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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xeriar" data-source="post: 996898" data-attributes="member: 4116">Put simply, their iron ore sucked.  It was both low in carbon and high in impurities, IIRC.Europe had a much richer variety in iron deposits, and had much richer resources to draw from, period.Of course there is experience in making steel.  Just that, for the iron ore that would become a Katana, we wouldn't call it steel until it was folded a few times!Most certainly, for example, if your iron ore can't bite rocks...You need a way to compensate for it.  Sometimes just smelting it isn't enough and it needs to be purified further, somehow.Few blades are.  Most blades aren't going to stand up to D&D style combat, period.  Even a master won't turn out blades like that regularly.Just because the edge isn't going to last forever doesn't make it an inneffective weapon.To say nothing of how many battles the average Japanese swordmen would fight in anyway (ie, not many).Iaijutsu duels were very, very, very rare.  It was generally used to slay peasants.That could refer to any number of things.  IIRC there were a number of incredibly cheap versions of the katana made, with straighter edges and poorer quality steel.IMO, D&D doesn't need to suffer from weapon creep.As mentioned, Japanese were not tall people, I wonder where you imagine this one out of.</blockquote>