@@blumineck I find it entertaining how absurd the "crossbow-guns" in the movie are, and how they use longbows as if they were modern assault rifles in a certain scene. I have yet to see someone make a breakdown of how absurd they portray it in that movie. Either way, thanks for the response, and keep up the good work! :)
Have you ever seen or maybe used one of those "automatic" crossbows? They're from somewhere in Asia (I forgot) but they work with some kind of old "autoloader" style thingy
I love that you said the first rule about knife fighting is "don't get in a knife fight." I heard a self defense instructor say something similar, "The loser of a knife fight dies on the street. The winner dies in the hospital."
My pet peeve with bows in videogames is that bows don't bend and you basically rubberband the string. You can excuse it as saving efforts for animations, but when you see fantasy bows made from some non-elastic material - it just screams: it won't work!
@@BaronPip yeah, I’ve covered that in a short before, and the number of artists and animators who genuinely didn’t know that bow strings aren’t elastic was astonishing!
Nice thing I've noticed in Vermintide 2: While things are not perfect (see: the arrows just materialize out of thin air, sometimes literally, if you have traits that give you more ammo when you kill/headshot/crit something), if you keep a bow drawn for a while, the elf's arms will start shaking (though it's just visual, it does not impact accuracy in any way, and you CAN maintain the draw indefinitely), and the shaking will increase with time.
About knives and their reach... The main character of the Italian comic book Tex Willer often gets into knife duels because it's cool and the Western setting provides a few excuses, but the time he had to duel with a sword he realized immediately he was screwed because he had no idea how to fight at that range while his opponent, a Spanish officer in Cuba, was a trained and experienced fencer. He had to take advantage that they were fighting in a church to trick him into fist range to get the upper hand.
I think that is part of short range melee training. Battle tactics require training a few weapon disciplines for each role, all should know how to use close combat weapons like knives. A soldier should know how to close distance when the situation requires it, just like they should understand tactical retreats can be the safest choice. Knife fighting can be very dramatic, but it's most effective when they aren't brandished and danced around with...
You see that's using realism to characterise and show intelligence. People forget that the things characters use can be used as limiters for their abilities and that those limits are a good addition to any story
5:05, that was my (ha) "point" in a RPG session: throw a knife, throw a knife, throw a knife, throw a knife,throw a book... The rest of the party and the GM looked at me funny and I burst out: "I'm outta knives, man, and none of those 'return'"!
When playing a rogue type in a TTRPG I will throw daggers down to the number I use for melee and then fight in melee until combat is over or I acquired more throwing weapons. The exception being a ninja in PF1e, where I threw shuriken instead and used wakizashi or sai (and a tail blade) for melee.
One of the D&D splatbooks has a class built around throwing knives. Through near-magic shenanigans, you create knives out of nothingness to throw at your enemies (actual knives. Not knife-shaped magical constructs. IIRC, there's a whole thing where the character is blessed by the concept of being a knife thrower to acquire the ability...)
@@tadferd4340 Yes! PF1E Tail Blade! I used one myself alongside a Hidden Blade from Complete Scoundrel from D&D 3.5 (because PF1E was literally made to be compatible with D&D 3.5) & a Hanbo my Ratfolk character used as a cane, just 3 beautifully hidden weapons (wrapped some cloth around my tail to hide the blade)
@durk5331 My Ratfolk was visibly armed. If weapons were restricted, he hid them before hand, acquired weapons inside, or snuck in. He literally walked into a library through the front door to steal a scroll maguffin. Turned his weapons in at the door, concealing a scroll case. Asked the librarian for directions. Stole the scroll without being seen in the middle of the day. Picked up his weapons at the front door and left. He was level 10 when the campaign went on indefinite hiatus. His stealth was +27 and being a Ninja he had Vanishing Trick and Invisible Blade. Not to mention a Ring of Invisibility owned by the party. See Invisibility was an inconvenience a few times but nothing some improvisation and teamwork can't fix.
What's interesting regarding the axes is that given the sheer size and weight of a lot of the ones shown in media, they'd be more effectively clubs or warhammers than they would cutting weapons. Their edge could still let them cut in some situations, and with enough raw brute force they could probably cleave through an unarmored foe, but if you have that much power behind your swing to begin with you'd be better off using a mace or warhammer so you have to worry less about it getting caught up in your enemy.
And even warhammers and maces weren't like fantasy depicts them. You typically see huge chunks of metal on massive shafts, completely ridiculous and impractal. What is more realistic is something the size of a fist on a shaft not to dissimilar to a woodcutters axe or carpentry hammer, but perhaps a bit longer. People quickly learned that sheer mas isn't any more effective and would just tire out the user. But having it come to a point to focus all that force is very good.
@@rolandoftheeld But that is more for balancing reasons. Weapons are organized around blade, blunt and marksman skills. Blade encompasses daggers, shortswords, longswords (all one-handed) and two-handed swords. Blunt encompasses maces (one-handed) and warhammers (two-handed). Adding axes to blade means there are a lot more types of weapon scaling off blade than blunt, so they put the one and two handed axes into blunt, giving each category four types of weapons. Skyrim on the other hand just categorizes into one-handed and two-handed. With swords, axes, and maces/warhammers. Swords are the fastest but weakest, maces/hammers are the slowest but hit the hardest. Axes are in between. Morrowind is a whole different level of complexity: - one-handed axes (war axes) - two-handed axes (battle axes) - one-handed blunt weapons (clubs and maxes) - two-handed close range blunt weapons (warhammers) - two--handed wide range blunt weapons (staffs) - short blades (daggers, tantos, wakizashis and shortswords) - one-handed long blades (longswords, broadswords, katanas and sabers) - two-handed long blades (claymores and daikatanas) - spears (spears and halberds) It also has three types of damage: chop, slash, and thrust. With different types of weapons having different effectiveness (damage) in each of them: - Axes, clubs and warhammers are great at chopping, decent at slashing and bad at thrusting. - Staffs are good at chopping and slashing but bad at thrusting, - Short blades are good at chopping and slashing, some of them also at thrusting, depending on the type. - Long blades could be good at either, most longswords are great at slashing and thrusting and mediocre at chopping, but katanas are better at chopping and bad at thrusting, and broadswords are best at chopping. - Similar with two handed blades, claymores excelling at chipping, are decent at slashing and bad at thrusting. - Spears are excellent at thrusting, but horrible at the other two types. The same with ranged weapons. Longbows tend to do more damage than shortbows, but are heavier, slower and more expensive. Crossbows are more consistent with their damage, but a good longbow will have a higher cap, so a trained archer will be more effective with a good bow, while anyone can use a crossbow to it's peak, but lower damage. There are also throwing weapons, like knifes, darts and throwing stars, but those are generally weaker than melee weapons or bows. Sort of an auxiliary thing and not to be used as main weapon. Almost as if the devs looked at the weapons and balanced their stats around the real thing.
In video games, the size of many weapons is exaggerated for visual registration. An axe head, or lightsaber handle, or warhammer, or bow, that is realistically scaled versus the size of the on-screen character can be too small to see well, and sometimes just looks 'wrong'. I saw a developer note for SWtOR about lightsaber handles take on this topic, where they had to struggle to find the right balance between, it being the right size for the avatar's hand(s) and being large enough for details to register visually. The end product was a bit too 'fat' for realistic hand gripping, but a lot smaller than they first started out with. - In fantasy games, the most egregious offender is a toss-up between the battle axe and bows. Battle axes tend to get FAR too huge heads, but many games "level" bows by making them have spikes and protrusions that make no danged sense.
I feel like the same argument for the size of axes being more effective as blunt weapons because of how ridiculously huge they were also applies to the big great swords as well -- this video even compared them to axes the way they are used in fiction. That being said, I know this is going to likely be a hot take, but it's for precisely this reason why I HATE these kinds of swords in video games and whatnot -- they more or less serve the same general purpose of an axe as a big, heavy, and rather unwieldy weapon, just as a sword instead; the problem being that because they are swords, they tend to have more finesse than your average axe would, except this becomes utterly ridiculous when you consider how damned HUGE they are. For this reason, I prefer them to be used more as a sort of big finisher move to take out an enemy in a huge, over-the-top strike, pulled out as a last resort when you absolutely NEED to make sure your target dies -- think something along the lines of Yuri's Heavenly Bladewing mystic arte from Tales of Vesperia (for those familiar with the game). But as a regular weapon? Yeah, no, the are arguably even more impractical than a big axe because you're expected to see them be swung around nimbly because it's a F^*%@&;# SWORD, albeit one that's oftentimes even bigger than the largest axes -- I know this will probably sound controversial, but these ginormous swords are NOT cool when used that way. I very, VERY much prefer the type shown off in this video: it's long, yes, but being able to swing it around so nimbly despite it's size looks far and away cooler to me BECAUSE it's not so ridiculously oversized. Again, I know this is probably a hot take, but it's one that I personally think would serve to better differentiate a big sword from a big axe better
@@chrisr3570 it’s incredible! I attended a workshop run by Joe Gibbs once, and that man can get you drawing an extra 20lbs, just through using the right technique to engage the maximum number of muscles!
@@LadyLexyStarwatcher en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Makoare " In The Fellowship of the Ring, he portrayed the Uruk-hai leader Lurtz, and in The Return of the King, he portrayed the Witch-king of Angmar as well as Gothmog, the Orc commander at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. In The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, he portrayed the Orc commander Bolg, son of Azog." Was in Xena too.
On the topic of strength in archery: Some editions of D&D and Pathfinder, like Pathfinder 1e, did in fact account for strength being a component of archery. An ordinary shortbow/longbow would not deal any bonus damage from strength or dexterity. However, a custom, more expensive, composite shortbow/composite longbow would deal bonus damage based on strength specifically, and had to be custom made to the strength of the character. A character with a +3 strength bonus would need to get a custom strength 3 longbow in order to utilize that extra damage. It'd be pretty costly early-game, but by late-game the extra cost would be insignificant. So, while it was never strictly required for an archer to have high strength, and you could make do with sub-10 strength if necessary, a high-strength archer could be rewarded for getting equipment which plays to their strength!
In pf2e they gave composite bows a trait that gives them half of the user's str for damage, while all ranged weapons without that trait don't get any boost to damage.
Savage Worlds does this as well. One of my players uses a bow and is fully neglecting his Strength stat, which means he can't even use a normal bow, let alone get a proper advantage out of using that strength stat to deal damage with it.
In the same vein, GURPS uses a system I appreciate for most weapons- attack accuracy are mostly based on Dexterity, while Strength dictates how much damage is dealt. I tend to play medics, researchers, and casters, so there may be some exceptions I am not aware of
Still never made sense to me though because any available bows made for hunting or combat would require and utilize strength to achieve damage. Needing a special composite bow of a certain level just wouldn't be a thing.
1:53 I love the idea that he took multiple takes of the "I love the magic" segment, so he could use the one that gave you the clearest view of him running.
Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke is the goto example I think of for the idea of an archer emphasizing strength and accuracy over speed, though that has a lot to do with the whole demonic strength given to him by the curse killing him thing so there's its own level of unrealistic fantasy there, but it still is showing the slower drawing speed, the muscles tensing up, and time taken to make the shot count
What i hated about that was it's entirely inaccurate in every way. What does brute strength have to do with the power of an arrow through a bow, past not being able to pull it? You will break it if you pull it past the drawback.
@@nicewhenearnedrudemostlyel489 I am under impression that it wasn't as much brute strength, as the evil curse amplifying damage, somewhat like poison. Why else would an arrow cut off a warrior's head?
I just want one fantasy representation of an archer where it's a 2m tall mountain of a man with a 250 pound bow that doesn't do trick shots, doesn't do anything fast; he just fires center mass and things die.
Not exactly realistic, but Hawkeye Gough from Dark Souls is pretty cool. The dude is a literal giant with a fucking giant bow, and he uses it to shoot down a dragon for you to then hunt down and kill on foot.
I actually remember an occasion of someone doing this in Shadowrun. Turns out when a ~8-foot, 600-pound Troll Physical Adept (PhysAds are magic-users that specialise in magically boosting their own physical strenght, speed, reflexes etc.) decides to take up archery and gets himself a custom-made compound bow, the result qualifies as a light anti-tank weapon. Dude launched a tungsten-carbide bodkin arrow *through* the engine block of an armored SWAT van at one point.
Can I just say, I LOVE that you do your own captions. I've seen too many TH-cam creators, even big ones, just leave it on automatic English when they really ought to be providing more perfectly accurate ones somehow.
@@SuperKratosgamer Amusingly if you do put on the English automatically generated captions, it gets both of these correct, meaning at least in these two specific instances the automatic captions are more 'perfectly accurate'.
@@Lheticus thanks! They are initially automated, and then I try to go through and edit them. The number of times I changed ‘infection’ to ‘in fiction’ and ‘acts’ to ‘axe’ felt insane, but apparently I still missed a few! That’s the problem with being a skim reader I guess!
I appreciate the fact that you explain why the use of those weapons have their own rules in fantasy :) even if they do not correspond to reality, it shows that you truly have respect for the fantasy genre
In what reality? 21st century reality? In reality one-on-one fights were mostly for entertainment, and D&D style adventures are as real as western movies vs actual American history.
I too very much appreciate the light tone when teaching. So many HEMA influencers take this hostile, debunking, one-up tone about "the real deal" to make themselves look bigger.
Yes, the clearing of a way is one of the keys. In Germany, we had some two-handers and the wielders of them called Gassenhauler (literally alley-beater, but it really means path-clearer). Because they were clearing (beating) a path (alley) through the enemy lines. They were highly paid jobs, because 90% of the time, they were a one-run job from which you are most likely to not come back. You were clearing a path and if the enemy was quick enough to close that gap, you're stuck inside the enemy ranks, and once your stamina runs out, you're done for. But I really loved that video and I do hope for more.
One reason for the multi-bladed throwing weapons you find around the world is because you can't always be certain of hitting with the point otherwise. African multi-bladed throwing axes, Japanese shuriken, or Indian chakrams will cut a target.
You’re obviously quite fit, but I’m still impressed you were able to garner that much content in a cold environment where you are wielding weapons and educating at the same time.
It's mind boggling how nobody wants to talk about the spear, like, this is what 90% of battles used to use. The pike is the modern version of the spear with the same functionality. Although what makes a big difference between fiction and reality is usually the fact that a war is not fought by 5 men. You fight with thousands of people and each division has their own obligation to do. One archer can't do a lot, but hundreds of archers releasing their arrows is a sight to behold
Very informative. But the main thing is that you tell it so interestingly, and I really like how you do it visually. It is obvious that you invested a lot of points in charisma and agility and pumped up the performance skill, acrobatics and all that stuff. My respect, bro!
Regarding strength on bows: Fire Emblem is solid in this respect! Fire emblem's stats are a little bit different than most other RPGs - you have your damage stat and your accuracy stat, and they apply to both bows and melee weapons equally. Also, there is sometimes a build stat that lets you more effectively wield heavier weapons, or sometimes that's also your damage stat. Anyway, it's solid!
Balancing Archers has frankly always been the most interesting thing to observe in Fire Emblem specifically, where they range from some of the best classes in the game (Echoes with its Killer Bow/Hunter's Volley effectively becoming 5-Range Artillery) while simultanously being some of the most underpowered in another game (GBA FE with it's Early Game Archers, especially FE7 where you do 2-Range damage once on player phase and don't even one-shot the fliars you are supposed to be good against due to only being 2x effective, rather than 3x.) Its what makes Archers probably one of my favourite classes in Fire Emblem, because every game essentially designs them differently in an attempt to find that sweetspot. And That isn't even to mention the rom-hacking scene and what attempts at tackling the Archer the Fire Emblem community at large has come up with.
Most of these points, especially the bow draw weight vs. tiny archer are why I love GURPS's fanatical attention to rules, you need to have high strength to use a bow, and you need high dexterity (or lots of training to make up the difference) to aim it (in fact that's how muscle-powered weapons work)
I appreciate the disclaimer that you do still like fantasy even if youre talking about things being unrealistic. I think that most people who critique the realism of fantasy (at least the ones I see!) do it because they love fantasy and would like to see it improved or changed rather than to tear into a genre they dislike
Great aproachable video, mate! Also at 21:45 the captions say "fighting in BALLET" instead of "meele", and I implore you to keep it like that for forever cause a) it's hilarious and b) the mental image of ballet dancers in combat is just too riddiculus and funny as hell! :)
David and Goliath was briefly mentioned. One of the things most people don't realize is that David was massive. He was a giant in his own right. Yeah, he was smaller than Goliath, but he would have looked more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than Harry Potter.
@@haroldcruz8550 Huh? What are you even talking about? Have you read the story of David ever? When he fought Goliath, he was in his teens, over 6 feet tall, and quite physically built. All of that is in the story. It's just easy to gloss over.
@@maxschlegel3566 Were you born at that time to know that the story was true? and not just a made up BS. The story of David and Goliath is as real as Achilles vs Hector
For throwing weapons, there was also things like the francisca axe...which had precursors with the norse/germanic peoples, they're scary things that would likely be used to screw with shields, shieldwalls, or charges (both to make or take) while still being useful as, essentially, a sidearm/backup weapon for when needed. Those things are also a nightmare to actually aim because the intent, in a lot of cases, is to throw low and bounce up...
Do they actually bounce up? I woudl have thought throwing them up high would be better or a combination of both to force folk to choose where they put shields. The reason i say this is as with all thrown things they havign atrajectory and from playing lots of paintball aiming high and dropping shots on folk behind cover is very easy to learn. So it makes more sense to throw high to drop them from above.
@@kudosbudo They do bounce up if thrown right, and if thrown in other ways good for just fowling shields or bouncing randomly at around knee level there. They're designed for both uses there.
There is a character in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series called Rock, who is a big hulking meathead and is also a great archer. I read some commentary from the author who expressed your point about needing a high level of strength to use a bow effectively, and that's why he reversed the trope and made the biggest guy in the squad the archer.
This kind of discussion makes me imagine a video game where weapon practicality is actually a consideration. A game where your carrying capacity is realistically small (meaning you aren't able to schlep around hundreds of pounds of loot on top of your weapons and armor), which weapons are appropriate or even legal to carry is realistically restricted (meaning people will think less of you if you go around in full plate with a halberd on your shoulder 24/7), and money is realistically hard to come by (meaning a single good-sized gold coin is a rarity), so you're incentivized to use lightweight and cost-effective weapons, even if they aren't necessarily the best thing available in terms of killing the enemy, because they're what you've got and what you can carry and use. There's an actual reason to carry a one-handed sword, other than making larger weapons arbitrarily slow.
Dark Souls 2 is probably the closest vibe to this I've experienced. Between the relatively low durability of weapons, and that unlike the other games, your weight isn't just a binary benchmark, but something that there are always benefits to lowering, and how nigh essential having at least one ranged option is for every character, there is a lot more negotiation of what weapons you are going to use just on principles of having enough variety to cover circumstances, having adequate sidearms to deal with enemies in quantity, and having weapons to cover eachother's weaknesses. It's not just slap the best weapon you have on so long as it doesn't push you above 70%, it can be worthwhile to take something lighter to accommodate a better backup weapon, or just to be lighter in general. Ultimately it is a bit undercut by always having access to your inventory, and being able to hot swap your weapons and armor, and there's not really a money or diplomacy aspect, but, it's one of the only games I've played where budgeting weight for backup weapons is a serious factor, and a weapon that's clearly not your best to have a place of pride in your setup because it's a lightweight, more dependable backup and compliment to whatever your "main" weapon is, and building up a stable of decent options for those roles is actually rewarding, instead of just dumping everything you get into the big stick you use for the rest of the game once you get it.
The "Thief" series of first person skulkers was good about making your character a poor swordsman, and he couldn't hold his bow at max pull for very long. If you played in hard modes, you learned quickly the same thing that WOPR/Joshua learns in the movie War Games: fighting enemies is a strange game; the only way not to lose is not to play.
I love your video! I would like to add one more detail for the axe you are using and it's wrong use in the fantasy. This weapon you are showing was prefered weapon for European rangers and ranger-like profesions. Since they walked more than they fought, and were expected to be ambushed, this weapon is just the best for the work. Also it is still good enough for clearing the branches and young trees, which is also the main part of rangers work
I would say that the differences between fantasy and real with weapons like greatswords actually make them even more cool. Sure they may not look the same but if you practice enough with a real greatsword and learn proper technique then you can say: “I can swing a greatsword faster IRL than my character can in *insert game here*” And that kind of statement kinda makes you feel a bit like a fantasy hero yourself.
Love this kinds of videos! I honestly think makeing a character use a weapon realistically is a way to differentiate them in a cool way. One time I played a dnd character that used a an axe but one that looks like the one is this video. So fun!
If you want a good archer, start with the grandfather. A crossbowman can be trained in a few days. I've been studying weapons for 40+ years. But I didn't really start to truly understand them until I began making them myself. Mine are made with a post-apocalyptic aesthetic but I do strive to make them be usable. Though I have strayed into a fantasy-weapon realm on occasion. Making light, easily handed shields has been the bane of my crafting. Light and useful as a shield isn't easy I've found. Too many weapons in games (with TTRPGs or video games) were designed by people that have never held a weapon in hand in their lives. And it shows.
One little Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition mechanic I love was that you could attune your bow to have a higher pull back weight. So on top of requiring a good dexterity to wield it accurately, you also need a minimum strength score to even pull it back and fire
I love these videos and topics like this. The perception of how old things are and fiction altering perception makes for interesting stories and misconceptions that are neat. A kinda funny example with crossbows being the replacement for guns in fantasy, is that a lot of fantasy depicts armor and types of weapons that would be around when guns were actually around too. Gun powder started spreading in the 14th century, and the Arquebus shows up in the 15rh century. Which the armor of the late 14th through 15th century armor is often the most common and popular depicted armor in fiction. So more often than not, guns could show up in your fantasy series, but the perception is that guns are far after knights and castles.
You're the kind of person I want to be friends with. You're so charismatic, and come across as a genuinely lovely person, and you still get to the point of things. I'd like to have a pint with you and just talk fantasy for hours on end.
Your maturity and communication skills are as impressive as your ability to use the weapons and tools that you're so knowledgeable about. Your video is great to watch while making my own fantasy world.
I like how original Predator movie portrayed the bow Schwarzenegger's character used: it clearly required a lot of strength to pull. I believe old cRPGs Gothic 1 and 2 were also few examples of bows requiring strength to draw (damage dealt still scaled with agility but you had to met strength requirements to even equip them). And of course, depending on edition you play, DnD might have better bow users that are of Fighter class than of Hunter (at least as far as archery itself is concerned).
About daggers: one use they had in battlefield was getting around armor. Unlike in most of fantasy, swords can't usually get through proper heavy armor, but if you get into the grappling range, hitting weak spots like armpits etc is a lot more viable.
I always appreciate when D&D or Pathfinder or any other TTRPG has a bow that gives strength to damage, or they let strength augment the damage at range (Usually compound or heavy bows) purely so that you can have a beefy bowman and not be wasting a stat
I won't claim to be an expert but as someone interested in all this- the inhumanely huge straight swords you showed a picture of *I think* are "Bearing Swords" which I'm under the impression are carried in parades by servants to show a lord's status. I would hope they were battle-ready but pessimistically I suspect not. As for the huge Odachi, I'm even less certain about this but I believe the large Odachi were often donated to shrines kind of like pieces of art. Again I'm no expert and welcome anyone fact-checking me, I'm just interested in the flashy parts of history that get reflected in fantasy.
I think this is mostly correct. Part of the reason these examples survive is because they were intended for display purposes only. In most places old swords were eventually repurposed into different tools or just thrown away, and e.g. most of the surviving examples of medieval or older European and Mediterranean swords we have managed to be preserved by being at the bottom of a riverbed or a bog. (Japan is exceptional, in that thousands of centuries-old blades, even several blades more than 1,000 years old, survive to this day.)
I know that there is like a 2m long sword, the zhanmadao. It is espacially use to fight cavallary. So it needs to be long to get the rider out of the saddle or behead the horse (poor horsi:( )
One specific game sword that is *somewhat* accurate compared to the rest in the same games is is the Mirrah Greatsword in Dark Souls 2. Its fighting style is also existent in the Hollowslayer Greatsword in Dark Souls 3, and the Banished Knight's Greatsword in Elden Ring. They do still have a bit of floor-scraping and separated attack momentum, but they manage to sort of emulate the real movements of larger swords better than the other swords in these games
I've always kind of understood knives/daggers, at least in the context of late medieval combat, as not the weapon you bring to wield in a sword (let alone polearm) fight, but rather the weapon you use to win if that fight has degraded to a grappling one.
I keep seeing shots where the first time what you're doing with the weapon makes me so nervous, then I go back and look closer and see what you're doing to make it safer than it looks--impressed by all the care taken!
Aside from the mentioned misconception that bows don't require strength, my next biggest pet peeve for bows is probably the fantasy designs of bows that make them look like elaborate, inflexible (and hella impractical) armatures with a string attached.
What confuses a lot of people is the concept of a sidearm (even though we still have them), because they assume effective modern policing like ours. The idea that you were principally responsible for your own security, not just on a personal level but pretty much throughout your life, is foreign to modern people. At most, you could rely on your family and community but rarely on the law. The times the local guardsmen (who were primarily military men under the local lord and not policemen) saved you from violence were an exception rather than the rule. So sidearms? People wore a weapon they would use to protect themselves, especially when travelling or out in a place where they may encounter strangers. It must be light enough that it can dangle off your side (hence the name) all day long but still potent enough that it would deter someone who values your moneypouch above your life. The larger and more visible, the better deterrent, as long as you could comfortably carry it and look like you can use it. You also need it to draw it quickly, if a thug attacks you they are not going to wait until you figure out your complicated back-rig for your two-handed sword or axe or whatever. Sidearms are different and complementary to battle weapons, ie, weapons you bring when you expect to fight (principally either a polearm like a spear or bow). Knights carried a sword (maybe a mace or sometimes an axe) as their sidearm and a lance for their sidearm.
That depends on where and when, a lot of places had laws saying a representative of a family would have to do duty guarding the village/town/city where they lived, the rich paid people to do it, the place then later taxed people and hired them themselves freeing up everyone to do their jobs full time (iirc that's the story of the first professional police force in England). As for knights, again depends when and were, English Knights for example at one point mostly fought on foot in full plate, riding their horses to battle and then dismounting, so rarely used a Lance at all, instead using pole weapons and then at one point even Archers used field plate that pretty much covered them head to toe.
I think it's true that by the High Middle Ages, almost every adult in Europe, even women, could be assumed to be carrying a knife at all times. They'd use it for eating, as a utility tool, and it could also be used for self defence. (But maybe not as much as we'd think--there was that Medieval Deathboat twitter account that posted the equivalent of medieval coroner reports, and deaths by intentional violence seemed to be mostly from improvised clubs or bludgeons.) By the late medieval/early modern period, it's likely most men of means, e.g. merchants and artisans, could also afford to wear a sword at all times. And I believe in the Canterbury Tales, the miller and the merchant are both described having a sword and buckler for defending themselves on the road?
_What_ someone could carry was also affected by local laws or customs. A knife of some sort might have been common for everyone, but swords or other melee weapons might only be allowed for nobles (and even the lengths restricted). Not that swords are easy to use effectively, which is why the cliche 'blunt object' was also popular.
People did sometimes bear staff weapons in civilian life in medieval & Renaissance Europe. Traveling with a spiked staff appears to have been rather common in England. Joseph Swetnam recommended it for folks carrying a lot of money & under danger of being robbed, whether they were going on foot or on horseback.
@@julietfischer5056 This is like the misconceptions bout the old west, people assume everyone always had their sixgun on no matter what but like you say about local laws for swords. some old west towns if you were not a resident the the local sheriff or deputy would make you check your iron. Because the last thing lawman wants is a bunch of who knows whos that just rode in on horse or the train getting boozed up in the saloon while playing cards and pull their gun.
Kinda wish DnD 5E treated Str and Dex more like how Dark Souls does. Most weapons need some amount of both, with certain weapons favoring one over the other. Trying to make 5E weapons scale on both gets into broken numbers really quickly.
One of the shortcomings of tabletop is that you need to keep calculations simple. Dark Souls can get away with elaborate scaling formulas because the machine behind the game runs all of that. You can't just throw out a weighted ratio formula to a person at a D&D table and expect them to know how to do it. THAT SAID Most modern D&D caps player scaling at 20/+5 for an attribute anyways, so you might be able to approach it in a way similar to how D&D handles balancing different armor weights, by capping what you can actually get as a bonus to a particular stat. Say, instead of a Greatsword just adding strength as to hit and damage, you cap these values at, say, +3 from Str, +3 from Dex, while a Maul only scales off Str. Maybe higher grade magic weapons have higher caps, to account for players being able to squirm their way above the 20 softcap for stats at that level of play. The one thing to be aware of though, is how much modern D&D is kinda shifting to Single Ability Dependance for many classes. Most classes have a way to funnel all of their primary requirements into one stat, like Hexblade for Charisma, Battle Smith for Int, ect. By making martials more multiple ability dependent, you ARE nerfing them, even if it's in the name of cool flavor and vibes. It's doable, you just have to keep calculations easy to remember and do on the fly, and caps are the easiest calculations, especially since the game already uses them.
MapleStory _used_ to do something like that, with each class having a main stat and a secondary stat, with class-specific weapons needing enough of both to equip. Warrior: STR/DEX Magician: INT/LUK Bowman: DEX/STR Thief (Assassin path): LUK/DEX Thief (Bandit & Dual Blade paths): LUK/DEX+STR Pirate (Brawler & Cannoneer paths): STR/DEX Pirate (Gunslinger path): DEX/STR But then they cut it down to just one stat for each for "simplicity". -_-
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Yeah, I am most of the way through creating a ttrpg of comparable complexity to 5e, and my emphasis on making everything require no more than a couple of dice, pencils, and paper is a major limiting factor. There are a lot of complex calculations that, while they could make for a 'better' game, are way too much to do by hand, especially on a regular basis.
I think 5e was designed to be simple compared to a game like pathfinder. In 5 e a longbow is a long bow is a long bow. In pathfinder you could use a composite longbow which added the archer's strength to the damage of a hit. Magic composite bows could be made with the adaptive feature which adjusted to the strength of the wielder. You could use your +2 strength to do +2 damage with your adaptive composite bow or glug down a potion of giant strength and do +6 damage with the same bow.
Another silly thing about bows in fantasy is how they're always bent and strung. Character will march for days with a strung bow on their back, then use it when faced with danger. Like, my friend, that poor thing is now bent and useless. The greatest use of crossbow I can remember off the top of my head was by Richard's army in the crusade: 2 lines of crossbowmen, the first one to shoot the enemy, the second line would only reload and pass the cocked weapon back to the first. I would also add another category to this video: armor. In fantasy and historical movies, steel armor is usually made of tissue paper and get penetrated by absolutely everything. In reality, a good armor made you essentially invulnerable.
And even the cheaply made modern costume armour for larp, as an example, can protect you to a degree. It may also hurt you because of bad construction and cheap materials, but it is still a type of steel around you, and people generally just aren't strong enough to cut steel.
I don't have much to say because I lack in any real expertise in these topics but I just wanted to say that this was super entertaining and educational, good job!
I love the rhythm of your speech. I usually have to double the speed on you tube channels. Here, I'm mesmerized. Not to mention your lovely deep voice !
I love that you address the differences between fantasy and reality and games and especially WHY it is handled this way in games for the purpose of balancing, rule of cool and entertainment. As reality and games have completely different sets of rules to adhere by. In reality, practicality and efficiency is key. Because you only have one life, so to say and even a small mistake in a swordfight can get you a lethal wound and that's simply it then. In video games, the main purpose is entertainment. And while blocking and attacking at teh same time makes sense in a real battle, two enemies facing off doing exactly that in a game leads to a very boring gaming experience.
@9:56, this point right here demonstrates the primary difference between fantasy weapons and real weapons. Look where the center of balance is as he's holding that axe. It's damn near the blade of the axe with almost the entirety of that thick wooden handle taking up the other half of the mass. That's how heavy that axe is. Any fantasy axe is going to portray the center of mass somewhere near the middle of the handle. And this applies to any other weapon comparison as well. The fantasy counterparts almost always look like they're made of plastic or foam (because they usually are) or they're mall ninja stuff that you're supposed to stick on a wall somewhere and NEVER ACTUALLY USE AS A WEAPON.
I love that Polish axe you have, it looks like it'd be a great wilderness tool. Walking stick, poking stick, hammer, and that axe head (while meant for combat), can still be useful for bushcraft if you don't carry a small hatchet for it.
On the topic of Crossbows and TTRPGs- I'd like to present one of the bullets on the 2024 5e Dungeons and Dragons- Crossbow Expert feat: "Ignore Loading. You ignore the Loading property of the Hand Crossbow, Heavy Crossbow, and Light Crossbow (all called crossbows elsewhere in this feat). If you're holding one of them, you can load a piece of ammunition into it even if you lack a free hand." We've reached "Its basically a gun" at this point. You could be a Fighter who's making 4-8 attacks in a 6 second time frame with any of these crossbows alternatively you could have a shield in your hand or only have one hand and still be able to reload and shoot a hand crossbow after each individual shot. DnD sure has its superhuman folks huh!
Even with the loading penalty D&D crossbows are hilariously fast compared to real heavy war crossbows. Really good crossbowmen with heavy windlass crossbows consistently produced about two shots a minute. Rather different from one every six seconds. That's one of the reasons they used the Pavise, you needed significant protection whilst you loaded one (which makes it unfortunate if, for instance, some French noble has put them on the back of the baggage train and decided to start the battle before you can go and get them and you're fighting an inconveniently large number of longbowmen, as happened to the Italian mercenaries at Crecy).
@@AshenVictor They'd also fight in teams when using those heavy crossbows + pavise, both to move and set up those shields, and so you had a shooter and reloader(s). But for D&D, it makes sense from a game play perspective. Crossbows need to be balanced against bows. In real life, they had certain advantages, including how long it takes to make a crossbowman versus a longbow man, that don't translate well into the game setting.
Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series was basically inspired by looking at those gigantic fantasy swords and thinking, "How could I make that *plausible* in my fantasy world?" (Well, that and turning Pokemon into the basis for a functional magical system - it was a bet/dare from an online forum….)
two questions have occured to me whilst watching this; 1. Have you ever done yourself a mischief whilst using these, or at least whilst learning to? 2. What do your neighbours think of you swinging around big swords and firing strange things like boxing gloves from a bow and arrow in your garden?
The Polish axe is typically called Shepherd´s axe, or a Valachian axe. It´s a tool for self defense, mostly against wild animals and other soft targets, like bandits. It was a dangerous weapon, although arguably too short or light for a fight against armored opponent. Those that didnt expect to fight humans, and only had it to fight animals and use it as a walking stick even often used it with a wooden axe head. I´ve got two at home, both with a wooden axe head. It may sound ridiculous, but unless you try to bash in a metal helmet, or a bear´s skull, the wooden head is still a very dangerous piece of equipment. Plus it´s more comfortable to hold, especially in cold weather.
You should have a look at Mount & Blade 1 & 2 (the 2nd is called Bannerlord), probably one of the more realistic takes on medieval type weaponry and relatively small army tactics - though arguably a fantasy setting the weaponry mainly matches real life weapons from the dark ages...
One of the books in Glen Cook's Black Company fantasy series had a scene where some peasants are being taught to fight with spears to defend their town from arriving baddies. The very first lesson was never throw you spear because then you won't have a spear to fight with.
One of the neat things about the 2024 revised version of D&D is that longbows now benefit from the Great Weapon Master feat, which has a strength requirement. So now to do the most damage with bows you can't dump strength.
One thing to keep in mind about fantasy (especially japanese and eastern media) is that characters are also inhumanly strong which helps sell the idea of oversized weapons, because when they aren't swinging an ultra greatsword, they are also wrestling all sorts of demons and tanking magical attacks and big strikes, they are also portrayed as lightning fast and as sneaky as a ghost, all while looking like an average young person, sometimes even children, which isn't bad its just one way of creating a mood or delivering a message, realism is just one of many tools the author has at their disposal.
Ty for this beautiful vid mate. I wish you were familiar with other similar staple fantasy weapons the "trash" ones like slings, darts (plumbata) and so on to show how deadly they were and how wrong their portrayals are.
I think a lot of tropes concerning bows in movies (fantasy or not) are also that They're ranged weapons, so directors will treat them like guns, guns from movies to be precise. So, point blank shooting is feasible, you can aim it ready to fire as long as you want, you won't need any strength, etc... For a bow requiring strength, in the second book of pillars of the Earth, World Without End, one of the characters as a child crafted a bow and was super proud of it.... Until he got on the archery range and realized he didn't had the strength to fire an arrow XD
@21:17 As a GURPS fanboy, while Dexterity is the controlling Attribute for _nearly_ all weapons, *weapons such as bows have a **_minimum_** Strength requirement.* For every point of Strength (ST) you are below the minimum required, your suffer a -1 penalty to your attacks. If that sounds mild, *note* that GURPS uses 3d6, rolling at or _below_ the target number for calculating success. A single -1 can your odds by as much as 12.5%! *The game is still being generous,* but it admits it. Eventually.
One of the main advantages of crossbows is that they are _so_ much easier to use than bows, and require much less training. Less training means it's cheaper, especially in the long run (since training isn't just a "I trained this, now I'm good and don't need to train ever again" thing, as you pointed out already in a previous video). Oh, and the fastest repeating crossbow that I know of (there could be some weird, overspecialized high-tech ones, or some pure trickshot ones, I guess) is the chu-ko-nu. Incredibly inaccurate and weak, but intended for mass use at short range (from rooftops and walls and such downward onto nearby enemies), and for relatively unskilled people. It was more of a "village/town defense" weapon for non-soldiers than anything else.
The Rangers Apprentice series by John Flanagan. Specifically book 4 demonstrate this very concept so well. Read it if interested.If not Spoilers ahead. In the book the main character has to train several dozen slaves to use Bows to fight against an invasion force,which is something most of the slaves hadn't used in years. But he obviously can't train them all to shoot with any skill. Instead he teaches them different Range positions. He has them use high ground and shields to hide his dugouts. The enemies they fight get absolutely shredded due to the amount of arrows being rained on them. All the while these weak slaves are just waiting for the next call to release.
for me it's super interesting to listen about proper fight technique. I'm larper, I cannot do big fights due to my heavy asthma, I need everything to be finished in seconds, but at the same time if something happens I want my character to protect themself. So I'm always getting weapons with significantly smaller reach than my opponent. Yeah, reach is great, but if you let somebody crazy go close to you, then until you switch weapons you are helpless. And for me? Either I win in less than minute or I already lost. Suprisigly, without any proper training, I tend to win more often than loose even when fighting with more expirenced player. Then just don't expect anyone to choose knife fight, when they have swords
Generally speaking, a knife is 1) a tool, 2) a last line of defense 3) a projectile for emergencies 4) an actual ranged weapon 5) a melee weapon For Rogues and other stealthies, swap 2 and 5.
The Scorpion King, of all movies, is a movie that really puts the muscle into archery. The titular hero is an archer, but they had him played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson, a man with muscles on his muscles. When the wiry sneaky horse thief played by Grant Heslov tries to pull the string of a warbow back he can't budge it an inch. Another neat detail is when the main villain Memnon plays up a reputation he can catch arrows. Of the three arrows aimed at him in the movie, he only catches one, as part of a party trick, when the shooter was on _his_ side. When he learns _enemy_ archers have broken into his city, he does the smart thing and grabs a shield instead
Also about knife combat - on a battlefield in most cases knives would be pulled out not even as a defense, but as a "if I'm going down, I'm going to at least leave you a scar for good memory" kind of thing. Because if things got THAT bad that your only resolve is a knife - it's already 97% that you are not surviving this. Knives as a stealth weaponry, on the other hand, is a whole different can of worms...
I wish more fiction used strength based bows firing slow, powerful shots because to me that is just so cool, especially when combined with unrealistic strength to fire huge arrows that are basically siege weapons
For me, the big thing about stealthy characters using knives to quietly take down targets is that most people find getting stabbed somewhat unpleasant. That person is likely to struggle, cry for help, or otherwise make lots of noise.
Regarding strength stat actually required for a bows, there's an anime called Revenger that pivots on that aspect. Teppa Murakami's an extremely tall and buff doctor/archer, and the muscle tone matches what's required to shoot the kind of equipment he uses. Extremely different from the archer stereotype, but it looks really good.
7:28 Search up "Lets beat seki sensei #1 wakizashi vs dual katana" essentially this video is just a kenjutsu master clowning on his pupils. It's a very interesting way to see HOW a skilled person would deal with an oponent with larger reach than them
Even a hunter with a bow caught by surprise is bound to at least have a good knife on them. They'd need it for various utilitarian uses, including cleaning game. Granted, they might not have it stowed to draw quickly, but I figure many would have their knife in a relatively convenient spot. Getting into a knife-fight isn't ideal, but it's still going to be better than trying to stab with an arrow.
You'd be surprised, back then irl, people were not so urbanized, there was next to no police force in a city let alone outside one (baring a civil militia, who were mostly doing their day jobs or sleeping), criminals have always been about and if the nearest "police force" was 2-3 days away, that's if they ever found out about the crime...
See, I've always said that that in a multiplayer game, a greatsword that was designed around knockback but only mid damage would make for a great support class weapon or tank weapon. A wide attack radius where your attacks get faster but harder to redirect the longer you attack with it, enough knockback that you can protect the squishies from melee attack, makes for a great option in my opinion. Sure, you aren't doing much for magic/ranged, but there might be other options for that.
I will say that knives, or more specifically and explicitly, thrusting daggers, are very relevant and prominent for use in armoured fighting. Not for the fencing per se, but for the point where you've managed to take your armoured opponent down and now you're on top of them and trying to finish them off lest they get back on their feet. A short, thin blade that is easy to control and can be jammed through helmet visors, inbetween plates, into joints and the gaps under the armpits that even high quality full plate plate tends to have for mobility purposes is simply perfect for the job. It's much easier to use a dagger there than to use a sword (though halfswording was practiced for that very reason), and don't even get me started on weapons that are often misinterpreted as anti-armour such as maces and single handed warhammers. It is likely that more armoured knights and men-at-arms were killed with daggers than with any other given weapon, though that alone doesn't change the fact that these daggers weren't primary weapons and instead had a very specific role and purpose in combat. But then again, that doesn't strictly make it a back-up, but more of a utility weapon. You're not using it because it's the only weapon you got, but because in that particular situation, it's the best weapon to use.
Misericords for the final strike on a downed opponent. Stilettos can do the same thing. Through the eye-slits of a visor or other vulnerable points in plate or other types of armor.
It's not really a misinterpretation to say that the short maces, warhammers, & axes used by cavalry were antiarmor weapons. Bertrandon de la Broquière wrote that he thought Ottoman maces could knock a person out through a helmet & John Vernon wrote that mounted arquebusiers needed pole axes (presumably some sort of a short axe suitable for cavalry) because their swords wouldn't be much good against cuirassiers (who wrote three-quarters armor plus a buff coat). & Pietro Monte seems to have had a high opinion of using a short warhammer in both hands from the saddle. Etc. Based on current texts, period authors had different opinions about whether a sword or a short impact weapon was better for armor cavalry engaging with their counterparts.
So one of the TTrpg's I'm currently playing does cover the idea that you need strength to pull back a bow. Bows in that game have a rating (drawweight) and if you don't meet the strength requirement for that bow your aim and damage from the bow suffer by quite a bit, conversely if you exceed the strength requirement... It doesn't magically increase the damage you do with the bow, you'll need to get yourself a higher drawweight bow to do more damage.
I don't think you mentioned this, but with the giant two-hander you have the two parrying spikes (I had to look up the correct term for them--"Schilden") partway up the blade. These acted as a secondary crossguard so you could choke up on the sword for use of different techniques!
Thank you for this video. The axe aspect of being weapons with more finesse than most may think, is exactly something I want to depict in a game I hope to create. The protagonist is a monstrous, grey-skinned humanoid with red beard, teeth on his eyebrows, sickly yellow eyes and a downwards-pointing number 3-shape with a slit above it for nostrils. His name is Fulkrost and he is quite naive and oddly innocent, almost like a child. Straightforward, too. He barely has a grasp on the concept of lying, if at all, exclusively seeks power/energy and operates by a code of "one favor is worth another". His tool is an axe, much like a Dane axe, with a thick pommel on one end and a blade that is somewhere between the number 3 and a crescent moon with a spike in the middle. The upper curved spike can magically morph to form more of a recurve shape, allowing for nicer downward slicing motions and more effective thrusts/piercing jabs. I hope to make the game something in the vein of Darksiders, Soulstice, DMC, that kind of stuff. With some inspirations from Kya: Dark Lineage. Fulkrost's techniques with the axe would definitely involve the hooking and pulling motions, alongside quarterstaff techniques and the reprisals you mention. That's not all, though: His axe works in tandem with a magical gauntlet he wears on his left arm. Within the palm, he can catch and absorb force and energy. Kinetic force, heat of a fire, etc. The energy is stored, and from there Fulkrost can redirect the power into his axe. At that point the axe will swing itself: He merely needs to direct it. BUT he can up the ante. And make the axe swing with such force, that he *himself* is swung alongside it. Or throw it into the sky, after knocking up an enemy, where it will spin and act as a buzzsaw for a while to keep the enemy in the air. During that time Fulkrost can focus on other enemies or prepare for follow-up moves. Or simply make the axe move forward (like a Stinger/Harpoon Tackle/Piercing Lung move) towards... whichever direction he points the axe. Alternatively, he may simply choose to use a copper-colored spiked mace with a head shaped like a hexagonal cylinder. Simple and effective. Hoping to make games with some family members too, like a semi-Eldritch immortal Scottish harpy with a Lochaber axe, or a headless dual axe-wielder with a face on his chest that uses his dual hand axes for punching, slicing and hooking. Thank you again for the video, and have a good one!
I'm playing as a rogue in my first Pathfinder 2e campaign and I'm fascinated by how the mechanics make using flintlocks and crossbows so different compared to D&D. You're better off having a bandolier with a few pistols and reloading them out of combat. Crossbows take a lot of precious actions to reload so again you're best off getting that one shot off then ditching it for the rest of the fight. Even though my rogue is able to draw and shoot a (loaded) weapon in one action thanks to a feat, it's still like that.
Rules of Combat: 1: Try and stay out of it 2: If you can't, stay as far as possible from anyone trying to hurt you (range is God Stat) 3: It's VASTLY better to make More attacks than make Better attacks (100 weak attacks beats 10 attacks each one as strong as 11 weak hits beats 1 attack as strong as 120 weak hits) Try and name a slow, very low reach melee that does huge damage per hit that's also genuinely good as a weapon, especially against a weapon highly opposite as per the above traits.
PILE BUNKER ...which only works in an environment where everyone has extreme three dimensional mobility, and a massive need for armor penetration on the anti-tank scale or better. Also it's an imaginary weapon. Also it's more or less construction equipment being used as a weapon because it's cool. Also maybe a taser? Not exactly fast, very short range, but if you tase a guy in plate he's probably having a very bad day.
@youtubeuniversity3638 I mean The taser can probably work through some armor materials better than a bow can. It needs a follow up to finish it, but, y'know. Prooooobably not the hand pistol though. But you CAN get a taser probably by the end of the day today, while a hand pistol is a whole process. As for PILE BUNKER Well you see, the hand pistol can't punch through the magic space metal, while the pile bunker can, because it is made out of magic space metal. You forgot to account for the nebulous properties of magic space metal in your calculations, classic rookie mistake, happens to the best of us.
The Gladius. A relatively heavy shortsword. Used by the legions of Rome to generally slap the shit out of all sorts of people using spears and pikes which should have had a significant reach advantage.
One of the 'fantasy' stories I love that showcases bows requiring strength is the Odyssey. Sure, Odysseus isn't exactly known as an archer, as his bow only comes into play as a plot device in the ending, but I always found it telling that it was used to indicate that strength was required for the weapon, and it's not for the scrawny non fighting types. It's overhyped, with Penelope's suitors being entirely unable to even bend the bow enough to string it, but the intent is there. It's not a substitute weapon for the weakest.
i actually really like how bows work in the Chronicles of Darkness ttrpg gameline Your attack roll is dexterity (attribute) + athletics (skill), because that's how accurate you can shoot. But the damage bonus is fully based on strength. higher strength = higher damage. More powerful bows have a higher minimum strength requirement (and max strength for how far the damage scales), if you don't have that, your accuracy takes a hit.
The fact that fantasy archers are usually noodle arms still baffles me. Heck, there were entire families and bloodlines dedicated to longbow and apparently you could spot the comissioned longbowman in a village from the sheer width and bulk of their shoulders.
I am not a combat trained fighter. Not real combat anyway. But I have done a lot of larping, and let me tell you, knifes are damn near impossible to use with any success. You highlight exactly the issues in using a knife as a main weapon. It can work, but even in a setting where you aren’t going to die, and the worst injury is a bit of bruising, making a knife work is just hard.
classic "god-strat" in any larp i have been to was a good old phalanx. reach, defensive potential, and provides cover for some specialists that can breach the enemy side. gets beaten by particualrly risky or bracen opponents sometimes XD
@@arnesieper8332 Main problem with real battle tactics in LARPs is that thrusting tends to be illegal, making spears and polearms slightly less useful in formation (although the reach advantage is still pretty massive).
As I and a few friends did archery, we would play TTRPGs using home-brew rules. Strength wouldn't be used for a roll , but as a requirement, the higher power the bow the stronger your character had to be to use effectively. And you'd use a different stat to shoot it depending on the way you used it, if you wanted to shoot quickly or repeatedly in a short time, dexterity, but if you were taking time to aim, we'd use the appropriate mental skill, like composure in World of Darkness, or wisdom in DnD.
For bows and strength, I always think of the ending of The Odyssey when none of Penelope's suitors are strong enough to be able to string. Odysseus' Bow
A little thing about daggers; knives, something quite fun was people used knives to kill or finish off downed heavily armoured opponents. Piling up on them and finding slits and spaces between armour plates. Though that was mostly thinner blades in my limited studies.
The Eberron setting for D&D actually has quite a good justification for crossbows being basically guns. People have had crossbows for like 500 years or something and never developed guns, so they just kept improving draw strength, feed and reload mechanisms, industrialised production methods, stuff like that. Some crossbows even use magic do directly pump more kinetic energy into the bolt and have just a minimal amount of draw strength to get the bolt moving.
My brother made a character in the game Lineage 2 which was an Orc specialized in strength. His arrows were so powerful and could hit so far that castle sieges (PVP) became a massacre, and they patched the game to make archery dependent on dexterity alone. So there you go, one trope created by exploiting real physics too much, until the other players had enough.
The other things about great swrods is that in games where reach is important, it's really hard to get around something with long range and relatively fast swings
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So... Green Arrow must _really_ piss you off.
I'm curious, would you consider reviewing the weapons in the 2018 Robin Hood movie? I'd love to see that. XD
@@kurvos I’d have to watch it again, but I do remember enjoying that film
@@blumineck I find it entertaining how absurd the "crossbow-guns" in the movie are, and how they use longbows as if they were modern assault rifles in a certain scene. I have yet to see someone make a breakdown of how absurd they portray it in that movie.
Either way, thanks for the response, and keep up the good work! :)
Have you ever seen or maybe used one of those "automatic" crossbows? They're from somewhere in Asia (I forgot) but they work with some kind of old "autoloader" style thingy
I love that you said the first rule about knife fighting is "don't get in a knife fight." I heard a self defense instructor say something similar,
"The loser of a knife fight dies on the street. The winner dies in the hospital."
A knife fight will always get you stabbed, no matter who wins. It’s MAD for melee combatants.
My pet peeve with bows in videogames is that bows don't bend and you basically rubberband the string. You can excuse it as saving efforts for animations, but when you see fantasy bows made from some non-elastic material - it just screams: it won't work!
or when there is no quiver/arrow ever with the bow xD
Or how the bow is left stringed, which is bad for both the bow and the string.
@@BaronPip yeah, I’ve covered that in a short before, and the number of artists and animators who genuinely didn’t know that bow strings aren’t elastic was astonishing!
Nice thing I've noticed in Vermintide 2: While things are not perfect (see: the arrows just materialize out of thin air, sometimes literally, if you have traits that give you more ammo when you kill/headshot/crit something), if you keep a bow drawn for a while, the elf's arms will start shaking (though it's just visual, it does not impact accuracy in any way, and you CAN maintain the draw indefinitely), and the shaking will increase with time.
Wouldn't that make it more like a wrist rocket?
About knives and their reach... The main character of the Italian comic book Tex Willer often gets into knife duels because it's cool and the Western setting provides a few excuses, but the time he had to duel with a sword he realized immediately he was screwed because he had no idea how to fight at that range while his opponent, a Spanish officer in Cuba, was a trained and experienced fencer. He had to take advantage that they were fighting in a church to trick him into fist range to get the upper hand.
I think that is part of short range melee training. Battle tactics require training a few weapon disciplines for each role, all should know how to use close combat weapons like knives. A soldier should know how to close distance when the situation requires it, just like they should understand tactical retreats can be the safest choice. Knife fighting can be very dramatic, but it's most effective when they aren't brandished and danced around with...
@Ael666 Tex isn't a soldier. He fought in the Civil War, but didn't stay in the army.
You see that's using realism to characterise and show intelligence. People forget that the things characters use can be used as limiters for their abilities and that those limits are a good addition to any story
5:05, that was my (ha) "point" in a RPG session: throw a knife, throw a knife, throw a knife, throw a knife,throw a book...
The rest of the party and the GM looked at me funny and I burst out: "I'm outta knives, man, and none of those 'return'"!
When playing a rogue type in a TTRPG I will throw daggers down to the number I use for melee and then fight in melee until combat is over or I acquired more throwing weapons.
The exception being a ninja in PF1e, where I threw shuriken instead and used wakizashi or sai (and a tail blade) for melee.
@@tadferd4340I carry swords for general purpose use, and a concerning number of daggers for throwing if I can’t get close.
One of the D&D splatbooks has a class built around throwing knives. Through near-magic shenanigans, you create knives out of nothingness to throw at your enemies (actual knives. Not knife-shaped magical constructs. IIRC, there's a whole thing where the character is blessed by the concept of being a knife thrower to acquire the ability...)
@@tadferd4340 Yes! PF1E Tail Blade! I used one myself alongside a Hidden Blade from Complete Scoundrel from D&D 3.5 (because PF1E was literally made to be compatible with D&D 3.5) & a Hanbo my Ratfolk character used as a cane, just 3 beautifully hidden weapons (wrapped some cloth around my tail to hide the blade)
@durk5331 My Ratfolk was visibly armed. If weapons were restricted, he hid them before hand, acquired weapons inside, or snuck in. He literally walked into a library through the front door to steal a scroll maguffin. Turned his weapons in at the door, concealing a scroll case. Asked the librarian for directions. Stole the scroll without being seen in the middle of the day. Picked up his weapons at the front door and left.
He was level 10 when the campaign went on indefinite hiatus. His stealth was +27 and being a Ninja he had Vanishing Trick and Invisible Blade. Not to mention a Ring of Invisibility owned by the party. See Invisibility was an inconvenience a few times but nothing some improvisation and teamwork can't fix.
What's interesting regarding the axes is that given the sheer size and weight of a lot of the ones shown in media, they'd be more effectively clubs or warhammers than they would cutting weapons. Their edge could still let them cut in some situations, and with enough raw brute force they could probably cleave through an unarmored foe, but if you have that much power behind your swing to begin with you'd be better off using a mace or warhammer so you have to worry less about it getting caught up in your enemy.
In Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, axes are considered Blunt weapons instead of Bladed ones.
And even warhammers and maces weren't like fantasy depicts them. You typically see huge chunks of metal on massive shafts, completely ridiculous and impractal. What is more realistic is something the size of a fist on a shaft not to dissimilar to a woodcutters axe or carpentry hammer, but perhaps a bit longer.
People quickly learned that sheer mas isn't any more effective and would just tire out the user. But having it come to a point to focus all that force is very good.
@@rolandoftheeld But that is more for balancing reasons.
Weapons are organized around blade, blunt and marksman skills.
Blade encompasses daggers, shortswords, longswords (all one-handed) and two-handed swords.
Blunt encompasses maces (one-handed) and warhammers (two-handed).
Adding axes to blade means there are a lot more types of weapon scaling off blade than blunt, so they put the one and two handed axes into blunt, giving each category four types of weapons.
Skyrim on the other hand just categorizes into one-handed and two-handed.
With swords, axes, and maces/warhammers.
Swords are the fastest but weakest, maces/hammers are the slowest but hit the hardest. Axes are in between.
Morrowind is a whole different level of complexity:
- one-handed axes (war axes)
- two-handed axes (battle axes)
- one-handed blunt weapons (clubs and maxes)
- two-handed close range blunt weapons (warhammers)
- two--handed wide range blunt weapons (staffs)
- short blades (daggers, tantos, wakizashis and shortswords)
- one-handed long blades (longswords, broadswords, katanas and sabers)
- two-handed long blades (claymores and daikatanas)
- spears (spears and halberds)
It also has three types of damage: chop, slash, and thrust. With different types of weapons having different effectiveness (damage) in each of them:
- Axes, clubs and warhammers are great at chopping, decent at slashing and bad at thrusting.
- Staffs are good at chopping and slashing but bad at thrusting,
- Short blades are good at chopping and slashing, some of them also at thrusting, depending on the type.
- Long blades could be good at either, most longswords are great at slashing and thrusting and mediocre at chopping, but katanas are better at chopping and bad at thrusting, and broadswords are best at chopping.
- Similar with two handed blades, claymores excelling at chipping, are decent at slashing and bad at thrusting.
- Spears are excellent at thrusting, but horrible at the other two types.
The same with ranged weapons. Longbows tend to do more damage than shortbows, but are heavier, slower and more expensive.
Crossbows are more consistent with their damage, but a good longbow will have a higher cap, so a trained archer will be more effective with a good bow, while anyone can use a crossbow to it's peak, but lower damage.
There are also throwing weapons, like knifes, darts and throwing stars, but those are generally weaker than melee weapons or bows. Sort of an auxiliary thing and not to be used as main weapon.
Almost as if the devs looked at the weapons and balanced their stats around the real thing.
In video games, the size of many weapons is exaggerated for visual registration.
An axe head, or lightsaber handle, or warhammer, or bow, that is realistically scaled versus the size of the on-screen character can be too small to see well, and sometimes just looks 'wrong'.
I saw a developer note for SWtOR about lightsaber handles take on this topic, where they had to struggle to find the right balance between, it being the right size for the avatar's hand(s) and being large enough for details to register visually. The end product was a bit too 'fat' for realistic hand gripping, but a lot smaller than they first started out with.
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In fantasy games, the most egregious offender is a toss-up between the battle axe and bows.
Battle axes tend to get FAR too huge heads, but many games "level" bows by making them have spikes and protrusions that make no danged sense.
I feel like the same argument for the size of axes being more effective as blunt weapons because of how ridiculously huge they were also applies to the big great swords as well -- this video even compared them to axes the way they are used in fiction. That being said, I know this is going to likely be a hot take, but it's for precisely this reason why I HATE these kinds of swords in video games and whatnot -- they more or less serve the same general purpose of an axe as a big, heavy, and rather unwieldy weapon, just as a sword instead; the problem being that because they are swords, they tend to have more finesse than your average axe would, except this becomes utterly ridiculous when you consider how damned HUGE they are. For this reason, I prefer them to be used more as a sort of big finisher move to take out an enemy in a huge, over-the-top strike, pulled out as a last resort when you absolutely NEED to make sure your target dies -- think something along the lines of Yuri's Heavenly Bladewing mystic arte from Tales of Vesperia (for those familiar with the game). But as a regular weapon? Yeah, no, the are arguably even more impractical than a big axe because you're expected to see them be swung around nimbly because it's a F^*%@&;# SWORD, albeit one that's oftentimes even bigger than the largest axes -- I know this will probably sound controversial, but these ginormous swords are NOT cool when used that way. I very, VERY much prefer the type shown off in this video: it's long, yes, but being able to swing it around so nimbly despite it's size looks far and away cooler to me BECAUSE it's not so ridiculously oversized. Again, I know this is probably a hot take, but it's one that I personally think would serve to better differentiate a big sword from a big axe better
I love when the Uruk-Hai shoots the arrows at Boromir because you can see the tension and strength used
I also find it amazing the muscles Joe Gibbs uses when Tod has him on Tod's Workshop
@@chrisr3570all the muscles down to his toes
@@chrisr3570 it’s incredible! I attended a workshop run by Joe Gibbs once, and that man can get you drawing an extra 20lbs, just through using the right technique to engage the maximum number of muscles!
If I remember correctly the guy that played the Uruk-Hai that schiskbabed Boromir was the lead choreographer for fights.
@@LadyLexyStarwatcher en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Makoare
" In The Fellowship of the Ring, he portrayed the Uruk-hai leader Lurtz, and in The Return of the King, he portrayed the Witch-king of Angmar as well as Gothmog, the Orc commander at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. In The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, he portrayed the Orc commander Bolg, son of Azog."
Was in Xena too.
On the topic of strength in archery: Some editions of D&D and Pathfinder, like Pathfinder 1e, did in fact account for strength being a component of archery. An ordinary shortbow/longbow would not deal any bonus damage from strength or dexterity. However, a custom, more expensive, composite shortbow/composite longbow would deal bonus damage based on strength specifically, and had to be custom made to the strength of the character. A character with a +3 strength bonus would need to get a custom strength 3 longbow in order to utilize that extra damage. It'd be pretty costly early-game, but by late-game the extra cost would be insignificant. So, while it was never strictly required for an archer to have high strength, and you could make do with sub-10 strength if necessary, a high-strength archer could be rewarded for getting equipment which plays to their strength!
Another thing those editions tend to do, is give a penalty to damage with bows if you dumped strength.
In pf2e they gave composite bows a trait that gives them half of the user's str for damage, while all ranged weapons without that trait don't get any boost to damage.
Savage Worlds does this as well. One of my players uses a bow and is fully neglecting his Strength stat, which means he can't even use a normal bow, let alone get a proper advantage out of using that strength stat to deal damage with it.
In the same vein, GURPS uses a system I appreciate for most weapons- attack accuracy are mostly based on Dexterity, while Strength dictates how much damage is dealt. I tend to play medics, researchers, and casters, so there may be some exceptions I am not aware of
Still never made sense to me though because any available bows made for hunting or combat would require and utilize strength to achieve damage. Needing a special composite bow of a certain level just wouldn't be a thing.
1:53 I love the idea that he took multiple takes of the "I love the magic" segment, so he could use the one that gave you the clearest view of him running.
@@jurakarok3343 That was indeed the third take
I really like this guy. He is knowledgeable yet humble in his reasoning.
He doesn't even try to show off himself as an expert.
Much respect!
Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke is the goto example I think of for the idea of an archer emphasizing strength and accuracy over speed, though that has a lot to do with the whole demonic strength given to him by the curse killing him thing so there's its own level of unrealistic fantasy there, but it still is showing the slower drawing speed, the muscles tensing up, and time taken to make the shot count
One of the best depictions
What i hated about that was it's entirely inaccurate in every way. What does brute strength have to do with the power of an arrow through a bow, past not being able to pull it? You will break it if you pull it past the drawback.
@@nicewhenearnedrudemostlyel489 I am under impression that it wasn't as much brute strength, as the evil curse amplifying damage, somewhat like poison. Why else would an arrow cut off a warrior's head?
I just want one fantasy representation of an archer where it's a 2m tall mountain of a man with a 250 pound bow that doesn't do trick shots, doesn't do anything fast; he just fires center mass and things die.
Not exactly realistic, but Hawkeye Gough from Dark Souls is pretty cool. The dude is a literal giant with a fucking giant bow, and he uses it to shoot down a dragon for you to then hunt down and kill on foot.
Just raw, incredible power combined with precision. No fancy tricks, no fast stuff.
I actually remember an occasion of someone doing this in Shadowrun. Turns out when a ~8-foot, 600-pound Troll Physical Adept (PhysAds are magic-users that specialise in magically boosting their own physical strenght, speed, reflexes etc.) decides to take up archery and gets himself a custom-made compound bow, the result qualifies as a light anti-tank weapon. Dude launched a tungsten-carbide bodkin arrow *through* the engine block of an armored SWAT van at one point.
Can I just say, I LOVE that you do your own captions. I've seen too many TH-cam creators, even big ones, just leave it on automatic English when they really ought to be providing more perfectly accurate ones somehow.
I think its automatic too, it has some minor mistakes like in 21:43 ballet/melee or in 13:17 acts / axes.
@@SuperKratosgamer Amusingly if you do put on the English automatically generated captions, it gets both of these correct, meaning at least in these two specific instances the automatic captions are more 'perfectly accurate'.
Also 'swords infection' instead of 'swords in fiction'.
I liked the caption ballet weapons.
@@Lheticus thanks! They are initially automated, and then I try to go through and edit them. The number of times I changed ‘infection’ to ‘in fiction’ and ‘acts’ to ‘axe’ felt insane, but apparently I still missed a few! That’s the problem with being a skim reader I guess!
I appreciate the fact that you explain why the use of those weapons have their own rules in fantasy :) even if they do not correspond to reality, it shows that you truly have respect for the fantasy genre
In what reality? 21st century reality? In reality one-on-one fights were mostly for entertainment, and D&D style adventures are as real as western movies vs actual American history.
I too very much appreciate the light tone when teaching. So many HEMA influencers take this hostile, debunking, one-up tone about "the real deal" to make themselves look bigger.
Yes, the clearing of a way is one of the keys. In Germany, we had some two-handers and the wielders of them called Gassenhauler (literally alley-beater, but it really means path-clearer). Because they were clearing (beating) a path (alley) through the enemy lines. They were highly paid jobs, because 90% of the time, they were a one-run job from which you are most likely to not come back. You were clearing a path and if the enemy was quick enough to close that gap, you're stuck inside the enemy ranks, and once your stamina runs out, you're done for.
But I really loved that video and I do hope for more.
One reason for the multi-bladed throwing weapons you find around the world is because you can't always be certain of hitting with the point otherwise. African multi-bladed throwing axes, Japanese shuriken, or Indian chakrams will cut a target.
And that's why the chakram is so ingenuous. Where do I need to throw from for the blade to cut? Yes.
Those african ones are frightening, chakrams elegant, both cool.
You’re obviously quite fit, but I’m still impressed you were able to garner that much content in a cold environment where you are wielding weapons and educating at the same time.
It's mind boggling how nobody wants to talk about the spear, like, this is what 90% of battles used to use. The pike is the modern version of the spear with the same functionality. Although what makes a big difference between fiction and reality is usually the fact that a war is not fought by 5 men. You fight with thousands of people and each division has their own obligation to do. One archer can't do a lot, but hundreds of archers releasing their arrows is a sight to behold
Macedon's sarissa troops modern? They had pikes too, of course they were readopted in the west again later, so I understand that point of modern.
Heck, first bayonets on rifles were basicly short spears.
It's similar to how horses for a long time were useful for battles, mostly for breaking enemy formations
Very informative. But the main thing is that you tell it so interestingly, and I really like how you do it visually. It is obvious that you invested a lot of points in charisma and agility and pumped up the performance skill, acrobatics and all that stuff. My respect, bro!
Regarding strength on bows: Fire Emblem is solid in this respect! Fire emblem's stats are a little bit different than most other RPGs - you have your damage stat and your accuracy stat, and they apply to both bows and melee weapons equally. Also, there is sometimes a build stat that lets you more effectively wield heavier weapons, or sometimes that's also your damage stat. Anyway, it's solid!
Balancing Archers has frankly always been the most interesting thing to observe in Fire Emblem specifically, where they range from some of the best classes in the game (Echoes with its Killer Bow/Hunter's Volley effectively becoming 5-Range Artillery) while simultanously being some of the most underpowered in another game (GBA FE with it's Early Game Archers, especially FE7 where you do 2-Range damage once on player phase and don't even one-shot the fliars you are supposed to be good against due to only being 2x effective, rather than 3x.)
Its what makes Archers probably one of my favourite classes in Fire Emblem, because every game essentially designs them differently in an attempt to find that sweetspot. And That isn't even to mention the rom-hacking scene and what attempts at tackling the Archer the Fire Emblem community at large has come up with.
Most of these points, especially the bow draw weight vs. tiny archer are why I love GURPS's fanatical attention to rules, you need to have high strength to use a bow, and you need high dexterity (or lots of training to make up the difference) to aim it (in fact that's how muscle-powered weapons work)
Hey, I just wanna say that I'm writing a fantasy novel where the mc is an archer and your videos have been super helpful. Thanks a bunch!
I appreciate the disclaimer that you do still like fantasy even if youre talking about things being unrealistic. I think that most people who critique the realism of fantasy (at least the ones I see!) do it because they love fantasy and would like to see it improved or changed rather than to tear into a genre they dislike
Great aproachable video, mate!
Also at 21:45 the captions say "fighting in BALLET" instead of "meele", and I implore you to keep it like that for forever cause a) it's hilarious and b) the mental image of ballet dancers in combat is just too riddiculus and funny as hell! :)
@@nantu07 thank you!
Haha clearly they are college of dance bards 😂
I'm surprised you didn't touch on how in most fiction, bows are almost always left strung when not in use.
He has before! Had to have _some_ focus for a video covering this much. Most of what he talks about is archery, so go dig if you want more.
David and Goliath was briefly mentioned. One of the things most people don't realize is that David was massive. He was a giant in his own right. Yeah, he was smaller than Goliath, but he would have looked more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than Harry Potter.
Stop using myth as a way to debunk other myths.
@@haroldcruz8550 Huh? What are you even talking about? Have you read the story of David ever? When he fought Goliath, he was in his teens, over 6 feet tall, and quite physically built. All of that is in the story. It's just easy to gloss over.
@@maxschlegel3566 Were you born at that time to know that the story was true? and not just a made up BS. The story of David and Goliath is as real as Achilles vs Hector
For throwing weapons, there was also things like the francisca axe...which had precursors with the norse/germanic peoples, they're scary things that would likely be used to screw with shields, shieldwalls, or charges (both to make or take) while still being useful as, essentially, a sidearm/backup weapon for when needed.
Those things are also a nightmare to actually aim because the intent, in a lot of cases, is to throw low and bounce up...
Do they actually bounce up? I woudl have thought throwing them up high would be better or a combination of both to force folk to choose where they put shields. The reason i say this is as with all thrown things they havign atrajectory and from playing lots of paintball aiming high and dropping shots on folk behind cover is very easy to learn. So it makes more sense to throw high to drop them from above.
@@kudosbudo They do bounce up if thrown right, and if thrown in other ways good for just fowling shields or bouncing randomly at around knee level there.
They're designed for both uses there.
When it comes to throwing weapons the biggest gap is always javelins. By far the most common throwing weapon and the least represented one in media.
There is a character in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series called Rock, who is a big hulking meathead and is also a great archer. I read some commentary from the author who expressed your point about needing a high level of strength to use a bow effectively, and that's why he reversed the trope and made the biggest guy in the squad the archer.
This kind of discussion makes me imagine a video game where weapon practicality is actually a consideration. A game where your carrying capacity is realistically small (meaning you aren't able to schlep around hundreds of pounds of loot on top of your weapons and armor), which weapons are appropriate or even legal to carry is realistically restricted (meaning people will think less of you if you go around in full plate with a halberd on your shoulder 24/7), and money is realistically hard to come by (meaning a single good-sized gold coin is a rarity), so you're incentivized to use lightweight and cost-effective weapons, even if they aren't necessarily the best thing available in terms of killing the enemy, because they're what you've got and what you can carry and use. There's an actual reason to carry a one-handed sword, other than making larger weapons arbitrarily slow.
Dark Souls 2 is probably the closest vibe to this I've experienced.
Between the relatively low durability of weapons, and that unlike the other games, your weight isn't just a binary benchmark, but something that there are always benefits to lowering, and how nigh essential having at least one ranged option is for every character, there is a lot more negotiation of what weapons you are going to use just on principles of having enough variety to cover circumstances, having adequate sidearms to deal with enemies in quantity, and having weapons to cover eachother's weaknesses. It's not just slap the best weapon you have on so long as it doesn't push you above 70%, it can be worthwhile to take something lighter to accommodate a better backup weapon, or just to be lighter in general.
Ultimately it is a bit undercut by always having access to your inventory, and being able to hot swap your weapons and armor, and there's not really a money or diplomacy aspect, but, it's one of the only games I've played where budgeting weight for backup weapons is a serious factor, and a weapon that's clearly not your best to have a place of pride in your setup because it's a lightweight, more dependable backup and compliment to whatever your "main" weapon is, and building up a stable of decent options for those roles is actually rewarding, instead of just dumping everything you get into the big stick you use for the rest of the game once you get it.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Glazing ds2 is crazy work
The "Thief" series of first person skulkers was good about making your character a poor swordsman, and he couldn't hold his bow at max pull for very long. If you played in hard modes, you learned quickly the same thing that WOPR/Joshua learns in the movie War Games: fighting enemies is a strange game; the only way not to lose is not to play.
One handed swords were the norm throughout most places and times in history. Two handed swords are an exception.
@@brianhowe201 Most of these kinds of fantasy games are vaguely gesturing at Late Medieval Europe, where two-handed swords were fairly common.
I love your video!
I would like to add one more detail for the axe you are using and it's wrong use in the fantasy. This weapon you are showing was prefered weapon for European rangers and ranger-like profesions. Since they walked more than they fought, and were expected to be ambushed, this weapon is just the best for the work. Also it is still good enough for clearing the branches and young trees, which is also the main part of rangers work
Long form blumineck videos? YESSS!!!
This man is like the Tom Scott of medieval weapons and it's actually really cool, I hope you make more long-form videos like this!
I would say that the differences between fantasy and real with weapons like greatswords actually make them even more cool.
Sure they may not look the same but if you practice enough with a real greatsword and learn proper technique then you can say:
“I can swing a greatsword faster IRL than my character can in *insert game here*”
And that kind of statement kinda makes you feel a bit like a fantasy hero yourself.
Love this kinds of videos! I honestly think makeing a character use a weapon realistically is a way to differentiate them in a cool way. One time I played a dnd character that used a an axe but one that looks like the one is this video. So fun!
If you want a good archer, start with the grandfather. A crossbowman can be trained in a few days.
I've been studying weapons for 40+ years. But I didn't really start to truly understand them until I began making them myself. Mine are made with a post-apocalyptic aesthetic but I do strive to make them be usable. Though I have strayed into a fantasy-weapon realm on occasion. Making light, easily handed shields has been the bane of my crafting. Light and useful as a shield isn't easy I've found. Too many weapons in games (with TTRPGs or video games) were designed by people that have never held a weapon in hand in their lives. And it shows.
@@tetsubo57 Designed FOR as much as by, too, so the makers knowing better woukd only be half the battle.
thx for the subtitles as a french who has a weaker english level than european people in general that's help me a lot for understanding !
One little Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition mechanic I love was that you could attune your bow to have a higher pull back weight. So on top of requiring a good dexterity to wield it accurately, you also need a minimum strength score to even pull it back and fire
I love these videos and topics like this. The perception of how old things are and fiction altering perception makes for interesting stories and misconceptions that are neat.
A kinda funny example with crossbows being the replacement for guns in fantasy, is that a lot of fantasy depicts armor and types of weapons that would be around when guns were actually around too. Gun powder started spreading in the 14th century, and the Arquebus shows up in the 15rh century. Which the armor of the late 14th through 15th century armor is often the most common and popular depicted armor in fiction. So more often than not, guns could show up in your fantasy series, but the perception is that guns are far after knights and castles.
KCD2 will have firearms, quiet interested, how it will playout
You're the kind of person I want to be friends with. You're so charismatic, and come across as a genuinely lovely person, and you still get to the point of things.
I'd like to have a pint with you and just talk fantasy for hours on end.
@@Grimbur thank you! That’s very kind of you to say!
Your maturity and communication skills are as impressive as your ability to use the weapons and tools that you're so knowledgeable about. Your video is great to watch while making my own fantasy world.
I like how original Predator movie portrayed the bow Schwarzenegger's character used: it clearly required a lot of strength to pull.
I believe old cRPGs Gothic 1 and 2 were also few examples of bows requiring strength to draw (damage dealt still scaled with agility but you had to met strength requirements to even equip them).
And of course, depending on edition you play, DnD might have better bow users that are of Fighter class than of Hunter (at least as far as archery itself is concerned).
About daggers: one use they had in battlefield was getting around armor. Unlike in most of fantasy, swords can't usually get through proper heavy armor, but if you get into the grappling range, hitting weak spots like armpits etc is a lot more viable.
Yeah. Especially two armoured combatants, who would each get out their daggers as bigger weapons weren’t the play.
I always appreciate when D&D or Pathfinder or any other TTRPG has a bow that gives strength to damage, or they let strength augment the damage at range (Usually compound or heavy bows) purely so that you can have a beefy bowman and not be wasting a stat
I won't claim to be an expert but as someone interested in all this- the inhumanely huge straight swords you showed a picture of *I think* are "Bearing Swords" which I'm under the impression are carried in parades by servants to show a lord's status. I would hope they were battle-ready but pessimistically I suspect not.
As for the huge Odachi, I'm even less certain about this but I believe the large Odachi were often donated to shrines kind of like pieces of art.
Again I'm no expert and welcome anyone fact-checking me, I'm just interested in the flashy parts of history that get reflected in fantasy.
I think this is mostly correct. Part of the reason these examples survive is because they were intended for display purposes only. In most places old swords were eventually repurposed into different tools or just thrown away, and e.g. most of the surviving examples of medieval or older European and Mediterranean swords we have managed to be preserved by being at the bottom of a riverbed or a bog. (Japan is exceptional, in that thousands of centuries-old blades, even several blades more than 1,000 years old, survive to this day.)
I know that there is like a 2m long sword, the zhanmadao.
It is espacially use to fight cavallary. So it needs to be long to get the rider out of the saddle or behead the horse (poor horsi:( )
One specific game sword that is *somewhat* accurate compared to the rest in the same games is is the Mirrah Greatsword in Dark Souls 2. Its fighting style is also existent in the Hollowslayer Greatsword in Dark Souls 3, and the Banished Knight's Greatsword in Elden Ring. They do still have a bit of floor-scraping and separated attack momentum, but they manage to sort of emulate the real movements of larger swords better than the other swords in these games
I've always kind of understood knives/daggers, at least in the context of late medieval combat, as not the weapon you bring to wield in a sword (let alone polearm) fight, but rather the weapon you use to win if that fight has degraded to a grappling one.
16:40 I had to rewatch that split arrow trick like ten times the first go around. You beautiful bastard, sneaking that in there so casually.
I keep seeing shots where the first time what you're doing with the weapon makes me so nervous, then I go back and look closer and see what you're doing to make it safer than it looks--impressed by all the care taken!
Aside from the mentioned misconception that bows don't require strength, my next biggest pet peeve for bows is probably the fantasy designs of bows that make them look like elaborate, inflexible (and hella impractical) armatures with a string attached.
What confuses a lot of people is the concept of a sidearm (even though we still have them), because they assume effective modern policing like ours. The idea that you were principally responsible for your own security, not just on a personal level but pretty much throughout your life, is foreign to modern people. At most, you could rely on your family and community but rarely on the law. The times the local guardsmen (who were primarily military men under the local lord and not policemen) saved you from violence were an exception rather than the rule.
So sidearms? People wore a weapon they would use to protect themselves, especially when travelling or out in a place where they may encounter strangers. It must be light enough that it can dangle off your side (hence the name) all day long but still potent enough that it would deter someone who values your moneypouch above your life. The larger and more visible, the better deterrent, as long as you could comfortably carry it and look like you can use it. You also need it to draw it quickly, if a thug attacks you they are not going to wait until you figure out your complicated back-rig for your two-handed sword or axe or whatever. Sidearms are different and complementary to battle weapons, ie, weapons you bring when you expect to fight (principally either a polearm like a spear or bow). Knights carried a sword (maybe a mace or sometimes an axe) as their sidearm and a lance for their sidearm.
That depends on where and when, a lot of places had laws saying a representative of a family would have to do duty guarding the village/town/city where they lived, the rich paid people to do it, the place then later taxed people and hired them themselves freeing up everyone to do their jobs full time (iirc that's the story of the first professional police force in England). As for knights, again depends when and were, English Knights for example at one point mostly fought on foot in full plate, riding their horses to battle and then dismounting, so rarely used a Lance at all, instead using pole weapons and then at one point even Archers used field plate that pretty much covered them head to toe.
I think it's true that by the High Middle Ages, almost every adult in Europe, even women, could be assumed to be carrying a knife at all times. They'd use it for eating, as a utility tool, and it could also be used for self defence. (But maybe not as much as we'd think--there was that Medieval Deathboat twitter account that posted the equivalent of medieval coroner reports, and deaths by intentional violence seemed to be mostly from improvised clubs or bludgeons.) By the late medieval/early modern period, it's likely most men of means, e.g. merchants and artisans, could also afford to wear a sword at all times. And I believe in the Canterbury Tales, the miller and the merchant are both described having a sword and buckler for defending themselves on the road?
_What_ someone could carry was also affected by local laws or customs. A knife of some sort might have been common for everyone, but swords or other melee weapons might only be allowed for nobles (and even the lengths restricted). Not that swords are easy to use effectively, which is why the cliche 'blunt object' was also popular.
People did sometimes bear staff weapons in civilian life in medieval & Renaissance Europe. Traveling with a spiked staff appears to have been rather common in England. Joseph Swetnam recommended it for folks carrying a lot of money & under danger of being robbed, whether they were going on foot or on horseback.
@@julietfischer5056 This is like the misconceptions bout the old west, people assume everyone always had their sixgun on no matter what but like you say about local laws for swords. some old west towns if you were not a resident the the local sheriff or deputy would make you check your iron. Because the last thing lawman wants is a bunch of who knows whos that just rode in on horse or the train getting boozed up in the saloon while playing cards and pull their gun.
Kinda wish DnD 5E treated Str and Dex more like how Dark Souls does. Most weapons need some amount of both, with certain weapons favoring one over the other. Trying to make 5E weapons scale on both gets into broken numbers really quickly.
One of the shortcomings of tabletop is that you need to keep calculations simple.
Dark Souls can get away with elaborate scaling formulas because the machine behind the game runs all of that. You can't just throw out a weighted ratio formula to a person at a D&D table and expect them to know how to do it.
THAT SAID
Most modern D&D caps player scaling at 20/+5 for an attribute anyways, so you might be able to approach it in a way similar to how D&D handles balancing different armor weights, by capping what you can actually get as a bonus to a particular stat.
Say, instead of a Greatsword just adding strength as to hit and damage, you cap these values at, say, +3 from Str, +3 from Dex, while a Maul only scales off Str. Maybe higher grade magic weapons have higher caps, to account for players being able to squirm their way above the 20 softcap for stats at that level of play.
The one thing to be aware of though, is how much modern D&D is kinda shifting to Single Ability Dependance for many classes. Most classes have a way to funnel all of their primary requirements into one stat, like Hexblade for Charisma, Battle Smith for Int, ect. By making martials more multiple ability dependent, you ARE nerfing them, even if it's in the name of cool flavor and vibes.
It's doable, you just have to keep calculations easy to remember and do on the fly, and caps are the easiest calculations, especially since the game already uses them.
@@clutchedbyanangel Thoughts on scaling based off "Lower one of"?
MapleStory _used_ to do something like that, with each class having a main stat and a secondary stat, with class-specific weapons needing enough of both to equip.
Warrior: STR/DEX
Magician: INT/LUK
Bowman: DEX/STR
Thief (Assassin path): LUK/DEX
Thief (Bandit & Dual Blade paths): LUK/DEX+STR
Pirate (Brawler & Cannoneer paths): STR/DEX
Pirate (Gunslinger path): DEX/STR
But then they cut it down to just one stat for each for "simplicity". -_-
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Yeah, I am most of the way through creating a ttrpg of comparable complexity to 5e, and my emphasis on making everything require no more than a couple of dice, pencils, and paper is a major limiting factor. There are a lot of complex calculations that, while they could make for a 'better' game, are way too much to do by hand, especially on a regular basis.
I think 5e was designed to be simple compared to a game like pathfinder. In 5 e a longbow is a long bow is a long bow. In pathfinder you could use a composite longbow which added the archer's strength to the damage of a hit. Magic composite bows could be made with the adaptive feature which adjusted to the strength of the wielder. You could use your +2 strength to do +2 damage with your adaptive composite bow or glug down a potion of giant strength and do +6 damage with the same bow.
Another silly thing about bows in fantasy is how they're always bent and strung. Character will march for days with a strung bow on their back, then use it when faced with danger. Like, my friend, that poor thing is now bent and useless.
The greatest use of crossbow I can remember off the top of my head was by Richard's army in the crusade: 2 lines of crossbowmen, the first one to shoot the enemy, the second line would only reload and pass the cocked weapon back to the first.
I would also add another category to this video: armor. In fantasy and historical movies, steel armor is usually made of tissue paper and get penetrated by absolutely everything. In reality, a good armor made you essentially invulnerable.
And even the cheaply made modern costume armour for larp, as an example, can protect you to a degree. It may also hurt you because of bad construction and cheap materials, but it is still a type of steel around you, and people generally just aren't strong enough to cut steel.
I like how you put that Switch Axe up there for the axe segment, My Swaxe cousins represent!
I don't have much to say because I lack in any real expertise in these topics but I just wanted to say that this was super entertaining and educational, good job!
I love the rhythm of your speech. I usually have to double the speed on you tube channels. Here, I'm mesmerized. Not to mention your lovely deep voice !
My biggest pet peeve is when I see them ram weapons through armor like it was tissue that's a bit annoying
I love that you address the differences between fantasy and reality and games and especially WHY it is handled this way in games for the purpose of balancing, rule of cool and entertainment.
As reality and games have completely different sets of rules to adhere by. In reality, practicality and efficiency is key. Because you only have one life, so to say and even a small mistake in a swordfight can get you a lethal wound and that's simply it then.
In video games, the main purpose is entertainment. And while blocking and attacking at teh same time makes sense in a real battle, two enemies facing off doing exactly that in a game leads to a very boring gaming experience.
@9:56, this point right here demonstrates the primary difference between fantasy weapons and real weapons. Look where the center of balance is as he's holding that axe. It's damn near the blade of the axe with almost the entirety of that thick wooden handle taking up the other half of the mass. That's how heavy that axe is. Any fantasy axe is going to portray the center of mass somewhere near the middle of the handle. And this applies to any other weapon comparison as well. The fantasy counterparts almost always look like they're made of plastic or foam (because they usually are) or they're mall ninja stuff that you're supposed to stick on a wall somewhere and NEVER ACTUALLY USE AS A WEAPON.
I love that Polish axe you have, it looks like it'd be a great wilderness tool. Walking stick, poking stick, hammer, and that axe head (while meant for combat), can still be useful for bushcraft if you don't carry a small hatchet for it.
On the topic of Crossbows and TTRPGs- I'd like to present one of the bullets on the 2024 5e Dungeons and Dragons- Crossbow Expert feat:
"Ignore Loading. You ignore the Loading property of the Hand Crossbow, Heavy Crossbow, and Light Crossbow (all called crossbows elsewhere in this feat). If you're holding one of them, you can load a piece of ammunition into it even if you lack a free hand."
We've reached "Its basically a gun" at this point. You could be a Fighter who's making 4-8 attacks in a 6 second time frame with any of these crossbows alternatively you could have a shield in your hand or only have one hand and still be able to reload and shoot a hand crossbow after each individual shot. DnD sure has its superhuman folks huh!
Even with the loading penalty D&D crossbows are hilariously fast compared to real heavy war crossbows. Really good crossbowmen with heavy windlass crossbows consistently produced about two shots a minute. Rather different from one every six seconds. That's one of the reasons they used the Pavise, you needed significant protection whilst you loaded one (which makes it unfortunate if, for instance, some French noble has put them on the back of the baggage train and decided to start the battle before you can go and get them and you're fighting an inconveniently large number of longbowmen, as happened to the Italian mercenaries at Crecy).
@@AshenVictor They'd also fight in teams when using those heavy crossbows + pavise, both to move and set up those shields, and so you had a shooter and reloader(s).
But for D&D, it makes sense from a game play perspective. Crossbows need to be balanced against bows. In real life, they had certain advantages, including how long it takes to make a crossbowman versus a longbow man, that don't translate well into the game setting.
Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series was basically inspired by looking at those gigantic fantasy swords and thinking, "How could I make that *plausible* in my fantasy world?" (Well, that and turning Pokemon into the basis for a functional magical system - it was a bet/dare from an online forum….)
two questions have occured to me whilst watching this;
1. Have you ever done yourself a mischief whilst using these, or at least whilst learning to?
2. What do your neighbours think of you swinging around big swords and firing strange things like boxing gloves from a bow and arrow in your garden?
They might think he's a fun neighbor. Or, since this is England, just a neighbor.
@julietfischer5056 Since it's England, they'd think "neighbour".
The Polish axe is typically called Shepherd´s axe, or a Valachian axe. It´s a tool for self defense, mostly against wild animals and other soft targets, like bandits. It was a dangerous weapon, although arguably too short or light for a fight against armored opponent. Those that didnt expect to fight humans, and only had it to fight animals and use it as a walking stick even often used it with a wooden axe head. I´ve got two at home, both with a wooden axe head. It may sound ridiculous, but unless you try to bash in a metal helmet, or a bear´s skull, the wooden head is still a very dangerous piece of equipment. Plus it´s more comfortable to hold, especially in cold weather.
You should have a look at Mount & Blade 1 & 2 (the 2nd is called Bannerlord), probably one of the more realistic takes on medieval type weaponry and relatively small army tactics - though arguably a fantasy setting the weaponry mainly matches real life weapons from the dark ages...
One of the books in Glen Cook's Black Company fantasy series had a scene where some peasants are being taught to fight with spears to defend their town from arriving baddies. The very first lesson was never throw you spear because then you won't have a spear to fight with.
One of the neat things about the 2024 revised version of D&D is that longbows now benefit from the Great Weapon Master feat, which has a strength requirement. So now to do the most damage with bows you can't dump strength.
One thing to keep in mind about fantasy (especially japanese and eastern media) is that characters are also inhumanly strong which helps sell the idea of oversized weapons, because when they aren't swinging an ultra greatsword, they are also wrestling all sorts of demons and tanking magical attacks and big strikes, they are also portrayed as lightning fast and as sneaky as a ghost, all while looking like an average young person, sometimes even children, which isn't bad its just one way of creating a mood or delivering a message, realism is just one of many tools the author has at their disposal.
Ty for this beautiful vid mate.
I wish you were familiar with other similar staple fantasy weapons the "trash" ones like slings, darts (plumbata) and so on to show how deadly they were and how wrong their portrayals are.
I think a lot of tropes concerning bows in movies (fantasy or not) are also that They're ranged weapons, so directors will treat them like guns, guns from movies to be precise. So, point blank shooting is feasible, you can aim it ready to fire as long as you want, you won't need any strength, etc...
For a bow requiring strength, in the second book of pillars of the Earth, World Without End, one of the characters as a child crafted a bow and was super proud of it.... Until he got on the archery range and realized he didn't had the strength to fire an arrow XD
@21:17 As a GURPS fanboy, while Dexterity is the controlling Attribute for _nearly_ all weapons, *weapons such as bows have a **_minimum_** Strength requirement.* For every point of Strength (ST) you are below the minimum required, your suffer a -1 penalty to your attacks. If that sounds mild, *note* that GURPS uses 3d6, rolling at or _below_ the target number for calculating success. A single -1 can your odds by as much as 12.5%!
*The game is still being generous,* but it admits it. Eventually.
One of the main advantages of crossbows is that they are _so_ much easier to use than bows, and require much less training. Less training means it's cheaper, especially in the long run (since training isn't just a "I trained this, now I'm good and don't need to train ever again" thing, as you pointed out already in a previous video).
Oh, and the fastest repeating crossbow that I know of (there could be some weird, overspecialized high-tech ones, or some pure trickshot ones, I guess) is the chu-ko-nu. Incredibly inaccurate and weak, but intended for mass use at short range (from rooftops and walls and such downward onto nearby enemies), and for relatively unskilled people. It was more of a "village/town defense" weapon for non-soldiers than anything else.
The Rangers Apprentice series by John Flanagan. Specifically book 4 demonstrate this very concept so well. Read it if interested.If not Spoilers ahead.
In the book the main character has to train several dozen slaves to use Bows to fight against an invasion force,which is something most of the slaves hadn't used in years. But he obviously can't train them all to shoot with any skill. Instead he teaches them different Range positions. He has them use high ground and shields to hide his dugouts. The enemies they fight get absolutely shredded due to the amount of arrows being rained on them. All the while these weak slaves are just waiting for the next call to release.
for me it's super interesting to listen about proper fight technique. I'm larper, I cannot do big fights due to my heavy asthma, I need everything to be finished in seconds, but at the same time if something happens I want my character to protect themself. So I'm always getting weapons with significantly smaller reach than my opponent. Yeah, reach is great, but if you let somebody crazy go close to you, then until you switch weapons you are helpless. And for me? Either I win in less than minute or I already lost.
Suprisigly, without any proper training, I tend to win more often than loose even when fighting with more expirenced player. Then just don't expect anyone to choose knife fight, when they have swords
Generally speaking, a knife is
1) a tool,
2) a last line of defense
3) a projectile for emergencies
4) an actual ranged weapon
5) a melee weapon
For Rogues and other stealthies, swap 2 and 5.
The Scorpion King, of all movies, is a movie that really puts the muscle into archery. The titular hero is an archer, but they had him played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson, a man with muscles on his muscles. When the wiry sneaky horse thief played by Grant Heslov tries to pull the string of a warbow back he can't budge it an inch.
Another neat detail is when the main villain Memnon plays up a reputation he can catch arrows. Of the three arrows aimed at him in the movie, he only catches one, as part of a party trick, when the shooter was on _his_ side. When he learns _enemy_ archers have broken into his city, he does the smart thing and grabs a shield instead
Also about knife combat - on a battlefield in most cases knives would be pulled out not even as a defense, but as a "if I'm going down, I'm going to at least leave you a scar for good memory" kind of thing. Because if things got THAT bad that your only resolve is a knife - it's already 97% that you are not surviving this.
Knives as a stealth weaponry, on the other hand, is a whole different can of worms...
I wish more fiction used strength based bows firing slow, powerful shots because to me that is just so cool, especially when combined with unrealistic strength to fire huge arrows that are basically siege weapons
For me, the big thing about stealthy characters using knives to quietly take down targets is that most people find getting stabbed somewhat unpleasant. That person is likely to struggle, cry for help, or otherwise make lots of noise.
Regarding strength stat actually required for a bows, there's an anime called Revenger that pivots on that aspect. Teppa Murakami's an extremely tall and buff doctor/archer, and the muscle tone matches what's required to shoot the kind of equipment he uses. Extremely different from the archer stereotype, but it looks really good.
7:28 Search up "Lets beat seki sensei #1 wakizashi vs dual katana" essentially this video is just a kenjutsu master clowning on his pupils. It's a very interesting way to see HOW a skilled person would deal with an oponent with larger reach than them
Even a hunter with a bow caught by surprise is bound to at least have a good knife on them. They'd need it for various utilitarian uses, including cleaning game. Granted, they might not have it stowed to draw quickly, but I figure many would have their knife in a relatively convenient spot. Getting into a knife-fight isn't ideal, but it's still going to be better than trying to stab with an arrow.
You'd be surprised, back then irl, people were not so urbanized, there was next to no police force in a city let alone outside one (baring a civil militia, who were mostly doing their day jobs or sleeping), criminals have always been about and if the nearest "police force" was 2-3 days away, that's if they ever found out about the crime...
Fc3 and bearx4 make this a thing.
It has its own share of wild fantasy things, but Unicorn Overlord does have crossbow users carrying massive shields with them and they look awesome
See, I've always said that that in a multiplayer game, a greatsword that was designed around knockback but only mid damage would make for a great support class weapon or tank weapon. A wide attack radius where your attacks get faster but harder to redirect the longer you attack with it, enough knockback that you can protect the squishies from melee attack, makes for a great option in my opinion. Sure, you aren't doing much for magic/ranged, but there might be other options for that.
Unicorn Overlord had a class where it was a crossbow + greatshield combo.
Like a pavise?
I will say that knives, or more specifically and explicitly, thrusting daggers, are very relevant and prominent for use in armoured fighting. Not for the fencing per se, but for the point where you've managed to take your armoured opponent down and now you're on top of them and trying to finish them off lest they get back on their feet. A short, thin blade that is easy to control and can be jammed through helmet visors, inbetween plates, into joints and the gaps under the armpits that even high quality full plate plate tends to have for mobility purposes is simply perfect for the job. It's much easier to use a dagger there than to use a sword (though halfswording was practiced for that very reason), and don't even get me started on weapons that are often misinterpreted as anti-armour such as maces and single handed warhammers.
It is likely that more armoured knights and men-at-arms were killed with daggers than with any other given weapon, though that alone doesn't change the fact that these daggers weren't primary weapons and instead had a very specific role and purpose in combat.
But then again, that doesn't strictly make it a back-up, but more of a utility weapon. You're not using it because it's the only weapon you got, but because in that particular situation, it's the best weapon to use.
Misericords for the final strike on a downed opponent. Stilettos can do the same thing. Through the eye-slits of a visor or other vulnerable points in plate or other types of armor.
It's not really a misinterpretation to say that the short maces, warhammers, & axes used by cavalry were antiarmor weapons. Bertrandon de la Broquière wrote that he thought Ottoman maces could knock a person out through a helmet & John Vernon wrote that mounted arquebusiers needed pole axes (presumably some sort of a short axe suitable for cavalry) because their swords wouldn't be much good against cuirassiers (who wrote three-quarters armor plus a buff coat). & Pietro Monte seems to have had a high opinion of using a short warhammer in both hands from the saddle. Etc. Based on current texts, period authors had different opinions about whether a sword or a short impact weapon was better for armor cavalry engaging with their counterparts.
So one of the TTrpg's I'm currently playing does cover the idea that you need strength to pull back a bow. Bows in that game have a rating (drawweight) and if you don't meet the strength requirement for that bow your aim and damage from the bow suffer by quite a bit, conversely if you exceed the strength requirement... It doesn't magically increase the damage you do with the bow, you'll need to get yourself a higher drawweight bow to do more damage.
I don't think you mentioned this, but with the giant two-hander you have the two parrying spikes (I had to look up the correct term for them--"Schilden") partway up the blade. These acted as a secondary crossguard so you could choke up on the sword for use of different techniques!
Thank you for this video. The axe aspect of being weapons with more finesse than most may think, is exactly something I want to depict in a game I hope to create.
The protagonist is a monstrous, grey-skinned humanoid with red beard, teeth on his eyebrows, sickly yellow eyes and a downwards-pointing number 3-shape with a slit above it for nostrils. His name is Fulkrost and he is quite naive and oddly innocent, almost like a child. Straightforward, too. He barely has a grasp on the concept of lying, if at all, exclusively seeks power/energy and operates by a code of "one favor is worth another".
His tool is an axe, much like a Dane axe, with a thick pommel on one end and a blade that is somewhere between the number 3 and a crescent moon with a spike in the middle. The upper curved spike can magically morph to form more of a recurve shape, allowing for nicer downward slicing motions and more effective thrusts/piercing jabs.
I hope to make the game something in the vein of Darksiders, Soulstice, DMC, that kind of stuff. With some inspirations from Kya: Dark Lineage.
Fulkrost's techniques with the axe would definitely involve the hooking and pulling motions, alongside quarterstaff techniques and the reprisals you mention.
That's not all, though: His axe works in tandem with a magical gauntlet he wears on his left arm. Within the palm, he can catch and absorb force and energy. Kinetic force, heat of a fire, etc.
The energy is stored, and from there Fulkrost can redirect the power into his axe. At that point the axe will swing itself: He merely needs to direct it.
BUT he can up the ante. And make the axe swing with such force, that he *himself* is swung alongside it. Or throw it into the sky, after knocking up an enemy, where it will spin and act as a buzzsaw for a while to keep the enemy in the air. During that time Fulkrost can focus on other enemies or prepare for follow-up moves.
Or simply make the axe move forward (like a Stinger/Harpoon Tackle/Piercing Lung move) towards... whichever direction he points the axe.
Alternatively, he may simply choose to use a copper-colored spiked mace with a head shaped like a hexagonal cylinder. Simple and effective.
Hoping to make games with some family members too, like a semi-Eldritch immortal Scottish harpy with a Lochaber axe, or a headless dual axe-wielder with a face on his chest that uses his dual hand axes for punching, slicing and hooking.
Thank you again for the video, and have a good one!
I'm playing as a rogue in my first Pathfinder 2e campaign and I'm fascinated by how the mechanics make using flintlocks and crossbows so different compared to D&D. You're better off having a bandolier with a few pistols and reloading them out of combat. Crossbows take a lot of precious actions to reload so again you're best off getting that one shot off then ditching it for the rest of the fight. Even though my rogue is able to draw and shoot a (loaded) weapon in one action thanks to a feat, it's still like that.
Rules of Combat:
1: Try and stay out of it
2: If you can't, stay as far as possible from anyone trying to hurt you (range is God Stat)
3: It's VASTLY better to make More attacks than make Better attacks (100 weak attacks beats 10 attacks each one as strong as 11 weak hits beats 1 attack as strong as 120 weak hits)
Try and name a slow, very low reach melee that does huge damage per hit that's also genuinely good as a weapon, especially against a weapon highly opposite as per the above traits.
PILE BUNKER
...which only works in an environment where everyone has extreme three dimensional mobility, and a massive need for armor penetration on the anti-tank scale or better. Also it's an imaginary weapon. Also it's more or less construction equipment being used as a weapon because it's cool.
Also maybe a taser? Not exactly fast, very short range, but if you tase a guy in plate he's probably having a very bad day.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 How's PILE BUNKER compare to a hand pistol?
How's a taser compare to a bow? A crossbow? Also a hand pistol again?
@youtubeuniversity3638
I mean
The taser can probably work through some armor materials better than a bow can. It needs a follow up to finish it, but, y'know.
Prooooobably not the hand pistol though.
But you CAN get a taser probably by the end of the day today, while a hand pistol is a whole process.
As for PILE BUNKER
Well you see, the hand pistol can't punch through the magic space metal, while the pile bunker can, because it is made out of magic space metal. You forgot to account for the nebulous properties of magic space metal in your calculations, classic rookie mistake, happens to the best of us.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Two things:
You skipped Crossbow
I didn't do calculations I asked you to.
The Gladius. A relatively heavy shortsword. Used by the legions of Rome to generally slap the shit out of all sorts of people using spears and pikes which should have had a significant reach advantage.
One of the 'fantasy' stories I love that showcases bows requiring strength is the Odyssey. Sure, Odysseus isn't exactly known as an archer, as his bow only comes into play as a plot device in the ending, but I always found it telling that it was used to indicate that strength was required for the weapon, and it's not for the scrawny non fighting types. It's overhyped, with Penelope's suitors being entirely unable to even bend the bow enough to string it, but the intent is there. It's not a substitute weapon for the weakest.
i actually really like how bows work in the Chronicles of Darkness ttrpg gameline
Your attack roll is dexterity (attribute) + athletics (skill), because that's how accurate you can shoot. But the damage bonus is fully based on strength. higher strength = higher damage. More powerful bows have a higher minimum strength requirement (and max strength for how far the damage scales), if you don't have that, your accuracy takes a hit.
"Rule of cool is always at play..."
**the clouds break and illuminate blumineck and his **_zweihander_** in heavenly light**
The fact that fantasy archers are usually noodle arms still baffles me. Heck, there were entire families and bloodlines dedicated to longbow and apparently you could spot the comissioned longbowman in a village from the sheer width and bulk of their shoulders.
I am not a combat trained fighter. Not real combat anyway. But I have done a lot of larping, and let me tell you, knifes are damn near impossible to use with any success. You highlight exactly the issues in using a knife as a main weapon. It can work, but even in a setting where you aren’t going to die, and the worst injury is a bit of bruising, making a knife work is just hard.
classic "god-strat" in any larp i have been to was a good old phalanx.
reach, defensive potential, and provides cover for some specialists that can breach the enemy side.
gets beaten by particualrly risky or bracen opponents sometimes XD
@@arnesieper8332 Main problem with real battle tactics in LARPs is that thrusting tends to be illegal, making spears and polearms slightly less useful in formation (although the reach advantage is still pretty massive).
As I and a few friends did archery, we would play TTRPGs using home-brew rules. Strength wouldn't be used for a roll , but as a requirement, the higher power the bow the stronger your character had to be to use effectively. And you'd use a different stat to shoot it depending on the way you used it, if you wanted to shoot quickly or repeatedly in a short time, dexterity, but if you were taking time to aim, we'd use the appropriate mental skill, like composure in World of Darkness, or wisdom in DnD.
For bows and strength, I always think of the ending of The Odyssey when none of Penelope's suitors are strong enough to be able to string. Odysseus' Bow
A little thing about daggers; knives, something quite fun was people used knives to kill or finish off downed heavily armoured opponents. Piling up on them and finding slits and spaces between armour plates. Though that was mostly thinner blades in my limited studies.
The Eberron setting for D&D actually has quite a good justification for crossbows being basically guns.
People have had crossbows for like 500 years or something and never developed guns, so they just kept improving draw strength, feed and reload mechanisms, industrialised production methods, stuff like that. Some crossbows even use magic do directly pump more kinetic energy into the bolt and have just a minimal amount of draw strength to get the bolt moving.
My brother made a character in the game Lineage 2 which was an Orc specialized in strength. His arrows were so powerful and could hit so far that castle sieges (PVP) became a massacre, and they patched the game to make archery dependent on dexterity alone. So there you go, one trope created by exploiting real physics too much, until the other players had enough.
The other things about great swrods is that in games where reach is important, it's really hard to get around something with long range and relatively fast swings