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[RAM]

It already is in to some extent.
Piercing is good against large opponents with organs but weak against anything without organs.
Slashing works well on things that value their limbs.
Bludgeoning works on anything that doesn't like to fly 20 tiles into a mountain and explode...
Gore is effective against opponents who dislike being converted into flying limbs and rivers of blood.


In case you can't guess I am not really familiar with the combat system, but I mintain that some weapons are more effective against some opponents.

[scale_e]

About armor, The current situation of Cloth at the bottom end and Plate at the top end, while accurate, doesn't take into account "Special weaknesses / strengths".

Resistance to piercing/bludgeoning/slashing is also -definitely- in next round, just not in the stereotypical videogame manner.  You set the material strengths instead, and physics does the rest.

This doesn't address the problem.

For example. A masterwork, peice of steel chainmail, realistically, wouldn't do diddly-squat in terms of protection vs a copper hammer. The copper hammer would still do heaps of damage. Shit-tins of damage in fact. This is because chain mail is flexible. It's to do with the items function. Not its composition.

That said... I don't know what is trying to be explained with "Stong to shoes".

[Silverionmox]

Chainmail normally comes with padding underneath, which would cushion the blow. But the maille itself would do little to soften the blow, indeed. We'll see what happens in the next release.. if different tissues can have different susceptibility to different damage types, and armor is treated as an extra tissue layer (like it seems it will), it would work fine.

Weakness against special items can be useful for eg. the classic vampire, who is invulnerable except by a lime stake, daylight, or silver weapons. Silver probably symbolizes the light they are vulnerable to, and one would expect contact with silver to have the same effect as exposure to the light of day.
Another example: when the god Baldr was prophecied to die, all things on earth were asked to swear an oath not to kill him. He was therefore invulnerable to all these things, except the mistletoe, whom they had forgotten to ask for the oath. He was subsequently killed in a mock fight where everyone threw things at him for fun; Loki pressed a mistletoe spear in the hands of his blind brother.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but Buldr wasn't weak to missletoe (though it is poisonous... and usually that Spear is a dart)

He was just vulnerable to it.

Which just goes to show how killable the Norse gods were. Without Odin convincing all things on earth not to harm him Buldr probably could have died by slipping in the shower.

[Footkerchief]

We'll see what happens in the next release.. if different tissues can have different susceptibility to different damage types, and armor is treated as an extra tissue layer (like it seems it will), it would work fine.

Yeah, Toady confirmed both of these directly.

How much does this (skin thickness) actually matter in terms of combat?  Will there be things that daggers can't cut through?

That's coming up very soon, so I can't say exactly how much.  The idea is that a thicker tissue would matter a lot, so a bulbous creature with a large layer of lardy rolls would have a great deal of protection.  It'll take some balancing, and I'm not to the point where I've tested it out.  In terms of daggers being able to cut in general, it currently uses the shear properties for this, and if the dagger is a harder material it will form some sort of cut (assuming the strike is forceful enough to get beyond the shear fracture point for, say, skin), but on a titan, that should be neglible unless you make a hobby out of it.

Does bludgeoning damage transfer?  (AKA is unlikely to do damage to skin or fat but will bruise muscle and break bone)

Yeah, though it's sort of cludged since there's a lot going on and I wasn't quite wrapping my head around everything.  Right now it'll check the impact elasticity (which I guess is actually impact yield strain or something) of the outer layer, and that'll let it bypass impact fracture after a certain point (while still allowing bruises and ruptures without the layer eg skin actually breaking) even if the force is high enough (as the layer is assumed to have made way for the moving object in a sense).  So if you make a michelin man style creature that's just a purely elastic material, a mace will be unable to harm it unless it has blood flow and can bruise and so on, while relatively inelastic materials like bone will fracture, even through skin.  Skin has a lesser shear fracture than bone on the other hand, so a knife will cut through skin more easily than bone.

This can all use a bit of work, but I'm hoping to get something that seems sensible during play out of it this time around.

So we'll also have armor acting like a pseudo tissue layer for purposes of transmitting bludgeoning damage and so forth?

If an iron sword strikes some steel plate armour and fails to penetrate it, and the damage is converted to bludgeoning (AKA the force of the blow is spread out over the plate), will bludgeoning damage be inflicted to the creature beneath the armour?

Additionally, if we're talking about a steel-skinned creature (Giant Magma Ants?) instead of a steel-armoured creature, is the force transfer handled differently?

Yeah, that's basically how it works.  The armor is all checked in order from outer to inner, then it gets at the tissue layers, altering the character of the attack as it goes.  There's a little left to do there, so it's not completely clear to me which way it'll go as far as how much force is transferred (or if it matters if it's skin or armor -- it doesn't currently, though yeah, there is a difference in real life).  It has to be enough that skin doesn't stop bones from being broken, but not so much that armor is useless against impacts, depending on the mats and nature of the armor/clothing.

[Fieari]

This doesn't address the problem.

For example. A masterwork, peice of steel chainmail, realistically, wouldn't do diddly-squat in terms of protection vs a copper hammer. The copper hammer would still do heaps of damage. Shit-tins of damage in fact. This is because chain mail is flexible. It's to do with the items function. Not its composition.

I'm pretty sure this is also expressly in.  We know that if wearing plate mail, the hammer blow will pass energy on, for instance.  The question is if he's modelling the chain properly, which I have no doubt he will.  In fact, I think there's a quote of him saying so somewhere.

[Neonivek]

wouldn't do diddly-squat in terms of protection vs a copper hammer

It would prevent the full dirrect force of the hammer from impacting you thanks to the inertia of Chainmail including it can spread out the force of impact along its links.

Of course however it has its limitations. (For example... The Mithril Shift Frodo wears wouldn't have helped against that Troll/Ogre swing and Mithril is basically a "Perfect" metal)

It wouldn't prevent injury unless you layer it though it would lessen it.

[G-Flex]

wouldn't do diddly-squat in terms of protection vs a copper hammer

It would prevent the full dirrect force of the hammer from impacting you thanks to the inertia of Chainmail including it can spread out the force of impact along its links.

The spreading out of the force would hardly even exist. They're just links woven together; pretty much all the force would be transferred. If it were a solid piece of metal, sure, but it's not; it's chain links being pressed directly against what's underneath it. No reason why the force would spread around much.

Chain is also going to be relatively light, so it wouldn't absorb much of the force anyway.

This is, as has been said, why padding is worn under metallic armor.

[Craftling]

So when a Fire Imp gets to close, instead of my soldier trying to stab it, he will go get a bucket of water and empty it on the imp.

[sweitx]

wouldn't do diddly-squat in terms of protection vs a copper hammer

It would prevent the full dirrect force of the hammer from impacting you thanks to the inertia of Chainmail including it can spread out the force of impact along its links.

The spreading out of the force would hardly even exist. They're just links woven together; pretty much all the force would be transferred. If it were a solid piece of metal, sure, but it's not; it's chain links being pressed directly against what's underneath it. No reason why the force would spread around much.

Chain is also going to be relatively light, so it wouldn't absorb much of the force anyway.

This is, as has been said, why padding is worn under metallic armor.

Even with solid piece of metal, the concussion shock from the metal plate transferring the power to you could easily injure you.  Therefore hammer-strike will still cause damage to plate armor wearing individuals. 

Armor - Resistive (level of resistivity)

Plate Armor - Slash (Med-High), Gore (High), Pierce (Med), Hammer (Low)
Chainmail - Slash(Med), Gore (Med-High), Pierce (High), Hammer (Low)
Leather - Vulnerable to most except Gore

Of course, plate armor reduces the individual's ability to avoid hits (they have to simply withstand the hit with their armor).  And hammer should provide serious penalty to the dwarf ability to hit (slower), which compensate for hammer's ability to damage all armor type.
Which mean inherently, the heavier the armor, the more vulnerable a soldier is to high impact weapons.  And high impact weapon have difficulty hit light enemy.

Another interesting thought, given that damage is inflicted by local acceleration to your body.  Which means that with heavy armor, you don't move much when hit, which means all the impact is absorbed by the place the weapon hit you.  However, if you're light enough, you can let your whole body move with impact, and reduce the relative acceleration to you local point.

[Neonivek]

Leather - Vulnerable to most except Gore

I don't think this is true. Wouldn't Leather's main ability be that it could allow arrows to peirce your skin without digging deep into your organs for quick and easy removal?

Though we need to remove how strong leather is in real life and apply the same makeup even if we were to become capable of replacing it with another material. (Interesting co-relation: in IVAN Leather and Platemail is the same armor they only use different materials)

As for "Gore" in general they are attacks that are abbrasive as far as I can define them. All three would be excellent protection against Gore as Gore attacks cannot harm others through true force.

[scale_e]

While we are on the subject of leather, just remember that leather aromor is tough. It's cured so that its hard, like wood. Studded leather armor is made from softer leather... and gives a +2 to kinky.

[alfie275]

With the strong to shoes thing it would do only 50% damage if attacked with a shoe.
You could also have a negative damage percent so it gains health from that attack, for a SoF for example: [Special:-100:FIRE]

[Leafsnail]

Dragons already have resistance to dragon fire, I believe, to prevent themselves from burning themselves.  However, they seem to think that they are resistant to all fire, and so are happy to walk through the barrels of beer they have just ignited.

[scale_e]

With the strong to shoes thing it would do only 50% damage if attacked with a shoe.

What? Now that don't make a lick of sense...
So if I kick this creature, lets call it a shoe lizard, with no shoes on my feet, and it does like 10 damage (I have a pretty good kicking leg). I put my shoes on and kick the shoe lizard... and it does 5? What the hell? Why would something have a specific strength vs. shoes?!