- one-handed sword/dagger pommel strikes (while holding the sword in a standard grip, as opposed to stabbing/slicing/chopping with the blade)
- pistol whipping with a handgun
- striking with the butt-end of a spear or polearm rather than the sharp, stabby end
- Striking with the butt of a rifle or shotgun in close quarters (where firing is either undesirable or impossible)
- the Mordhau or Murder Stroke, a tactic used against heavily armored knights in the German school of swordsmanship, where a longsword was flipped and held with both hands by the blade, while the pommel and crossguard were used as an impromptu hammer to batter the opponent into submission. Done where this was much easier than trying to find a tiny gap through which to stab them.
It might be as simple as saying "when you use your weapon like that, it counts as this weapon for damage purposes", but I'm not sure if all those examples can easily translate into the equivalent of another weapon: You could easily say that the haft of a polearm does the same damage as a quarterstaff, but for example what weapons from the Compendium of Weapons, Armour and Castles (my go-to source for ancient weapon technology) would be "close enough" to the damage inflicted with a pistol whip, pommel stroke or Mordhau? I guess you could argue a Mordhau would do the same damage as a warhammer (2D6. If using the Resistance Factor rules from CoWA&C - which I discuss in my other post here - counts as impact damage), but I'm not sure if it would do slightly less, since that's not what a sword's grip is designed to do. What kind of penalties to strike and parry would you guys suggest implementing for a tactic like this, if any? Considering that for some you're striking with a point on the weapon not originally designed for such, and in some cases you're even holding the weapon completely counter to its original design, and thus totally messing up any benefits you get from its balance (admittedly, only the finest weapons GET any bonuses from particularly fine balance). Should significantly changing the way you hold a weapon cost you an action?