Shattered Kingdoms

heh, i like how you randomly jump from chinamen with broadsword too, samurai in full scalemail.

Uhm, Katanas are two handed weapons. Your were comparing a [REDACTED] chinese dude with a broadsword to a scottmen wielding a claymore, safe money is on the scottmens. I don't know who told you that katanas were meant to be used 1 handed, because they weren't. The long hilt katanas have was designed with 2 handed power/leverage in mind. I'm glad though, that you think samurai are so great, because I agree. Samurai were pretty much the perfect warriors, and they used 2 handed swords more often than 1 handed.

You break into a one handed movement for extension of a slice or to grab for your tanto or wakizashi, the sword is versatile.

Samurai are good, but far from perfect, they are too rigid.

Let's go with chinese broadswords, they are used in pairs most often, the steel is STILL much better quality than the claymores of the time. The fighting style is very fluid with a great deal of movement, while this burns energy it gives a greater manuverability over the two hander. You now have the greater ability to parry/sidestep/attack. The Claymore user, while able to use the full range of the blade by the extended handle is still limited to an almost full on linear strike then recoil, this commits the user into a strike far more than someone using a light flexible blade. A chinese broadsword can be extended for a strike and folded in agaisnt the arm for a parry and then extended into a strike in one clean movement, the weight and balance of the blade requires far less commitment than that of the greatsword. Now granted you give up power on the broadsword but you gain a great deal of precision and time. This is the whole accuracy damage speed that we have now that is broken. A person skilled in a one hander is going to WTFPWN a two hander in straight combat 80% of the time, the amount of commitment needed for the larger weapons is HUGE, and while parry and dodge is added into the combat, you still have to contened with commiting for a full strike before reversal. Strength plays a great deal in the ability to stop/start a blade, but you still only have so much strength and then physics kicks your [REDACTED].

Again, you have to consider weapon material, skill of the user, and the weapons that are coming in contact with one another, Samurai are reguarded so highly because of the whole mythos about them. They fought peasents, who weren't allowed to posses weapons, the peasents formed their own weapons from everyday tools and fought off the oh so powerful samurai, this also boiled down into specific attacks and defenses based on specific weapons.

You have to weigh the weapon vs the weapon heavily.

Ever played Bushido Blade?

I loved the katana + wakizashi combo in that game. Swashies that use that combo should be able to throw their wakizashi right in the face/throat of their opponent, impaling them and instantly killing them just like cleave. If they fail the roll, they lose a weapon.

Anyway, seriously now, thing with the weapon system is not the elite subtypes and the not so elite, it's the availability of the elite weapons. When builders add like 24242 khopeshes, divine orbs and kamas in SK, the other weapons become even less used.

Do you want to lure people in using other subtypes? Add unique weapons of the worse subtypes in SK and give them really neat scripts. Please, don't add any more HP regen khopeshes or kamas that cast hellfires. Put these scripts on some limited not so commonly used subtypes made of nice materials and suddenly you'll see mercs specced in claymores instead of flamberges/greatswords for the claymore of doom, or mercs specced in epee instead of kama for the acid blast epee!

PS: The playerbase is getting smaller and there is far too much phat lewt out there imo. Don't add more things, but wipe out some of the existing items.

two handed swords aren't used in massive swinging arcs. There was a hand on the hilt, and another gripping point partway up the sword. This meant you could stab, and slash without commiting too much.

Regardless, i've given you an example of 2 handed swordmen being considered double as valueable as 1 handed swordsmen in history. If you want to bring up a situation where 1 handed swordsmen were payed more, than go ahead. Until you do, this discussion is over. As it is now, all your doing is talking about random theories and such that you seem to know an awful lot about, but have no evidence to back up.

Only thing I think I will ever agree with you on.

Even better wipe out all the high level scripted stuff everyone knows of and plant new stuff with new subtypes all over the realms that everyone need to RELEARN about.

Some of the subtypes make no sense.

You are still talking about one region of the world and for one weapon type. You want to know a good weapon type? A stick, the Filipino (There is your damn F) people held off the spanish with sticks and short swords for two centuries. They weren't paid very good though.

not sure i'd classify sticks in the good weapons catagory.

You should try them once, and see them fight.

EDIT:

Would definately fall in the swashbuckler categoery.

thanks for the offer, but I think i'll stick with sharp metal.

You missed the short sword part didn't you? They call them knives. Style translates well, only style I learned weapon before empty hand.

well thats what great about sk, I can spec flamberge and bspear, and you can spec stick and shortsword.