Last night I was thinking about a fantasy story that I'm writing that involves a "seven samurai" group, and how to outfit them in terms of weaponry. I kind of like the idea of an assortment of weapons, but I couldn't help thinking: why not just all swords? What benefit does a battleaxe or warhammer or mace have over a good old longsword? What about longsword vs. great sword? Axe vs hammer? Sword vs axe? Etc.
These are the things I think of while gaming. I am definitely
not an expert, so there will be mistakes.
A lot of warriors carried multiple weapons, probably because different weapons are good at different things.
Battleaxe: this weapon is really bad at defense. You need to use a shield. Greataxes were rarely a thing (I think huscarls often used these). In Viking sagas even berserkers used shields. Axes can dent armor more effectively than swords and are good at crippling limbs (helpfully protected by thinner armor). Axe > spear because you can chop the spear shaft. Sword > axe because a sword wielder could also use a shield.
Warhammer: this swings slowly, so it should be harder to land a hit or easier to dodge. You do not want to use it against a lightly-armored, agile warrior. On the other hand it's great at delivering energy right through armor. You might kill a person yet only dent their helmet (and even if they don't die they should be concussed). I don't understand how chainmail could provide any protection against this weapon at all... if it hits. If I were running a 4e game, I'd say a PC could take -2 to hit to target Reflex instead of AC when using a hammer. Obviously this is a bad idea if you're facing an elven archer ranger. Use it when smashing a heavily armored opponent. I guess it's also good at wrecking doors and other objects.
Mace: same issues as the warhammer. It tends to be round rather than flat, which probably has a minimal difference. I'm not entirely sure which is "better" but I think the mace is always one-handed, so use a shield: a good thing because neither weapon is good on the defense.
Sword: the ultimate sidearm, because scabbards are cool! This means you can easily carry another weapon with you. Swords are handy in "cramped" areas like inside a building, or in an alleyway. Short swords are really good in a really tightly packed formation like many Roman soldier formations. Longer swords are good at defense, especially against other swords. Swords are sharp, and can cut or stab. But swords have issues. They're not good at penetrating armor. A plate-wearing knight should not duel another plate-wearing knight with a sword (unless it's a formal duel, in which case they're both equally penalized). A sword seems best when used by a swashbuckler or a "bathrobe samurai", someone who routinely faces lightly armored or unarmored opponents in urban settings. Apparently many people were killed, retreating from battle, by sword-wielding knights.
Spear: it's longer than your opponent's weapon. The shaft is tough enough that swords can't easily cut it, so a spear-wielder should have a significant advantage over a sword-wielder. A spear isn't so useful if you're fighting by yourself, though, it's more of a formation weapon. Handy in a dungeon if you have support, except how do you turn around? I guess the spear needs a point on both ends. Spears and lances are amazing on horseback but have this bad habit of getting stuck in opponents or breaking. Also, good luck using a lance to parry
anything coming from your weapon side (and you can't make a horse spin the way a human could, so that shield is only protecting half of you).
Crossbow vs longbow: longbows can be fired faster but require much more training. In most versions of D&D it doesn't cost much to become proficient with a longbow. (Indeed, a 1st-level fighter in 3e is automatically proficient with a longbow, even though that's unrealistic.)
I haven't played enough game systems to say "this is probably better" but I don't think players want to consult a giant chart every time they take a swing at something. Furthermore a system that does not properly distinguish between dodging and armor can't handle these differences effectively. You probably need a narrative system. Fate or Mutants & Masterminds could handle this, I think... although in the case of M&M, this only really works if weapons are Equipment and not Removable powers.
This was always my understanding. And that a big part of the later success of guns was that they took the crossbow's advantages even further, they don't even require the strength necessary to work a crank or a stirrup, and they're even simpler to aim. Which is why it peeves me every time I see a rulebook or module suggest that anachronistic weapons be classed in the exotic weapon category requiring a special feat and/or proficiency when the whole point of them is that anybody can pick up one and use it with a minimal amount of training, whereas the rest of the exotic weapons are things like the orc double axe or the gnome hooked hammer that nobody should ever be able to use proficiently at all, with any amount of training.
They're trying (and possibly failing) to come up with something balanced. There's an implicit formula in D&D on how to balance mundane weapons. Better weapons cost feats. D&D is not particularly realistic (for instance, there is no rule that I can quote preventing me from leaving a bow strung on a seven hour march in the rain and then immediately using it to shoot at goblins that tried to ambush my party, even though that is not remotely realistic). I consider realism to be less important than simplicity and game balance, and I believe WotC does the same.
An early firelance should be easily usable by any 14th century peasant, given minimal training, but nobody should be giving those weapons to peasants because they should be
expensive. They would be so expensive that no 1st-level PC could afford one! That's another area where realism interferes with gameplay. (I think Pathfinder's gunslinger just gives you a free gun as a class feature. The gun is so expensive that, without that feature, nobody else would buy one.) Obviously firearms became more prevalent when armies could afford to lend large numbers of matchlocks or wheellocks to peasants, former criminals, and so forth, who could then use these with minimal training, which occurred in whatever century that doesn't really apply to anachronistic D&D. Then there's the accuracy problem, which I think Paizo really messed up on. (An unrifled firearm is far less accurate than a bow, but gunslingers are actually more "accurate" because the ability to completely ignore armor is effectively giving them a massive bonus to hit.) The lack of accuracy makes the firearm an army weapon, not an adventurer's weapon. A weapon that acts like a crossbow, but is far less accurate, shouldn't require a special feat, but the player whose character uses it would be complaining about how weak it is, how it takes 15 seconds plus to reload, and it doesn't work when it rains (unlike bows... in D&D) without giving them a hero point or something, and so forth.
