I don't believe I'm posting in this thread...
Anubis said:
The reason most people in the real world would favor the katana as the sword of choice has nothing to do with it's physical properties. It would be marginally better than a European sword at best, IF THAT. The reasoning behind the katana is the same reasoning behind the rapier and the sabre: finesse.
Acutally, the reason that we in the west have such a facination with the katana is that we (America) own the majority of the surviving katanas--war trophies from WWII, which was the last time the sword was used in combat on a large scale--and even then it was a tertiary weapon.
The quality of Japan's steel has been brought up before, and I want to clarify that point, because it's incredibly important to how weapons evolved.
Japan, and most of the orient, simply doesn't have as much iron avaliable as Europe. (This is true even today, with vastly improved mining capabilities.) Given a smaller ammount of iron, the armor of the orient tends to contain a lot less iron than European armor--you don't seen samurai walking around in steel full plate because it doesn't make sense for any oriental culture to invent a suit of armor that takes swords away from the better part of a hundred soldiers.
Given this lack of armor, the choice sword for warfare in the region wasn't consructed to strike through armor, but instead focused on cutting cloth, bamboo, and flesh. And for defense, the warriors of the orient had to rely more on skill than armor. (Don't think that this means that Europeans don't have a significant ammount of marital skill of their own--the European skill-set just includes a healthy dose of armor-wearing, which changes a lot of the skills necessary for combat.)
Anyway...
If you want to better reflect the mythos of the katana, I suggest the following:
* Make the sword equivalent to a western sword of the same shape, but give it an axe's critical (20/x3). This will help reflect the sword's curved nature.
* Steal the martial arts feats from d20-Modern, or use a similar system to make the katana a "martial arts weapon." I've got a system worked out that I use in my home game, and I can provide it upon request.
In general, you shouldn't try and make the sword inherently better--if you give two farmers a katana and a western bastard sword, neither one is going to have an inherent advantage. Instead, you should allow a fighter to focus on the katana, reflecting the different fighting style of an oriental swordsman. (I suggest a fighter-tweak, giving two basic marital arts feats in exchange for only light armor proficincy.)