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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ledded" data-source="post: 1196642" data-attributes="member: 12744">Or, and this is a novel idea, pick up a few *books* by experts, extract what you can, see where they disagree, and ask other experts.  Even better, find a real, or reasonably good modern copy of one of the weapons in question and at least swing it around a bit.  Even better, train with it some.  Of course, that is a lot of work and time, and I dont honestly expect every game designer to do stuff like that.Searching on the net, ironically, I find more educated estimates of weapon weights for swords that are pretty reasonable (discounting all of the stuff that starts with "I've played RPG's for years and I think that a katana should weigh X, because it can cut a car in half").  Look at some Hans Talhoffer diagrams then go get a 15lb iron piece of iron rebar the length of a greatsword and try to do some of that.  Sure, it might work for a while, but after a few minutes you would probably be thinking 'boy, this would be easier and MUCH more effective if this thing weren't so darn heavy'.And the funny thing is, I'm in no way an expert, but just a guy who has read a bunch of books, participated in a bunch of sword/weapon forums and newsgroups with guys who knew a LOT more than me, and picked a few different weapons up in some kind of martial-art type environment over the years and hit things with them (fencing, rapier combat, japanese swordsmanship and a few sessions with different weapons for familiarity's sake).  I have a family and a career (such as it is) plus other hobbies too, and I've been able to fit some of it in because I was interested in it.I can tell you what I think.  You know why a greatsword is 15lbs in the newest books? Because it was 15lbs in the 3rd Edition D&D books./Rant offSorry about the ranty, I'm not directing it at you, it's just an old sore point ;^)And you game designers, I know that there are also many more questions other than historical accuracy, etc that you have to deal with, so no offense, I fault my personal obsessive compulsiveness more than your design decisions.Though, for heavens sake, noone mention dire flails or I may have some kind of breakdown ;^)As far as guns go, I find that most resources you can get tend to be a bit more accurate, plus there are a lot more people in these forums and others that have more real experience with them.As a general side note, here is a link to a site for a japanese swordsmanship style I took for several years.  This link shows what happens when a man who has trained for quite some time takes a japanese sword and attempts a sword test called kabutowari (helmet cutting).<a href="http://www.shinkendo.com/kabuto.html" target="_blank">http://www.shinkendo.com/kabuto.html</a>This is a more accurate depiction of what a katana can do to steel than anything you see in the movies.  I would have hated to be a guy in that helmet.</blockquote>

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