Howdy people
This beauty is a bar mace.
It bashes peoples skulls in!
I actually treat it as a quarterstaff in my games (5e), because why the fuck wouldn't you use two hands on that bitch
In fact, I treat most most bludgeoning weapons as quarterstaffs mechanically, and most piercing weapons as spears
I also have a nice little niche for 1d6/1d8 slashing weapons too.
I also treat most chopping swords as bog standard axes
Can't find any good pictures, but scythes are just spears in my games. One of my players whined that "it should do more damage when the blade is the other way! It can focus more force"
He rapidly learned otherwise when I took him out to the barn and showed him what happens when you try to hit a target with a scythe like that
I also like blunt weapons with a spike or hook on them. When my players are smart enough to describe their weapons with hooks or spikes I let them do piecing damage. I also let warhammers do that anyway, because who the fuck makes a warhammer that can't pierce?
It really grinds my gears when my players draw or describe their "warhammers" like this, or say it's a one handed weapon.
Good luck swinging that more than once without getting murdered
I blame video games for crap like this.
You couldn't cut dick with that. Maybe bash someones skull in, but do some swordwork? Nah. Bitch you describe your sword this way and I'm having you treat it as an axe if i'm being nice
The one furthest to the right could work as a mace though
Here's another silly lotr weapon. Apparently it's suppose to be a sword.
If you removed the edge and gave it a sturdy handle, it could conceivably be a hooked mace...
I treat rifles with bayonets as short spears. Similarly hitting someone with the butt of the rifile does improvised weapon damage unless it's a rifile and you're proficient in it
Are you linking me that page for a good picture? Because the link is describing exactly what I was referring to
Eh, you got a good cleaver and a hook while still having a hook. Plus thats only a uruk hai thing which is mostly /ASTHETICS/, which honestly is very good for their looks, it keeps the 'square' lines feeling of everything else with the only breaking points being some hooks or the point of spears. Its a terrifying BBE army that doesn't look edgy and overdone.
Actually, I just realized the confusion
In the story I was talking about in , the player wanted the blade to do more damage when it's like in this picture
That's why I took him to the barn and showed him how useless it is like this
That's a good point, it'd basically behave like a machete that a very tall man could take a guy off a horse with, which is probably the intent considering how few of them have pikes
Those swords are mass produced die cast pieces of pig iron, they are by no means balanced or a good choice for anyone with actual training, they're cheap as dirt cleavers for cheap as dirt mass produced soldiers.
The thing is, it's very difficult to keep an edge with pig iron.
Why not just take away the edge and make the hook longer, and boom you've got a nice, cheap weapon thats even easier for your stupid conscripts to use without killing themselves, and actually have a chance at killing the other guys stupid conscripts
I'll give you that the video game and later movies had retarded weapon design but this one isn't that bad. It's basically a cleaver with a hook for trying to pull people off horses. Considering they were up against "the horse lords" it makes sense that they'd want footsoldiers to be able to hook dudes. You gotta remember the orcs didn't give a single fuck about the infantry. I could definitely see part of their training being told to hook a horseman even it it meant getting run down.
On an unrelated note there are other genres that did fantasy swords okay. The swords in 300 could conceivably be gladius or a falcata. Considering how over-the-top everything else in the movie was I'd say this is pretty tame.
''Scythes'' in fantasy settings are never actually scythes, they're like pic related scaled up to a polearm.
Orcs aren't exactly smart user
>because why the fuck wouldn't you use two hands on that bitch
Shields?
>These swords maximize the brute strength of the Uruks, being able to cut off limbs and heads very easily. The upward-pointing spike on the end was an ingenious addition by Saruman, a learned scholar skilled in the arts of warfare. Knowing that he would be facing the legendary Rohirrim cavalry, the additional spike could pull a rider from his horse with minimal effort and either kill or disable his mount. It also served as a terror weapon, sending many shivers down the spine of even experienced soldiers.
Myself, I used the "burst fire" quality in the DM book in repeating crossbows and rocket launcher baskets. Also a bit miffed that it's harder to give more diverse stats to represent different weapons in 5E.
BTW, have you ever checked the "Codex Martialis"? Pic is some of the weapons on it.
>Real Life European Dual Sword Wielding
pastebin.com
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Don't give a shit what you think, Balin's mace-sword is badass.
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Except Tolkien described them(or goblins atleast) as being exceptionally crafty when it comes to designing tools to kill people.
So you can rub it in your players face that if people had to take scythes to war they bloody well modified them. And for the pictures.
I was trying to be supportive
I wasn't literally asking why anyone would ever use one in one hand, shields are an obvious reason why, I'm saying you should at least have the option to use a weapon that you bash someones brains in with in two hands. Speaking of shields, the shield should be treated as a damn club, not give you a measly two points of ac and nothing else.
Incidentally, thats a house rule of mine - shields can be used a weapon for dual wielding, 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
>because why the fuck wouldn't you use two hands on that bitch
Well, for one, the molded hand grip appears to be sized to a single hand.
I appreciate that!
I actually do have a very old modified one from my great great great grandfather. He stabbed a nobleman to death with it. He had to become a cossack immediately afterwards. I doubt he ever regretted it
Is this a thread dedicated to autistic badwrongfun?
Not so much badwrongfun, more like "look how awesome weapons are when they're used properly"
still easy to hold in two hands when you just HAVE to bash in the guy with a thick skull
It's true, and hammers have a hell of a prep and follow-through, god forbid if you miss, it's even worse.
The hook was also useful to pull down the shields in a shield wall.
Only in a fantasy game is the scythe a decent weapon. Still I wouldn't go near someone who could competently swing it. see; Kusarigama
>I wasn't literally asking why anyone would ever use one in one hand
My bad.
>I'm saying you should at least have the option to use a weapon that you bash someones brains in with in two hands.
Agreed.
>shields can be used a weapon for dual wielding, 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
I included bucklers. +1 CA, 1d4 bludgeoning (or piercing if it has a spike), finesse, light. It synergizes well with sling (which does 1d6)
While I favor the "war scythe" version, it isn't incorrect to use it as-is:
wiktenauer.com
It is just a situational weapon, when you don't have "war weapons" , never trained with them or you're hiding your training as field work. A character with a peasant background could make a big deal out of using it as a symbol.
Honestly guy? The tang to that thing looks like it goes the full length of the handle, so it'd bet it's as solid as a rock. Solid enough for at least a few battles, anyway.
And meat cleavers are fukkin' heavy blades with relatively small handles, and those chop through harder-than-human bone on a regular basis without breaking.
>That entire last paragraph.
Midieval serf ninja were the most successful ninjas in history. We have no record that they exist; only that they could have.
>Buckler stats
The thing is, a buckler isn't so much used to block or bash as it is to parry and to shove in the guys face so hes distracted by it and doesn't notice you stabbing him
But it is nice to have them in as a "small light shield with 1 ac bonus" item, if only because not much else fills the niche of "tiny shield". I actually allow gauntlets to provide a 1 AC bonus if you don't have a shield in my games, as well as being able to do more than 1 damage. I let the player flip a coin, heads for 2, tails for 1! Then spiked gauntlets do 1d4.
I wasn't saying it wouldn't make an effective cleaver, but if you watch them fight with it they use it like a regular sword - it'd be pretty useful for chopping or bashing, and even using the hook, but for slice and dice stuff? nah
>wiktenauer.com
Isn't this essentially the equivalent of some mall ninja writing a book on how to win street fights with a katana? Like, yeah, you can do it, but nobody is and archaeologists 500 years from now shouldn't assume any of us did just because there's a book on it.
I have an enormous boner for winged hussars
They were pretty cool, but what happens when the lance breaks in the first 1-2 people sticked with it? would'nt the next row of pikes do the hussar in?
>A character with a peasant background
I'm pretty sure that was only for dueling purposes, and generally for upper class/noblemen.
No, because they very rarely do a head on charge on an infantry formation
If the hussar broke his lance on the first two guys he hit he has nothing to worry about because that means he did his job and flanked the formation and is now pulling out his sword and trampling pikemen to death while the formation routs and breaks
>Incidentally, thats a house rule of mine - shields can be used a weapon for dual wielding, 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
Wait a tic, does 5e not have shield bashing?
Not in the players handbook, unless its well hidden
3.5 had light shields as 1d3, larger as 1d4; with spiked versions doin 1d4 and 1d6 and I think a feat to get it even higher. Shield bashes would negate the AC bonus for that round unless you took a feat that allowed both.
Spiked shield, heavy special 1d4 1d6 ×2 — special Piercing
Improved Shield Bash [General]
Prerequisite
Shield Proficiency.
Benefit
When you perform a shield bash, you may still apply the shield’s shield bonus to your AC.
Normal
Without this feat, a character who performs a shield bash loses the shield’s shield bonus to AC until his or her next turn.
Special
A fighter may select Improved Shield Bash as one of his fighter bonus feats.
I'm totally aware of 3.5 having all this, this is what I modeled my house rule on, but cut it down dramatically for simplicity
I was answering the other posters question about 5TH edition, not 3.5
silly boober
>Midieval serf ninja were the most successful ninjas in history. We have no record that they exist; only that they could have.
Your point being? I have shown a period manual instructing how to fight with scythes. The "hidden training" aspect came to me from slaves using capoeira in Brazil, hiding martial art training with dance.
>The thing is, a buckler isn't so much used to block or bash as it is to parry and to shove in the guys face so hes distracted by it and doesn't notice you stabbing him
I know, but it could be used to punch and stab. Plus, all the stats are abstractions. The intention is to fill a niche like you did with gauntlets.
That's two of us.
So it would be an exceptional character like all PCs. I don't intend to make it the norm.
They would pick up the spare lances. They were meant to break due to being hollow, otherwise they would be too heavy. Not breaking lances was shameful for a hussar.
"Shield Master" feat, page 170. But feats are optional.
When it comes to damage, it would deal 1d4 as following "improvised weapons" on pg 147.
the shield master only allows you to move someone with it, not bash with it for damage
one of them is a maneuver, the other is an attack
The improvised weapon rule would cover a shield being used a club though, now to think of it. Shame its not explicit - but i guess the lack of definition there gives me carte blanch to let it be used in dual wielding without issue
Speaking of D&D perpetuated misconceptions....
youtube.com
At least 5th edition tossed out all that crap, the max dex thing is understandable for balance though
I took a better look. It seems that dude was a bit of a loony when it came to this. is right about in comparing him with a mall ninja. He wanted to make the most complete manual of all time, but we have no proof he ever fought as it indicated. So his scythe fighting makes as much sense as pic related.
I thought "bashing" meant the moving, not the damage.
Noice. I like that one. I'm thinking of picking up this, 14" total, but want it to look like the right but it's 10". Cruel life.
Wow, I'm not even instituting a house rule but letting shields be used for dual wielding and deal 1d4 damage am i? Since fighting with a shield is akin to fighting with a club (watch any video of fighting with a shield to see what i mean), anyone using it to bash would be proficient with it so when using it as a weapon it'd be a light club therefore dealing 1d4 damage and being trivial to dual wield with. Wowza! I followed the rules by accident!
*by letting
Giant fuck off machete blade with a hook for pulling people off horses, and potentially penetrating armour being wielded by a very large, muscular and aggressive humanoid. Shit man thats one of the most practical weapons I've ever seen. I would rather fight Aragon than a Uruk carrying that.
Don't miss. Do isometrics with your baby arms.
Sure. You bring a 20 lb sledge and I'll bring a sword and let's see who can swing it one handed the longest.
>let's see who can swing it one handed the longest
The stronger one.
You could 6 foot 4 300 pounds all muscle and still tire out quicker than me with a 20 pound sledge in one hand if ive got a real sword
Literally spoken by a man who's never held a sledge hammer in his life.
Yeah, just swinging around something with that weight distribution tires the fuck out of you right quick - you could take five pounds off and you'd still get exhausted quickly swinging around something like that one handed
i remember playing morrowind and seeing the weights assigned to the weapons in that game and thinking how quickly my elbows would break trying to use one in real life
even the biggest real life swords arent very heavy
Honestly, I'm not a fan of this edgy coldsteel shit and overdesigned tacticool knifery.
Am I boring for just wanting my rogue to use a good old fashioned fairbairn sykes style dagger?
as someone who literally just spent a half hour swinging a small sledge today to bang out a dent in my garage door god fucking dammit dad COUNTER WEIGHT IS REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT.
The Mjolnir style "warhammer" is, and has always been, cartoonish nonsense. It makes sense as a decoration, or a badge of office (Judges using hammers and priests wielding maces) but as a weapon, if you swing and miss the guy with the arming sword is going to have his steal in your gut before you can recover for another swing.
Isn't Mjolnir's small handle actually a part of its legend, as in it was its only flaw or something like that?
>why the fuck wouldn't you use two hands
It's short and it only has room for one hand on the handle.
Clearly this weapon is designed to be only used with one hand.
It is not top-heavy or heavy enough to require it to be used with two hands.
I would say that this weapon is designed for crowd control (fighting unarmored opponents)
and you can do more damage/deterrent by rapidly swinging it around with one hand.
That is not say you can't use two hands to deliver a more powerful blow.
For game mechanics I would give it the stats of a mace, but I find your method of using quarterstaffs completely acceptable.
Yep. Loki basically fucked with the dwarves making it so Thor didn't have to pay them, or something like that
>pretty useful for chopping or bashing
So, good for an orc.
>You couldn't cut dick with that.
Challenge accepted.
>Am I boring for just wanting my rogue to use a good old fashioned fairbairn sykes style dagger?
nope, you are just being perfectly sensible.
my choice for characters is a bow and a good stout hatchet.
sensible and in character for a woodsman and not even slightly conspicuous.
>Am I boring for just wanting my rogue to use a good old fashioned fairbairn sykes style dagger?
Does your rogue do nothing but sentry removal?
Because that's all those daggers are good for.
>because why the fuck wouldn't you use two hands on that bitch
Because it is short and two-handing short weapons significantly decreases your range and makes moving awkward, inefficient and white limited.
Please watch some Easton-senpai videos, while you might be clearly retarded and should have been able to use basic logic to figure this out I think he might be able to help you.
>because why the fuck wouldn't you use two hands on that bitch
It's rather small for that, but I guess it depends a lot on the granularity in the rules system.
>Because that's all those daggers are good for.
really...they're good for almost any kind of general stabbery.
I'd not fight with one if I had something a bit bigger or heftier, but if quiet stabbing is your game the FS dagger does the job reasonably well...
I just realized that you spent much of the thread acting like an arrogant prick about basic facts and writing some dumb shit like a smug count after revealing early in how little you know.
Geez,this'll be embarrassing once you're actually informed.
what's Veeky Forumss opinion on push daggers?
>I actually know the guy that made this one
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Bigger ones like Katars are neat but ultimately seem like they'd just be harder to use than a normal one in a fight.
I guess they might be better at punching through armor though.
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>I guess they might be better at punching through armor though.
They are not.
Your analysis of the weapon is completely incorrect
They are by definition, maces, are meant to kill. They are excellent at killing armored foes, and have an even easier time killing unarmored people. They are also meant to be used in either one or two hands, like most swords.
They also are fairly light, allowing you to swing it for long periods of time without getting tired.
All in all, they're excellent weapons, and if you said mace to a man at arms from the appropriate time period, this is like one of the things that would immediately come to his mind.
I toss out the mace stats and use the quarterstaff stats for every mace in D&D.
I believe you might actually be the retarded one. Nothing I said in this thread is inaccurate - a bar mace is perfectly usable in two hands and is meant to be used in such a way, as are most bludgeoning weapons.
Scythes with the blade not fixed upwards are totally unusable.
Ridiculously thick swords like in most fiction are just that, fiction.
The uruk hai swords are silly because they're made of pig iron and would lose an edge extremely quickly and they're shown using them like normal swords - it being used more like an axe is much more sensible
1/10 you got me to reply
Bar mace, different angle
Wouldn't be an issue at all swinging with two hands
>Is this a thread dedicated to autistic badwrongfun?
It's on Veeky Forums, innit?
Surviving examples are noted as being able to easily destroy Volkswagen beetles
They were extremely popular in Italy during the Italian wars, so most men at arms at the time would know how to use one.
I don't understand why you would think this thread is devoted to badwrongfun when the first post is talking about how lovely a bar mace is, how a player wanted a scythe to do EXTRA damage when it's pointed the wrong way, and how awesome hooks or spikes on blunt weapons are.
Is not liking oversized weapons a sin now?
wrong link
The bar-mace isn't a typical mace.
I would say it resembles more a club or a baseball bat.
Not as deadly against unarmored people as a sword.
Not as deadly against armored people as a proper mace.
I'm not saying the bar-mace isn't deadly, it's just that the other weapons are specialized in that area.
It's a good weapon to escalate a conflict with, because it's a baton on steroids.
if a thug is in your personal space it's easy to give them a love tap with a bar-mace.
Without having to explain to your superior why he is missing a couple fingers (shortsword) or why he has a broken ribcage (mace).
and if the punk pulls a knife on you, you aren't stuck with a shitty baton or have to draw your proper weapon.
Maybe you should use mace stats for smaller maces and warhammer stats for larger maces.
Because like swords, some maces are specifically designed to only be used by one hand.
As far as I know, those were generally just over two feet long, which is pretty terrible for trying to use two handed, unless you're a halfling.
Scythes are not completely unusable, you just have to use them more for tripping, hooking, and draw cuts than trying to penetrate with the point.
The small punching daggers are easy to use via boxing making them much more practical than regular daggers.
>Here's another silly lotr weapon
Nothing wrong with that thing. It's a machete, basically. It's not elegant, but perfectly effective as a weapon. Blades of similar form have been used in warfare since forever. And in that case, the hook could actual have practical application puncturing armor or attacking cavalry.
Depends, that's just a warhammer with a spike, which is fine. You scale it up, it starts to look like any of a few RL poleaxes. A lot of fantasy scythes are really riffing on the whole "grim reaper's a cool guy" thing, where the scythe is purely symbolic.
>I wasn't literally asking why anyone would ever use one in one hand
There's actually a lot of reasons to prefer using weapons one-handed. A lot of RPG systems simplify it to "each hand is used for something", but if you actually look at real combat arts there are a lot of cases where we see using a 1H weapon with nothing in the off hand. Using two hands on a weapon gives more power and control, but it can also place limits on your reach and the positions where your body can comfortably be in a stance. 1H weapons are also going to be overwhelmingly preferred by anybody who spends any part of a combat situation in the saddle.
In RL, the overwhelming majority of 2H weapons were spears, pikes, and poleaxes used by rank and file infantry. Of course, there are also many, many 1H weapons (like the ubiquitous european hand-and-a-half swords) that were 1H weapons that could be used with two hands when the situation demanded it.
Reminder that Mjolnir was also often described as being a throwing weapon, which probably somewhat explains its distinctive shape. Probably designed such that even if it turns over in the air and hits the frost giant handle-first, he's still going to be a sad panda/giant.
How practical would it be with a spear/polearm etc that could be split into two at the middle (with an optional hidden blade) via a locking mechanism?
I was thinking it as a way to cope when an enemy gets within your reach, but aside from pre-modern manufacturing issues I wonder if it would be too unreliable
>I guess they might be better at punching through armor though.
Generally speaking, if you're close enough to use a dagger against an armoured opponent, anything with a strong blade will do the job. Nothing of that weight is going to go through a breastplate - you're looking to hit the joints or exposed bits. Best pick is something with a round or triangular section that can easily split rings and push between plates.
Not very practical. If you're worried about getting in close quarters (interior hallways or something), carry a short sword to back it up. Thing is, if you're wielding a polearm and someone with shorter weapon gets inside your reach, you're probably dead already. There are techniques for creating distance (look at any kungfu movie with spears or tridents for example), but they generally require space to maneuver for the spear user.
Are quarterstaffs not double weapons in 5e? This does not look like a double weapon. It also looks more expensive than a stick.
That's just because of Thor's association with thunder. Throwing his hammer is the equivalent of a lightening strike. Thinking it was purposely designed as a throwing weapon is pretty dumb desu.
Nope, its a 1d6 one handed weapon that can be wielded with 2 hands for 1d8 damage.
>They are also meant to be used in either one or two hands, like most swords.
Looking at the only actual historical one I have data on, the grip measures out to about twelve centimetres. While you could get some hold on the pommel or just grip above the shaft, this one was clearly intended as a single handed weapon. Also compare with the illustration I posted above (though admittedly the chosen equipment there is in no way guaranteed to be representative), where it's matched with a large shield.
A mass of nearly a kilogram and a half for a single handed weapon isn't preposterously heavy, but it certainly isn't light. Being a mace it probably has a lot of "blade presence" as well for the user to wrestle around.
While obviously capable of inflicting damage and being a weapon, the limited popularity of the bar mace compared to other mace types could suggest that it struggled to match them in performance, or at least to provide similar bang for the buck.
>Surviving examples are noted as being able to easily destroy Volkswagen beetles
Somehow I doubt anyone took one of the rare (the one?) surviving example(s) and went to town on a car with it.
I don't really see why this would be all that much less damaging than many "proper" maces. And as for rapping someone with those, well, if you don't want to smash five ribs in one go, then no hitting with all your might should be a solution. The mace won't propel itself, and it'd be quite the incident if your opponent managed to outright impale himself on a mace as could (according to court records) quite easily happen with the swords and daggers we do see carried for self defence in the renaissance.
While Mjölner is indeed a throwing weapon, its grip ended up looking the way it did because Loke intentionally sabotaged its creation. It's main feature is that it'll never miss, so hitting shaft-first probably just doesn't happen. And Tor could send it through a mountain anyway.
On the topic of scythes in combat. While the damage they deal to the target is decreased(And increased to themselves) when used in the farming orientation, there are two distinct advantages.
1. You can make a trip-attack with them.
2. You can swing down or to the side to get around someones shield, yanking the shield away, or possibly harming them in the process.
>really...they're good for almost any kind of general stabbery.
not really
>when cranked about inside a body
>blade tips snapped off in bone