Swords

[Kloster]

Hello,

 

I have 2 question on RQG swords. Broadswords are 75 to 90 cm long and shortswords are 60 to 80 cm long with same shape.

1) are those length overall or blade length?

2) What are called 75 to 80 cm long blades?

[Oracle]

1) I would say the length is including blade and hilt, i.e. overall (but I may be wrong here ...)

2) that's still a Broadsword. Or why do you think there should be a different name?

[Shiningbrow]

IIRC, some (most??) names that we use today for the various weapon categories by size are a relatively modern invention. Such as 'broadsword' and 'shortsword'. Otherwise, they had a specific name that would be almost meaningless to us, unless you were into that sort of thing. The book uses a couple of those names though...

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Oracle said:

2) that's still a Broadsword. Or why do you think there should be a different name?

The OP points out that there is a 5cm overlap in the definitions:  "short" goes up to 80cm.

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Oracle said:

1) I would say the length is including blade and hilt, i.e. overall (but I may be wrong here ...)

Thanks.

1 hour ago, Oracle said:

2) that's still a Broadsword. Or why do you think there should be a different name?

There is a 5 cm overlap. The result is that you can have a short sword that is 5 cm longer than your broadsword, although it is supposed to be longer.

[SDLeary]

As mentioned above, sword size classifications don’t seem to exist much before the medieval period in Europe, where the term Longsword begins to be used to distinguish between longer forms, and shorter Arming or Knightly swords.

Ancients seem to use  the name of the type of sword as it had been related to them. For example, in the Roman Republic/Empire, we have Gladius (which we type as a shortsword) and Spatha (which we tend to type as a broadsword), but the Latin word for Sword is Ensis.

Also, we have the Spartan Sword, a form of Xiphos that is much shorter... so short that we would probably classify it as a dagger. But, the Spartans seem to have used it in a similar manner to the Roman use of Gladius.

Given this, I would say just shoehorn a particular blade type where you think it should go based on what you think its intended use is, don’t worry about shape or length too much. You should really only worry about length if you are trying to figure out if someone is trying to close to inside a weapons effective use range.

SDLeary

 

[g33k]

Or just call all of them "swords" and rank them as

d3/d4/ d4+1/d6/d6+1/d8/d8+1/d10/d10+1/d12

That's...(counts)10 categories; add more if ya like, I don't think we are up to the canonical "Greatsword" or"2-H Sword" damage, yet...

So divide swords by length&weight, assign them as above, starting e.g. with a "5-10cm knife, 1d3 dmg" and working upward...

[Shiningbrow]

10 hours ago, g33k said:

Or just call all of them "swords" and rank them as

d3/d4/ d4+1/d6/d6+1/d8/d8+1/d10/d10+1/d12

That's...(counts)10 categories; add more if ya like, I don't think we are up to the canonical "Greatsword" or"2-H Sword" damage, yet...

So divide swords by length&weight, assign them as above, starting e.g. with a "5-10cm knife, 1d3 dmg" and working upward...

The problem with that is that I, personally, think it's pretty inaccurate. It's not really the length that's doing the damage. Thickness obviously plays a big part, and whether you're stabby-stabby, or slashy-slashy (and, against what? Straight flesh? Armours? etc).

While thickness will be incorporated into the weight category, the current RQG rules are giving swords an ENC of only 2 or 3.

Compare Rapier to Shortsword.... one is twice the size of the other, the same ENC... and the same damage.

(besides which, dagger is 1D4+2 😜  Why does a dagger do more damage than a shortsword on average? Don't know!)

[Kloster]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Why does a dagger do more damage than a shortsword on average? Don't know

This is historical. The problem was already in RQIII, and if I remember, in RQ2. AS RQG is built on RQ2, it has been ported.

[jps]

On average a dagger would deal ((1+2+3+4)/4)+2= 4.5 damage. A shortsword would deal ((1+2+3+4+5+6)/6)+1=4.5 damage. Exactly the same but, a shortsword can deal maximum damage of 7 compared to 6 for a dagger. As for the rationale I suspect the difference between a (combat) dagger and a shortsword is minimal.

[Kloster]

28 minutes ago, jps said:

On average a dagger would deal ((1+2+3+4)/4)+2= 4.5 damage. A shortsword would deal ((1+2+3+4+5+6)/6)+1=4.5 damage. Exactly the same but, a shortsword can deal maximum damage of 7 compared to 6 for a dagger. As for the rationale I suspect the difference between a (combat) dagger and a shortsword is minimal.

Right. My mistake on the calculation.

[styopa]

Or, disregard ahistorical precision and say a short sword is "about the length of your forearm" and a broad sword is "about the length of your arm".

And yes, for a hacking weapon, the damage it does is very much about the length (length = leverage = speed) and weight at the striking end.  

EDIT: and no, I don't think a lot of mathematical rigor was considered in the damage values; was never a strong point of RQ2 and that baby came with the bathwater into RQG.  I.e. their applications of +1s and +2s was not really thought through.  The idea that a dagger does more as minimum damage than a shortsword is logically silly.  Or eg a shortsword in RQ2 parried 20AP, more than a hoplite shield? (Thankfully mostly corrected in RQG, so a shortsword blocks the same AP as a medium shield...)

Edited May 1, 2019 by styopa