Let's Ramble About Weapons and Armor

[darkmaster]

So I wanted to take some time to talk about equipment, its use, and maybe talk about how such things can be better in RPGs.

I actually wanted to start with the idea of weapons and the classifications they fall into in combat. Principally, you have three broad groups of weapons. There are side arms, which you can feasibly carry with you all the time and use for personal defense, there are dedicated battle field weapons meant pretty much solely for massed combat, and there is siege weaponry.

A good case study for this is modern automatic fire arms, of which there are basically four broad types. Sub-Machineguns, Light-Machineguns, Medium-Mechinegungs, and Heavy-Machineguns.

In general the differences in these weapons are as follows, SMGs use pistol rounds and are light and compact enough that they can be easily carried and deployed by a single man. LMGs use rifle bullets and are light enough that a single man can carry and deploy them, but they are meant principally for a small team of two to three people to move and operate. MMGs also use rifle bullets but are heavier still, a single man cannot move these on his own, and their principal use is to be dug semi-permanently into field fortifications. These actually came after HMGs and occupy a kind of hazy space between battle field weapon and artillery. HMGs use larger than rifle caliber bullets, and are not man portable at all. These guns are either placed in permanent fortifications or mounted on vehicles and are strictly artillery pieces used to assault or defend fortified positions.

All of this, however, is also true of archaic weapons things like the arming sword, are side arms. They are weapons you can easily carry with you at all times and use for personal defense on the streets. While things like spears and great two handed swords the height of a man are very clearly not either of those things. These are weapons you use when you know you're going into a fight. And then obviously things like ballista, trebuchet, and the like are siege weaponry which you would have to most likely build at the scene of the siege.

Now, size isn't necessarily the only consideration, things like crossbow are not really side arms despite not being too big and heavy simply because crossbows take a long time to get ready to use. Loading a crossbow takes forever and if you're not supported, have someone screening for you, well your opponent is going to run up and gut you before you get a shot off. So there are also considerations of ease of use and viability as a single combatant using the weapon.

This also isn't limited to purely offensive implements either. Shields are often listed as armor in games but this is wrong. Shields are not armor they are weapons, they're parrying weapons, just like the dirk, just like the main gauche, just like any number of small bladed weapons for the off hand though out time, these are not offensive weapons you use them to take control of an opponent's blade and open them up to attack.

Frank once said you can tell an adventurer by the magical swag they have, but I'm going to present an alternate method. Some rich idiot could buy magical items, no, you know a real adventurer because they carry a full sized shield everywhere they go. See, things like the buckler, and the targe are, strictly speaking, inferior to a full sized Norse round shield, they don't cover as much of your body from attack, they can't stop arrows effectively, a litany of reasons to use a shield. In deed if you know you're going to be getting into a you would be mad to not choose to have a shield... and that is only time you would choose to have a shield because they are fucking inconvenient.

Shields are heavy, they get in the way wherever you go, it's impossible to carry one conveniently, they take up a lot of space, it's a mess, and for you're random peon on the street having a buckler is enough, because they don't really expect to be getting into serious fights. But an adventurer does, all the time, they live their life expecting to be put into life or death situations and so the inconvenience of a shield is something they choose to put up with, learn to compensate for, and it marks them as the hardest motherfuckers around.

[Stahlseele]

So . . how realistic of a setting are you arguing about here?
Because the temptation to say:"magic" is pretty big here.

[darkmaster]

And why would that be?

[Jason]

See, things like the buckler, and the targe are, strictly speaking, inferior to a full sized Norse round shield, they don't cover as much of your body from attack, they can't stop arrows effectively, a litany of reasons to use a shield.

That is not nescessarily true. It holds true for formation combat and fighting ranged opponents, but in a strictly duelling situation, a Heater Shield or a Buckler can be much more usefull. You don't tire as fast with them and they still block the same attack angles.

Your assumption holds true, however if you consider ranged attackers, which you should, unless you absolutely know you are only going to fight melee combatants.

In deed if you know you're going to be getting into a you would be mad to not choose to have a shield... and that is only time you would choose to have a shield because they are fucking inconvenient.

Unless you waer full plate mail in a technological era that does not utilize Blackpowder weapons or equivalents thereof. Shields are only truly nescessary if your armor can't stop the attacks by itself already. So, it's mostly a matter of designing a realistic armor mechanic.

But an adventurer does, all the time, they live their life expecting to be put into life or death situations and so the inconvenience of a shield is something they choose to put up with, learn to compensate for, and it marks them as the hardest motherfuckers around.

I would say having the right tools for the job and knowing how to use them makes them the baddest Motherfuckers around.

[Chamomile]

By the time you are magic enough to not have to care whether your sword is an 18-inch gladius or a five-foot claymore you are probably at least level 7 or 8 and getting close to, if not already in, the wish economy. You're also most of the way through the levels of D&D that most people actually like to play at.

[darkmaster]

I disagree, the example of a round shield I gave is, generally sized at "about half as large as a man" while a buckler, for instance is "a little larger than a clenched fist" while it is true you parry with both and can parry, most of, the attacks with a buckler you can with a full sized shield, low attacks are harder, a full sized shield also provides you with passive protection, you don't have to actively parry every blow, or at least, you have to move far less to parry any given blow. They also allow you to attack without ever necessarily opening yourself up to your enemy, with a small shield like a buckler you essentially have no choice, your defense is to try and remove your opponents ability to retaliate before your attack.

Also, your argument about full plate holds true in a purely historical setting where people DO use black powder weapons. However, if the don't use black powder weapons it does not. See, in a world like ours where we had a renaissance period that saw the acceptance of full plate and black powder weaponry as viable pieces of kit at more or less the same time you do not see people in full plate using shields, that is true. However, the only reason people in full plate never had to worry about enemy combatants enough to warrant a shield is because, frankly, full plate armor became obsolete very fast. As guns became better and better the people spending entire fortunes worth on these engineering marvels decided.... it just wasn't cost effective, and they were right. No added protection in the form of a shield or heavier plating was feasible, so the idea was thrown away.

In a world without wide acceptance of gunpowder the arms race progresses as it always does with armorers concocting more and more fiendish defenses, and weapon smiths inventing new ways of foiling said armor, as in deed they were already beginning to in the form of beaked hammers, and spiked maces (the spikes weren't for penetration, but to keep the mace from sliding on the metal plates).

[Stahlseele]

And why would that be?

Because magic does more than just casting missle at the darkness.
It also makes things like Trolls, Ogres and Giants happen in the world.
For all of these, a Ballista or an HMG is closer to a Sideweapon than to a siege weapon. Same for Shields, really. See Shadowrun.
Shields and armor that give them problems is probably not too far from belonging on a building. Or heavy vehicle or BIG CRITTER at least.

In Fantasy Settings, you probably have to content with mystical magical alloys and metals that are as light as a feather and as durable as steel.
Or enchantments that make sticks slice through metal. Or give woolen shirts the protection of heavy plate mail.
Magic simply makes these realistically considerable problems called big and heavy go away.

Same for Transport. If it fits through the opening, you can simply store a naginata or similar thing in a bag of holding. Which weights close to nothing and is smaller than your average backpack.

And then we get into alchemy and things like girdle of giants Strength.
See that dorf? He has a strength potion in his belly and a girdle of giants strength, he can now wield weapons you would expect on siege platforms.

[darkmaster]

Accept this doesn't really change anything, all it does is shift things around, yes an ogre could pick up a two handed sword made for a human and use it as a one handed sword. But it really doesn't want to do that, swords are tools they are made with purposes in mind and a two handed is not meant for dueling, for instance, you might think you have a very long blade on your sword, but in reality, you don't, because about a third of a two handed sword's blade, is not sharpened. What it actually is is a second handle with a second cross guard to allow you to shorten your blade if someone gets in close.

What the ogre actually wants is an arming sword sized for an ogre because then it would have a tool fit for purpose instead of one that will do at a pinch if you have to. And then ogres then have their own, ogre sized battle field weapons.

Similarly, maybe yes, you do have metal that is very light and as strong as steal, ignoring for a moment that that is not what you want in a weapon, you do not what very light materials when making weapons. For armor, yes that would be very convenient, you could make very thick pieces of armor with that at the same weight. However, that doesn't change much. So maybe, with this metal... say plate armor just- doesn't work because actual palate armor is made to very specific tolerances. People just make other armors to higher standards of quality, as they have done for all of human history.

Even with the enchantments you've pointed to, so? So what, now there are mages enchanting armor to make it better, and other mages enchanting weapons to defeat those armor enchantments. You haven't actually changed anything it's just that now there's a new facet to the arms race.

As for bags of holding, people don't carry great swords in sheaths, they probably carried them either, over the shoulder, or in a cart. The only difference with a bag of holding is that instead of going to the cart and grabbing your sword, you dig around in your bag of holding and grab your sword. In both cases if you're say- in an ambush, you would much rather just reach down to your belt and put out an arming sword and there, you're armed.

As for enhancers, no, that dwarf can't do that, what the dwarf CAN do is wield weapons that are heavier. He can manage a hammer with a heavier head more easily if he is stronger, but the range of form factors he can feasibly handle is actually not changed, because he still needs to be able to actually hold the weapon, to wrap his hands around it and grip it properly, and this is actually independent of his strength.

[souran]

darkmaster:

The problem with weapons/armor discussion for RPGs is that its hard to even get everybody on the same page of what an improvement might look like.

Based on your comments I am guessing that you would like the weapons of say a typical D&D type rpg to reflect better the historical advantages and reasoning behind weapons.

Weirdly enough, 1E and 2E D&D thought they were doing just that. Infact the 2E arms and equipment guide has a bibliography that shows that real research was done and they incorporated that into the weapons table. However, at just about the same time that book was being written, the re-enacter/fight book historians were just beginning to be taken seriously. By the late 1990s there was a major shift in the general consensus of both how weapons were used and how effective various types of arms and armor were.

So any game you make with an eye towards being "historical" is fundamentally only going to be an encapsulation of the accepted historical thought of the era of the games design.

Secondly, as all weapons (and indeed all tools) are actually a derivative of the technology level of the producing society and the tool employers needs the problem with most RPGs is that they have to many historical weapons (whose use is to kill humans wearing various degrees of armor and in various configurations of attacker and target) and not enough weapons whose fundamental function is killing various types of monsters/creatures with certain known advantages and weaknesses. There should be weapons derived for the purpose of allowing either 1 man or a small group of men to kill dragons/trolls/bullets/harpies/etc with greater ease and success than weapons designed for people. Unfortunately we don't have two plus millennia including these creatures to know what these weapons would look like.

[darkmaster]

A lot of you're points are good, there should be, weapons made to help combat these fantastical creatures. But principally, these weapons probably don't actually look too different. Like, in general, the difference between defeating a super-heavy cavalryman and a dragon is mostly just one of scale. Sure one can fly and breath fire, but if we're talking about taking on an enemy that is bigger than you and very heavily armored. Then we know that crushing weapons and weapons with thin piercing points are quite effective. You just have to call out in your rules that that's a thing so everyone knows before hand.

[virgil]

There should be weapons derived for the purpose of allowing either 1 man or a small group of men to kill dragons/trolls/bullets/harpies/etc with greater ease and success than weapons designed for people. Unfortunately we don't have two plus millennia including these creatures to know what these weapons would look like.

We do have a weapon for hunting monsters that's part of our biology, running. We've been hunting mammoths as long as they were around, and still hunt stuff like bears. The lesson from that is by being a cheating motherfvcker that looks for every possibly advantage; outnumber them, poison them, kite them, stealthy sneak attack them, slowly maneuver them into traps, etc. The precise design of the weapon seems to take a back seat when fighting stuff with Challenge Ratings higher than 2.

[Jason]

I disagree, the example of a round shield I gave is, generally sized at "about half as large as a man" while a buckler, for instance is "a little larger than a clenched fist" while it is true you parry with both and can parry, most of, the attacks with a buckler you can with a full sized shield, low attacks are harder, a full sized shield also provides you with passive protection, you don't have to actively parry every blow, or at least, you have to move far less to parry any given blow. They also allow you to attack without ever necessarily opening yourself up to your enemy, with a small shield like a buckler you essentially have no choice, your defense is to try and remove your opponents ability to retaliate before your attack.

Those types of shields use vastly different combat styles for vastly different purposes:

The viking round shield was a dueling weapon first, formation weapon second. But it was always meant to be a weapon of war and as such also with the defense against missiles in mind. It is, however, used offensively to initate the atack, not to defend against it as opposed to the domed round shield (its successor, if you will). On its use see here.

The buckler was mainly a civilian weapon for self defense, although it has seen usie in war as well, mostly with auxiliary or ranged troops or as a backup sidearm. Where the round shield would de used to directly control the body of the opponent, the buckler was used to control avenues of attack. A Stretched out Buckler can easily shield the entire upper body of a fighter. (see here), leaving only the lower body for direct attack. As a shield design, it is the successor to the domed round shield and serves a similar function. It is performs just as well against melee attacks, sacrificing protection against ranged attack for a massive reduction in weightand ia s lot easier to carry around (on your belt as opposed to be carried around or in a guige over your back).

Just as kite shields, heater shields and targes, bucklers and round shields perform a specific function within a specific martial system aimed at a specific intent. Bucklers are not simply inferior. In straigt up melee they are largely comparable to other types of shields when it comes to effectiveness. They are, however terrible as formation weapons and terrible against projectiles. It is however, not true that bucklers would leave you only with offensive options. bucklers, used as melee weapons against other melee weapons are a very effective defensive advantage if used as intended.

A lot of you're points are good, there should be, weapons made to help combat these fantastical creatures. But principally, these weapons probably don't actually look too different. Like, in general, the difference between defeating a super-heavy cavalryman and a dragon is mostly just one of scale. Sure one can fly and breath fire, but if we're talking about taking on an enemy that is bigger than you and very heavily armored. Then we know that crushing weapons and weapons with thin piercing points are quite effective. You just have to call out in your rules that that's a thing so everyone knows before hand.

That's not entirely true either. Being a matter of scale does not simply mean I need bigger options. When it domes to defeating armor, the most important factor appears to be speed combined with structural toughness. But when it comes to dealing damage it is speed and mass that counts. You might be able to fire an arrow that can pierce the dragon's scales, but will it have enough momentum left to pierce deep enough through fat and flesh to actually deal any significant damage? Alexander found that out the hard way when he first encountered elephants in battle. They basically ignored arrows and javelins.
To kill something as large as a typical D&D Dragon you will need the fantasy equivalent of an elephant gun (15.000 - 20.000 J) for larger dragons that number would increase exponentially (figure of speech). That would hold true for melee weapons as well, though, but unless you can find a friendly hill giant with a very large pickaxe, I doubt you will reach those numbers.

Dragon killing weapons, aside from siege weapons, would probably utilize trickery and setup much more than raw power.

[Chamomile]

Most low-level (1-5) threats can fit into existing ancient/medieval battle paradigms without much change. Ogres are really heavy infantry, but they're still basically just heavy infantry and you can fight them like any other heavy infantry. If your heavy infantry is humans and their enemy infantry is ogres you had better have some kind of ace up your sleeve (like having way more humans than they have ogres, for example), but a heavy cavalry charge to the flank or a demoralizing rain of artillery fire ("artillery" here includes longbow volleys) is still going to do the trick. Ogres are tough, but not so tough that a galloping horseman ramming a lance through their chest won't ruin their day. Depending on what the ogres are armed with, phalanxes or pike formations may also be able to outfight them, although that's going to be a bloodbath no matter what happens. Creatures with odd weaknesses, like CR3 werewolves, require specific armaments be prepared in advance, but are otherwise just particularly vicious, but probably also disorganized, infantry.

Fliers are a bigger deal than most, including CR4 harpies, but the only new tools they require is weapons which push the maximum range, and that's something medieval engineers were already doing. In terms of weapon design, "prevent a flying archer from kiting you" is almost the same as "prevent a horse archer from kiting you." The main differences are that flying archers can completely ignore your infantry and cavalry formations, whereas horse archers have to shoot them to death first, and most importantly that flying archers can fly straight over unenclosed fortifications. This has implications for the construction of castles, but your weapons for killing harpies are the same as your weapons for killing Mongols. The longest range bows you can, or failing that, hide behind your walls and hope they haven't kidnapped any Chinese siege engineers.

It's even a pretty similar story with higher CR threats that can do things like teleport inside your fortifications or be flying tanks: Although your odds of defeating them are very slim, unusual tools won't really help. Mostly what you need is the ability to penetrate lots of armor, fight at extremely long range, or both, and those were both things that medieval engineers were already doing to the best of their abilities, so while it's true that you are in deep trouble if a dragon shows up, that's not because your weapon is shaped wrong, that's because there's nothing your blacksmith can forge that'll penetrate those scales.

[Roog]

A good case study for this is modern automatic fire arms, of which there are basically four broad types. Sub-Machineguns, Light-Machineguns, Medium-Mechinegungs, and Heavy-Machineguns.

If your scale runs from SMGs to HMGs, and does not include assault rifles, then you should rethink your scale.

[darkmaster]

You're half right about bucklers, yes you can use them to defend your entire upper body, as I said. However that does not change the fact that they do not afford you any passive defense you have to actively parry every strike with a buckler and that necessarily makes it an inferior defense in melee than a shield because you have a significantly higher chance of fucking up and not catching an attack where as a full sized shield does not require to defend nearly as actively, and thus leaves less room for you to make a mistake or your opponent to be just plain better than you.

Camomile is pretty much right in that the basic forms of weapons do not actually need to change to deal with monstrous threats, but I think that it isn't quite as grim as the picture they paint. Because in a world where dragons exist it is entirely plausible that people have access to materials that are, quite simply, better than the ones we have access to now, and defensive capabilities we do not have access to. Also remember, a castle that comes under attack by a dragon doesn't necessarily need to kill the dragon, it just needs to be more trouble than the dragon is willing to go to.

Actually hunting and killing a dragon is another thing entirely, the first thing you would want to do is cripple it's ability to fly, its wings probably aren't very heavily armored, so those are a good target, then you want to reduce the threat of its breath, you probably know what kind of dragon you're hunting, so be sure to get appropriate magic items, then it's a matter of fighting a very large, very strong, very intelligent apex predator, and if you're idea is to get into a punching match then having very good magic equipment I would suggest an enchanted war pick to pierce that tough natural armor

@Roog Assault rifles are not machine guns, they are not used like machine guns, and if you were to try they would be very bad at it. Assault rifles are more related in use to semi-automatic fire arms than they are to fully automatic fire arms, they can be fired fully automatically but most of them also have settings for enforced semi-auto fire and three shot bursts and it is assumed you are usually going to use these by the designers.

[Jason]

You're half right about bucklers, yes you can use them to defend your entire upper body, as I said. However that does not change the fact that they do not afford you any passive defense you have to actively parry every strike with a buckler...

This is the main point where we disagree. You don't simply react with a buckler, you proactively set up the possible avenues of attack for your opponent, so you will will know where the attack is coming from. You are not relegated to merely to reflexes but set up a series of future interactions. That's why blade binds are so important in buckler fighting: they allow you to sense which of the available avenues your opponent is going to take, so you can enact your according defense or counter. You would use a heater shield in much the same way but with different angles. I wish I still had the youtube link to the heater cutting angles to explain it better. As far as buckler is concerned, this link should provide an idea as to how it's supposed to work.

Also, keep in mind that the buckler kept being used even while the shield underwent a rapid evolution from around 500 AD to 1500. The Buckler remained in use even after blackpowder weapons became the mainstay of military warfare and was heavily used as support of pike formations in the 12th through 14th century.

It appears to me that the buckler was a respectable defensive weapon, seeing use throughout several hundres of years of radpid evolutions in shield design and even throughout drastic changes in military tactics and armamament. I simply cannot imagine that soldiers would pick an "inferior option" where their lives are concerned and especially not over such a long period of time. But I guess we won't see eye to eye on this one, so I will let it rest from here on out.

[PhoneLobster]

Thread title is accurate. I don't know why I was expecting it to ramble about weapons and armor in any context remotely relevant to RPG design.

Oh. Maybe because it appeared in an RPG rules discussion forum?

But seriously. Where is this ramble supposed to go. Your opening post is "Weapons and stuff. There are different ones. Some are not really suitable to walk around in public with. But screw that for the only place I seemed to be going, because wouldn't it be awesome if adventurers routinely walked around in public with non-public suitable weaponry!"

That isn't going anywhere and doesn't have anything interesting to say. You COULD have said interesting things about setting design and pressure for characters to have separate civilian and field adventuring kit outs. You COULD have said interesting things about ways to game mechanically differentiate different weapon types and roles. You could have said a lot of things, but mostly seem to be saying a lot of nothing.

Hell the whole opening post reads as nothing but subtle bait to try and troll lure out a pointless irrelevant debate about something stupid like I dunno, "nuh uh bucklers are total cool/uncool!".

[darkmaster]

So, having watching that video... both combatant's defenses failed almost immediately almost every time and the one who survived did so by a matter of seconds. Bucklers were fit to purpose for civilian defense certainly but that is because they're light and small enough that they're easy to carry. As a military option, color my more skeptical.

[Stahlseele]

So, explain in laymans terms then, what, exactly, you want here . .
A game mechanic that means Shadowrunners won't be running around with fully automatic weapons everywhere?
A game mechanic that means a knight now has to stand in front of his armory like the princess in front of her closet wondering what to wear to a given occassion?

A "realistic" approach to weapons and armor in an RPG?

Please!
Do enlighten us!

And if it is the "realistic" approach to weapons and armor in an RPG, prepare to be mocked.

[Whipstitch]

A rambling thread? Don't mind if I do!

When it comes to old-school melee shit I generally care more a lot more about having broad tiers/grades of equipment than I do about specific weapon types. I think it'd be nice if arming the local militia like professional soldiers tips the scales in what would otherwise be a mirror match but I really don't give a shit about whether your adventurer prefers a spatha or a shamshir.

[souran]

We do have a weapon for hunting monsters that's part of our biology, running. We've been hunting mammoths as long as they were around, and still hunt stuff like bears. The lesson from that is by being a cheating motherfvcker that looks for every possibly advantage; outnumber them, poison them, kite them, stealthy sneak attack them, slowly maneuver them into traps, etc. The precise design of the weapon seems to take a back seat when fighting stuff with Challenge Ratings higher than 2.

I think you have this backwards. You need to have weapons that suite those tactics. Some weapons are more versatile than others, but even weapons that appear versatile often require re-configuring for specific purpose. You can Turkey, deer and upland game on the same 12 guage, but you use different methods, different loads, and different chokes for each situation. In a similar vein, while you can hunt/kill a bear with a .22 (probably not legally) there are lots of bears in north america that will get to you and kill you before you can kill them if all you bring is a .22.

We know our ancestors going back to the neolithic era were fashioning arrowheads with different structures for different purposes. Humans are the planets hyper-predator because of our brain size and tool use, not due to our physical characteristics. (Although as an aside there are arguments that bipedalism lead to the change in diet that resulted in larger brain size thus a result of a physical characteristic but that seems pretty in the weeds for a discussion on an rpg board.)

I tend to agree, however, with Stahlseele that fretting to much over adventuring gear or demanding a more "realistic" approach will mostly lead to the sort of rules that this site mocks.

I like to play an adventurer who sometimes explores caves and dungeons. I am not a certified climber, spelunker, urban explorer, or parkour expert. I don't want to personally learn how to do all those things so I can read and understand all the equipment I need to bring to play the stupid game.

[Lokey]

So, having watching that video... both combatant's defenses failed almost immediately almost every time and the one who survived did so by a matter of seconds. Bucklers were fit to purpose for civilian defense certainly but that is because they're light and small enough that they're easy to carry. As a military option, color my more skeptical.

How long do you expect such a fight to last? Also clarify your metallurgy comments, hard to gauge exactly how stupid they are.

[darkmaster]

What metallurgy comments specifically?

[Username17]

Alexander found that out the hard way when he first encountered elephants in battle. They basically ignored arrows and javelins.

Well, Alexander was also using bows that were "super bullshit." They used composite bows that were small enough that they could be used while riding a horse that didn't have stirrups and were drawn to the face rather than across the body like a longbow. They were primarily used to injure unarmored scum or to use heavy bronze tipped arrows to rain upon armored people with the intent of wearing them down with repeated jostling rather than actually penetrating and killing anybody.

Large pull bows that could actually draw blood on heavily armored knights were fielded in various parts of the world about a thousand years later.

-Username17

[maglag]

We do have a weapon for hunting monsters that's part of our biology, running. We've been hunting mammoths as long as they were around, and still hunt stuff like bears. The lesson from that is by being a cheating motherfvcker that looks for every possibly advantage; outnumber them, poison them, kite them, stealthy sneak attack them, slowly maneuver them into traps, etc. The precise design of the weapon seems to take a back seat when fighting stuff with Challenge Ratings higher than 2.

I think you have this backwards. You need to have weapons that suite those tactics. Some weapons are more versatile than others, but even weapons that appear versatile often require re-configuring for specific purpose. You can Turkey, deer and upland game on the same 12 guage, but you use different methods, different loads, and different chokes for each situation. In a similar vein, while you can hunt/kill a bear with a .22 (probably not legally) there are lots of bears in north america that will get to you and kill you before you can kill them if all you bring is a .22.

We know our ancestors going back to the neolithic era were fashioning arrowheads with different structures for different purposes.

On the other hand we technically have different kinds of forks and knives to eat different kinds of food. This is, just go to an average supermarket and there will be plenty of different fork and knife and designs to choose for, and fancy dinners do place several kinds of forks and knifes in the table. But your average restaurant only provides you with one of each per client, and your normal family also only places one fork and knife per person in regular meals. Or chopsticks if you're in Asia. Or you may just eat with your bare hands.

Basically humans always loved to build bullshit super specialized tools that may or many not be actually that better than each other, but in most of our everyday lifes we'll just use whatever's readily available.

So if our neolithic ancestors were building different kinds of arrowheads, I believe it's more of a case of "I would like to try something fancier today" than "This arrowhead is the best to hunt deers in winter plains and I'll never use any other kind of arrowhead to hunt deers in winter plains".