blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Nice pics - that was interesting.
Top 10 odd D&D weapons
genshou
First Post
Beg your pardon? :\ Removing 1/3 of the mass from 2 l of water and replacing it with 1 kg of mercury would increase the mass of the bottle by 1/6. That's a hefty enough increase to definitely affect the balance and ease of use of the bottle as an improvised weapon, but it's not like I just doubled the bottle's mass or anything. As we'll see below, though, with a denser "base" material like high-carbon steel, the numbers aren't quite so extreme.big dummy said:
Here's an example of an arming sword with a mass of around 1.8994181 kg (direct conversion of exactly 67 oz to kg). That's less mass than a 2 l bottle full of pure water. High-carbon steel has a varying density based on the amount of carbon used, but for our purposes we will use 7.85 g/cubic cm. Thus:
- volume = density/mass
- v = (1899.4181 g)/(7.85 g/cubic cm)
v = 241.96409 cubic cm
Now, let's make a theoretical mercurial Black Shadow Sword. I'll take suggestions about how much volume you think should be removed from the sword to create the channel for mercury, as well as the volume, mass, or percentage of channel volume that should be mercury. I'll do the math for any numbers submitted, but feel free to do it yourself if you're willing to crunch the numbers like I am.
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Fantasy game, guys. Fantasy game. With magic.
genshou said:
I just meant a kilo would be equal or more than the weight of a lot of swords.
As for replacing 1/3 of the mass in carbon steel and replacing it with mercury, I think you would have an extremely fragile messed up "sword like object" that you could never risk trying to cut or thrust with, let alone impace against a shield rim or a helmet.
Mind you I've never forged a sword myself, but from what I do know about spathology I do not think it would be possible to put enough mercury into a sword to make a noticable difference in mass distribution in combat, while still retaining any integrity to the blade.
Swords are not crude 3/4" crow-bars (unless you are talking about a bladeless sword like an estoc maybe). Swords are extremely finely tuned, delicately balanced killing instruments. Adding a bunch of mercury would mess up the fighting characteristics probably just as much as putting a bunch of spikes all over the weapon. I like Gene Wolf too but I don't think it's feasable, even remotely.
BD
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blargney the second said:
Of course it is. That said, since we are using "swords" here and not death flowers or bee stingers or something, I've never understood the need to fudge all the details of the actual weapon and keep rehashing mistakes left over from Gary Gygax first wargame research in 1974 or whatever, especially when there is perfectly good actual information about the real weapons now quite easily available on numerous sources from the internet.
Does it need to be realistic? No. But it is nice if it's internally consistent. If you have the real data there easily accessible which IS internally consistant because it's real and all the real kit balanced out against each other on the battlefield (or it was abandoned)... why not just use that instead?
Is there really good reason for inch thick iron shields, half inch thick armor with 6" spikes, bizarre 20 lbs sword like objects etc.?
In fact I would advocate taking it a step further and incorporating some of the actual features of different weapons like reach and speed and defensive potential, that way you wouldn't have trouble understanding the purpose of polearms or go around thinking that a 12" dagger can barely hurt you...
Just a thought folks.
BD
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Technically, a flails, nunchaku, 3 sectional staves, kusarigama, chijiririki, etc. are just such weapons, but I know what you mean.
How do you figure? How is Reach + 10' range increment + 2d6 x3 damage lame?
As has been pointed out, such weapons make a modicum of sense in a fantasy world in which huge creatures may wrap you in their coils or tentacles, or might snatch you up in their claws for later devouring...it works for puffer fish, hedgehogs, porcupines, echidna and so forth, after all (who live that life for real).
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There's a significant difference between sparring with a weapon and using it to deal damage to an armored being.
An Axe does damage by having a most of its mass out at the end of the swinging arc (where its speed is at the highest), and its curved blade delivers all of that energy at a single point of impact. It is a very aggressive weapon. Your defense (assuming 2 handed use) is mainly in keeping would-be opponents at bay with a whirling piece of metal on a stick. But recovery can be slow...
And a double axe doesn't change the equation. You need to get at least one head of that axe moving with speed to do any real damage. You'd be better off with 2 hand-axes.
By way of contrast, most double weapons are best for counterstrikes- block & parry until your opponent opens his defenses enough to get a thrust or slash in. Such strikes are lightning fast, and can be dangerous even at low speeds or light masses as they mess with balance or inflict pain...further opening the opponent's defenses until the kill strike can be landed.
The concept is lame. The mechanical properties of the 3e weapons system have generated a lot of lame concepts. They're barely even worthy of being called "concepts." The bigspear, the bigpick, the bigfalchion, the bighalberd, the bigmace, the bigcrossbow, the bigbow, the... guh! It's terrible.Dannyalcatraz said:
I guess I should have explained my taxonomy of 3e exotic weapons. See, the overwhelming number of them fall more or less in four categories:
- Weak. Monk weapons.
- Stupid. Dire Flail. Gyrspike.
- Lame. Bigspear. Bigpick. Bigcrossbow.
- Spiked chain. (The sole occupant of the category "Too Much" has the whole category renamed after it, in its honor.)
It's really disappointing.
(Re the double axe: I tend to line up more along the side of "plausible" than "feasible" when dealing with fantasy gaming. The alternative, I have discovered, is terrible.)
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