Muktar wrote:
Second, blunt weapons are more effective against full plate than piecing? I don't know what fantasy you live in but that is not the case. There were three weapons that made full plate mail not used. Military pick, rapier, and the gun. The first two came about the renaissance and because of these two weapons full plate mail wasn't being used as much. The gun of course sealed the doom for armor all together.
I actually live in the real world where a knife wielding assailant will rape someone in close quarters. Armor was used clear up into the 1800's, a fact that you neglect to mention. I forget his name, but he's a well-respected Australian figure that used armor that actually protected him from bullets, and the police ganked him by shooting him in the legs where he had no armor. The rapier making it unusable? wtf? Rapier is a dueling weapon much like the foil and epee. The only way a rapier would have harmed a guy in full plate mail would be to strike where the armor did not protect, like the area with the armpit, which was later reinforced with chainmail under it to prevent that sort of [REDACTED].
Armor in Europe was one of the most badass things you could get around the time the Italian smiths figured out how to make it even stronger. You would have to be 20 meters or closer with a bow to even penetrate the stuff with a longbow. And by that time with a guy (read: badass cavalry) in full plate mail charging your [REDACTED] down on a horse, you're pretty much [REDACTED].
Hammers exploited a weakness of transfer of motion, it is that [REDACTED] simple. The armor would be unharmed, but the stuff underneath it is going to get massively raped.