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[Hyndis]

A whip could be considering a piecing or slashing type weapon considering the tip. There's no reason why the tip cannot be bladed, made out of sharp metal. That kind of bladed tip, combined with the supersonic speeds of the tip, would deliver a very nasty impact.

[Grimlocke]

A metal tipped whip would probabaly be too heavy to go as fast as a regular one, but historically there have been some weapons consisting of a chain with a knife on the end.

Not sure of you could call that a whip though. Regular whips are specifically made to hurt without killing, using one in battle would be plain stupid.

DF creatures still use them though as the game currentely doesnt have any specific purpose weapons other then training weapons.

[Hyndis]

Whips can do a lot of damage, but only to flesh. Metal should easily deflect a whip. Also whips are just too unwieldy to use in a combat situation. You need a lot of distance to use a whip. If the other guy just stands next to you, you can't actually do anything with the whip.

A metal or barbed whip should definitely cause grievous injury to flesh, however against armor or in a combat situation I just don't see it being a useful or practical weapon by any means.



If you want to nerf whips just increase the attack area. Default is 1, IIRC. Change it to 10, or 100. Same forge, larger area, and so it causes less damage. I think bolts have an attack area of 10. An attack area of 1 is laser-like.

[Lord Shonus]

it takes roughly one thousand lashes from a cat of nine tails to kill a bound, unarmored human.

Cat 'o nine tails is not a weapon designed for use in combat; it's designed and used for punishment.

The Cat of nine tails is pretty much the nastiest whip ever invented. There are NO whips that were designed as combat weapons. The only recorded military use of whips in history is their use to keep slave troops in line.

[Khift]

it takes roughly one thousand lashes from a cat of nine tails to kill a bound, unarmored human.

Cat 'o nine tails is not a weapon designed for use in combat; it's designed and used for punishment.

The Cat of nine tails is pretty much the nastiest whip ever invented. There are NO whips that were designed as combat weapons. The only recorded military use of whips in history is their use to keep slave troops in line.

I agree with you in that no whips in our history were ever designed or used in combat. However, that doesn't apply here; these whips are used in combat and we should assume that they optimized for that purpose. They still should be worse than real weapons simply due to the fact that they are not real weapons, but it isn't hard to imagine a metal tipped whip in skilled hands seriously wounding or killing soldiers in combat. The cat o' nine tails doesn't have metal tips. These do. Numbers that apply to the cat o' nine tails don't apply to these.

[Lord Shonus]

At which point you're going into the realm of pure fantasy by trying to model a weapon that never existed, does not currently exist, and probably will never exist.


In any case, adding a metal tip to the end of a whip would do absolutely nothing. A whip is already incredibly nasty against bare flesh, and adding a blade would cost more in velocity than it would add in cutting power, so against bare flesh you would see little to no improvement. Against armor, it would be no more effective than a leather whip. There's a reason why there's never been metal whips.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Little spikes?

[Lord Shonus]

WOuldn't have the needed force to penetrate, and again would offer no benefit against flesh. There is simply no way to make a "war whip." If it were possible, someone would have done it.

[Johuotar]

This is dwarf fortress, if toady implements whips and they are used by military, then they should be treatead as military weapons, atleast in current version. They might find different uses later. It wouldn't harm if someone would tone them down a bit with mod though.

[Urist Imiknorris]

WOuldn't have the needed force to penetrate, and again would offer no benefit against flesh. There is simply no way to make a "war whip." If it were possible, someone would have done it.

Toady did it.

[Grimlocke]

Ill just leave this here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_whip

[Khift]

At which point you're going into the realm of pure fantasy by trying to model a weapon that never existed, does not currently exist, and probably will never exist.


In any case, adding a metal tip to the end of a whip would do absolutely nothing. A whip is already incredibly nasty against bare flesh, and adding a blade would cost more in velocity than it would add in cutting power, so against bare flesh you would see little to no improvement. Against armor, it would be no more effective than a leather whip. There's a reason why there's never been metal whips.

All of this is a great argument to remove the whip as a weapon and a completely inapplicable argument with regards to weakening them. Like it or not we have metal whips. They are not analogous to anything present in human history. If you want to start a new thread petitioning Toady to remove whips I am 100% behind you, but this thread is about how to weaken them so they aren't laser-guided killing machines. Lowering the strength of whips to that of real whips like the cat o' nine tails is nearly as bad as leaving them as it is; lasher goblins would become free kills that any armored dwarf can completely decimate and that too is imbalanced gameplay.

[Funk]

The Indian urumi or chuttuval is the nearest thing to a metal whip.
the  urumi is a long sword made of flexible steel, sharp enough to cut into flesh, but flexible enough to be rolled into a tight coil.

Wikipedias page on the Urumi

[letterx]

Easy solution for the historicity debate re: whips

1. Open raws for weapon data
2. Find and replace to change 'Whip' to 'Lightsabre'. (And 'Scourge' to 'Purple Lightsabre'!)
3. Begin debating about whether we really want to be fighting goblin sith-lords.

Also, in DF 2010, can't dwarves now use foreign weapons (like whips, etc.) so long as they can get their hands on them? If so, after the first ambush of goblin lashers, why don't you just steal their weapons and train up an army of dwarven Jedi? Then we'll show those goblins who's boss.

[Hyndis]

Yes you can equip your dwarves with foreign weapons, including whips.