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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 455023" data-attributes="member: 96">If it's no worse than an axe in terms of balance, then it's probably going to be no better than an axe in terms of damage.  The reason the mercurial blades do more damage than a normal sword is because more mass is concentrated at the end - but if the mass is only the same as that of an axe, why would the sword magically do more damage to an opponent?Keep your faith in Mr. Wizard, my friend - but then consider: what are the stresses involved on a sword in combat?  Do you hold your blade perpendicularly while your enemy hangs weights upon it?  And is a blade shaped the same as a piece of pipe?  Of course not, and both of those factors are going to mean that the sword is going to act differently.Furthermore, you may be misremembering the experiment - a hollow bar of the same weight as a solid one is stronger, but if they are the same diameter, the solid shaft is stronger (at least according to everything I've been able to look up in the past few minutes - like this entry in an <a href="http://emcc.mit.edu/unified/materials/faqs/10.4.html" target="_blank">MIT materials FAQ</a>.)  Could he have been comparing the rods by weight rather than size?Ah, the old "there is no realism in fantasy" argument.  Remember, though, that while the bag of holding is magic, the mercurial blades are not.  That means to me that they ought to behave as one would expect them to in our world (just like any other non-magic weapon in D&D).Besides, we're not really discussing realism.  We're discussing plausibility.  A bag of holding or a wand of fireballs is completely plausible given the magical system of D&D.  A hollow greatsword that's as strong as a normal one, filled with mercury, and made without the aid of magic or special materials at a medieval level of technology - that's just not plausible to me.  (If you wanted to talk about mercurial maces, now, I'd hear you...)J</blockquote>

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