Slash, Pierce and Strike/Blunt are strong/weak against what?

[CleanWater]

Hi everyone!

By far I figured out this:

Slash and Pierce > Anything that is not solid, but neither gooey such as slimes
Strike/Blunt > Solid enemies such as armored enemies, stone golems, etc and gooey enemies.

I'm really having a difficulty time to implement which enemies are weak and strong against slash, pierce and blunt damage (besides the solid and non-solid ones).

What are your concepts about this?

 

[The Stranger]

Slash strong against: cloth, padding, and no armour

Piercing strong against: chain links, padding, and cloth; in skilled hands it's good against stronger armours while aiming for weak points.

Blunt\strike strong against: stronger armours, but not as good against thick padding.

Depending on what it is, ranged weapons can be either blunt or piercing.

I'm likely missing some other things those types are strong against, but you can apply these basics to not only armour wearing beings, but to various creatures\monsters. Perhaps a monster has a lot of blubber\fat that acts as a shock absorber, thus making it strong against blunt attacks; making maces and warhammers ineffective against it.

Scales might be weak against blunt force or piercing, depending on how the scales are set on the creature; blunt force would cause damage to internal organs without breaking the skin, where as piercing weapons might be used (in trained hands) to attack weak spots.

 

[jonthefox]

I usually make Skeletons and Rock Golems highly resistance to pierce damage. You need to break the structure of their body to kill them, so blunt force is the best way to damage them.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

I don't have enemies that are weak or strong to the different types of physical damage; I just give them different mechanics:

Pierce - Ignores enemy's DEF stat, but lower hit rate (if physical). Metal-elemental actors have a pierce attack with 100% hit that consumes MP.
Slash - Default physical attack.
Blunt - 100% hit, cannot critical, chance of stun.

 

[Wavelength]

If you're having a hard time figuring this out as the designer, your player is going to have an even harder time figuring it out. Elemental weaknesses/resists can sometimes be very unintuitive; types of physical damage weaks/resists are ten times as hard to wrap your head around.

I strongly advise to either avoid using different types of physical damage as weakness/resist modifiers (if you really want to separate the types, use a system like @Aoi Ninami mentioned above), or to show the player the weaknesses and resistances of each enemy for free using the Battle GUI.

 

[CleanWater]

@Wavelength I thank thee by thine advices, but I'm still unyieldingly determined to use this system on my game!

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

There's a similar system in Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

• Slash -> soft bodies and plants, includes slimes
• Thrust [spears/rapiers] -> large beasts and fish
• Strike/blunt -> hard/armoured bodies, includes rock-monsters and such
• Pierce [bows/guns] -> flying and insects.

The main thing with any affinity system however, is simply to create a stringent set of consistent rules for the player to follow. It doesn't matter what these rules are, they don't even have to be 100% logical. The most important thing is to both tell the player what these rules are and to stick to them throughout the game's design. If you do break them, give an in-game explanation why, such as character dialogue. "Hey, this guy looks like he's made of rock but he's so springy like a sponge, my hammer just bounces right off. Try stabbing it with your spear."

Here's somethings to ponder, does water douse fire or does fire evaporate water? Does fire burn wind (oxygen) or does wind smother fire? Does earth absorb water or does water erode earth?
As the creator you are the one who defines these rules. Yes, the standard rule is water beats fire, but the opposite is not completely illogical either. The same applies to weapon types.

 

[Chaos Avian]

In conjunction with elements, I use Slash, Pierce and Strike for monster/enemy families. For example, I have Aquatic, Beast, Insect, Plant, Reptile, Bird, Undead, etc. So Thunder and Pierce for the most part would be effective against Bird types. Almost how the default Database in RMXP handled things.

In terms of elements I tend to have them being used in ways to create weaknesses, more of an attribute rather than it being synonymous with the target in question. A giant wolf appears and I have no beast killing skills or weapons? Drench in with a water spell and bolt it to death with thunder magic.

So then the player is aware of weakness of monster/enemy families via weapon types as well as creating elemental weaknesses if none exist via spells/ items.

 

[kovak]

Usually i tie weapon damage type to weapon types as well (which makes some people confused by the way) all for the sake of weapon manevures.
Having this in mind you know how a certain skill is done based on the weapon alone and can tell the damage type done.

• A thrust deals piercing damage
• A cut deals slashing damage
• A strike deals blunt damage

Now lets take a look at a two-handed sword

• It may deal slashing damage or piercing damage
• It can only deal blunt damage if changing the user's stance to half-swording (where he holds the blade and hit the target with the guard)

So if you're not tieing the damage to a specific element itself then it must deal damage based on the weapon type, on this case Sword element and locking the use of possible manevures because the weapon is not suited to them.

• Manevure Attack = specific element
• Auto Attack = weapon element

 

[acidhedz]

Look to AD&D. Look to real life.
And use logic.

One of my projects, that's very rooted in old school AD&D has:
Crushing, Slashing, Piercing, Cleaving and Armor Piercing as elements. Along with quite a few others that aren't pertinent.
Armors have different rates for all of them. For example: Full Plate has 70% vs Slashing, 90% vs Crushing, 75% vs piercing, no reduction against cleaving, and 120% vs armor piercing. In addition to adding Def.
Leather and other soft armors give better protection from crushing damage, but don't reduce against anything else. They just add Def.
There is also an 'Enchanted' element, which all non-enchanted armor is weak against.
Armor also reduces magic and agility.
Using a plug-in I can give every weapon a base physical element, then add others, and have them all proc.
Cleaving is for weapons like pole-arms. They tend to do high damage, and most things don't get much, if any, protection from them, but they're slow.

For enemies I just consider their bodies. A skeleton wont care about arrows and spears, so they get a high reduction to piercing damage. They do break easy, so crushing does plenty of damage.
Zombies don't really care what you do to their flesh, unless you cut it off... so piercing and crushing do very little damage, while slashing does a lot.
Ethereal enemies, like ghosts, have a decent to high flat reduction of all physical damage types. After all, they don't have much (if any) physical form to hit. It's either magic weapons/spells or RUN AWAY!
If they're in armor, I give them the same reductions, if any, from that type of armor. Same for any weapons they may have. I intend that enemies will drop all their gear, so I already have everything in the weapon/armor/skill database. I just give the baddie whatever the player would get from it.

Most of the time it wont matter.
As for the rest, keep it logical and most people should figure it out easily enough. And if they don't... well, you can't account for everyone.

 

[M.I.A.]

• Slash -> soft bodies and plants, includes slimes
• Thrust [spears/rapiers] -> large beasts and fish
• Strike/blunt -> hard/armoured bodies, includes rock-monsters and such
• Pierce [bows/guns] -> flying and insects.

Seconded! Personally, I like to keep it simple.
-MIA

 

[Hercanic]

Slash: Affects a moderate suface area, but as a result is shallower per joule of energy. Lethal damage is inflicted from accumulated bleeding or hacking something off. Great against exposed flesh, but very weak to heavy armor. You are simply never going to slash through plate armor.

Pierce/Thrust: Affects a very small surface area, but can penetrate deeply. Concentrates force into a single point, giving the most bang per joule of energy. Strong against light anti-slashing armors, like leather or chain mail. Can slip into the cracks of heavy armor (visor, armpit, joints) if you are accurate or lucky. Lethal damage depends on puncturing an organ or major artery.

Blunt/Bludgeon: Affects a large suface area, but its flat/rounded shape won't be deflected nearly as much by heavy armor, so more joules of energy are transfered into the target. More durable than edge weapons, and uses its weight to inflict injury. Bruises, breaks bone, and concusses.

A sword can slash with its blade, pierce with its tip, and bludgeon with its pommel.

A pollaxe has an axe blade on one side to deal with unarmored targets, and a hammer or spike on the other to deal with armor.

 

[Chaos Avian]

@Hercanic Wouldn't Chainmail actually be strong against thrusting/ piercing weapons? Yeah slashes aren't really going to be doing anything, but they were just as or on par at reducing damage done by thrust/pierce.

 

[CleanWater]

@Hercanic Wouldn't Chainmail actually be strong against thrusting/ piercing weapons? Yeah slashes aren't really going to be doing anything, but they were just as or on par at reducing damage done by thrust/pierce.

It depends of the size of each ring.

Actually, a chainmail works like a kevlar bulletproof suit. It can't stop a small pointed tip (like a dagger or spear) to pierce through it.

 

[Hercanic]

Wouldn't Chainmail actually be strong against thrusting/ piercing weapons?

Depends on the weapon and quality of the mail. Non-specialized arrows and fatter swords typically won't penetrate, in the best case no more than an inch, but spears and pollaxes are very effective.