Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1759608" data-attributes="member: 5171">I've used the double spear extensively in Kenpo, and it's a wonderful weapon once you get good with it.  I've also made myself bleed even just using the non-sharp training weapons.  At one point, I held my hand wrong on a spin and slashed myself across the ribs with one end (I should have held it out farther so the near edge didn't cut me) -- just a scratch, but it was just a scratch that came through the heavy-duty grappling-weight gi top I was wearing at the time.  (I'm better with it now.)So, from that viewpoint, I can say that I've trained with double weapons.  And this is, as someone else said, not a two-handed weapon.  Based on the numbers on the site, this weapon isn't big enough to be even remotely useful as a double weapon.  Sizewise, using this with two hands would be like trying to use both hands while wielding a ruler with a long pair of scissors taped to each end.  (11" blades, 34" overall, so 11" blade, 12" grip, 11" blade.)  I don't really see much use for this, to be honest.  It's cute, but I wouldn't want to use one as a one-handed weapon.  It's like a short sword with one sharp edge, only you might slash your own arm when trying to swing it or block.However, if this were bumped up in size to about double it's existing size, I could see it potentially having some use as a two-handed weapon.  The fact that it's sharp only on one side of each blade gives you the ability to wield it with the dull edges toward you, so that you aren't as likely to slash your own waist with blade X when you swing blade Y at your enemy's throat.  Used that way, it would essentially be a double spear with longer spearpoints and a shorter gripping area -- this would make some techniques impossible or much less useful, but it also adds more cutting surface, which would be good.Drifter Bob, regardless of its length, I completely agree that no blade like this ever saw mass production as a practical weapon.  However, I'd quibble on one point: I think (and am open to discussion about the thought) that whether a weapon saw mass production was not a question of whether it could become useful but the ratio of difficulty in training to utility in combat.  It's possible that a properly made full-size double sword is, in the hands of a master, a better weapon than a rapier or katana -- but the relative difficulty in training with such a weapon means that it is certainly not worth it to try to teach the double-sword to 1,000 infantry men.The difference between your viewpoint and mine is that I believe that it's certainly possible for someone to have trained for a long time and gotten good with such a weapon (again, if properly made and looking very little like the illustration in the PHB), but simple efficiency dictated that such a weapon would never become popular, since the same person would have reached that level with an easier weapon in a shorter period of time.</blockquote>

Verification