So there is no true difference between stabbing and slashing weapons fundamentally, it's just that stabbing weapons have low contact area, meaning low damage but high piercing, and slashing weapons have high damage and low piercing, correct?
This doesn't seem very useful for representing real differences between cutting types. Consider that if you're slashing at someone's arm, the length of the sword edge which is in contact with their arm at any one point is quite low. However, in the raws, a longsword has a much larger contact area for its slashing attack, accounting for how much longer it is, of course. That is useful for things like dismemberment, as you can obviously chop through a larger limb with that area. However, it also decreases the likelihood that the longsword will pierce a material, just as if it was a stabbing weapon with a larger contact area, no?
This is very troublesome for weapon balance, it seems to me. For modding, especially for weapon rebalancing, might it be best to find some baseline contact area for slashing weapons, to some maximum point where it might reasonably keep in contact with a given material. For some weapons this may be smaller, like curved swords and axes. This would also make larger, heavier weapons, like great axes, better at piercing, quite appropriately.
Anyone have any input on my observations? I want to have a pass at a weapon rebalance mod, and this is obviously some pretty important stuff to consider.