GURPS 4e with Martial Arts and Low Tech does a pretty good job of representing different styles of swords.

Quote from: David Johansen;641681GURPS 4e with Martial Arts and Low Tech does a pretty good job of representing different styles of swords.

Yeah, much seconded.

Quote from: TristramEvans;641663I'm familair with the Harn setting but know very little about the system. Are there any games you'd compare it to?

The character generation and skill systems are very similar to Runequest/BRP. Combat is more elaborate, at least compared to anything prior to MRQ2. But on reflection, I don't think it'll really do much toward what you want.

TRoS has been mentioned; other games that are somewhat similar include Burning Wheel and Swashbuckler! (by Jim Dietz), where the common element is picking maneuvers in secret and then comparing them to generate modifiers to the usual attack/defense/damage rolls. BW has a wacky scripting system; Swashbuckler is fairly coarse-grained when it comes to weapon types--for swords, I don't think it has much more than rapier, broadsword, and maybe cutlass/scimitar and two-handed sword.

It seems what you want is something that can produce varied effects through several means: speed/initiative, chance of hitting, chance of penetrating or bypassing armor, and then the type (for swords: poke vs. cut) and heaviness of damage. Then if you have a maneuver system, you might limit the maneuvers available depending on your weapon. I can't think of anything that offers all of this. GURPS might come close, but something to bear in mind is that the skill and training of the user is always an equalizing factor, especially as combat becomes more abstracted. (EDIT: The old Avalon Hill wargame Magic Realm also has some of these elements represented.)

Maybe there's a system where certain weapon skills have different learning curves, or get bonuses from different characteristics. If so, then the effect you want may already be subtly baked in. E.g. maybe the rapier skill depends more on dexterity than the broadsword skill, which depends more on strength.

Another caveat is that the reasons for different types of sword may not be as tactical as weapons-geeks like to think. For example one might compare the rapier and the broadsword and think that "scientific" Age of Reason fencing ought to be superior to "unsophisticated" Medieval hacking. But one is for combat with little armor (post-gunpower and/or non-military situations) and the other is for combat with armor and shield. It's attractive to think of the Japanese samurai and European knight as divergent approaches to hand-to-hand combat, with advantages and disadvantages, but I think it's more accurate to see them as components of divergent tactical systems and social structures, with the samurai being at various times as much an archer as a shock combatant. Meanwhile, dueling, being a formalized activity, is shaped as much by social convention as by tactics. (E.g., when and where were armor and shield used in duels, when and where weren't they used?)

In GURPS (if the Martial Arts supplement is used) it really comes down to the character's training rather than the weapon itself (there's several rapier and Katana styles frex wich have different focus, and broadsword-centered Western Medieval styles that also differ a lot (sword & shield is rather different from sword & buckler frex)). The system is a bit fiddly but not worse in that regard than GURPS 4e in general (and less work than say the supers system; and of course, this Being GURPS, most of the fiddlyness is during character creation rather than actual play).

The book has enough Western fighting arts that there's no reason for say 16th century western martial artists to be less varied than say 19th century Chinese ones.

I'd agree that skill with a weapon is more important than the weapon itself. Individual skills beyond that should be added to give unique flavours to weapon styles, if needed. A particular trick might be applicable to many different types of swords, but this trick is only taught and learned by one group, and that group only uses one kind of weapon, so the maneuver becomes associated with that weapon. For example, give johnny trenchcoat a katana and he'll probably be able to hit somone with the business end. Give one to a Samurai and he can do lots of different tricks with it, plus is much better at applying the business end. It's all about the skill.

At most I'd have a light weight/quick/low basic damage to heavy weight/slow/high basic damage spectrum.

OD&D. 1-6 damage for all weapons. Players can come up with all of the detail they like but it has no mechanical weight.

Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;641702OD&D. 1-6 damage for all weapons. Players can come up with all of the detail they like but it has no mechanical weight.

Masterful trolling but ultimately unsatisfying.

Or the answer to end all rpg's?

Really, with a proper weapon verses armor table that integrates an ease of use table and D&D's abstract hit points, 1d6 for all hits and hit dice makes more sense than the varriable die type.

I should give mention to Rolemaster at this point, if you add on the armory it does a pretty decent job of differentiating weapons.  However there are some cases where one sword is simply better than another.  For example a broadsword is basically a +10 scimitar even though, historically, the scimitar was generally a better quality weapon.  The variation on critical hits in the tables also gives a different feel to different weapons.  Skill certainly becomes the key issue with any weapon since a dagger does fewer hits than a great sword but it's the E puncture critical a dagger can do that's most likely to kill you.

I also like the original Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game's system where each weapon gets different modifiers at different rates in addition to the variable weapon damage common to D&D variants.  Another thing Palladium manages is keeping the bonuses down to +5 or +6 by level fifteen, thus keeping the die range managable.  Palladium was "broadening the sweet spot" long before fourth edition D&D.  It's Hand to Hand combat skills by class also manage something similar to the class abilities from 4e though they're more of a pole than a tree.

I love me some "sword porn" as a topic of geeky conversation. But from a mechanical standpoint, I'm really fine with the classic D&D set-up:

Sword, more like a big knife actually - 1d6 damage
Sword, Hollywood standard issue - 1d8 damage
Sword, not overcompensating for anything, honest - 1d10 damage, two-handed

Quote from: David Johansen;641725I also like the original Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game's system where each weapon gets different modifiers at different rates in addition to the variable weapon damage common to D&D variants.  Another thing Palladium manages is keeping the bonuses down to +5 or +6 by level fifteen, thus keeping the die range managable.  Palladium was "broadening the sweet spot" long before fourth edition D&D.  It's Hand to Hand combat skills by class also manage something similar to the class abilities from 4e though they're more of a pole than a tree.

PFRPG 1e is a jewel of a game. I should pick it up in PDF some day.

Even the current Palladium system has great hand-to-hand combat rules. It just catches a lot of flak because it's poorly edited and laid out.

Quote from: The Butcher;641728PFRPG 1e is a jewel of a game. I should pick it up in PDF some day.

Even the current Palladium system has great hand-to-hand combat rules. It just catches a lot of flak because it's poorly edited and laid out.

Last time I played me some Palladium ( TMNT ) we got 1.5 combats (& fuck all else really) in.

Umpteen (possible) attacks + dodges + parries+ endless stacked mods is painful IMO.

And this is a game I played for years in my teens.

The addition of Physical Skills in Heroes Unlimited and carried forward into all future products really screwed up the Palladium system.  Not only did they turn character creation into a long, drawn-out process of copying out abilities granted in paragraphs but they seriously unbalanced the strike / parry / dodge modifier structure.  There's a couple reasons you needed a 16+ to get a stat bonus. First so giants and trolls rarely had a bonus and you could largely ignore NPC stats but also because a large accumulation of modifiers broke the system.  Bumping it up to 18+ in the later games didn't even come close to correcting for the stats possible by stacking Acrobatics, Gymnastics, Boxing, and Wrestling.  Though in more recent variations they did get rid of the random stat increases for them and went to a fixed method.

Quote from: The Ent;641684Yeah, much seconded.

I concur as well. Is only issue is that you to assemble a cheat sheet. None of it is complex but the details and options are different so hence the cheat sheet. typically you get all the weapon details and more importantly the combat maneuvers onto a single page at most.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It takes into account weapon speed, minimum distance needed to wield the weapon, and the effectiveness of the weapon versus different armor types.

Quote from: TristramEvans;641663I'm familair with the Harn setting but know very little about the system. Are there any games you'd compare it to?

It is a percentile based system and character wise it similar to Runequest with some more stats.

Combat wise there is nothing quite like it.

First off it has no hit points.
y
Hits are resolved by comparing levels of success. Criticals are any rolls ending in a 0 or 5, roll equal or lower than your chance of success it is a hit otherwise a miss The combinations yield four possible levels of success which is looked up a easy to use chart.

If the result is damage then you roll the indicated dice plus your weapons impact rating which differs if you are attacking with a point, edge, or blunt. The impact is reduced by the armor you wear on a rolled hit location.

Any damage that gets through is the amount of injury which reduces your skills and any characteristic saves.

The bad stuff are the result of a single blow and based on the amount of injury done by that blow. They are handled by rolling a number d6s under a characteristic. Your injury level adds to these rolls making it mor likely to fail. Possible bad things include stumble, fumbles, amputation, and finally instant death.

Everything is front loaded and make this one of the fasted detailed combat system I ever run.

Quote from: TristramEvans;641630I own that one, and while its touted as having the mostest realistic combat rules, it actually does very little in the way of distinguishing melee weapons from what I've found.

Quite the contrary, the Riddle of Steel is, IMHO, the RPG that does most in the way of distinguishing melee weapons, whereas in most RPGs, choosing a weapon or anoher is a question of which one causes more damage. You get:

-Reach, which strongly penalizes attackers with shorter weapons.

-Bonuses and penalties against different types of armor.

-Every weapon has a different target number for defence and attack. And every type of attack has its own target number.

-There are different damage charts for every type of damage and location. For example, an arrow doesn't do a lot of damage to an arm or a leg, but can do a lot of damage to the head.

QuoteAnd unfortunately the system's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, in that realistic combat is usually very whiffy, arbitrary, and as much about luck as anything.

What do you mean? Luck plays a role, true, but like in any other RPG.