How would paleolithic combat work in a world where you have instant, and permanent mastery when you hold any tool?

Question

How would paleolithic combat work in a world where you have instant, and permanent mastery when you hold any tool?

Weapons are limited to stones, slings, clubs, and stone-point spears, but any tool or implement is available for mastery.

The "Instant Mastery" operates when a user thinks of performing an action, like "I want to throw this stone to over there.". If it's possible, they immediately know how to throw it, and if it's impossible, they also know that too.

However, it's total mastery for every use. If they want to use a spear as a hammer. They'll get precognition on that too, for example.

Answer 1

Community wins

The first group to successfully build a community wins.

Why? Let's explain step-by-step:

• this mastery, as you explained, is also valid with non-offensive use of tools
• this means that anyone could use tools to build better tools and items and stuff, i.e. anyone would become a very proficient artisan.
• progress! The more talented people, i.e. those that posses creativity and intelligence, would suddenly be able to express them, and improve the tech level
• better tech level --> better weapons --> (you already have mastery) --> you win

So the key is not to die long enough to advance the technology a bit, and to do that, you have to build a community of people who protect and feed those who are instead busy creating.

Answer 2

The warrior-troubadour would rule the world

This mastery approach you describe has three limits. The first is the obvious strength and stamina tests that KillingTime mentioned in a comment. The second is their own imagination for the creation of an imagined action to do. An individual that cant think beyond, "Ogg stole my stick. Make Ogg's head have 2 more lumps than it used to." will rapidly find their creativity is too low to permit striking the more creative individuals, who have taken the time to shape more efficient ways of defending themselves. This leads to the third limit, the imagination of others. Creative use of a spear can accomplish a great many things if one is nimble and quick, but once someone has decided to engage in a defensive action, your options to strike with become limited.

Accordingly, those at the top of the "food chain" would be the warrior-troubadours, the warrior-poets, and their kin. They would have the imagination to figure out how to use that perfect mastery to accomplish ever more nuanced goals, as they refine their arts. In our earlier example, if Ogg has already begun working with the stick to protect himself, he'll probably find a way to take 2 lumps... but small ones. And, in exchange, he might disarm his opponent, and maybe even woo his opponent's wife away with the beauty of his actions. Lose your wife to a warrior-troubadour once or twice, and you'll learn not to try to put lumps on their head very quickly.

Creativity could literally rule the world.

Answer 3

Let's start with defining what Mastery is NOT

Mastery does not Guarantee Perfection:

A master stone napper can usually craft an arrow head to within 1-3 millimeters of an intended shape, but lacks the sensory and motor control faculties to shape it with machine level precision. A master still makes mistakes, but very much more rarely. Also, a master is still limited by his materials; so, if you want to make a bow, a master can make a one to the exact dimensions he intends, but can not necessarily know if the wood will split or hinge due to an unforeseen defect in the wood. A master is still limited by scarcity; so, he may do something sub-par simply because of time or cost constraints, but has a better idea than a novice about what he is trading off.

Mastery does not Guarantee Organization:

Being an expert at using the weapon in your hand does not make you a tactical genius. A well organized phalanx with very little combat experience can easily wreck a disorganized mob of masterful warriors. This also applies too tools. Just because you can make every detail that goes into building the Colosseum does not mean you have the ability to do it yourself or the ability to coordinate with enough other people to do it.

Mastery does not Guarantee Technological Advancement:

While others have speculated that instant mastery would make technology advance faster, I suspect it would actually have the opposite effect. Necessity is the mother of invention; so, the more you can do without inventing new things, the less reason you have to innovate. Let's take the wood lathe as an example. Somewhere in history, someone decided that it was too hard to carve a stick into a uniform pole; so, they invented a machine to help them do it, but if you came out of your mother's womb able to carve a perfect pole, then you would never have nearly as much of a need to invent something to do that for you.

So how would this all effect Paleolithic warfare?

The general factors that determine the effectiveness of an army are their tactics, training, technology, & moral.

Since your warriors have no special mastery of tactics, it means that good leadership will just as important as ever. With no major differences in the skill of warriors, being able to put them in the most opportune positions on the battlefield will be very important when it comes to gaining an upperhand.

To this end training will remain just as much of an X-factor in your world as it is in ours. You may not need spend time to learning how to use your weapons, but you do need to learn to move in formations, follow orders, and you need to condition your body to be strong and endurant enough to wear your opponent down until he can overwhelmed despite his skill level being about the same as yours.

As I mentioned before, technology will not progress any faster, but it may progress differently. Since a masterful warrior can more easily target the gaps in your armor, armor may be less favored. Instead warriors may prefer to just use a shield and weapon which will allow them to match skill to skill without weighing themselves down needlessly. In the stone age, armor was not that common anyway, but this is something to consider. Bows will likely become far more pivotal to warfare since an expert archer is such a dangerous adversary. Since your warriors are so accurate, longer ranged bows will be extra important; so, this is one area where technology will certainly not stagnate. I would expect your warriors to focus especially on range and arrow speed; so, they would probably adopt some kind of compound recurve bow similar to a Mongolian or Hunnic warbow, environment permitting, or a Yew or Osage longbow if the climate is no good for composites.

Moral is also actually going to be an important factor in your warfare because you stated that "If it's possible, they immediately know ... , and if it's impossible, they also know that too." The more an individual soldier understands his odds of success, the more his moral will be impacted by the knowledge. Normally when a battle take place it is because you have two armies of people who engage one another believing they will win and that they will live. But, if you have two armies where each side can make very accurate predictions about their own strengths and vulnerabilities, it could mean that most soldiers will make their own predictions about if a battle is won or lost before it begins. This means that armies could be very easily routed, either fleeing before a battle begins, or very shortly into the fray once the enemy's capabilities become apparent.

Answer 4

Those who manage to obtain a staff would rule the world. This instant-mastery has just got to be magical, so if magic exists, logic follows that staffs and wands would also exist. And since any 'tool or implement' is available for mastery, the instant someone gets a staff, they'll know how to use it.

In order to balance this, staffs or wands (wands are really just a small staff, right?) would be made of exotic and/or hard to find elements like 'driftwood from the Arctic Sea' or 'the oldest branch of the oldest tree on the entire Earth." However, that still leaves the fact that anyone who manages to create, steal, or otherwise obtain a staff would be limited only by their imagination, not to mention whatever limits you decide mages have in this world.