics. Not that it matters in D&D. Put it back in your pants.
There are plenty of reason it matters in D&D. After all I imagine people would get upset of when deciding the abstract damage a weapon does if it was decided that a dagger would do 2d8 damage and a long sword does 1d4, or if a mace did 2d6 damage when a flail does 1d8... or if the critical rates where different.
It allows has a direct impact on the arguement of the spiked chain, which is where this all started.
It applies again in the thread about the damage that firearms do in pathfinder compared to what firearms do "in the real world"(tm).
There are plenty of reason it matters in D&D. After all I imagine people would get upset of when deciding the abstract damage a weapon does if it was decided that a dagger would do 2d8 damage and a long sword does 1d4, or if a mace did 2d6 damage when a flail does 1d8... or if the critical rates where different.
It allows has a direct impact on the arguement of the spiked chain, which is where this all started.
It applies again in the thread about the damage that firearms do in pathfinder compared to what firearms do "in the real world"(tm).
I have spent more time in real live modern combat than I really wish to recall. However, I have been trying to equate recently what a 200 ho fighter would be the equivalent of, on a battlefield.
It's got to be than one crazy luck SOB that never never never seem to actually get shot.Like Forest Gump, a whole platoon slaughterd, bad guys in every bush with a machine gun and 10 tons of napalm dropped on them and Gump gets a hole in his butt.
Gump has 200 hp.
effectively until you shoot gump down from 200 to 15 2d4 at a time, you really haven't actually "hit" him per se.
Trying to argue the mechanics of firearm damage would be crazy, because what you are looking at realistically would be a weapon that would likely do 1-100 damage.So youd roll percentile dice.
It's really THAT varied.
But the 1-10 is far more likely than the 11-100 so I dont really know how Id roll it.
I used to play earth dawn 10 years ago, and there wassome rule like ifyou rolled a 6 on a 6 sided die you'd roll it again
Fire arm damage would be like that 1-10 and if you rolled a 10 roll again and never stop as long as you got a 10.
That'd be "realistic" bullet damage.
Bullets are also like spells, they are limited an costly.
Launching 50 cal rounds at humans would be the SOD spell, but it is so darn expensive and there arent enough of them to go around, which is largely why the 50 cal stopped being issued to troops not long after the civil war and why bullets got progressively smaller and smaller until stabilizing at vietnam with the 7.65 on one side and the 5.56 on the other.
So thats like one group picking the shortsword and the other group picking the kukri.
Pretty cheap and small weapons if you think about it.
But if you were a Lord of an army of 1,000,000 men, youd probably buy short swords instead of longswords cuz you could save 3 million gold peices, too.
But thats effectively modern warfare, fighting with the smallest least expensive least effective weaponry possible.
Someone made the comment the US Army "philosphy" is shoot one guy an it takes one more to drag him off the field so one bullet takes two men away from fighting.
the ratio is actually one man down and two to carry him.
So its one bullet for three.
That theory faded with WWII however and was Roosevelts plan for victory (and it worked)
Since 1975 US Philosphy has been "Two in the chest, one in the head"
The modern 5.56 is like a kukri, it does very little damage, but is mroe likely to do a crit than a shortsword.
Can you imagine adventuring with a kukri as you main weapon?
Intersting isnt it? Almost everything does more damage.
Thats pretty much the way it is though.
If you could bring a longsword to a gun fight, and they didnt have a range advantage on you, you would kill more of them faster than they could kill of you.
Longswords EASILY do ALOT more damage than a bullet.
Now rate of fire/accuracy and sitance are a whole new arguement.
Thats where the modern firearm comes into its own.
However given military statistics that, out of a unit of 100 men shooting in combat 10 men kill 90 percent of the enemy and the other 90 men are basically there to waste ammunition, more attack that miss sounds more like the monk (flurry of missies anyone) than a fighter.
It really doesnt matter how many times you MIGHT injure/damage the enemy if you never get to.
Another good example would be the openning of Firefly.
Since I didn't have any "real world" numbers of flail damage. I used the nunchuck (which is quite similar) as a basis as I remembered the "4,000 ft lbs" of energy from an FBI report I read.
A figure from a memory, something you read decades ago? You're so sure it was 4000 ft-lb? Couldn't possibly be confused about some part of it, after all these years? So sure it couldn't have been 4000 pounds per square inch, a very realistic peak impact pressure? (Impact forces are huge, but they are so transient the net energy is comparatively small.)
So, tell me, where does all this 4000 ft-lb delivered by the mythical uber-nunchuck come from? There is this inconvenient thing called "conservation of enegy" at work which defies this figure. I'd bet you've been to a science museum and climbed onto a stationary bike to pedal madly, seeing how many bulbs you can light up. The limit of sustained human energy output is fairly low, 100 watts for an average person, maybe better than double that for an athlete.
Let's turn it around and look at from the back end. What would happen to a person hit with a 4000 ft-lb blunt weapon that doesn't waste most of it in overpenetration as do most bullets? A 200 lb man would could be knocked twenty (20) feet in the air, vertically, by that much energy! Sorry, that wouldn't even cut it in those anime with the metamorphosing giant weapons.
Let's look at a real example. A basketball player dunking the ball might send his 200 lb body 2.5 ft high (10.5 ft to reach over the rim less his 8 ft flat-footed reach), a stunning 500 ft-lb of energy in the vertical jump. Note that only the freakishly tall can dunk without a running start. The mechanism of the running start uses the resilience of the muscle tissue to momentarily store more energy than the muscle produces on its own, transfering a portion of the forward momentum into vertical motion via conservation of angular momentum and a few other physics tricks.
That simple example is about the muscles doing what they're designed to do best: moving the body. Transfering muscle energy into an outside object is much less efficient. An Olympic level javelin throw is around 30 m/s. With a 0.8 kg mass, that comes to 360 N-m or 265 ft-lb, roughly half the basketball dunk example. Note that the javelin event completely ignores accuracy, allowing any throw in a ~30 degree arc to count. Also, the javelin thrower is left staggering off-balance after the effort. Not something you're going to do when swinging your nunchuck at somebody who can hit you back. Lastly, you generally want to keep your grip on the weapon. Each of these factors requires the wielder to hold back, rather than attempting to wring every last joule of energy from his effort.
A combatant would be doing really well to get half that energy (120-150 ft-lb) using a two handed weapon. At least one source I can't find at this time says the maximum is under 100 ft-lb. Using a one handed weapon would be significantly less, and with a light weapon like the nunchuck less still. In fact, it is probably not in the 53 ft-lb range necessary for an incapacitating wound in terminal ballistics (sorry I said 58 ft-lb earlier; my bad). And at that, I'm not sure that a blunt hand weapon has anywhere near as low an incapacitating damage threshold as that for a penetrating bullet.
Not to pick on you personally, you may go on believing that the nunchuck mystically creates 70-80 times as much energy, if you like. But please don't expect anyone with a modest knowledge of ergonomics and physics to swallow it whole after a careful examination of the figures.
Now back to D&D:
Cuts from a slash of a sharp sword are dangerous due to severed muscle tissue and blood vessels. For the record loosing your people juice is bad. The wounds themselves do comparatively little damage and heal fairly easily. ...[A sword does] some secondary contusion damage from kinetic transfer but not a hell of a lot. Blunt weapons cause massive trauma pulping tissues and tearing muscles over a large area they just tend to leave the skin more intact so you get subcutaneous hemorrhaging.
A sword strike delivers the same momentum and kinetic energy as a blunt weapon of the same weight and balance. The difference is that the sword first cuts to the bone. Unless you are talking Samuri-style draw cuts, which are not very effective against metalic armor.
If the sword strikes armor it can't penetrate, it transfers momentum and KE just as a blunt weapon of the same weight and balance. Many blunt weapons are heavier and balanced near the head instead of the handle because they must in order to do much damage. That makes them slow and awkward compared to a sword.
The flail with it's flanges and spikes, is able to take that same mechanical/kinteic energy and concentrate the force of that blow into a smaller area, therefor multiplying the effect and deforming the armor.
For the chain mails out there, they were designed to stop the cutting effect of swords, which they do great, but the flail causes the mail to deform with it, largely allowing most of the flails blunt forces trauma to still expend on to/into the targets body.
The sword also concentrates the force of the blow into a small area: the blade. You know, that sharp part. It would be rare to hit the body at an angle that spread the impact over more than a few inches of blade. Multiplied by the tiny thickness and you get a really small number.
Mail spreads out the impact of any weapon, blade or blunt, by the diameter of the link at the very least. Compared to the sword edge or flange point that is a significantly larger area. Any hard blow will break links and push through, but a large portion of its force has been dissipated. Nobody wears mail alone, it is worn over an arming coat. No, not the wimpy things sold to SCA guys with a few layers of cotton fluff, these were filled an inch thick or more with heavy wool batting. It is both resilient and surprisingly tough. A decent blow breaking through the mail might have too little energy left to get through the padding for a dangerous wound.
Likewise, the padded armor they used was even thicker. It really could stop blows from a sword or mace, just not as well as metal armor. I recall one period illustration of an archer whose padded vest looked like a pumpkin.
Plate armor was so much superior that the padding worn beneath it could be reduced substantially except at the shoulders where the hardest blows land and hips where the edge of the plate can dig in.
Weapon damage needs to make sense in so far as they don't make you lose your suspension of disbelief during the game session. Wolfgang Baur had an excellent editorial about this in Kobold Quarterly (not specifically about weapon damage, but about rules "feeling" right in the game in question).
There is no way to know is a greatsword does the "right" amount of damage, because we can't measure real world wounds in hit points. So it just has to "feel" right that a sword that takes two hands to swing does X amount of damage.
Similarly, armor, in d20 games, for the most part, make it harder to be hit. Thus the biggest, heaviest armor should make you the least likely to be hit.
You could probably justify a game system where swords do more damage to unarmored opponents than they do to armored ones, for example, but its not how d20 games work for the most part right now, and would require a huge revision to the rules.
Now . . . from a game mechanics, vaguely logical point of view, I do kind of like how in 4E you have a distinction between weapons that have reach and weapons that have "threatening reach," meaning, something like a spiked chain could attack someone with reach, but if someone moves through a threatened square, you couldn't make an AoO against them unless you had a weapon that has "threatening reach."
While 4E implements it differently, I'd use this sort of distinction with weapons like the spiked chain or the bladed scarf having reach, but weapons like the halberd and the longspear having threatening reach.
Still, I don't think this distinction will make it into the rules, and it doesn't break my heart, but it may inform some house rules at some point in time.
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In a real fight you can't control everything, and the opponent's movements often turn what you intended into something less than controlled.
...
Controlling how you strike with a nunchaku and react to impact isn't comparable to "control everything".
BTW, according to this site, the nunchaku strikes with a force of 348.48 joules (257 ft lbs).
Since I didn't have any "real world" numbers of flail damage. I used the nunchuck (which is quite similar) as a basis as I remembered the "4,000 ft lbs" of energy from an FBI report I read.A figure from a memory, something you read decades ago? You're so sure it was 4000 ft-lb? Couldn't possibly be confused about some part of it, after all these years? So sure it couldn't have been 4000 pounds per square inch, a very realistic peak impact pressure? (Impact forces are huge, but they are so transient the net energy is comparatively small.)
So, tell me, where does all this 4000 ft-lb delivered by the mythical uber-nunchuck come from? There is this inconvenient thing called "conservation of enegy" at work which defies this figure. I'd bet you've been to a science museum and climbed onto a stationary bike to pedal madly, seeing how many bulbs you can light up. The limit of sustained human energy output is fairly low, 100 watts for an average person, maybe better than double that for an athlete.
Let's turn it around and look at from the back end. What would happen to a person hit with a 4000 ft-lb blunt weapon that doesn't waste most of it in overpenetration as do most bullets? A 200 lb man would could be knocked twenty (20) feet in the air, vertically, by that much energy! Sorry, that wouldn't even cut it in those anime with the metamorphosing giant weapons.
Let's look at a real example. A basketball player dunking the ball might send his 200 lb body 2.5 ft high (10.5 ft to reach over the rim less his 8 ft flat-footed reach), a stunning 500 ft-lb of energy in the vertical jump. Note that only the freakishly tall can dunk without a running start. The mechanism of the running start uses the resilience of the muscle tissue to momentarily store more energy than the muscle produces on its own, transfering a portion of the forward momentum into vertical motion via conservation of angular momentum and a few other physics tricks.
That simple example is about the muscles doing...
I directly quoted a website above where the 4,000 ft lbs of energy came from. Where do you think that website got it from? Their own forensics lab, or Possibly the same FBI data?
4,000 PSI is WAAY more force than 4,000 ft lbs.
The .45 ACP (depending on load) fires from the chamber at 18,000-26,000 PSI the end result is kinetic energy delivered to the target of 350 Ft Lbs of force.
4,000 ft lbs of force is not enough to blow men 20 feet in the air. What are you 12?
Stop with your shennigans its old.
The kinteic force a human can deal with a blunt object for the purposes of "knock back" or "man stopping" power FAR exceeds that of ANY firearm, largely because of the small surface area of the projectile in relation to its target, the softness of that target,and the speed at which the projectile travels, causing it to penetrate an thus lose it's "push" in the equation.
The impact of a bat, or nunchuck is measured over a much larger area and as such, has the "push" in the impact the penetrating projectile doesn't.
As far as "blowing people" back 20 feet, that has always been the hollywood feat of the .44 magnum.
4,000 psi delivered over the surface area of a bat or a nunchuck would cleave a man in twain.
For that arguement, Im really not sure what a katana is capable of in the hands of an expert, but it might come close, from what I understand.
Crap . . . someone mentioned a katana in a weapon realism argument on the internet . . . this cannot end well. ;)
Crap . . . someone mentioned a katana in a weapon realism argument on the internet . . . this cannot end well. ;)
hehehehe
I like ninja's cuz their always flipping out and killing peeple and stuff ;)
I directly quoted a website above where the 4,000 ft lbs of energy came from. Where do you think that website got it from? Their own forensics lab, or Possibly the same FBI data?
If I missed something you quoted I apologize. All I see is nothing of the sort. You quoted but did not link to this website saying: "The effectiveness of Nunchakus creates over 2,000 pounds of square force." Which doesn't make any sense in terms of physics. I doubt the martial arts organization in question has "their own forensics lab."
4,000 PSI is WAAY more force than 4,000 ft lbs.
As for a forensics lab, the physics involved is this: "ft-lb" is energy (also called "work") which is a product of force times distance applied. "psi" is pressure, which must first be applied to an area to become force, and then applied through a distance to become work energy. They don't measure the same thing, so one isn't "WAAY more" than the other.
During that time the impact pressure exerted by an assumed 2 square inches of nunchuck is high (4000psi x 2 sq in = 8000lb), but the amount of work energy imparted is small. If moving at 100 ft/s (the center of mass, not the tip; see below) the work is force times distance = force times velocity times duration = 8000 x 50 x 0.000004 = 1.6 ft-lb. So it appears my "guess" that maybe it was impact pressure you recall is not correct, the impact pressure should be higher by an order of magnitude.
So much for the physics lesson. Here is less simplified example of impact energy covering other material properties involved, etc.
The rest of your Jan 28 quote, from some other unlinked source I did not bother to google because it says nothing about nunchucks at all, does mention an 80 grain rifle bullet going 4000 feet per second... maybe that caused some confusion in cut-and-pasting.
Again, what part of your citation did I miss that covered the power of the nunchuck?
The kinteic force a human can deal with a blunt object for the purposes of "knock back" or "man stopping" power FAR exceeds that of ANY firearm, largely because of the small surface area of the projectile in relation to its target, the softness of that target,and the speed at which the projectile travels, causing it to penetrate an thus lose it's "push" in the equation.
I believe I mentioned overpenetration as a factor in diminishing the damage that bullets do to flesh. But if you swing a bat one-handed, as with a nunchuck, and and let your wrist go slack after the impact, as with a nunchuck's link, you will find that the bat doesn't have that much "knock back" power either.
Controlling how you strike with a nunchaku and react to impact isn't comparable to "control everything".
BTW, according to this site, the nunchaku strikes with a force of 348.48 joules (257 ft lbs).
One does need to control where impact occurs in your swing to control the bounce, and since your opponent is moving that may not be the case.
Thanks for a more factual link than some fuzzy memory. 260 ft-lb too high by a factor of 3-4. The velocity should measured at the center of mass of the free branch, which is average of the velocity of the wielder's hand and the velocity of the tip; and with the velocity squared the error is squared. With the CoM moving at 60% of the speed of the tip, energy would be over 80 ft-lb. That is still about 60% more than my estimate, which is a surprise.