I have fenced actually.

Finished 3rd in a provincial competition once. I'm fairly good. Beside skill, it's my speed and reach that are my assets, not my strenght. As long as you are strong enough to wield the weapon effectively and have enough endurance to last the fight, you're good to go.

I've had a whopping 30 minutes worth of fencing lessons, but I can see what you mean. Of course, competition fencing usually does'nt involve puncturing internal organs; that's why I suggested the mean of strength and quickness, with double impact armor used for determining damage. (Note, however, that dermal plating would NOT give any additional bonus). However, the mean of strength and reaction may be more appropriate; although the average guy using a rapier would be entirely ineffective against someone wearing armor, the reflex-enhanced lightning-quick adept could realistically manouvre their weapon between armor plates.

Then adding another to the pile would be consistant.

On the damage rating: that seems about right... or fair as would probably be more appropriate.

Foil are incredibbly light. An épée (Sword), which I used in competition, is heavier (1.6 pound) and requires a little strenght in the arm to wield without effort for a the duration of a bout. Just a little.

Many rapier weight just a little over 2 pound, such as these : Cup hilt rapier
Italian rapier

Not very much heavier than what I used in competition. Not hard to handle.

Fencing weapon made of modern (or Cyberpunk/sci-fi) composite material would be lighter.

When I say it doesn't take significant strenght, I mean you just need to be strong enough to wield it with ease. Any strenght over that yield no direct advantage as far fencing goes, though you could obviously take advantage of your greater strenght by forcing corps-à-corps. But if you're slower, it'll just get you stabbed by the maing gauche. So truly, fencing is primarily about speed and reach as far as physical attributes are concerned.

Usually, victory went to the first to shove two inches of steel pretty much anywhere in his opponent. If not immediately fatal, you'd just have to dance around your opponent while he exhaust himself.

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You could decide that a 2065 snazzy monfilament rapier has a flat damage rating of 9M or something like that. Much like the monofilament whip.

That's a RPG conceit.

A 10 years old girl could kill a 300 pound wrestler in one stroke if he lets her stab him with a good combat knife.

That being said, since I don't want my PCs to get killed by 10 year old girls, I'm okay with that conceit.

If she stabs him in the right place. That takes skill and/or luck.

Just take Japanese schoolgirl. They have best luck in world in critical situations

it take strength to do damage, but it take skill to put that damage to best effect. You can stab a person dozens of times and if they aren't in the right places all you have done is made them hurt/bleed a lot. Sure a 10 year olf girl can kill a grown man. Even in SR (rule of one on soak)

It's possible people get this idea from books like George Silver's Paradoxes of Defence (circa 1599) and other period sources that flat-out state that the rapier is "useless in defence of the prince" (i.e. on the battlefield), both for its relatively poor stopping power - which is attested in the high proportion of double kills in historical rapier duels and the slow onset time of sepsis - and for its relative ineffectiveness against the military armor of the time, which might be no more than a gambeson or arming coat (quilted cloth, and that only over the chest).

The notion that live steel requires some considerable amount of strength to inflict horrible wounds on flesh is a weird D&Dism that needs banishing.

Um, just as a side point, katanas are not all that bulky and their damage also relies more on the weapon and skill of the user and less on the strength.

I can conceal a katana as easily as a rapier, and they only wiegh 3-4lbs. Putting them in the same catagory as a claymore is like putting a car and an suv in the same catagory. One is a lot easier to handle.

Ive done kendo, kenjitsu, and iado for a long time. I'm quite proficient with just about anything with a blade. when I first started training, I was not nearly as strong as I am now. I actually have a harder time slicing through the reed bundle right now than I used to, just becasue I haven't been practicing as much and my skill has suffered. I have greater str, but my skill raing has gon down and that effected the damage more than anything. Str is important, but I don't think it is any more or less than with a rapier. Just my .0 2

And applying this experience to a real fight with a real weapon is, of course, utter nonsense. You have not the slightest idea what a real fight is like, nor how long a real rapier fight can last. They can be short; contrast this with fencing matches (regardless of whether you fence foil, épée, or saber), where a single touch, even with the most unrealistic of technique, will end a bout.

You do not need to be strong enough to wield it with ease. You need to be strong enough to wield it with ease for potentially a long time— all while maintaining speed, dexterity, and technique, as well as the strength and precision to both hit vital parts of your opponent and puncture deeply enough to do incapacitating damage.

Human soft tissue is soft. Human bones are not, and managing to stab a person in areas that would incapacitate them— all while holding onto your weapon and getting in and out quickly— is not that easy with a weapon as bad at inflicting wounds as a rapier. It certainly has its advantages; the fact that it is, in terms of wounding potential, functionally a very long dagger, is absolutely not one of them.

Two inches is not enough to reach much. Very few significant organs with any potential to incapacitate quickly can be reached with a short stab, which is why, in reality, most rapier duels actually lasted a considerable time, and why, after being wounded— perhaps even mortally with the medicine available at the time— an opponent could keep on fighting. Most fights were won by blood loss, and that takes time, especially with a weapon that has trouble reaching major veins and arteries.

A saber is basically just another sword at (Str + 1)M. And it should be, considering that Shadowrun is exceptionally awful at differentiating different melee weapons. A saber is also not at all comparable to a rapier, and they handle extremely differently. Rapiers definitely do not deserve Moderate base damage. (Str + 3 or 4)L is about as close to a realistic representation of a rapier as you can get.

This is completely absurd. To stand a chance in any melee fight with even a slightly unwilling opponent, strength will be a significant factor. Just because I can win if my opponent says, "Hey, mate, here's my wrist: slit it and I'll sit here and bleed out for you" doesn't change a fucking thing. It is completely inapplicable and specious to claim it has any pertinence.

Why would you use ballistic over impact? When you get stabbed with one, rapiers basically just function as very long knives; edged weapons, including knives, are what most ballistic armor tends to be noticable bad at dealing with, unless you switch over the very bulky and cumbersome prison/riot stuff.

'Stopping power' being rather wanting is accurate, and that certainly is one of the reasons it's utterly useless in war. However, in the late 17th (and even a little of the very early 18th) century in Europe, the common battlefield armor was not little more than a gambeson. War had not really yet been democratized by firearms, and feudal style combat, while on its last legs, still rode proudly in utterly gigantic suits of armor that had been developed for heavy cavalry in order to deal with early personal (cavalry) firearms. Against this, a rapier would have trouble even leaving a dent. That isn't all the armor that was common at the time, but it was common enough that combined with the rapier's already extremely lacking qualities as a battlefield weapon, it would be an insane choice to take to war.

But the notion that a real blade requires considerable strength to inflict effective wounds in a real fight is not a silly D&Dism. Claiming that strength is not necessary has honestly become the new reactionary silliness, and is right up there with the people who run around claiming that katana were no more impressive than a decent "Toledo steel sword." As if that actually meant something.

I'm hoping I missed a few drops of sarcasm here and that you would be referring to 'not at all?'

More importantly, however, I would point out that while your tameshigiri technique may be getting rusty, strength is still quite significant; it isn't everything, and technique is still extremely important, but some fencing experience (or even tameshigiri, which is a bit closer to the real thing) does not give you an accurate picture of the significance of and relationship between strength, speed, dexterity, and skill.

Not that that's directed at what you were saying, but it tangentially brought it up. I do agree that katana and claymores don't belong anywhere near eachother for obvious reasons, though claymores are, in reality, a bit lighter than people tend to think.

Because most foils aren't really "edged" weapons. They have a semi-sharp tip and you're relying on puncturing the opponent, not slashing them. Besides, I wasn't asking for opinions on whether anyone liked it or not, that's just how I'd handle it.

A rapier or sabre, both of which are edged, is a different weapon entirely and I would (and have done so in the past) use the standard rules with them.

What? That a top-quality western sword was somehow inferior to the magical, splendiferous, otherworldly properties of the romanticized super-amazing and unstoppable kung fu powers of a katana? Yeah, you're so right. They're the most wonderful weapons of all time, and nothing could possibly compare. Why, they'd chop through a hundred western swords with one blow, they were that spectacular!!!

Fragging katanaphiles.

However, SR game mechanics don't take this into effect so it's essentially a moot point as far as what Charon is saying about the weight. Besides, most combats are over fairly quickly... relatively speaking.

Yes it is. I'm no fencer, but I took two years of anatomy and physiology classes to know that two inches can reach quite a few areas on the body that can kill within seconds. This would require the fencer possess a similar knowledge skill and perhaps a Called Shot modifier.

A good friend and gamer in my SR campaign is a third dan in Aikido and practices with a katana regularly. He's backed up the point about strength playing less of a role in the effectiveness of damage output; dexterity/precision and speed (not counting mental preparedness) are the assets he counts as most valuable. I'm not sure if that applies to fencing or not. Anyhoo..

Like the brain and the arteries in the neck?

What are you talking about? It's to 15 points. And there isn't exactly a long pause between point. The ref calls "touché", you get back in the middle of the field and you go at it again. It can take a while. More than 15 minutes if the fighter are well matched. Sport fencing most likely take longer than real fencing duel did.

And you severely underestimate the effect of two inches of steel through your body. If pushed through your arm or leg (two of the easiest target on fencing), you pretty much lost the fight and that's all there is to it.
You can't wield a weapon or fight effectively if your arm or leg has been hit that way. And if that 2 inches is anywhere in your torso, it can easily have hit an organ. How frigging deep do you think is your skin?!

Just rushed downstair to ask my sister to confirm (3 years of medecine completed just yesterday).

If you get two inches through your chest, rush to the hospital, you are in bad shape. Any organ can have been hit. You got punctured lung if they were in the area hit. Or you can have punctured liver. Or any number of other nastiness.

Again ; how deep do you think is your skin?

I reiterate, two inches pretty much anywhere in your opponent's body (while avoiding to spit yourself on his blade) and you won the fight, let's say 99% of the time.

In his sword arm : he's now helpless. He'll have dropped his sword, 99% guaranteed. He could pick it up and resume the fight, but be serious...

Any legs : He'll have dropped to the floor the instant as little as an inch went through his leg. If he gets back up, he's not mobile. Attack in fencing involves heavily the legs. Without it, you're helpless.

Throat or heart : Dead

Liver : Dying. And reasonably fast, too. Barring a Hollywood scenario, your opponent dances away and you die a lonely death on the floor before long.

Lungs : Dying. You can keep fighting if you feel like it, but breathing will get hard fast.

Stomach : Dying. Can keep on fighting but the pain will be unbearable when lunging ("Fente") and that's the primary fencing attack. The opponent dance around you and wait for you to crumble to the ground.

If you get tagged in your off arm (including shoulder), then yeah, you can fight on. Blood loss and pain won't help, though.

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Note that SR is not too bad at simulating this. The first guy to get as little as a L wound probably lost the fight. The TN modifier is a killer in opposed test like melee fighting.

Strawmanning like a bitch. 2 minute penalty.

Yeah, and you can kill with a 1" puncture wound to the neck if you do it right. Doesn't matter. 2", in terms of actual feasibility in combat, is nothing. What it really mean, in reality, is that you're going to stab your opponent a lot of times, and most of it's not going to mean much until blood loss starts to add up. This was the case even with capable fencers of the time.

I simply can't agree with that. Dexterity, precision, and speed do not exist in a vacuum. They are not 'separate stats,' nor are they fully separate from physical strength. They are definitely important; you're also not going to be dextrous, precise, or fast— or able to be and remain so in combat—with a 3lb sword without being strong.

I am not saying that skill and speed are not important. They obviously are. But to discount strength as important belies its veryreal significance in a real fight.

Actually, with no varying TNs to resist melee damage, he's basically removing one of the variables from combat resolution and speeding things up a little.

Yes they were. This is why so many duels resulted in both opponents being wounded, often mortally. Rapiers don't do immediately incapacitating wounds very well.

Seriously, what does this even mean?

No, the rapier actually makes for a fantastically shitty anti-armor weapon, and its popularity only grew as armor, on and off the battlefield, began to disappear thanks to firearms. The rapier is not at all an anti armor weapon.

Again, rapiers were not anti armor weapons. Plate did exist during that time (I assume you're talking about the 17th century), as during the Sengoku Jidai, the Portugese, Dutch, and English did bring in some as gifts and items of trade. Moreover, it is a common misconception that Japanese armor did not contain metal. In fact, it did. Metal inserts and metal mail (both banded and linked) show up in Japanese armor pretty consistently, though its use is substantially different from that of Western armor.

Enough differences, honestly, to make it not so analagous.

But they're not really true swords. When you get to wounding— which is what the damage code deals with— it becomes obvious that they are basically just long knives. It is extremely difficult to justify a Moderate damage code in light of that— not to mention historical evidence that supports this.

That is just not true.

Read back on my posts. I never said "Kill within seconds".

This is what I wrote.

To be more accurate, an estoc, the rapier's ancestor, was designed to defeat armor.

Rapier derived from it. Its purpose is as a dueling weapon. It sucks against armor and is not very efficient against multiple opponents which limit its usefulness as a self-defense weapon.

But it is probably the best historical weapon ever developped for one-on-one melee fighting against an unarmored opponent, bar none. IMO anyway.

That's just... strange.
The warhammer was an anti-armor-weapon yes, but it shouldn't be any less than str+1 M, and as for reducing armor, that's a quality no melee weapon has in canon rules AFAIK. Even the polearm and combat axe lacks that. And I'm assuming the polearm with its ridiculously high damage code is a halberd or pole axe or something similar which was by all means an anti-armor weapon.

It most certainly does matter. You said it yourself, "if you do it right." Which is what the last sentence in my previous post states. Someone with the knowledge of where to strike coupled with the difficulty of the Called Shot modifier (as well as the slew of other modifiers that stack on top of this), are the abstract ways of dealing with this exact scenario. It almost sounds like you're arguing for disallowing a quick kill altogether because history doesn't prove that this type of kill exists. I'm not so sure that's a proven fact. Is it? Where does one get information like that anyhow?

Feel free to disagree with whatever you want, but I didn't say that he discounted strength. He said that it played less of a role than the speed and precision of the attack. Being highly skilled and applying the first wound was far more important to him than hacking his opponent as hard as he could.

Besides, what you're talking about is endurance or fatigue, which is covered in SC (p.47). You're adding additional elements of reality that aren't applied towards other melee weapons in the game. Do you apply fatigue rules towards other physical actions? If so, then I suppose this would make more sense. The rules don't require that PC's take this into consideration unless they're sprinting.

I was mainly referring to tagging the heart or arteries. These are well within two inches of the epidermis and can positively kill someone in seconds.

I don't think you followed me. Someone with years of experience in combat and a knife can kill someone with an assault rifle 'if he does it right.' Someone with a .22LR pistol can win a gunfight 'if he does it right.' Hell, 'if you do it right,' you can kill very armed and prepared people with nothing more than your bare hands. This doesn't matter, because the wounding potentials of a knife, a .22LR pistol, and your bare hands are all very insignificant in any combat situation. Likewise, 2" of penetration is insignificant in a real fight. Knowing anatomy— and any good swordsman and even any good shooter will— is far removed from both being able to employ that knowledge in reality and being able to employ that knowledge effectively while someone else tries his hardest to stop you from doing so.

I never said it's impossible to get an instant kill with a rapier. One could certainly successfully stab an opponent straight through the throat and sever his spinal cord on the way out (which, I would note, requires quite a bit of strength). I've never heard of it happenening, but I'd willing to bet that it's probably happened at least once in the history of fencing. This does nothing to change the simple fact that rapiers are rather miserable at dealing effective, immediately incapacitating wounds, and within the scope of modern medicine, they are much less effective at dealing long term mortal wounds than they were three centuries ago.

And I while there is undoubtedly some truth in that, being able to deliver significant force behind a blow, in real combat (ie not training, not sparring, not even tameshigiri), matters more than people give it credit for.

No, I'm not. At that point, I was talking about reality, which, as always, is rather far removed from Shadowrun. Moreover, it is not simply about fatigue or endurance; in a real fight, you will be dealing with many more variables that require strength than simply shoving that blade through something dense and (for now) living.

Perhaps. I don't know that much about it. Like I said, that's just what my buddy told me. I never got the impression that when he was talking about the amount of damage he could inflict with a katana, he was always referring to the equivalent of a Deadly wound. He had a video made of a test he had to take for his third dan. In the bokken manuevers portion of the test, he was describing how each of the moves were intended for different effects, sometimes only to stop an opponent while moving to another. From his descriptions of them, a large number of them seemed to focus on "swimming" through multiple opponents rather than cleaving through one. Again, consider the source. I'm not the Aikido artist, so its more than possible that I'm talking out of my ass here.

On a straight angle hit on a relatively thin guy, part of the heart and of the aorta are indeed accessible with 2" of penetration, but those two inches include the sternum or a rib. If your original penetration capability was only 2" of soft tissue, your chances of reaching the heart and the aorta are pretty damn slim, which leaves you the carotids, and maybe the jugulars (I admit I do not know exactly how fast one severed jugular kills you) and the brain through the eye socket (orbital fissures) for those kills within seconds.

If you originally meant for those 2" to include a significant amount of bone and cartilage, then that would work. However, if you can easily achieve 2" of penetration through the sternum or a rib with a slight thrust of a rapier, I'd call you pretty strong.

Actually two inches on me and I will grunt a little as I bury the axe in your head, but then again I am a lot larger than your typical man.

Two inches in your arm and you drop your weapon, two inches in your leg and you drop to the ground. Believing otherwise belies the fact that you've watched too many movies. I've seen video of a fencing tip that broke while making a hit at the leg. The broken shard penetretated barely half a inch in the unlucky target's leg and he dropped like a sack. He got back up and limped away, cursing his way to the infirmary, but on the hit he dropped. It's a reflex, you can't help it; your limb goes limp at the hit.

As for the possibility that you have more than 2 inches worth of skin protecting your organs, there are three possibilities :

1 - You don't truly realize how deep 2 inches go.

2 - You are exagerating to win a point.

3 - You are very fat. If so, I'm sorry to inform you that you are not winning any duel against a fencer if you are that fat. That might not be politically correct, but that's life.

As for the possibility of a double touche, the point of striking only two inches into your opponent is precisely to avoid that. If I run you through, my blade is stuck and you can kill me in your dying throes. If I just tagged you two inches in the stomach or on your sword arm and withdrew as fast as I attacked, you lost. It'll be too fast for you to tag me in the same exchange (with an axe, no less).

There's a reason no one brought an axe to a renaissance duel (where the opponent wore no armor). First hit wins if you avoid the double touche, and speed gives you first hit.

How odd. There are plenty of people who've been shot through a limb with a firearm and have continued functioning with only a small hit in efficiency, yet a very minor limb wound with a rapier is guaranteed to cause that limb to go limp?

One thing that might explain the reaction of the person to that rather insignificant injury is that people react to injuries in everyday life very differently to how they would in a life-or-death situation. You're much more likely to ignore pain, both physically and mentally, when there's a clear and present threat to deal with.