[Rq-rules] RQ for D&D players

[Lance Dyas]

Steve Rennell wrote:
>> Steve Rennell wrote:
>>     
>>> I've done some cutting against targets designed to replicate human
>>> limbs, and swords do a good job of slicing right through them.
>>>       
>
>   
>> Tie them up on a rope so they move around ...
>>     
>
> We had it mounted on a spike.
What I expected actually .. you doubled the impact when you make the 
target so that it
not only stands there but tries to hold position instead of flexing out 
of the way like a real
limb is likely to do
>  For people who were inexperienced, the
> "limb" tended to fly through the air some meters and land mostly
> undamaged. For people who could make the sword move fast and smooth, the
> remains of the "limb" didn't move at all and the lopped off bit flew a
> very short way. Skill makes a lot of difference to the damage inflicted.
> The most important aspect seemed to be getting the sword to travel in a
> straight line, exactly edge on, throughout the whole of the cut. If the
> sword started to twist half way through a cut, then the cut stopped pretty
> much dead, if the sword was off line as it hit, then there was huge impact
> but no cut.
>
> Note that I have no direct experience of the effect of armour on a cut.
> (Except to say that butted mail doesn't stop a thrust at all).
>   
Seems likely even a little armor and a mobile target has the impact of 
the making a cut less smooth
even fabrique armor was surprizingly effective and more common 
historically than us
gamers give it credit for.
>> or watch the Myth Busters...when they do it you have to hack and
>> hack on flexibly located subjects ....
>>     
>
> A quick check on You Tube fails to find it, but I'll try a bit more in
> depth later. Any clues as to what episode it was?
>   
Argghh.. memory failing me.. checking on it myself
they did an episode where the were unable to build a souped up fan that 
would remove a head...
and one were you cant break a sword with a sword.
 
My subconcious must have been imagining some of there attacks on pig 
bodies being with swords

An interesting counter point to whether it is "realistic" or "not" the 
further back we go from history into
 legend/and myth the more you read about limb loss "in one fell stroke" 
etc... whether it is
myth or legend or reality ... atleast the delivery of such strokes might 
be a part of what
we want the game to simulate.

And magical replacement of limbs was ther in old myth as well.. Celtic 
gods with cybernetic arms
is just cool ;-)

>> Historically gangrene and similar things took peoples arms and legs more
>> often than the injury directly
>>     
>
> Although I'd agree that wound infection killed a lot of people. I'm not
> convinced that you were more likely to lose a limb from infection than
> having it hit. What basis do you have for believing this?
>   
The shear lack of knowledge about how to prevent the latter effect
However even RQ basic healing makes that element of history a moot point.