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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Boots" data-source="post: 7384927" data-attributes="member: 92239">There are certainly more talented and effective weapon fighters than I but I count myself among them.  I know just enough to have a strong opinion.  I have no intention of questioning or discounting your intuition.  This is an academic discussion for me.Wielding a sword is slower than wielding a dagger.  The larger the weapon the more momentum is required to use it and that generally requires some set up.  This is why so much effort is put into weapons forms, to reduce the effort and streamline the use of the weapon.  The more trained you are the better you are at not getting yourself hurt due to the inefficiencies of the weapon and more likely you'll get the result you want when you hit with it.When you learn to fight with your hands, you learn to protect your sides and maintain range first.When you learn to fight with a dagger, you learn how not to cut yourself first.  Same with sword.  So the matter of HP and AC when abstracted accounts for this.When I was completely untrained I looked at reach as being the holy grail.  Then as we advanced the range and reach between opponents invariably decreased.  The advantage the sword has over the dagger is reach, but if you're inside a distance equal to the length of the blade, the advantage is gone, and if the swordsman goes for a hit and the dagger wielder's reaction is to move closer to the opponent, the swordsman is likely hosed.I'd argue that effort comparison between the two is different but equivalent.  The swordsman requires the same amount of effort to do half as many things as the dagger wielder, (more weapon mass does not help endurance) but the dagger wielder needs to pay far more attention to his position and may or may not have to exert more effort to remain safe depending on his or her experience/guts.My point is that a dagger wielder with more experience is better than a sword wielder with less.  If equally matched then I'd put my money on the sword, because they'd be less likely to make a mistake with their own positioning and the reach affords them more tolerance for error.  Any weapon used to its strengths is just as deadly as any other.  I'd not use a dagger to cut someone's head off, but I would use it if the desired effect was to take out a lung through the armpit or simply slice a throat from behind.I'm going to go eat some peeps now.. KB</blockquote>

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