[Kylen]

Anyone else think that a 12 pound hammer (just the head) should do more damage then a staff? It might just be my love for large hammers and watching them do bad things to enemies.

[CitizenJoe]

Baseball players use lighter bats because they can get higher speeds with them.  Same concept goes for a sledge hammer. 

[Mirikon]

In my view, it is the same as the difference between a claymore and a katana. The katana strikes faster, cuts cleaner. The claymore has more mass behind it, hits harder but slower.

[CanRay]

All I can remember is that Sledge Hammer uses a loudener on his revolver...

[Kylen]

See, the issue is that, to my (limited) knowledge, in the world of Blunt Weapons, Pain generally goes Baseball Bat, Bow Staff, Sledge Hammer. Granted, I used 12 pounds as a generic "Do people even think about 10 pound sledge?" weight. Sure, with a sword, speed can be useful, but what would do more damage: A hit from a high speed bow staff, or a heavy weight on a stick?

My 2 more nuyen

[Angelone]

I agree with you. From my personal experience with sledges, luckily they were one glancing blows, they hurt and do more damage than a staff or a bat. I'd bump the damage to str/2+4.

[JustADude]

I agree with you. From my personal experience with sledges, luckily they were one glancing blows, they hurt and do more damage than a staff or a bat. I'd bump the damage to str/2+4.

Agreed... possibly even higher, really. They are, after all, mostly used to do things like smash concrete walls in real life... not to mention their previous use for braining cattle (who have skulls that make humans' look like eggshells) at slaughter time, back before the invention of captive-bolt pistols.

In the hands of normal humans it would, at Str/2+4, be mostly doing 6 DV before hits. Concrete is one of the examples for Heavy Structural Material, meaning it rolls 32 dice (Armor 16 x 2) to resist damage, buying 8 hits, and has a Structure rating of 13. Requiring 3 net hits to do any damage is selling the weapon a bit short.

[Lethe]

Sure, with a sword, speed can be useful, but what would do more damage: A hit from a high speed bo staff, or a heavy weight on a stick?

A single hit with a sledge hammer definitely does a lot more damage than a staff. In SR though, melee attacks aren't defined as single attacks, but as a series of moves and counter-moves.

So, when comparing SR damage values, you should ask, what would do more damage: 3-5 well-aimed high-speed hits from a staff, or one clumsy swing with a weight on a stick. Personally, I would prefer a staff.

[JustADude]

So, when comparing SR damage values, you should ask, what would do more damage: 3-5 well-aimed high-speed hits from a staff, or one clumsy swing with a weight on a stick. Personally, I would prefer a staff.

Yeah, if you're going to put Bruce Lee behind the staff and some putz whose never been in a fight before behind the sledgehammer, of course the staff comes out ahead.

In a more realistic situation, though... you know, one where the guy with the sledgehammer isn't assumed to be fighting like a total idiot and the guy with the staff isn't able to fire off "well-aimed high-speed" power hits at an impossible^* rate... a Sledgehammer is going to be used for blocking and quick thrusts/jabs far more than the stereotypical haymakers. And those "light" hits are still going to do about as much damage as power-hits from the much lighter staff, and deliver them with less time and room needed to build the momentum required.

And before anyone asks "If they're so good, why aren't they used in martial arts," go take a look at maces, which are basically a fully-weaponized version of a sledgehammer. The closest Eastern equivalent would be the Tetsubo, which is a huge, iron-banded and/or -studded club that weighed in at nearly 30 pounds and was the traditionally favored weapon of Oni (the actual demons, not the Metatype).

EDIT: Seems they actually have one-handed Maces written up in Arsenal p17 as Str/2+3 Reach 1. Since the Sledgehammer is basically a bigger, 2-handed version of the same thing, bumping the DV up by 1 or 2 giving it a point of AP and an extra point of Reach, and calling it a day sounds about right.

^*Note: I'm not saying that you can't hit someone 5 times in 3 seconds with a full-length staff, I'm just saying that they're going to be jabs, and they're not going to qualify as "well-aimed." Nor will they do nearly the same damage as 1-2 actually well-aimed shots that have more juice behind them.

[Lethe]

and the guy with the staff isn't able to fire off "well-aimed high-speed" power hits

I never said power hits, but in comparison to a sledge hammer, it will be well-aimed and high-speed. If someone tries to swing a sledge hammer at me, i could take a nap, read a book and then take a step to the side, and the guy will miss.

a Sledgehammer is going to be used for blocking and quick thrusts/jabs

If you use it like that it will probably to as much damage as rifles butt (str/2+1), be useless against concrete walls and is not comparable with a mace. Your comparisons really don't fit together.

Seems they actually have one-handed Maces written up in Arsenal p17 as Str/2+3 Reach 1. Since the Sledgehammer is basically a bigger, 2-handed version of the same thing, bumping the DV up by 1 or 2 giving it a point of AP and an extra point of Reach

Afterwards you could reduce the DV by 1 or 2 for the reduced hitrate, and calling it a day sounds about right.. SR has it already well thought through.

[JustADude]

and the guy with the staff isn't able to fire off "well-aimed high-speed" power hits

I never said power hits, but in comparison to a sledge hammer, it will be well-aimed and high-speed. If someone tries to swing a sledge hammer at me, i could take a nap, read a book and then take a step to the side, and the guy will miss.

With light, blunt-force weapons like a staff, which have relatively little mass to add to their momentum, almost all of their impact force is generated through velocity. That means "high-speed" hit is a power hit, as inevitably as F = M/2 * V^2.

Unless, of course, you meant to say "rapid" not "high-speed," in which case it's quite possible to get several times as many hits in as someone using a sledgehammer. However, unless you catch someone in the nuts, throat, or other similar squishy bit, such quick, uncommitted jabs are only going to be annoying and distracting rather than actually debilitating. For a Staff to cause physical trauma bad enough to warrant a "P" damage code, though, those kinds of love-taps just aren't going to cut it.

By the time you finish winding up for a shot that will do some damage, the guy with the sledgehammer is going to crowd in on you and crack your ribs with a thrust from a 10-pound chunk of iron on the end of a handle that lets him get a sturdy 2-handed grip and put his hips into it. That's because the sledgehammer has many times more more M, so needs far less V to make the same amount of F when it hits.

a Sledgehammer is going to be used for blocking and quick thrusts/jabs

If you use it like that it will probably to as much damage as rifles butt (str/2+1), be useless against concrete walls and is not comparable with a mace. Your comparisons really don't fit together.

You've apparently never used a mace, tried to butt-whip someone with a rifle, nor used a sledgehammer for any form of utility task, either.

With its mass you only have to apply very sparing effort to do things like batter down doors, break 2x4s, smash through sheet-rock, and other such trivial tasks... most of which a rifle-butt couldn't do on its best day. Taking a full, two-handed 'baseball' swing to break a human ribcage is just plain overkill. However, there's no reason to apply anti-personnel techniques against a stronger, immobile barrier where you can take the time to wind up. The hammer can be used in either capacity as required by the situation, so don't try to throw up a straw-man by acting like it has to always be used one way or the other.

Besides, didn't someone just say that the DV of a melee weapon was supposed to be several actions taken as a whole? Based on that principle, the aggregate damage caused by 2-3 of hose lighter strikes in quick succession against a moving opponent is going to result in trauma equivalent to one massive strike, but be far easier to land.

Seems they actually have one-handed Maces written up in Arsenal p17 as Str/2+3 Reach 1. Since the Sledgehammer is basically a bigger, 2-handed version of the same thing, bumping the DV up by 1 or 2 giving it a point of AP and an extra point of Reach

Afterwards you could reduce the DV by 1 or 2 for the reduced hitrate, and calling it a day sounds about right.. SR has it already well thought through.

Which pretty much balances out to Str/2+4, AP -1, Reach 2... which is roughly what was being suggested in the first place.

Now, I'm going to go to bed before I say something that will make Fastjack upset.

[UmaroVI]

You guys do realize that sledgehammers are already on the Improvised Weapons Table in Arsenal?

[JustADude]

You guys do realize that sledgehammers are already on the Improvised Weapons Table in Arsenal?

Huh... whaddayaknow.

However, it has the same stats as the much smaller (and 1-handed) Mace, which makes no sense at all. Of course, weapon damage values not making sense is nothing new for Shadowrun.

[Red]

For the sake of humor...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_E0bvOPTRg

[Lethe]

Seems they actually have one-handed Maces written up in Arsenal p17 as Str/2+3 Reach 1. Since the Sledgehammer is basically a bigger, 2-handed version of the same thing, bumping the DV up by 1 or 2 giving it a point of AP and an extra point of Reach

Afterwards you could reduce the DV by 1 or 2 for the reduced hitrate, and calling it a day sounds about right.. SR has it already well thought through.

Which pretty much balances out to Str/2+4, AP -1, Reach 2... which is roughly what was being suggested in the first place.

Your failure in elementary school math pretty much sums up the rest of your post.

You guys do realize that sledgehammers are already on the Improvised Weapons Table in Arsenal?

Yes, but some people are not satisfied or can't comprehend, how the officials come up with those very fine stats for it.

As i said before, the weapons stats don't represent a single hit, but a series of moves. In case of a sledge hammer it just might be a single hit, that's why the overall damage value is equal to smaller but faster weapons, which can hit more often in the same time.