Slash, Bash, Pierce : Physical Damage Types and wood

I'm a big fan of damage types and would like a system with damage types that have distinctive effects, and weapons that fall on a sliding scale between the types.

So using the traditional Slash, Bash, and Pierce types I see:

Slash induces bleeding, causing bonus HP loss.
Bash knocks the target back and lowers their attack class, making them vulnerable to critical hits.
Pierce pierces armor.

Pretty straight forward.

Then weapons would fall into a sliding scale of these damage types:

Blade - Slash
Dagger - Slash / Pierce
Stiletto - Pierce
Mace - Pierce / Bash
Hammer - Bash
Ax - Bash / Slash

All so good so far.

But wait, here's a problem:

Lets say you're attacking a tree, or an ent.

Bash should do okay damage. Slash should do okay damage. But slash and bash put together should do tremendous damage.

How do I do that, and make it understandable to players?

I was thinking maybe make it 6 damage types:
Slash
Chop
Bash
Puncture
Pierce
Gouge

But I'm not crazy about that mess.

The other consideration I had was to simply obscure the information and have the player need to use common sense to choose the best weapon for a situation.

None of these seem like an elegant solution. Any suggestions?

 

I would simply give monsters special vulnerabilities to damage types, and make these stack. So your ent could have 20% vulnerability each to Slash and Bash, and if you use a weapon that does both, it gets a 40% bonus. I've simplified here a bit (I know your weapon damage types are a sliding scale), but you get the idea.

However if it were my game, I probably would not display all those stats in the game... let users experiment or use common sense to figure them out. But that's just me. I know some players love seeing the numbers.

 

I dunno about the logic though. Bash against a tree? You ever hit wood with hammer? It's bouncy.

Axe isn't exactly bash + slash. It's its own thing. Maybe call it chop. That makes sense to me : chop.

Puncture and peirce imply similar thing. I'd draw distinction between what it is capabale of peircing. Piece light armor, pierce metal armor, etc.

What is gouge? How's that different? Gouging of the eyeballs?

 

Why are you a big fan of damage types?

And I don't quite understand the sliding scales. So an axe would be 20% bash, 80% slash. This means it will lower the attack class of the enemy by 20% of a regular bash attack? How would you communicate this to the player? Would you communicate this?

Let me rephrase that. As you're describing it right now, I don't see how the sliding scales add something relevant to the game as opposed to distinct types. (whether it's 3 or 6) But! I don't know what kind of game you're making (ie. what kind of experience you're trying to get players to experience). So, what kind of game are you making?

 

Warframe is way ahead of you: https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Damage