Shams

BRP combat & damage bonus were intended to be a bit more like real-life combat than the cartoony combat style of other roleplaying games. The same goes for Pendragon, or any other of the mainstream Chaosium games. Sword fights or gun battles really are deadly. Armor works and you really do want to be wearing some. Like in real life, a serious fight against a normal human can be over very quickly, and you don't spend countless rounds whittling down your mundane, unarmored opponent. Mind you, that was the design philosophy back when I worked there, although I haven't followed the later editions too closely.