Popular weapons *PWN* better ones in RPGs

[861129]

Fencing means fighting with swords or with any sort of hand-to-hand weapon, hence the historical use of "longsword fencing" "quarterstaff fencing" "bayonet fencing" and the like. It is not exclusive to smallsword or modern sports fencing.

One could say that the habit of not parrying with katanas is what actually forced better martial technique to be developed around them.

Yeah because this isn't "subjective opinion on their comparative usability"

You never want to come to full stop in a swordfight. You never want to stop your energy, or even your opponent's energy.

There are lots of styles where you do just that, because your sword can handle it and it's effective. If you think your subjective opinion is worth more than these traditions, allow me to "lol"

The blade is an extension of you, and like you, it must be alive.

looool

Lightness tied to improved usability is another questionable assertion.

Swords were generally made as light as possible for a reason, katanas included.

Less mass is not good for cutting through resistant human body.

You don't hack with a sword, you draw and cut, in which weight does not matter much at all.

Another questionable assumption is that improved reach with one-handed swords has no negative tradeoffs, such as loss of balance and power.

Of course it has, but these are counteracted by making the weapon lighter for its dimensions. A thick, non-tapered katana is at a disadvantage here anyway.

In short, your post is a mix of factual information on sword manufacturing, mixed with subjective opinion on their comparative usability.

lol

 

[Raghar]

You know. We are talking about heroes in RPG. These can't use long arms when they are in 2x1.2 m underground hallway, have angry rats in front of them, tentacle beast behind, and are happy that +3 magic sword can cut trough walls and wound rat in front of them, then they can turn and hit the tentacles behind just remember to avoid overhead swings for obvious reasons. Followed by few weeks of experience where finding why a long blade +3 is much better than a dagger in tight spaces even for mage, because some animals can spit tongue with paralyzing thorns on tip of the tongue, and when they are hurt, also how necessary is to avoid using helmet interfering with infrared, and how incredible are everyone's abilities when everyone learned fireball, to be able to kill tentacles enough to be edible which required at least one more fireball above nearly starved mage capacity instead of multiplying inside and killing eaters horribly, even fighters. Then be happy that one of theirs companions who was outside risen army of skeletons and attacked from behind these bastards who were prepared at exit to slaughter all surviving heroes for some reason, dunno they are dead.

You need to understand that the reason why heroes are used are: 1. they are cheaper than an army. 2. when they are dead, by failure, you save money 3. they can kill stuff that could decimate an army, and retraining new soldiers is time consuming. 4. they are deranged psychos that don't away. 5. they are content to attempt suicide missions. 6. they are able to survive suicide missions, regularly 7. they are able to win suicide missions.

No normal person would do that doesn't matter on money because it would be suicide and painful on top of that. And running away with money tend to end by more painful stuff than the stuff normal person would ran away from.

It's much better to ask and pay for that stuff dependable heroes, which would do it for: 1. Fun. (The last n is red because it symbolizes blood for some reason.)
2. Loot. (While some could hire pack mules, there is a minimal price for a mule, thus in comparison to the army, they don't scourge battlefield dry, thus remains from the battlefield could help local economy. They are also supposed to report back for reward, and to inform about success without large delay, which also explains why few heroes increases local economy better than few hundred soldiers who have enough hands to scourge battlefield dry.)
3. For chance to befriend a dragon to be able to conquer one of neighbor countries to get PAUER. And to terror of every person who heard about that, they are more acceptable rulers then theirs predecessors.

1v1 fair fights simply don't happen because 1. either it's 20 goblins against one.
2. or duelist is hit from behind by second hero by blunt item, and while he recovers on the floor, the first hero who was supposed to fight fair is sitting on him with dagger on duelist neck and shows he remember the lesson from times when they were attacked by thieves well, and has still mental wounds from that situation.
Meanwhile third member is holding door knob and saying "you can't go in, he's just changing clothes", meanwhile two first heroes are investigating why that retard attacked them and first part of changing clothes fairly well describes what they are doing to discover why that person attacked them (we don't understand what duel means, perhaps he has something hidden under clothes. And fourth hero is just casting a ward just in any case.

They would recognize a word fencing as a procedure which is used to obtain money for stuff that normal merchants are refusing to pay money for, doesn't matter how expensive is that stuff. They also acknowledges they need fence for that, and the only person who can deal with him is person who has experience and enough skills to negotiate otherwise fence would rob them dry, they would need to get theirs money back from death fence's body which somehow happens, and nobody believes that blowing up half of the city happened on accident.

The weapons heroes requires are quite different what normal soldier require, or a country can afford.

 

[shihonage]

Fighting with swords = fencing.

This is what comes to mind of an average person when you say "fencing".

Don't blame me for responding to exactly what you said.

English, motherfucker, do you speak it?

And katana needs just 1 hit to kill, really?

Yes.

Same goes for about any sword on unarmored target.

Sure, but now you pulled the carpet from under this exchange by changing it to swordsmanship, which invalidates previous statements I made in regards to fencing.

Given how much time I wasted on you already, feel free to send further responses to shihonage@127.0.0.1

 

[Ninjerk]

Time for a weaboo tag

 

[Arkadin]

For those too lazy to read (ie: the 99%) Both weapons suck for regular use. You are better off with a pike or a big hammer. Both become useless with regular use and become nicked, chipped, and gauged and are very often compared to saw-blades after regular use. Katanas were shit for parrying. People didn't parry with swords unless it was a last resort/shield was destroyed due to high damage on the sword. Bucklers aren't worthless(!)

Needs to be more frequent in RPG combat rules. Low weapon skill = sword becomes almost immediately worthless through being mishandled. Option to parry with the sharpened edge as a last ditch effort to fend off a killing blow, but your weapon will be ruined.

 

[Derek Larp]

People didn't parry with swords [...]

I guess these HEMA assholes got it all wrong, then:

Spoiler

Here are some more videos of these scumbags perpetuating the edge-on-edge-parry-myth:

Spoiler

 

[Fowyr]

Back to AK versus FNFAL
Can your workshop manufacture a FNFAL from a limited store of parts?

Frankly, if you have good workshop (with proper equipment), good steel and information about its heat treatment (it differs from grade to grade), you can make pretty anything from old firearms. Not copy of 100% quality of course, but suffice for firing several dozens (or, hell, several hundreds) rounds. Just ask these Pakistani villagers with their shittastic TT and AK clones. Stamped parts could be made by machining and forging. Shears and whatnot - by bunch of teens with files. And so on.

Spoiler

All that plastic Glocks, caseless ammo and electronic shit on the other hand is not easily manufactured in the PA wasteland.

From that stand point, it's extremely easy to explain why there're so many AK. They are not ancient artifacts, exactly. Morelikely, they are old guns refurbished in your local smith's workshop, according to old blueprints very accessible, by material easily procured. Or completely made anew.

Yup.

What about Sten SMG or some similar design? There were simplified versions of Sten manufactured "in the woods" by guerilla fighters during WW2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIS_(weapon)
Or something like that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blyskawica_submachine_gun

Indeed, they are pretty easily made. Look at that amusing article:
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/01/22/common-illicitly-homemade-submachine-guns-brazil/

 

[Fowyr]

This is what comes to mind of an average person when you say "fencing".

No.

Last one is even fencing in its dictionary meaning. Just a predecessor of modern forms.

 

[Darth Roxor]

This is what comes to mind of an average person when you say "fencing".

No.

He's actually quite right. An "average person" would definitely think like this, just as an average person believes nippon steel can cut through tanks.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

People didn't parry with swords [...]

I guess these HEMA assholes got it all wrong, then:

People did parry with swords, as a last resort.

Actually, unless they're a knight in full plate wielding a large, two-handed sword, they would only use the sword when their primary weapon breaks down. And they would only use it for parrying when their shield broke.

 

[Fowyr]

He's actually quite right. An "average person" would definitely think like this, just as an average person believes nippon steel can cut through tanks.

He said "person", not the "manboon".

 

[Daemongar]

People didn't parry with swords [...]

I guess these HEMA assholes got it all wrong, then:

Spoiler

Here are some more videos of these scumbags perpetuating the edge-on-edge-parry-myth:

Spoiler

HEMA assholes got it all wrong? Compared to what? I'm not sure what period in time they are trying to "Historically" represent. If they have it right, I'd ask what period in time or what culture fought like they are in their videos. Only then would I be able to judge. Also: how historically accurate can you be at a longsword tournament? If it's so accurate, why aren't they using shields? Is there a historcal time period where shields weren't around and you gave a shit if a guy came around and tapped you on the side for points?

 

[Fowyr]

Also think of the ammo. They definitely have ammo factories somewhere. Even immaculate 200-years-old ammo have problems:
1) Some primers are useless now. How about manually extracting round every second shot?
2) Old smokeless powder loves to detonate like more "serious" explosive instead of "just" fast burning, thus higher pressure in chamber.
How about bulge in the barrel or getting a bolt embedded in your head?
Getting big quantities of nitric acid to produce all that smokeless powder (or producing saltpeter for BP) is not a trivial matter either.
So some communities can return to saltpeter pits and blackpowder mills.
Hell, even making good primers is a big deal.


tl:dr version:
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO TOTALLY AVOID UNREALISM IN FALLOUT!

 

[Overboard]

Also: how historically accurate can you be at a longsword tournament? If it's so accurate, why aren't they using shields?

Which world do you live in where people commonly used longswords with shields?

 

[skallagrim]

Also: how historically accurate can you be at a longsword tournament? If it's so accurate, why aren't they using shields? Is there a historcal time period where shields weren't around and you gave a shit if a guy came around and tapped you on the side for points?

Because they are using longswords...

http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Category:Longsword

 

[GarfunkeL]

Well, especially since arrows are proven to not penetrate plate armour

Not quite true.

http://www.benjaminrose.com/post/can-arrows-penetrate-medieval-armor/

TL:DR, depends on the situation, the bow & arrow in question, and the plate mail in question but it is possible.

 

[Overboard]

People did parry with swords, as a last resort.

People parried with swords all the time. All single and double sword style manuscripts show and describe parries with the sword(s). All 18-19th century manuscripts tell you to parry with the edge almost all the time (Waite, Hutton, Angelo, etc), and an even earlier source which clearly states to parry with the edge is Viggiani.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Japan was also pretty much undeniably the most advance in regards to swordsmithing, most likely due to the above reasons. Katanas aside, they also made ceremonial swords for shrines and such that were very impressive (due to their size, the method of making them became very difficult), as opposed to simply being decked out in gold and jewels.

I can understand the prestige/symbolism argument but your second argument, quoted above, is bullshit. Japan was never ahead of anyone when it came to metallurgy or blacksmithing. The folding technique that Japanese blacksmiths used to make high-quality swords had been invented in Europe several centuries before. Turns out that being mostly isolated from the rest of the world for much of known history isn't actually good for innovation and advancement of science/technology.

 

[Lujo]

Errr, i've got a big gripe with Fallout on this issue, and it's bascaly this: It attracts people who lack immagination by presenting them, on a level they operate on, with a world which sort of promises realism. However, the biggest diehard fans of fallout very oftent turn out to be immensly clueless to what that makes the game tick and what works how within it's broaded system. And it's all because they put actual RL guns in there.

The part where those are RL guns is just a bit of graphic and a label. You get shot by a gun, any gun, you very likely die due to a million different reasons. All those guns need different art and different names so people would be able to tell them apart. Very, very few people in the world have any idea about guns, have ever had a gun, can tell you the first thing about guns or have any interest in guns. At least outside of the united states. In fact, showing that you do in fact have any idea about guns, outside of huntsmen circles, is one of the best ways to creep people out and paint a big "weirdo" sign on yourself. ANY idea, I'm not even talking proper gun nuts.

People don't carry AK-47 around in Fallout 2, they carry the mid-game rifle with burst and enough ammo for it lying around. The FN-FAL isn't weaker than the AK-47, the gun which the raiders all drop is weaker than the gun you have to invest some effort into acquiring (wether through a quest or spending money), and it uses different ammo so killing all the raiders doesn't give you a lifetime supply of ammo for the default mid game rifle. The minigun even EXISTS, and it's designed in a way which makes it handy for putting on enemies the main character is not supposed to fight, while at the same time not being very useful as a weapon once it drops. The basic shotgun, unlike any shotgun, doesn't spray your head all over the wall if it hits you because it's an entry level weapon in a line of those (shotguns) which have universal ammo and are thus a nice line to follow because you only have to upgrade the gun and not the ammo.

Debating realism in games with guns, especially related to how "accurately" varios RL guns are represented is lunacy. If something like that breaks your immersion, you are a fringe case of customer which isn't, and very probably shouldn't be, accounted for. There are no games where guns CAN be accurately represented by default, as that's unplayable and they make a godawful game prop because they're all the same thing - tubes which propel bits of metal with high velocity towards your target, and when humanity discovered them and got them to near where we are now with them it destroyed the concept of war as glorious, adventurous or charming (see WWI and post WWI art).

So if you're playing a game with guns in them, and you don't drop dead/disabled once you take a shot from pretty much anything, you're playing a HIGHLY unrealistic game by default. Most other inconsistencies about guns in games come from developers making compromises with this fantasy, that you can actually make a game with guns, and trying to make a playable game. And particular guns in games are just art and labels - if you feel bad about one gun being better than another you just swap the artwork and change the label and all your gripes are solved. That's how marginal and unimportant the whole subject is.


And what really gets my blood pressure up is fallout 2 weapon mods with bright ideas about changing the weapon damages to make them more close to real life. I played one once where a guy made the first shotgun in the game do as much damage as a combat shotgun - "because it uses the same caliber" -.- Do I have to describe the lunacy of that situation in detail? Enemies near the start where you're underequipped walk around with hand cannons and if you get your hands on one YOU have a hand cannon, except the universal ammo is everywhere so fights become very, very realistic and very, very idiotic very, very fast.

 

[Daemongar]

Also: how historically accurate can you be at a longsword tournament? If it's so accurate, why aren't they using shields?

Which world do you live in where people commonly used longswords with shields?

Also: how historically accurate can you be at a longsword tournament? If it's so accurate, why aren't they using shields?

Which world do you live in where people commonly used longswords with shields?

You know, I was going to ask some follow up questions, but I started googling some of this stuff, and there appears to be an entire culture of "sword experts" on the internet, each gayer than the next. In this regard, I'll wear my ignorance as a badge of honor.

 

[Raghar]

So some communities can return to saltpeter pits and blackpowder mills.
Hell, even making good primers is a big deal.

The demand for gunpowder was insatiable. Kings, dukes, counts and petty lords loved their new bombards and arquebuses. The more gunpowder they used, the more they wanted. Gunpowder was a fortuitous mix of sulphur, charcoal and saltpeter. It was that last ingredient that was the most vital and the hardest to obtain. Saltpeter is a nitrate salt – usually calcium nitrate – and nobody knew how to make it. Except for some microscopic bacteria, which produced the nitrates as byproducts of eating. Since the bacteria would have to wait another 500 years to be discovered, the Europeans concluded that saltpeter was spontaneously produced by what the bacteria ate – poop.

Saltpeter was the white frosting one found on poop that had been given time to settle and get comfortable. It was the white icing that grew on barnyard floors, on wet and rotting walls. It layered urinals and cesspits. It even found a home on the floors of people’s huts and manor halls, which were carpeted with reeds, rotting food, sundry varieties of cross species waste, and of course, dog feces. Saltpeter was born of a filthy womb (the medieval Europeans had a more relaxed view of cleanliness), but it was miraculous stuff. Many, if not most, were convinced that the explosive transformation saltpeter wrought on sulphur and charcoal was the work of the Devil.

Rulers needed gunpowder. Gunpowder needed saltpeter. And saltpeter needed poop. And so, the dukes declared a monopoly on their land’s waste. State employees – seasoned professionals called petermen – went from house to house, digging up barns, scraping up urine covered walls and latrines, sifting through manure and rotting vegetation – harvesting saltpeter. But there was never enough of it, and it didn’t help that the medievals did not appreciate having their floors scraped (cleaned) and their latrines violated (cleaned).

And so was born the profession of saltpeter farming. Medieval entrepreneurs found opportunity in poop. There was plenty of it and if they threw it all into a specially prepared pit and let it do its thing, in little more than a year, they could make an easy silver piece or two – even gold! It smelt bad, but it was lucrative.

Saltpeter farming launched a business boom not dissimilar to Silicon Valley in spirit. An untold number of operations were born – not in garages (they didn’t have them yet) – but in backyards. Soon, an entire process and methodology evolved, and saltpeter production became efficient – although they never really could make enough of it. The farmers learnt how to use the soluble properties of the saltpeter to purify and concentrate it. They learnt how to build pits that worked optimally. They learnt how best to use every and anything that had a tendency to fester. They gathered and saved every piece of s*** they could find. They even figured out the sort of poop that made the best saltpeter. For the best kind of poop was actually urine, the best urine came from drunkards, and the best drunkards, or so the farmers claimed, were Catholic bishops.

 

[Raghar]

Also: how historically accurate can you be at a longsword tournament? If it's so accurate, why aren't they using shields?

Which world do you live in where people commonly used longswords with shields?

Earth?

 

[Fowyr]

Raghar
Many countries even had saltpeter tax. I remember several years old saltpeter pit produced around pound of saltpeter annually.
Chilean saltpeter alleviated and chemistry's successes eradicated this smelly business.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Japan was also pretty much undeniably the most advance in regards to swordsmithing, most likely due to the above reasons. Katanas aside, they also made ceremonial swords for shrines and such that were very impressive (due to their size, the method of making them became very difficult), as opposed to simply being decked out in gold and jewels.

I can understand the prestige/symbolism argument but your second argument, quoted above, is bullshit. Japan was never ahead of anyone when it came to metallurgy or blacksmithing. The folding technique that Japanese blacksmiths used to make high-quality swords had been invented in Europe several centuries before. Turns out that being mostly isolated from the rest of the world for much of known history isn't actually good for innovation and advancement of science/technology.

Metallurgy != swordsmithing. Their lack of metallurgy was the reason they needed to take such extreme measures with the smithing itself. Folding the metal is a trick to make up for impure steel being used in the first place. Differential quenching (something I'm having trouble finding reference to anywhere outside of katanas) is also a significantly more involved process. Regardless of whether the final product performs better (and I kind of doubt names like Masamune or Muramasa would be remembered hundreds of years later if they didn't), you can't claim it isn't an advanced technique to layer multiple types of steel into a single blade without having the damned thing splinter apart.

The thing is, it doesn't really matter if katanas were better than other swords, because if they were, it was a trivial difference. It doesn't matter if your weapon is 5% sharper or holds an edge a bit longer or weighs 3% less. What matters is whether the guy holding it sticks it into his enemy's face or his shield. A butterknife with a rounded tip is still plenty sharp enough to shove through skin and muscle. Hell, a broken treebranch that hasn't even been sharpened will do in a pinch. Making minor smithing quality increase the stats on a weapon in a game is stupid. And even if you had some uber sword made of tungsten with a literal diamond edge sharpened by god damned lasers, you still couldn't cut through steel with a single swing because steel is dense, and an indestructable tool still wouldn't impart the strength to push apart the metal in the way after the crack/scratch was formed. You could chip away at it slowly where raw iron would simply dull itself into being a club, but that's not much of a difference in real combat.

 

[GarfunkeL]

This time I agree with your second point but take issue with your first :D

Metallurgy != swordsmithing. Their lack of metallurgy was the reason they needed to take such extreme measures with the smithing itself. Folding the metal is a trick to make up for impure steel being used in the first place. Differential quenching (something I'm having trouble finding reference to anywhere outside of katanas) is also a significantly more involved process. Regardless of whether the final product performs better (and I kind of doubt names like Masamune or Muramasa would be remembered hundreds of years later if they didn't), you can't claim it isn't an advanced technique to layer multiple types of steel into a single blade without having the damned thing splinter apart.

The names are famous because they entered Japanese mythology and as soon as Japanese stuff entered Western popculture mainstream (probably 1970s and definitely in the 1980s) the names carried over. Not to mention the quite common exotic oriental mythos that's quite popular - it's quite telling that in Wikipedia the article on Japanese swordsmithing is over twice the length of the main article on swordsmithing. Anyway, fame really is no way to judge whether they were actually skilled swordsmen or whether their swords were of high quality.

As to folding, I posted a video earlier talking about this issue, and so did other posters. The Japanese folding techniques were required because their iron was so impure and of poor quality, they literally used pig iron for weapons because they had nothing better available. Celts and Norse used similar techniques centuries before they became common in Japan - the style was mostly forgotten in the West because better quality materials were available. There's no need to fold steel eight times to get the excess carbon out when you're already utilizing pure materials. So folding doesn't make any blade magically better - it's an advanced technique that transforms shitty raw materials ito average raw material.

I don't want to slam on the Nips and their blacksmiths - the technique was challenging, no doubt. But it wasn't discovered in Japan and was only used for centuries and centuries because of their poor natural resources and their isolation from the rest of the world. Basically, they made a virtue out of an necessity and pop culture did the rest.