A Essay -- The Knight vs. the Samurai

[Hussar]

IIRC, this article actually graced the pages of Dragon magazine as well. Great article.

 

[Dioltach]

So the necromancer's post got deleted, and now it looks like I'm the one who did it.

 

[CubicsRube]

And congratulated in the process!

What did the other post say?

 

[Istbor]

Well, it tricked me into voting.

 

[Hatmatter]

Very interesting essay on the classic fighters of two very different cultures.

The Medieval European Knight vs. The Feudal Japanese Samurai

Wow, read the essay and loved it...thanks for sharing and enriching the forums here! I didn’t vote, because who can say? I appreciated the author’s efforts to correct misconceptions though, that is terrific. In my imaginary duel between the two, in good rpg tradition, the knight and samurai make peace and work together to beat a troll or ogre! Now that would be an East meets West I would be down for!
Thanks again!

 

[Dioltach]

What did the other post say?

You know, I have absolutely no idea. Probably something meaningless like "Interesting read". (Which it is, I agree.)

 

[GrahamWills]

I've studied and fought with a katana, and it's essentially awesome so log as the opponent is weakly armored.
A katana is not magical and can easily be deflected by standard knight's armor.

Here's my strong expectation of how the fight goes:

1) samurai hits first. The knight probably deflects with shield or armor.
2) Knight hits. Samurai does not have good armor and so is hurt

Samurai duels are essentially to the first cut -- whereas armored enemies typically can take a few blows first. So the strong advantage is to the knight. The samurai has to be lucky to get through the armor to win.

 

[Hussar]

My (largely uninformed) opinion was that a shield would make a HUGE difference in the contest. The fact that Samurai didn't use shields at all would be giving a very large advantage to the knight. You can slash at a shield for a long, long time before you can get past it. Whereas the knight's attacks must be parried or dodged.

If one combatant has the option of parry, dodge and block, and the other can only parry and dodge, it would seem that the first one has a pretty big advantage.