After doing much research in my spare time on weapons and armor and thinking on an accurate simulation; I came up with the following solution; which I'll describe below. I'd like some opinions on the system, especially if it could be a worthy follow up to the fabled RM combat simulation. Also important for me is whether the resolution is simple enough, accurate enough, am I looking past some obvious flaws...?
basics:
* Weapons have several basic attack types. Wielded by a person with equal skill and equal strength there are a limited number of ways to inflict damage:
1) Thrust: using a pointy object in the direction of the point to penetrate and bludgeon a body. Concentration of force in the point allows for decent armor penetration, good armor circumvention and it is fast.
2) Pierce: Using a pointy object, on a handle, to increase force and speed to penetrate a body. Good armor penetration, decent armor circumvention and it is slow.
3) Cut: Using a (long) edged object in the direction of the edge to cut a body. Bad armor penetration, good armor circumvention and it is medium fast.
4) Hack using a (long) edged object, either on a handle or as a long blade to bludgeon and cut a body. Medium armor penetration, medium armor circumvention, slow speed.
5) Bludgeon: using an object, either long or on a handle to bludgeon a body. Decent armor penetration, bad armor circumvention and slow speed.
* The same person with fixed skill and strength could increase the damage he does by increasing the weight (and therefor momentum). Even allowing for increased armor penetration, at the sacrifice of Speed and circumvention.
* Combat, being unpredictable and taking advantage of every mistake the enemy makes, is not about looking pretty, but it is getting results that count. Therefor a warrior, is at an advantage if he allows his strikes to be random. If he chooses to do a certain type of damage he is losing certain opportunities, ie gets a penalty to OB, similar to the RMFRP system of secondary and tertiary critical types.
* One roll resolution is preferable over multi-roll resolution.
* Certain types of armor work well agains certain types of weapons, and vice versa.
1) No armor - doesn't work really well, except in not hindering the wearer.
2) Soft leather or padded - works ok against bludgeoning, slight against cuts, badly against others
3) Rigid leather, or coin and ring armor - Works ok against bludgeoning, fair against cuts, slight against hacks and badly against pierce and thrust
4) Scales and lamellar - works well against cuts and bludgeon, ok against hacks, badly against thrusts and pierce.
5) Maille - works well against cuts, ok against pierce and thrust, slight against hacks and badly versus bludgeoning
6) Plate - works well against cuts, and thrust, ok vs Hacks and bludgeon, slight vs pierce.
Armor only works in the areas it is worn and we must suppose that every armor starts with some sort of torso protection. Adding pieces doesn't increase protection, but it makes it harder to circumvent the armor. Armor does decrease speed and maneuverablity, so wearing heavier armor and more armor pieces will decrease one's DB and movement speed. So it is easier to hit on the tables, but less likely to cause serious harm.
Based on these principles one could make a system where the resolution is on the appropriate critical table, as designated by your roll.
sample:
The first table indicates what kind of critical table is rolled on. It indicates what kind of damage a weapon is capable of.
The first letter in the abbr. is either Small, Medium or Large (could also be light, medium and heavy) and
the second part is Bludgeon, Pierce, Cut, Hack or Thrust.
The inclination table indicates what kind of damage the weapon did and how heavy the blow was.
The number is either the second digit of the roll, or the second digit of the result (choose which?, does it matter?, could it be perhaps be the first digit of the roll??? since it increases in severity?) to randomly determine which table is used, based on the weapon's strengths and weaknesses.
Damage inclination
Sword, broad 1 SCu, 2 SHa, 3 STh, 4 SBl, 5,6 MCu, 7,8 MHa, 9 MTh, 0 MBl
Sword, long 1 SCu, 2,3 STh, 4 SBl, 5,6 MCu, 7 MHa, 8 MBl, 9,0 MTh
Sword, 2 handed 1 SHa, 2 MHa, 3 MTh, 4 MBl, 5,6,7 LHa, 8 LTh, 9 LCu, 0 LBL
Then apply the total of the OB on the appropriate table indicated by the above table.
The critical tables are laid out like this:
Damage type vs armor type
Result OB | No armor | Soft leather | Rigid leather | Scales | Maille | Plate
Beneath the armor type cross indexed with the Result OB there is the damage result: Higher OB results will have more effective strikes and less effective armor, while lower OB will do less damage and would see strikes that glance off armor bits...when that piece is present. When a result that could be deflected by a certain armor piece, but isn't; the table refers to a higher result where the same location is hit.
Depending on the type of damage vs AT the tables should start early for damage type good against the AT, and later for weapons bad against the AT. I'd say on average: works bad vs AT start at 90, works good: start at 50.
For each type of damage there should be at least a small, medium and large version. For completeness there should be also a tiny result table and a huge one, for those dragons and other giant nasties. This means a total of 25, hopefully one or 2 page tables.
IMHO it would keep the crits around, it is more realistic than anything I've seen in terms of completeness and it is easy to add armors (well not real armor types but armor styles) and weapons and able to simulate any ranged or melee combat in a fantasy environment. One roll resolution grants some speed and it does away with the utterly demoralizing situation where you roll high for attack, only to have your crit land a +1 hit.
The disadvantages are: increased look up time for tables, mix-match of armor pieces, especially magical ones, no resolution AGAINST larger creatures (yet).
Hopefully you guys like it, as I'm hung out to dry here.
Game on!