Depends on the kind of damage you want to inflict.

for example, have a plate deal more damage without turning it into something that isn't a plate?

For a person, you want a smaller surface area to apply more pressure to the point of impact while still distributing it across a large surface.

Which is why spikes do such a wicked job.

A small, heavy ball will do more damage than a wide paddle, for example.

hm

Remember, it's the snowshoe principle. Snowshoes work by distributing all the weight across MORE space. The same goes for weapon design. The wider the point of impact, the more the damage is dispersed.

For optimal weapon design, you want as much mass as you can comfortable swing in as SMALL a point of impact as you can manage.

in this case I'm thinking more about improvised weapons, which puts the restriction on me that they have to remain recognizably the items they normally are

so like bottles, sheets of paper, mugs, backpacks, etc

Like a dinner plate? Or are you thinking of some other sort of plate?

yeah like a dinner plate

A dinner plate is a poor blunt weapon, but if you can smash it in half, it makes a GREAT improvised dagger.

A mug is a tailor made mace that you can only use once, unless it's a solid metal stein.

things with sharp edges and pointy bits are straightforward, but things without either are proving more complicated

Backpacks make poor weapons, but great distractions. Throw a backpack at someone and they either have to dodge or catch, opening them up for attack.

the plate has to remain a usable plate in the end, so breaking it, while a good idea in the real world, wouldn't work in this game

basically my issue is

In general, when it comes to improvised weapons, look for what you can swing in the same way as a weapon.

Metal plate, or glassware?

what does an object's Attack stat represent in terms of the object's traits?

Defense is it's durability

HP is its size

but Attack is what?

Okay. Here's how you use a poorly-shaped object as a weapon.

pointiness/sharpness works for some things but not others

When you can't swing an item into someone's face...

Swing someone's face into the item.

Smashing someone's nose into a plate will apply all the force into their nose.

The damage would, in that instance, be the plate's durability.

It's a principle of "Which breaks first? Your weapon, or your victim?"

huh. that's an interesting way of looking at it

the Swing someone's face into the item part

I HIGHLY recommend watching Jackie Chan movies for this line of thought.

You will learn a LOT about improvised weapons, including ladders, buckets, plates, and other mundane items.

Oh, and bird cages.

Jackie Chan LOVES marketplace fights with bird cages.

it's been far too long since I've watched any of his stuff I should remedy that

As long as the item remains intact, it will basically deal its full damage.

The old martial arts adage of "I fought the board, and the board won" applies. If you can't break the board, you WILL break your hand.

/nodnods

But conversely... if the item breaks, it will basically only deal collateral damage from sharp edges and the like.

So for RPG terms, it would be an opposed sunder attempt.

since this scenario involves magic I can handwave the lack of breaking

One item breaks, one item is fine.

Ah, magic, that adds a whole new dimension. XD

okay let me elaborate where I'm coming from here

the idea is for the PC to animate objects and attack with them.

The player can raise and lower the stats of an item, which changes what the item is - drop defense to 0 and it's now made of paper, raise defense to 9 and it becomes steel

fiddle with the stats enough and you can turn a dinner plate into a round shield

to make this work though I need a set of stats that map to properties of the items

Got'cha. I see now.

but also function in terms of RPG combat mechanics

Your best bet for that would be to look for comparable items.

A plate will never be a mace, for example, but it WILL function as a shield for the purposes of smacking someone with a flat board.

So... look up examples of offensive applications of a shield.

but what makes one flat board deal more damage than another?

D&D, for example, has rules for that.

other than the wielder's strength?

For all intents and purposes? Nothing.

Smacking someone with a panel of dense wood will do the same damage as smacking them with a panel of dense steel.

It's not the material that does the damage, it's the force of the impact.

A shield strike will always do 1d6 damage, for example, but the trick will be whether the object SURVIVES the strike.

hm... that implies that the animating magic would need to become stronger to deal more damage

Yeah. Unless you're straight up converting an item into a DIFFERENT weapon, the rules of nature will still apply.

You want more damage, you need to enchant it to deal more damage.

while converting items is possible, it's handling the in-between stage that's the challenge. Or at least, explaining what's happening in-universe

if I was, say only using swords this would be a lot easier

but handling both swords and clubs is where the problems are arrising

When in doubt, generalize the system.

/nodnods

Then try it out, and find the obvious places where general rules don't work.

And do addendum rules for those instances.

Coupled with the age old adage of "For improvised materials, you will always have to use your best judgment."

I've been trying to map combat stats to item traits but I'm feeling like I've missed something

what I have now is:
-HP maps to size
-DF maps to durability
-AT maps to how dangerous it is
-MP maps to storage capacity/volume
-MA maps to magicallness
-MD maps to value
-SP maps to inverse of weight

but I keep hitting corner cases that make this pattern not make sense

I could just handwave some of the relationships, but I'd like to be reasonably logical if at all possible

(also not sure if separate Magic Attack and Magic Defense stats are needed, but that's a slightly different area)

("magicallness" feels too forced)

Aetheric Potential

Or whichever "fuel" your magic uses.

I like that

Can we tell I've done RPG systems before? XD

there were some hints...

"Aetheric Strength" and "Aetheric Resilience" if you prefer more focused terms.

mapping Magic Defense to value was really just a quick way of letting me shift between lead and gold originally but using an innate magical trait of the material sounds much better

what's your opinion on combining Attack and Defense stats into one? it seems to be where the "ability of object to survive hitting someone's face" thing is leading, but would it make good gameplay?

It wouldn't. /shakes head

Just keep defense as its own stat, with a special rule for using it on someone's face.

blunt weapons use defense for damage while sharp weapons use attack?

Nah, that complicates it too much.

As a power gamer, I would IMMEDIATELY start looking for paperweights to enchant into throwing weapons.

Which I'm pretty sure you don't want. XD

pffft

I haven't looked too far into the abuses area yet I'm still trying to get a handle on how to do the base mechanics

Don't overcomplicate it.

Come up with the simple base. Damage should always mean damage, defense should always mean defense.

/nodnods

when you need special rules, make note of them after the base is in place.

Unless you can come up with something that COMPLETELY breaks the base, you should be good.