Bashing weapon advantages over Cutting and Stabbing/Piercing weapons

Game Talk The Bunker
1

Cutting and Stabbing weapons are pretty clear I’d like to think. One leans more on piercing armor, the other on critical hits. Regardless of which you think is better, I’d consider them both to have very considerable pros and not many cons, hence giving you very good reason to pick either without much fuss.

Now… bashing weapons… Aside from being slower and having lower DPS 99% of the time. (which is plenty reason not to pick them for your build already) They also have questionable utility compared to a knife AND on first look from what I’ve tested, seem to stun just as much (or even less) as my ~10 skill piercing character, at the same skill level.

And to top this all off, for over 50 days of urban survival my combat knife has gotten stuck when fighting maybe like 2-3 times IF THAT. (And no I didn’t start off with high skill, I started off with 2 in piercing)

So now here I am, wanting to start a new character and going “Is there any reason for me to specialize in bashing weapons, at all?!”

That’s all I have to say. And a totally subjective rant to wrap everything up:

Okay, this is ‘sort of’ building on the whole thing I was talking about earlier how bashing weapons are just the noob’s way of not instantly getting mortally wounded if they get their weapon stuck and they’re fighting more than 1 zombie but yeah, continuing swiftly forward. Regarding the balancing of batons compared to a simple combat knife… A baton that weighs 0.68 KG doing more damage than a baton that weighs 0.73 KG which first off, is really unsettling to me but I can see it, I can sort of let it slide, not all batons are built equal, sure. And the lighter baton being more two times more volume while expanded? Uuhm, okay? What is this baton like a pool noodle or some shit? Or is the other baton like a door stopper? And I’m pretty sure even if you tried you wouldn’t be able to find 2 batons that are almost the exact same weight but the one that is more than twice longer is also lighter. And then you have the complete disparity of where the developer tries to be “realistic” by making the most powerful baton in the game have the dps of 12 dmg 89 moves and then the combat knife sitting at the comfortable 20 damage 82 moves, and yeah I know what people are going to try and argue: “The baton doesn’t deal as much damage just because a baton in real life wouldn’t be nearly as damaging as a combat knife” And okay, I can ‘kind of’ see that, against soft tissue maybe, MAYBE. But then if we’re arguing realism (and here’s where the disparity comes in) why is “armor penetration” stated as a pro on SLASHING weapons instead of Bashing? Literally the LEAST effective way to penetrate armor in the real world! So there you go! And to be honest I don’t really mind it being that unrealistic since it’s an rpg, but if that’s the case don’t fucking gib the batons so much for 0 apparent reason! “Oh but you can contract the 3 volume baton to 1 volume I think that’s pretty useful! I think that constitutes the damage decrease, yeah!” Yeah, you’re right, it is useful, oh wait, my combat knife that is only 2 volume has almost 50% more dps and pragmatic survival uses than the baton, but yeah, I guess you’re right, I can save 1 volume in my packmule messanger bag build. (which I do like and do run with quite often) But oh noooooo, what’s this?! I still need to bring a KNIFE if I want to butcher animals for any sort of long term sustenaaaaance! Welp, there goes that 1 volume boys. Whoops. Anyway, rant over.

TL;DR Do Bludgeons/Bashing weapons have any pros in the later stages of the game like all other melee weapons? Or am I missing something.

2

Well, your argument in a rant about armor penetration is good i guess - though i wonder if bashing weapons deal damage to armor itself, instead of penetrating it? Do any coders know? This would actually make sense, at least in case of metal armors.
Other than that, they are good at destroying obstacles and, in case of fire axe and sledgehammer - anything else.
Most of the time i use piercing weapons due to their reach attacks, but there are some special assholes for whom i reserve my fire axe which is a bashing/cutting weapon hybrid.

3

Bashing weapons do more damage on headshots and crits, irrc.

Or maybe its just they do more crits?

Either way, bashing armor is usually weaker than cutting armor and everything in the game deals at least some bashing damage. All creature base damage is rolled as bashing dice. i.e. zombies do 2d3 bashing damage and 1 cutting damage.

I know for certain in my own mod Ive made skelingtons weak to bashing and resistant to cutting/bullets and near immune to stabbing. Other critters like ants take bashing damage, but resist more cutting.

Heavy weapons, like those that make good bashing weapons, are slower and less usful, theres a case to be made there. Thats a bit for weapon remodeling.

4

IMO they are balanced. I played with a 4 strength character and not sticking IS a big deal early on, because everything WILL stick. Mace has decent damage for a 1.5 kg weight weapon(remember the stamina costs too), staves work with niten-ichi and are on par with katana, if you have that style. Baton is not the only one bashing weapon, you know.

5

[quote=“pisskop, post:3, topic:11896”]Bashing weapons do more damage on headshots and crits, irrc.

Or maybe its just they do more crits?

Either way, bashing armor is usually weaker than cutting armor and everything in the game deals at least some bashing damage. All creature base damage is rolled as bashing dice. i.e. zombies do 2d3 bashing damage and 1 cutting damage.

I know for certain in my own mod Ive made skelingtons weak to bashing and resistant to cutting/bullets and near immune to stabbing. Other critters like ants take bashing damage, but resist more cutting.

Heavy weapons, like those that make good bashing weapons, are slower and less usful, theres a case to be made there. Thats a bit for weapon remodeling.[/quote]

No, bashing weapons are not more effective at critical strikes, they are actually less effective at critical strikes than piercing weapons. Since damage is I believe the only deciding factor that you can use to facilitate stuns (aside from luck), it becomes very, very, very… very redundant because if I crit for 98 with my monomolecular blade any enemy that isn’t a insert high hp enemy , they will get stunned, yes, but they will also: Yes you guessed it, die instantaneously.

Maybe that would be a recommendation I would shoot out to the dev team I guess. Rework the stunning system to favor blunt weapons more rather than piercing weapons and do the same and maybe give them a bit of armor penetration while you’re at it, maybe take the bit of off slashing weapons and give them something like, I don’t know, increased damage against unarmored enemies? I honestly have no idea what they were doing with the stunning system when it comes to weapons. Also yeah, I know bashing damage is a thing, my problem is with bashing weapons, not the bashing damage stat.

p.s. I was actually planning to play with your mod installed by the way, it’s nice, keep it up.

6

Knockback with high strength maybe? Although blades can cause staggering too. Does baton cause stun effect? Are CDDA batons made of metal? (that question relates to their electrical conductivity)

There’s a reason why mankind went from clubs to swords. CDDA is just a simulation and it tries to imitate the properties of objects as well as it can. There really isn’t much reason to go with bashing weapons in the longterm, unless it’s about preference or self-imposed challenge. Or maybe you start a game with a character that excels in bashing weapons. Don’t try too hard to find meaning or justice. It’s all relative. Weapons aren’t made equal. CDDA tries to accommodate as many playstyles as it can. It doesn’t mean all playstyles come out equal.

Cops use batons specifically to cause pain to subdue targets, not to inflict damage to internal organs. CDDA zombies are immune to pain. Ergo, the simulation yields the result “bashing weapons are ineffective (at neutralizing zombies)”. Would you like the bashing weapons to be more effective and damaging? Should the bash weapon playstyle be catered or should the (relative pseudo) realism be maintained? What DO you want?

Skeletons are the primary target for bashing weapons, but that argument falls short as skeletons are rare and frail. Of course early in the game a baton could be a lifesaver, but the discussion is about the longterm worth of bash (blunt) weapons. A high damage bash weapon is basically ineffective, but it’s great for smashing the environment. Perhaps it’s too bad there aren’t any large or dangerous skeletons in the game, the types that would call for bash weapons specialty.

7

[quote=“BeerBeer, post:6, topic:11896”]Knockback with high strength maybe? Although blades can cause staggering too. Does baton cause stun effect? Are CDDA batons made of metal? (that question relates to their electrical conductivity)

There’s a reason why mankind went from clubs to swords. CDDA is just a simulation and it tries to imitate the properties of objects as well as it can. There really isn’t much reason to go with bashing weapons in the longterm, unless it’s about preference or self-imposed challenge. Or maybe you start a game with a character that excels in bashing weapons. Don’t try too hard to find meaning or justice. It’s all relative. Weapons aren’t made equal. CDDA tries to accommodate as many playstyles as it can. It doesn’t mean all playstyles come out equal.

Cops use batons specifically to cause pain to subdue targets, not to inflict damage to internal organs. CDDA zombies are immune to pain. Ergo, the simulation yields the result “bashing weapons are ineffective (at neutralizing zombies)”. Would you like the bashing weapons to be more effective and damaging? Should the bash weapon playstyle be catered or should the (relative pseudo) realism be maintained? What DO you want?

Skeletons are the primary target for bashing weapons, but that argument falls short as skeletons are rare and frail. Of course early in the game a baton could be a lifesaver, but the discussion is about the longterm worth of bash (blunt) weapons. A high damage bash weapon is basically ineffective, but it’s great for smashing the environment. Perhaps it’s too bad there aren’t any large or dangerous skeletons in the game, the types that would call for bash weapons specialty.[/quote]

“…There’s a reason why mankind went from clubs to swords.”

Actually during medieval times man actually went BACK from swords to blunt weapons against highly armored personnel (like knights)

“…Ergo, the simulation yields the result “bashing weapons are ineffective (at neutralizing zombies)”.”

Have you ever tried smashing a coconut with a baseball bat and then tried piercing it with a knife? Yeah. If we continue that logic even further, shouldn’t critical hits using blunt weapons be more damaging than piercing weapons since they impact an area that is A LOT larger than the singular pierce that measures just the blade size? Just because of the way a skull caves in after strong blunt trauma.

8

I love using my nailbats and fire axes.

And I love my icepicks and steel spears.

Its rare or endgame that sees me using something else.

9

[quote=“BoaDrago, post:7, topic:11896”]"…There’s a reason why mankind went from clubs to swords."

Actually during medieval times man actually went BACK from swords to blunt weapons against highly armored personnel (like knights)

“…Ergo, the simulation yields the result “bashing weapons are ineffective (at neutralizing zombies)”.”

Have you ever tried smashing a coconut with a baseball bat and then tried piercing it with a knife? Yeah. If we continue that logic even further, shouldn’t critical hits using blunt weapons be more damaging than piercing weapons since they impact an area that is A LOT larger than the singular pierce that measures just the blade size? Just because of the way a skull caves in after strong blunt trauma.[/quote]

Actually, that’s less true than people often realize. Yes, maces and war hammers were much more effective at penetrating armor… but if you actually look at the “blunt” weapons we’re talking about, their striking surface was really quite small, even downright tiny… it just wasn’t sharp enough to cut unarmored human flesh (it didn’t need to be).

But in terms of bashing weapons, their primary benefits should be something along the lines of stuns and knockback/knockdown. The point here is that getting hit with a large blunt object, even if you have the armor to be relatively uninjured, does move your body quite significantly.

One thing that armored knights (since those were brought up) were weak to was simply being knocked silly or unconscious. No matter how strong the armor, the laws of physics will not be denied, and if I hit you in the head with a piece of furniture, it’s going to result in unpleasant thing happening inside your skull, no matter how strong the armor on the outside is.

Suggestion: have stun depend on the damage dealt, but have bashing damage ignore armor for the purposes of stunning.

That Heavy Power Armor you’ve got? Sure, it protects you from immediate harm right well, but when a hulk punches you hard enough to send you flying, that the armor on the outside is unscathed does not mean that your brain inside your skull isn’t quite battered (from being knocked AGAINST your skull, actually).

10

Bashing damage dealt directly reduces enemy movement points for their next turn, something that only Cold damage does as well (electricity applies a speed reduction debuff instead).

This means that every time you get a bashing hit in you are actually reducing the amount that your target gets to move; in the past when the effect was stronger bashing weapons were actually somewhat overpowered, because you could stunlock enemies with bashing weapons relatively easily. Nowdays the effect is more modest, but it is still a somewhat powerful effect. (The math behind this basically means that if you can deal 2*(enemy speed) or more in bashing damage consistently every single tick (note, this means that moves to attack must be less than your current speed) then you can permanently stun-lock them.)

And in regards to armor there are separate bashing/cutting/etc. armor last I checked. As a result cutting armor might be something like how strong the armor on the outside would be, but bashing armor refers more to the armors ability to pad and dampen the blow (and thus is justified in affecting bashing damage).

11

[quote=“BoaDrago, post:7, topic:11896”]"…There’s a reason why mankind went from clubs to swords."

Actually during medieval times man actually went BACK from swords to blunt weapons against highly armored personnel (like knights)

“…Ergo, the simulation yields the result “bashing weapons are ineffective (at neutralizing zombies)”.”

Have you ever tried smashing a coconut with a baseball bat and then tried piercing it with a knife? Yeah. If we continue that logic even further, shouldn’t critical hits using blunt weapons be more damaging than piercing weapons since they impact an area that is A LOT larger than the singular pierce that measures just the blade size? Just because of the way a skull caves in after strong blunt trauma.[/quote]

Ok, but that “going back to blunt weapons in medieval times” is irrelevant to the discussion.

Again, you started by complaining about the ineffectiveness of blunt weapons, or rather, trying to find a justification for their use. Even a crude zombie simulation such as CDDA can show that blunt weapons are not the most effective choice for combat against (presumed) zombielikes. That’s just the way it was meant to be. It was fate, even. But of course you’re free to suggest changes, which you did, and hell I’m even intrigued by them, although at times I quietly criticize that zombies shouldn’t sustain stuns, but that’s a whole other discussion (possibly). I am of the opinion that not everything in a game has to be useful, although the usefulness of something might present itself in quite unexpected ways especially in complex environments.

It might boil down to what CDDA zombies are like physically or physiologically. Are their bones soft, tough or brittle? Do they have nervous system or internal organs, and do they serve any critical functions?

And then we’re talking about hits to the head, targeted attacks, which can’t be performed. I mean, sure, blunt force trauma to the head probably should be destructive against zombies, assuming it’s the brain we want to destroy. Is it the brain that must be destroyed? We’re talking about altered human beings here, altered in ways that are not known, or are they known? Who’s the say their skulls are or aren’t way softer than coconuts and easily penetrable by a combat knife? Do zombies have internal organs, and if they do, do they serve critical functions? Perhaps you’re criticizing the simplified damage system and that zombies cannot sustain crippled limbs? I mean, I for one recognize that zombified humans probably retain their bone density, or lose some of it due to rot, which would mean that any application of blunt weapons should come in context of hit body location. Leg hits might cripple, arm hits might result in loss of ability to grab the player, and so on. What’s the concept of damage this case? I mean, the statement “Blunt weapons aren’t effective” means that blunt weapons aren’t doing enough to stop a zombie. But what should their effect be? I can’t know what a baseline zombie is made of but I’m ready to acknowledge they have similar bone structure that physically keeps them together, and that bone structure can be damaged, and that damage should have tangible consequences.

Cutting weapons, in turn, cut and damage muscles, and chop off entire limbs, neutralizing the zombie one hack/slash at a time. I can’t imagine what piercing weapons accomplish against zombies. Maybe piercing weapons are always (simulated) hits to the head, and the brain, which I assume is the weak point?

And this is just for the baseline humanlike zombies. I’m not even touching the shockers, the predators, the shoggoths and the likes yet, which might have completely different internal anatomy. Maybe the predators have rubber-like muscle and fat tissue, which would mean they’d be largely immune to blunt force trauma, unless a sufficiently hard hit was delivered, in which case they’d fly off spectularly and possibly bounce around the street for a while before settling down…

TL;DR
Bashing weapons could cause crippled limbs, but sadly I don’t think CDDA zombies have a detailed anatomy, like the player and NPCs have.

Also, witness me as I discover in a 9000-word post that the reason CDDA zombies don’t have detailed anatomies is probably because they can be anatomically so wildly different, and it’d be a ton of work to produce.

12

(N)PCs are a facinating creature.

We only have 80 average health, right? but, we have 6 body parts with 80 health on them, and only 2 of which are vital to survival. In effect, players have 79-478 health points on average.

Congratulations for having as much HP as a zombie hulk.

13

That’s… a pretty significant portion of the reason why they don’t, yeah. :stuck_out_tongue:

Basically the main reasons are that:

  1. It would be a huge amount of work to build a flexible enough system.
  2. Pretty much the only reasons people actually want limb tracking is so they can do things like do attacks on the legs to stop them from walking, which could be emulated much more flexibly as just having the option to do a “crippling attack” that would just apply a “can’t walk” type of debuff (and would automatically abstract handling attacking whatever the monster actually used to stand/fly/swim/whatever).
14

You can simulate bashing weapons always dealing concussive damage against armor with changing armor values from a flat amount to a percentage+much smaller flat number.
for example: mi-go goes from 12 armor(or whatever it has) to a 25%+4. That way a 40 hp sledgehammer hit will be reduced to a 26, but you will be able to bash it to death with a 10 damage cudgel hits (each hit will get reduced to 4).
Player armor values will depend if armor piece is rigid\flexible, whether it has some padding, along with it’s material. This way chain mail would be something like 10% bashing 70% cutting 30% piercing+4, plate - 40% bashing 90% cutting 70% piercing+8, cloth gambeson - 30% bashing 10% cutting 0% piercing+2, you get the idea.
This would require major rebalance of both zombie and player attack and armor values though.

15

But why?

Is the system we have now broken? bashing armor and cutting armor and stabbing armor are all independent of one another.

Stunning bashes are fine.
but this isnt skyrim, where an armor value of 23 applies to all your damage types.

16

I usually play my entire games with a quarterstaff because it has rapid strike and block, if you add metal arm guards and iron greaves then you can basically tank with your weapon/arms/legs against anything.

You do need a decent helmet and some type of chest armor like a MBR vest.

I rarely use a machete/kukri/combat knife unless i have eskrima.

Using a diamond rapier with fencing is OP.

Boxing/krav maga with katar/knuckles/monoblade cbm is also OP.

If i have a katana or a nodachi or some other cutting weapon like broadsword then i use ninjutsu for the double damage + silent killing which is also OP.

I’ve also read some people with tentacles taking advantage of the eastern styles of combat to stack buffs/attacks although i wouldn’t know since i don’t like to mutate a lot or use kung fu.

If you add knockback/knockdown(even if based on STR) to bashing then it would also be OP, imagine activating hydraulic muscles and knocking around moose/bear into trees and hulks/jabberwocks into cars and through walls all the while slowing them down with a bash damage move point debuff.

Would be hilarious if i knockback a rabbit at lightspeed into a car and the gas tank explodes and kills me, or hit a possum with a bat in the forest all the way into a gas station tank and hear the building explode from 50 tiles away.

17

Cudgels make ALL my characters viable! Thanks bashing weapons!

18

[quote=“i2amroy, post:10, topic:11896”]Bashing damage dealt directly reduces enemy movement points for their next turn, something that only Cold damage does as well (electricity applies a speed reduction debuff instead).

This means that every time you get a bashing hit in you are actually reducing the amount that your target gets to move; in the past when the effect was stronger bashing weapons were actually somewhat overpowered, because you could stunlock enemies with bashing weapons relatively easily. Nowdays the effect is more modest, but it is still a somewhat powerful effect. (The math behind this basically means that if you can deal 2*(enemy speed) or more in bashing damage consistently every single tick (note, this means that moves to attack must be less than your current speed) then you can permanently stun-lock them.)

And in regards to armor there are separate bashing/cutting/etc. armor last I checked. As a result cutting armor might be something like how strong the armor on the outside would be, but bashing armor refers more to the armors ability to pad and dampen the blow (and thus is justified in affecting bashing damage).[/quote]

Really nice insight, thank you for that. I guess their to approach to bashing damage in it’s self was to make everything have less bashing armor than piercing or cutting armor but in the later stages of the game that really does not translate to more damage to armored targets when pit against a weapon of similar rarity (like a combat knife). Since most targets are infact, very very lightly armored. And the targets that ARE heavily armored you really should probably not be tackling them with melee combat.

19

You all never have experienced the pure bliss of using a 2x4 to bash a Chickenwalker to death.

–

On a slightly more serious note, bashing weapons that can stun are downright devastating against bigger guys which might knock you out of the park if your first stab/slash doesn’t kill them (see, Hulks, Brutes, and poisonous enemies). Smacking them with even a weak-ish blunt weapon can stun them which gives you a chance to either run off, or continue bludgeoning until they fall down, all the while they never got a lick in on you.

Sure, if you have high level piercing skill, fencing, a diamond rapier, and 6+ dodging, then of course you’re gonna dance around them whilst sticking them with the pointy end… But don’t underestimate the extreme usefulness of stun-locking. They can make even low damage output into something devastating, and at the same time helps you increase your melee/bash a lot faster since it takes a little bit longer to kill them (take that for what you will.)

Add to that the first decent weapons you find as an ordinary evacuee start are bludgeons, with pipes, 2x4’s, cudgel, and the makeshift crowbar being the first effective weapons you’ll find. And depending on your luck and looting skill, they’ll be your friend for a good chunk of the early game.

Personally I don’t stack points into bashing, but that’s because I dump points into dodging instead, and let my weapon skills improve naturally as I bash/slash/poke baddies to death…