Brief description of an armoured duel

[SamuelGassmann]

1533 Duel between a French knight and a Spanish knight

From “Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia”, Noel Fallows, P. 264

The following description by Diego Garcia de Paredes of a single combat in the city of Ravenna in 1533:
“In this battle a French Captain turned to face me because I killed two of his brothers on the battlefield, and we fought in the middle of the two camps armed as men at arms with some iron maces that I brought out. The Frenchman, seeing the weight of them, threw his (mace) to the ground, being unable to wield it well, and seized hold of an estoc and lunged at me, thinking that I would not be able to wield the mace either. He stabbed me through the tasset and wounded me, and I then struck him on the armet with the mace and I sank it into his head, from which he fell down dead.”

In other words, neither of them seems to have put any dice into defence. The Frenchman pierced armour with an estoc, rolling a regular hit. The Spanish knight however rolled a crit, and ended the fight.
To further differentiate damage types, perhaps Bludgeoning can never bypass but only takes half DR from any armour?

[Hans Hellinger]

Very interesting…

The way armor works, if you have say an iron tasset or an armet, which absorbs 6 damage, against a thrust or a bludgeon attack, it absorbs 6. Against a ‘chop’ attack, it absorbs double (12), and against a draw-cut it absorbs triple (18).

If you look at the armor tables in Codex or on your character sheet you’ll notice this.

Textile armor is slightly different because draw cuts can dismantle them, but all metal armor works that way.

In other words, thrusting and bludgeon attacks do the least Crit damage (d6) but have the best chance to get through armor (1x DR).

[Author]

Posts