What are the stats for a standard katana?

[Sejs]

Nah, they don't make you be in two places at once - a katana just automatically gives anyone wielding it a lesser version of the "One Strike, Two Cuts" ability.

That only works when one target is a fruit and the other is a metal container.


Grape and a snuff box? Okay!

Apple and a breast plate? Sure thing!

Lime and an aluminum klein bottle? You betcha!

 

[Scarbonac]

Dude!

Katanas are finesseable, they ignore hardness below 50, do 5d30, x10 critical and crit on anything over a 9 (cutting through I-beams & engine-blocks like they're made of tissue-paper) and deflect energy-blasts, bullets & meteors!


They're excellent for when you want to flip out and kill a whole town!

 

[PA]

All this talk of katanas is moot. Everybody knows that Excalibur when wielded by Storm Shadow is the most powerful blade in the universe.

Not Sommerswerd?

 

[Dark Jezter]

On a related note, I wonder where the myth of "katanas as the ultimate sword" got started. I know that a lot of WWII vets brought them home as war trophies along with exaggerated stories about how they could cut through machine gun barrels, but at some point it became widely-accepted among people who don't know much about swords that katanas were impossibly sharp and strong.

Me, I'm guessing that super-katanas were popularized by anime. I've seen a lot of anime TV shows and movies where one or more of the characters has a super-katana and knows how to use it.

 

[Scarbonac]

On a related note, I wonder where the myth of "katanas as the ultimate sword" got started. I know that a lot of WWII vets brought them home as war trophies along with exaggerated stories about how they could cut through machine gun barrels, but at some point it became widely-accepted among people who don't know much about swords that katanas were impossibly sharp and strong.

Me, I'm guessing that super-katanas were popularized by anime. I've seen a lot of anime TV shows and movies where one or more of the characters has a super-katana and knows how to use it.

While that's true, there are lots of animes where Western swords are used instead of Japanese blades and they're pretty uber, as well.

Plus we get to see katanas and Westernized blades get broken with a fair amount of frequency in anime.

It's worth noting that in that elderly anime, Lupin III, Goemon's katana cut through people, guns, planes and also got broken and replaced.

The katana has beaucoup folkways and mysticism about it from Japan itself that's seperate from Modern Popular Culture that has built up over the centuries, so who's to say, eh?

 

[hong]

Not Sommerswerd?

... which is a katana. Duh.

 

[PA]

... which is a katana. Duh.

Hong... don't make me kill you before you reach your 10,000th post.

 

[Aaron L]

All this talk of katanas is moot. Everybody knows that Excalibur when wielded by Storm Shadow is the most powerful blade in the universe.

Man, that just made my day!

 

[Darklone]

On a related note, I wonder where the myth of "katanas as the ultimate sword" got started. I know that a lot of WWII vets brought them home as war trophies along with exaggerated stories about how they could cut through machine gun barrels, but at some point it became widely-accepted among people who don't know much about swords that katanas were impossibly sharp and strong.

Me, I'm guessing that super-katanas were popularized by anime. I've seen a lot of anime TV shows and movies where one or more of the characters has a super-katana and knows how to use it.

I'm not that old, but I think I can safely say that the myth of superior katanas is lots older than animes.

As mentioned, katanas are in fact masterwork bastard swords... which fits nicely due to handling and all the rest.

For style reasons, some people like to use a houserule with katanas as exotic onehanded or martial twohanded weapons (similar to the bastard) but with 1d8 slashing damage and 18-20/*2 crit range.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

NOTHING beats ninjas with Katanas.* Not even a bear with a machine gun.

* - Except a lone ninja with a different colour pyjama suit.