you are certainly not doing the same amount of damage as if you hit someone with the blade.
Arguable. Anyone wearing mail or plate armour would actually receive MORE damage from a blunt force attack than a blade, given the way such armours resist and deflect cuts.
Of course, this doesn't jive with DnD's take on how armour functions, in which armour only provides a chance to deflect incoming attacks and has no impact on attacks that hit (Which is the AC system - AC is derived by the chance for an attack to not land correctly and thus deal no damage, based on your ability to move out of the way (DEX scaling), for armour to deflect an attack (Armour bonuses), or for magics to absorb the attack (Mage Armour) which negates the concept of things like padded armour, mail and plate armours which feature the ability to reduce the effectiveness of incoming attacks by absorbing impact or resisting cuts/piercing. The only nod to such things is Heavy Armour and its damage reduction bonus and the Heavy Armour Mastery feat)
Which is one of the reasons why I'm not overly keen on DnD's entire AC system. It's very much one dimensional (Which to be honest, is true about many other systems such as the typical "Armour = Damage reduction"). Armour provides 2 layered protection, exacerbated by it also being formed of at least 2 layers - A padded undercoat and then a harder leather/mail/plate overcoat. With the hard overcoat mitigating slashes and piercing (With the ability to deflect some attacks), and the undercoat mitigating blunt force.
