@@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."
This is exactly what a competent arnis instructor or guro will tell their students on day 1 of knife combatives. While learning to fight while completely avoiding getting cut is good, the veterans tend to lean into the mindset of what bodypart or limb they're willing to sacrifice to get in a decisive move to end it and walk to the hospital. Everybody gets cut.
Heard it described as rule *zero* of being in a knife fight is "don't be in a knife fight", and then rule one is "dont *lose* a knife fight" - not "win", just "don't lose" (in other words, get the hell out and stop being in a knife fight, see rule zero). Rule two, then, is "you're GOING to get cut"
@@nicolesavino5982 Something like that. Martial arts that have an extensive training program for knives reached the same conclusion on their own based on experience. Lemme add one further from our coach: After a certain point, it's not even about avoiding getting cut or stabbed, but what limb you are willing to sacrifice to trap his weapon to get that essential opening to finish the fight.
@@TwinSkies Yeah, the outward-facing side of your non-dominant arm (the side your elbow points) was the one I got recommended; gonna really hurt when they hit the bone, but at least there aren't a lot of muscles or large blood vessels, and even if the arm's out of commission after it's your non-dominant one. You need your dominant one in order to hold the knife, you need your legs in order to gtfo, and you need your internal organs in order to live
As a fantasy writer, this is so much more helpful than other channels that just end it at "This isn't realistic at all!" Yes, but there's a reason it's not and now I know how to take that and roll with it for my own needs. It's hard near impossible to make realism into epic fantasy and it's not like you get any brownie points for doing so anyways. Such a big fan of your content as always, bravo!
Yeah one thing that I did in my story is have the protagonist end up with a massively oversized Berserk style greatsword, which every other character then responds to with “wow that’s awful and the fact that you’re using it at all likely means the weapon itself is ignoring physics in order to be usable. Also how do you see past the blade when fighting?”
@@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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I do want to mention that the shuriken is less of a "I want to kill this guy" weapon and more of a "random bullshit, go!" distraction tool unless you coated the edge in poison, you're probably not gonna kill a guy with it, and a ninja would be using it to get away in case they were caught
@@rokkraljkolesa9317 Also not really a weapon of war. Someone turns up in full Mughal style plated mail your chakram won't have any effect unless you hit him square in the face, and even then there's a good chance the guy on the other end has some form of face protection. It's also nowhere near as simple and easy to make (and inexpensive) as a javelin, so you'd want to recover them if you can. As far as throwing weapons go in general, there are honestly imo only two picks that will always work, and those are javelins and plumbata, with javelins of various kinds arguably barely coming out on top simply due to being potentially a bit more versatile.
True, though those weapons are generally best used against soft targets who aren't wearing any armour, as they'll get no penetration on armoured opponents. Even a decent gambeson will stop most of those blades. Even if it does pierce, the tests I've seen indicate most of them would not be lethal, baring hitting the perfect spot, but would cause a bleeding wound which would slow and hinder the opponent, or may even cause them to quit the fight before it really got started, either fleeing or surrendering, rather then have to fight wounded.
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 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 that 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.
Calderonus Bernard in "Codex Alera" could be what you're looking for : the man combine two types of furycrafting (the settings magic that pretty much anybody can do to various extents and with various levels of proficiency) earthcrafting which gives him inhuman strength and woodcrafting which allow him to play with the characteristics (and ballistics) of wooden objects, the result is a pretty large man using a bow with limbs described as thick as a human leg and making killing shots at 600 yards (and we're not even getting into the even larger heavy warbow he break out in the last volume)
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?
@@nicewhenearnedrudemostlyel489 That would be true with "one size fits all" bows, not with a bow designed for a powerful pull. The hundreds of pounds pull of a crossbow is a proof of concept. A custom bow is customized for the shooter's strength (pull weight) and span (drawback). A stronger bowman with the same span as a weaker bowman will not be able to get more power out of the weaker bowman's bow, magic excluded. A strong man with a greater span could break a bow customized for a weaker man with a shorter span.
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. I need one for my armory. My current "fighting axe" is an 18th c Fire Axe with broad, curved, but thin blade with a spike that could do a number on plate armor.
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
I always make a point to use spears in a game if I have the option, just because it bothers me how underrepresented they are. But I guess the problem is that spears look best in a formation with other spear holders, which just isn't going to happen in an adventuring party.
It's because most of the time in fiction, the MC is a badass singlehandedly taking on twenty bad guys at once, not some random foot soldier in the middle of a shield wall. And you can't kill 3 dudes at once in one quick motion with a spear like you can with a sword. Or at least, it's much harder to write someone doing it with a spear.
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.
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.
Get the heavily armored knight onto the ground, and still, and a peasant with a dagger can kill him. That's like using a cheap hand launched rocket to take out a tank, helicopter or warship.
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.
To be fair, I've seen it speculated that it's a reflex bow, which can be rather tricky to string if you don't know the technique, and some types are easier to string sitting than standing. Here is a Turkish bow to illustrate how difficult some of them can be: th-cam.com/video/0yUSVI4r3ck/w-d-xo.html
Moment like that also shows up in the Ramance of Three Kingdoms where Lu Bu, tall warrior famous for his strength and combat prowess flexes his skills in shooting a bow at the target in the really long range.
As an arnisador, I completely concur with that point about the first rule of knife fighting. Even the more battle-hardened veterans and masters understand that no matter how good you think you are, the minute you engage in a knife fight, somebody's getting cut. And even a non-lethal wound can result in permanent disability that prevents you from working, taking care of your family. So if at all possible, don't get into a knife fight at all - learn your exits, de-escalate, and RUN.
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
i have a game i play called Guild Wars 2, i would love to have my character use the 2-handed greatswords, but they animations they gave to that weapon are so stupid, like draging it around over the floor, like it weighs a ton, i dislike it so much i just cannot use it, ieven if it is actually a very good weapon, i wished they had given it more realistic animations
@@ElysiaWhitemoonOmegaDoes that include or exclude the Mesmer using greatswords as railguns? (Although it has been a while since I tried the Mesmer out.)
@@SkyknightMu they use it as a beamcannon, but they are lifting it up with magical energy, but the attack finished they go back to default stance (sword dragging on the floor) and i still dislike that. i do have to say i have 1 character with a greatsword, a Charr, they charr hold the sword in front of them, ready to strike, still hold it like it weighs too much, but its passable.. But i do exclude magical animations as those dont make the sword look like it was a ton
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!
On the subject of crossbows as replacements for guns- they aren’t just in time periods where guns didn’t exist, but also in time periods where guns feel out of place to an audience even though they did exist. Because apart from pirates and the Three Musketeers we tend to think of the Age of Swords and Age of Guns as being two distinct time periods even though their use overlapped a lot more than people would assume.
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.
One point you nearly touched on, then abandoned, is how crossbows shines best from a defensive and fortified position. Defending a tower/castle/wall with slits, that's where you'd get the most use of crossbows. Especially with the possibility of lesser skilled and lesser psychically strong individuals still providing valuable deadly support they'd be hard pressed to replicate on an open battlefield.
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)
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.
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.
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.
04:00 If you throw a knife, you accomplish two things: 1) You throw away a perfectly good weapon and 2) You get the complete and undivided attention of your enemy.
That's if you're caught. The enemy's attention won't get caught if they didn't see their compatriot falling after getting a knife thrown at them. Plus no one is going to throw a knife unless they know they're going to his something vital enough to kill in one throw.
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.
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.
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!
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...
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.
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
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.
Love the way you handled this topic here! You're explaining why things were done the way there were done when the weapons needed to actually work as weapons and you explain why things are done the way they are done when weapons need to work as storytelling tools or game mechanics. Without any judgement as to one thing being inherently better. It's different purposes and therefore different outcomes. Love that judgement-free juxtaposition!
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.
The one that always surprises me is warhammers. They get a lot of the same treatment in fantasy as axes do: their heads are huge bricks of metal, often bigger than the heads they're tasked with crushing. The real ones I've seen, though, have much smaller heads and narrower points of contact than fictional ones. Which makes sense; that more pointed head is probably great for punching through armor and helmets. But damn if I don't like a great big hunk of metal, like Volendrung from Skyrim or Harley Quinn's cartoonish mallet~
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.
I'm so trying to avoid that hard in my own writing. The main characters are knights, they use full plate... and muskets and cannons are all over the place.
I have to say, I'm impressed as hell at your ability to maintain your eloquence - both your mode of speech and your train of thought - while demonstrating strikes with quite heavy weapons.
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.
Its called "ciupaga" or "rombanica", at least at polish side of Tatra Mts., and sometimes is/was used also for chopping/splitting wood for campfire. It's been mostly (only?) used in mountain areas, where sometimes you have to prop yourself out, especially when you are older person. Or have to go for couple of months to pasture the sheeps and need a multifunctional tool. The ciupaga was a tool for shepherds or sometimes a weapon for bandits.
Great video! I love how you aren't pretentious or demeaning to stories that get things wrong, instead explaining why they are the way they are. Very humble!
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.
This makes me appreciate all the more the Ranger’s Apprentice series. I read them as a kid and yeah, there’s fantasy elements and leaps in logic, but a lot of what you said about bows, knives, and crossbows were fairly well represented
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?
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
Really, the way bows should work is not "Long vs Short" but instead be XX Poundage with Long/Short variants for flavor. Each would require a minimum Strength score based on the poundage then you use the Dex for attacking as normal. Basically just like Armor rules: If you don't have the minimum Strength, you have problems (or in this case, can't even use the weapon. Maybe just a penalty such as dealing 1/2 damage, after applying Sneak Attack, so it isn't totally useless).
My history teacher used to call the Crossbow the Spear of Ranged Weaponry "Its easy to provide levied peasants with the weapons and the basic training to use them , from there its all about the Stability and Discipline of their formations"
It is illustrative that "point blank", the term we use to mean right up close, comes from the French "point blanc" meaning white point, when a handkerchief was dropped at the target, as an aim point. This translates to a distance of 40-60 yards. So 40-60 yards is what war archers considered close range, just before one would change to melee weapons. Most video games don't even go OUT to 40 yards.
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:( )
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.
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.
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...
11:59 Absolutely, I'm quite tall and heavy (1.94 meters tall and 101 kilos heavy), and quite bloody strong (amateur powerlifter strong), but even wood axes (that are not nearly as big and heavy as fantasy axes) are a pain to control and move arround. The argument of "you can't control it because you're not strong enough" is absurd, momentum is one hell of a force.
First non-short video - can't believe I never thought to watch these longer ones because I love having long videos to have on in the background while I'm writing. Great stuff, love your work!
@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.
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.
Very great balance between history, without ripping apart the fun parts of fantasy, like magic, special metals, different races, etc. Well done! "Suck around 120lb draw weight." For your size being at a very good war bow weight is impressive! You skill with the great swords are amazing and I'm thankful for finding someone able to showcase what is seen in the manuals.
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...
Dark ages are late antiquity/early middle ages somewhere around 300-800. Also, dark ages refers to the lack of sources, a lack which high and late middle ages decidedly don't have.
@@Seegras They're not set in the middle ages either, so I don't understand the need for nitpicking, unless it's a Boy Scout task in which case Dib, Dib, Dib, Dob, Dob, Dob.
Another big use case for knifes were against heavily armored combatants. Often when two fully armored fighters engaged it ended up a wrestling match, where in a dagger or knife would be slipped between the plates to deliver lethal wounds.
As someone with some knowledge of weapons as well as story writing and game design, I appreciate that not only did you go into how media is wrong, but why they do it- you didn't use this as an excuse to bash on media. Instead it was a chance to educate both ways- the reality of these weapons and the stories/game design that media is using. Thank you for 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.
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.
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.
@@AshenVictor Yeah, I headcanon D&D crossbows as Chinese crossbows, which were less compact and lower draw weight than the heavy European crossbows, but had similar kinetic energy (to both windlass-spanned heavy crossbows and regular bows). They could be spanned without a mechanical aid, so they were fairly quick to reload.
Many people, when they talk about fantasy, bring up that those characters are usually super human in strength. While that does mean they could wield a larger axe a bit more easily, it would still not look like the fantasy axes because of balance. As is pointed out you need to be able to recover and rebound and momentum is an issue there, even if strong is you have a very large heave axe head it is hard to stop and reverse the movement due to the extra mass. This is a great demonstration of the types of moves you need to be able to accomplish.
There is another issue with axes with such heavy heads and that is the amount of force which is transferred into the handle where that head is attached. Heavier head, more force, more likely that the handle breaks when the axe hits something.
I disagree because, if you are super strong, you can recover quickly even with an oversized weapon. Your point still stands because even though they may be able to use a very big weapon, their form doesn't look at all like it should and they use them in the complete wrong way.
For now, I can think of one more example of a weapon that fantasy gets wrong: Back scabbards for longswords: You'd need a specially made back scabbard, like what Shadiversity has made, in order to do this fantasy trope justice in the real world. Otherwise, these longswords are too, well, long for anyone with average human-length arms to be able to comfortably draw from, and sheathe into, their backs.
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
As a movie nerd it always annoys me a bit when people criticize things in movies that are unrealistic. It even happens with modern weapons like pistol with silencers. Sure, the silent pew pew is unrealistic, but it is cool as hell and therefore serves a purpose.
@@gunneone that’s fair! It’s why I’m trying to give a shout to the reasons why as well, because I find it interesting to compare, but it doesn’t always mean the fantasy is “wrong” in context
I was very surprised when I fired a .22 pistol with a suppressor; it is surprisingly "silent pew pew". To be fair, that was outdoors. It would probably be louder inside. And it is only .22.
I think the most important part of this video will pass most people by. Blumineck demonstrates a lot of combat moves. He then is short of breath. It demonstrates that combat with melee weapons is physically exhausting.
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
Yes I was born at that time, and I was also at the battle of Troy. I personally met David and shared cups with Achilles, so I know it's not made up, there you go smart Alec case closed.
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!
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.
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
@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.
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 people who think steel is magically impenetrable. I can take my basic ass pocket knife out and punch through an inch of steel with it.
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….)
i like that in the section about archery, you're in shorter sleeves so that when you talk about visible tension in someone's muscles, we can actually see that in your forearm as you draw the bow
So ya call your big sword Rachel. Got it. :) I love this, the other reason crossbows were used is it required very little training for town militia and recently drafted to use. You put a few people in a small group behind a wall, and a few reload them while the other shoots and they can hold down an area. I'm playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance and the bows require strength as well as agility, and the draw quivers the more you hold it. It's so nice to see that.
Great video. :) I love how you explain *why* the weapons in movies/fantasy are the way they are. A lot of similar videos I've seen just seem to say "Well, they're lazy and their weapons look ridiculous if you know what you're doing".
its always refreshing to see videos that show intrest in historical accuracy without abandoning the sense of respect the community use to have by belittling people who love fantasy or pushing for fantasy to be realistic and simply appreciate it for what it is
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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.
This is exactly what a competent arnis instructor or guro will tell their students on day 1 of knife combatives.
While learning to fight while completely avoiding getting cut is good, the veterans tend to lean into the mindset of what bodypart or limb they're willing to sacrifice to get in a decisive move to end it and walk to the hospital. Everybody gets cut.
Heard it described as rule *zero* of being in a knife fight is "don't be in a knife fight", and then rule one is "dont *lose* a knife fight" - not "win", just "don't lose" (in other words, get the hell out and stop being in a knife fight, see rule zero). Rule two, then, is "you're GOING to get cut"
@@nicolesavino5982
Something like that. Martial arts that have an extensive training program for knives reached the same conclusion on their own based on experience.
Lemme add one further from our coach: After a certain point, it's not even about avoiding getting cut or stabbed, but what limb you are willing to sacrifice to trap his weapon to get that essential opening to finish the fight.
@@TwinSkies Yeah, the outward-facing side of your non-dominant arm (the side your elbow points) was the one I got recommended; gonna really hurt when they hit the bone, but at least there aren't a lot of muscles or large blood vessels, and even if the arm's out of commission after it's your non-dominant one. You need your dominant one in order to hold the knife, you need your legs in order to gtfo, and you need your internal organs in order to live
As a fantasy writer, this is so much more helpful than other channels that just end it at "This isn't realistic at all!" Yes, but there's a reason it's not and now I know how to take that and roll with it for my own needs. It's hard near impossible to make realism into epic fantasy and it's not like you get any brownie points for doing so anyways. Such a big fan of your content as always, bravo!
Yeah one thing that I did in my story is have the protagonist end up with a massively oversized Berserk style greatsword, which every other character then responds to with “wow that’s awful and the fact that you’re using it at all likely means the weapon itself is ignoring physics in order to be usable. Also how do you see past the blade when fighting?”
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.
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
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?
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.
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
The mighty Hank Reinhardt said the same thing. "DO NOT get into a knife fight IF possible."
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.
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
@@blumineckVery Siegfried and Joy, my favourite type of magic!
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!
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.
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.
I do want to mention that the shuriken is less of a "I want to kill this guy" weapon and more of a "random bullshit, go!" distraction tool
unless you coated the edge in poison, you're probably not gonna kill a guy with it, and a ninja would be using it to get away in case they were caught
@@rokkraljkolesa9317 Also not really a weapon of war. Someone turns up in full Mughal style plated mail your chakram won't have any effect unless you hit him square in the face, and even then there's a good chance the guy on the other end has some form of face protection. It's also nowhere near as simple and easy to make (and inexpensive) as a javelin, so you'd want to recover them if you can. As far as throwing weapons go in general, there are honestly imo only two picks that will always work, and those are javelins and plumbata, with javelins of various kinds arguably barely coming out on top simply due to being potentially a bit more versatile.
True, though those weapons are generally best used against soft targets who aren't wearing any armour, as they'll get no penetration on armoured opponents. Even a decent gambeson will stop most of those blades. Even if it does pierce, the tests I've seen indicate most of them would not be lethal, baring hitting the perfect spot, but would cause a bleeding wound which would slow and hinder the opponent, or may even cause them to quit the fight before it really got started, either fleeing or surrendering, rather then have to fight wounded.
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 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 that 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.
Calderonus Bernard in "Codex Alera" could be what you're looking for : the man combine two types of furycrafting (the settings magic that pretty much anybody can do to various extents and with various levels of proficiency) earthcrafting which gives him inhuman strength and woodcrafting which allow him to play with the characteristics (and ballistics) of wooden objects, the result is a pretty large man using a bow with limbs described as thick as a human leg and making killing shots at 600 yards (and we're not even getting into the even larger heavy warbow he break out in the last volume)
Elden Ring has these giant golem enemies, and some of them are equipped with absolutely massive bows
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?
@@nicewhenearnedrudemostlyel489 That would be true with "one size fits all" bows, not with a bow designed for a powerful pull. The hundreds of pounds pull of a crossbow is a proof of concept. A custom bow is customized for the shooter's strength (pull weight) and span (drawback). A stronger bowman with the same span as a weaker bowman will not be able to get more power out of the weaker bowman's bow, magic excluded. A strong man with a greater span could break a bow customized for a weaker man with a shorter span.
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 😂
In the same vein, at 15:06, when he's intro-ing the bows, the captions say "boats from trees". Which is equally hilarious.
@@blumineck Oh, shit I forgot:
That polish mountaineering axe is called a "ciupaga" ;)
@@nantu07 thank you. I need one for my armory. My current "fighting axe" is an 18th c Fire Axe with broad, curved, but thin blade with a spike that could do a number on plate armor.
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
I always make a point to use spears in a game if I have the option, just because it bothers me how underrepresented they are. But I guess the problem is that spears look best in a formation with other spear holders, which just isn't going to happen in an adventuring party.
It's because most of the time in fiction, the MC is a badass singlehandedly taking on twenty bad guys at once, not some random foot soldier in the middle of a shield wall. And you can't kill 3 dudes at once in one quick motion with a spear like you can with a sword. Or at least, it's much harder to write someone doing it with a spear.
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.
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 figure it like a tin can opening contest x)
Get the heavily armored knight onto the ground, and still, and a peasant with a dagger can kill him. That's like using a cheap hand launched rocket to take out a tank, helicopter or warship.
In the Movie the Lion in Winter there was a scene where two armored knights fought on a stairway with daggers. It was brutal and very well done.
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.
To be fair, I've seen it speculated that it's a reflex bow, which can be rather tricky to string if you don't know the technique, and some types are easier to string sitting than standing. Here is a Turkish bow to illustrate how difficult some of them can be:
th-cam.com/video/0yUSVI4r3ck/w-d-xo.html
Moment like that also shows up in the Ramance of Three Kingdoms where Lu Bu, tall warrior famous for his strength and combat prowess flexes his skills in shooting a bow at the target in the really long range.
As an arnisador, I completely concur with that point about the first rule of knife fighting. Even the more battle-hardened veterans and masters understand that no matter how good you think you are, the minute you engage in a knife fight, somebody's getting cut.
And even a non-lethal wound can result in permanent disability that prevents you from working, taking care of your family. So if at all possible, don't get into a knife fight at all - learn your exits, de-escalate, and RUN.
The mighty Hank Reinhardt said the same thing.
Better yet, carry a gun. :D
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
i have a game i play called Guild Wars 2, i would love to have my character use the 2-handed greatswords, but they animations they gave to that weapon are so stupid, like draging it around over the floor, like it weighs a ton, i dislike it so much i just cannot use it, ieven if it is actually a very good weapon, i wished they had given it more realistic animations
@@ElysiaWhitemoonOmegaDoes that include or exclude the Mesmer using greatswords as railguns? (Although it has been a while since I tried the Mesmer out.)
@@SkyknightMu they use it as a beamcannon, but they are lifting it up with magical energy, but the attack finished they go back to default stance (sword dragging on the floor) and i still dislike that. i do have to say i have 1 character with a greatsword, a Charr, they charr hold the sword in front of them, ready to strike, still hold it like it weighs too much, but its passable.. But i do exclude magical animations as those dont make the sword look like it was a ton
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!
On the subject of crossbows as replacements for guns- they aren’t just in time periods where guns didn’t exist, but also in time periods where guns feel out of place to an audience even though they did exist. Because apart from pirates and the Three Musketeers we tend to think of the Age of Swords and Age of Guns as being two distinct time periods even though their use overlapped a lot more than people would assume.
I like Warhammers Empire for that. Lots of blackpowder goodness in a setting with orcs and dragons!
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.
One point you nearly touched on, then abandoned, is how crossbows shines best from a defensive and fortified position. Defending a tower/castle/wall with slits, that's where you'd get the most use of crossbows. Especially with the possibility of lesser skilled and lesser psychically strong individuals still providing valuable deadly support they'd be hard pressed to replicate on an open battlefield.
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!
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
04:00 If you throw a knife, you accomplish two things: 1) You throw away a perfectly good weapon and 2) You get the complete and undivided attention of your enemy.
True, but if they aren't your primary weapon it had a chance to injure your target while out of their range. It's still silly I confess.
That's if you're caught. The enemy's attention won't get caught if they didn't see their compatriot falling after getting a knife thrown at them. Plus no one is going to throw a knife unless they know they're going to his something vital enough to kill in one throw.
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.
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.
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!
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...
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.
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
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!
More like the Styropyro of medieval weapons and pole dancing.
@@mh6276 not chaotic enough for Styropyro
"I'm standing in the middle of Mistwood Forest in Limgrave, and there is a Runebear baring down on m-"
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!
Love the way you handled this topic here! You're explaining why things were done the way there were done when the weapons needed to actually work as weapons and you explain why things are done the way they are done when weapons need to work as storytelling tools or game mechanics. Without any judgement as to one thing being inherently better. It's different purposes and therefore different outcomes. Love that judgement-free juxtaposition!
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.
The one that always surprises me is warhammers. They get a lot of the same treatment in fantasy as axes do: their heads are huge bricks of metal, often bigger than the heads they're tasked with crushing. The real ones I've seen, though, have much smaller heads and narrower points of contact than fictional ones. Which makes sense; that more pointed head is probably great for punching through armor and helmets.
But damn if I don't like a great big hunk of metal, like Volendrung from Skyrim or Harley Quinn's cartoonish mallet~
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
Plate armour and two-handed swords are both around 100 years younger than firearms. So the fantasy-perceptions is completely screwed. I blame D&D ;)
I'm so trying to avoid that hard in my own writing. The main characters are knights, they use full plate... and muskets and cannons are all over the place.
I have to say, I'm impressed as hell at your ability to maintain your eloquence - both your mode of speech and your train of thought - while demonstrating strikes with quite heavy weapons.
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.
Its called "ciupaga" or "rombanica", at least at polish side of Tatra Mts., and sometimes is/was used also for chopping/splitting wood for campfire. It's been mostly (only?) used in mountain areas, where sometimes you have to prop yourself out, especially when you are older person. Or have to go for couple of months to pasture the sheeps and need a multifunctional tool. The ciupaga was a tool for shepherds or sometimes a weapon for bandits.
Great video! I love how you aren't pretentious or demeaning to stories that get things wrong, instead explaining why they are the way they are. Very humble!
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.
You can be pretty small and still draw a very heavy bow, though:
th-cam.com/video/iC2v_akhsAg/w-d-xo.html
This makes me appreciate all the more the Ranger’s Apprentice series. I read them as a kid and yeah, there’s fantasy elements and leaps in logic, but a lot of what you said about bows, knives, and crossbows were fairly well represented
Yeah, I was thinking about that too! Flanagan really knows his stuff
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".
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
Really, the way bows should work is not "Long vs Short" but instead be XX Poundage with Long/Short variants for flavor. Each would require a minimum Strength score based on the poundage then you use the Dex for attacking as normal. Basically just like Armor rules: If you don't have the minimum Strength, you have problems (or in this case, can't even use the weapon. Maybe just a penalty such as dealing 1/2 damage, after applying Sneak Attack, so it isn't totally useless).
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 !
My history teacher used to call the Crossbow the Spear of Ranged Weaponry
"Its easy to provide levied peasants with the weapons and the basic training to use them , from there its all about the Stability and Discipline of their formations"
Ease of use is a underappreciated trait sometimes.
Long form blumineck videos? YESSS!!!
It is illustrative that "point blank", the term we use to mean right up close, comes from the French "point blanc" meaning white point, when a handkerchief was dropped at the target, as an aim point. This translates to a distance of 40-60 yards. So 40-60 yards is what war archers considered close range, just before one would change to melee weapons. Most video games don't even go OUT to 40 yards.
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:( )
Odachi were typically used for dick measuring but were the weapon of choice for calvary men
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.
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.
your casual footwork is insane. Even when making a point about 'wrong ness' (in video games) you optimise footwork to an insane degree
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.
11:59 Absolutely, I'm quite tall and heavy (1.94 meters tall and 101 kilos heavy), and quite bloody strong (amateur powerlifter strong), but even wood axes (that are not nearly as big and heavy as fantasy axes) are a pain to control and move arround. The argument of "you can't control it because you're not strong enough" is absurd, momentum is one hell of a force.
I like how you put that Switch Axe up there for the axe segment, My Swaxe cousins represent!
First non-short video - can't believe I never thought to watch these longer ones because I love having long videos to have on in the background while I'm writing. Great stuff, love your work!
@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.
"Rule of cool is always at play..."
**the clouds break and illuminate blumineck and his **_zweihander_** in heavenly light**
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.
Very great balance between history, without ripping apart the fun parts of fantasy, like magic, special metals, different races, etc. Well done! "Suck around 120lb draw weight." For your size being at a very good war bow weight is impressive! You skill with the great swords are amazing and I'm thankful for finding someone able to showcase what is seen in the manuals.
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...
Dark ages are late antiquity/early middle ages somewhere around 300-800. Also, dark ages refers to the lack of sources, a lack which high and late middle ages decidedly don't have.
@@Seegras if you knew the game you might realize how its applicable.
@@DodgerRoger I know the games. And they're not set in the "dark ages".
@@Seegras They're not set in the middle ages either, so I don't understand the need for nitpicking, unless it's a Boy Scout task in which case Dib, Dib, Dib, Dob, Dob, Dob.
Another big use case for knifes were against heavily armored combatants. Often when two fully armored fighters engaged it ended up a wrestling match, where in a dagger or knife would be slipped between the plates to deliver lethal wounds.
One of my favorite art of Europe is the sculpture of Hercules drawing his bow. He's muscular AF. Just how I like my strength based archers.
As someone with some knowledge of weapons as well as story writing and game design, I appreciate that not only did you go into how media is wrong, but why they do it- you didn't use this as an excuse to bash on media. Instead it was a chance to educate both ways- the reality of these weapons and the stories/game design that media is using. Thank you for 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.
I really appreciate that the video actually takes apart the why of the media instead of flatly stating that it doesn't match reality.
At first i was like "Hey this axe looks like ciupaga (shepherd's axe)" and then i saw "Zakopane" written on that XD
As a Tolkien Nerd and Fantasy lover in general, this channel is a goldmine! Glad I stumbled upon this gem! 💎
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.
"In theory the sun is somewhere up in THAT!" I freaking LOST it at that comment.
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.
@@AshenVictor Yeah, I headcanon D&D crossbows as Chinese crossbows, which were less compact and lower draw weight than the heavy European crossbows, but had similar kinetic energy (to both windlass-spanned heavy crossbows and regular bows). They could be spanned without a mechanical aid, so they were fairly quick to reload.
Many people, when they talk about fantasy, bring up that those characters are usually super human in strength. While that does mean they could wield a larger axe a bit more easily, it would still not look like the fantasy axes because of balance. As is pointed out you need to be able to recover and rebound and momentum is an issue there, even if strong is you have a very large heave axe head it is hard to stop and reverse the movement due to the extra mass.
This is a great demonstration of the types of moves you need to be able to accomplish.
There is another issue with axes with such heavy heads and that is the amount of force which is transferred into the handle where that head is attached. Heavier head, more force, more likely that the handle breaks when the axe hits something.
I disagree because, if you are super strong, you can recover quickly even with an oversized weapon. Your point still stands because even though they may be able to use a very big weapon, their form doesn't look at all like it should and they use them in the complete wrong way.
For now, I can think of one more example of a weapon that fantasy gets wrong:
Back scabbards for longswords: You'd need a specially made back scabbard, like what Shadiversity has made, in order to do this fantasy trope justice in the real world. Otherwise, these longswords are too, well, long for anyone with average human-length arms to be able to comfortably draw from, and sheathe into, their backs.
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
As a movie nerd it always annoys me a bit when people criticize things in movies that are unrealistic. It even happens with modern weapons like pistol with silencers. Sure, the silent pew pew is unrealistic, but it is cool as hell and therefore serves a purpose.
It also doesn't deafen your audience every time someone shoots
@@gunneone that’s fair! It’s why I’m trying to give a shout to the reasons why as well, because I find it interesting to compare, but it doesn’t always mean the fantasy is “wrong” in context
I was very surprised when I fired a .22 pistol with a suppressor; it is surprisingly "silent pew pew". To be fair, that was outdoors. It would probably be louder inside. And it is only .22.
I think the most important part of this video will pass most people by. Blumineck demonstrates a lot of combat moves. He then is short of breath. It demonstrates that combat with melee weapons is physically exhausting.
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
Yes I was born at that time, and I was also at the battle of Troy. I personally met David and shared cups with Achilles, so I know it's not made up, there you go smart Alec case closed.
@@haroldcruz8550 my guy, who here is trying to debunk anything?
max said "you got something wrong about this story"
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!
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.
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
just checked the fablecraft FAQ and they've sworn off using generative ai...i like that
@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.
Christ you’re ur stamina is insane, I’m tired just wathing you
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
My biggest pet peeve is people who think steel is magically impenetrable.
I can take my basic ass pocket knife out and punch through an inch of steel with it.
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….)
i like that in the section about archery, you're in shorter sleeves so that when you talk about visible tension in someone's muscles, we can actually see that in your forearm as you draw the bow
So ya call your big sword Rachel.
Got it. :)
I love this, the other reason crossbows were used is it required very little training for town militia and recently drafted to use. You put a few people in a small group behind a wall, and a few reload them while the other shoots and they can hold down an area.
I'm playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance and the bows require strength as well as agility, and the draw quivers the more you hold it. It's so nice to see that.
Great video. :)
I love how you explain *why* the weapons in movies/fantasy are the way they are. A lot of similar videos I've seen just seem to say "Well, they're lazy and their weapons look ridiculous if you know what you're doing".
This was a very good video. I really like how you explained the inaccuracies without throwing out the reasons the fantasy ones are used.
its always refreshing to see videos that show intrest in historical accuracy without abandoning the sense of respect the community use to have by belittling people who love fantasy or pushing for fantasy to be realistic and simply appreciate it for what it is