So I have both the Fantasy Weapons PDF and Arms Law (2003 edition). I also have my 1995 Arms Law book for comparison's sake.
In the old days, Arms Law used to specify different criticals for different results and some criticals seemed more prevalent against different armor types, e.g. rapier would do mostly puncture at high rolls, but more slashes with lower rolls.
That seems gone now. Sigh.
Anyway, long kynacs historically were rolled on the rapier table at +15.
In Arms Law 2003, the rapier does all puncture.
In the Fantasy Weapons PDF, the long kynac does all slashes.
If you use Arms Law 2003 and the rapier table for a kynac, let's say your attack roll is 127 (OB + roll). Add +15 for rolling on the rapier table. If your opponent has AT18, you'll do a 7E, and a puncture critical.
Now compare the same result for the Fantasy Weapons table. Here, we'd look up the bare 127 roll. Hmmm, 6C. And a slash to boot.
Why is the long kynac table not as good as rapier+15 ? We're running our first Shadow World campaign, and I really pushed the kynac+long kynac to a Duranaki player as being the racial weapons of choice. He took them, and has been disappointed at his lacklustre results, when you factor in developing two-weapon fighting, two primary weapons at once, plus the off-hand, his OBs are considerably lower, and even when he rolls well, doesn't punch high on the chart.
I kept copious notes and went over last session's record of his rolls and in every case, he would have done far more damage rolling on the rapier table at +15. Not to mention the fact that the puncture critical table is also generally more damaging, for the same level of result, than the slash table.
Any one else notice this? What's the preferred / most-used table for long kynacs? The rapier+15, or the long kynac table itself?
Ironically, the kynac table seems to be the rapier table with the -5 for AT20 through AT13 applied, so there's no issue there.
Comments welcome.
