As it stands now, Cataclysm lacks, in my opinion, in the Sword-category. It has, mostly, Renaissance and eastern Swords, which is quite saddenning to me. To clear things up, these are all the swords CDDA currently has to offer - I will ignore the diamond-varieties, for obvious reasons:
Broadsword (Renaissance. Also, the term Broadsword isn’t very…good, it’s a pretty new term and it can confuse people into thinking of a medieval sword with a broad blade…which this is NOT, it’s a rapier with a blade similar to the medieval one. Better terminology would probably be ‘Basket-hilted Sword’.)
Zweihänder (or Great Sword, Bidenhänder, and so on. Renaissance, you will very, very rarely find such a big sword in medieval times.)
Cutlass (Renaissance)
Katana (eastern)
Nodachi (eastern)
wakizashi (eastern)
Bokken (eastern. Also technically not necessary to list it here, as it isn’t a metal sword, but a wooden one.)
Tanto (eastern)
forged sword (Or ‘Shortsword’ - a problematic term in of itself, but fine in the description of this sword, as it just tells us that the sword is short.)
This is actually not a whole lot, if you think about it. And we mostly have, as stated earlier, renaissance swords and eastern swords. There are a lot of other sword-typed which could be implemented, for example:
Long Sword (Or One-and-a-half-sword or Bastard Sword. No, it is not a one handed sword with a long blade, the Longswords main use is two-handed fighting. It’s not as big as a zweihänder, but it has a similar grip, for two hands. It >can< be used for one-handed fighting, but it’s not very fast this way, and you loose a lot of the power you could have if you use it with two hands. Also, it just weighs around 1kg and 2kg, it was not heavy )
Arming Sword (The proper, medieval, one handed Sword. Nothing else to say. Also called ‘Knights Sword’ or ‘Knightly Sword’)
Katzbalger (Renaissance, a german Sword used by the Landsknecht. Some people call it a Short Sword, but it has a length of ~70cm-80cm. Still, this would be an option for another ‘Short Sword’…)
Long Knives (Knives, constructed similar to a Sword, like the Gladius, the Seax or the Renaissance Dirk. They are also called Long Daggers and have a length between 30 and 60 cm, which would be enough to be counted as short sword.)
Viking Sword (Used in the early middle ages, similar to the roman Spatha ; It wasn’t only used by the Vikings, it was also used by several other european groups.)
Ceremonial Swords (To name one famous Ceremonial Sword: The Curtana/Cortana or Sword of Mercy, used by the british in their coronations. Similar swords were used by other monarchs as well, they are blunt, and not as strong as a real sword, you could probably bash someone with it though.)
Estoc (A longsword-Rapier Hybrid. It looks a lot like a normal Longsword, but it has a very pointy end instead of a sharpened blade. For the most basic, it’s a very long rapier with a medieval Crossguard instead of the very complex hilt designs of the rapier.)
Executioner Sword (Mostly used in the german area, those swords are for twohanded use only. They do not have a point, which makes them useless for thrusting, something, most other swords are capable of. They aren’t intended for fighting either, however, they do have quite a bit of weight behind them, thanks to the bigger blade and, as the name suggests, are used for decapitations.)
Now that I gave a few examples, to the sword fighting style!
Knights and other (full time) Sword Fighter were trained for quite a while ; naturally, there were books for said training, with some quite interesting techniques which could be used in CDDA too.
Not only that, the real Sword Fighting was different than what Hollywood tries to tell us. For example, you didn’t just block a sword with your own sword, that would damage your sword as well as the enemies, you would >parry< it, means, you redirect the attack. You also didn’t spin around like a madman, neither did your sword, that just opens you to the enemy which could easily kill you.
Now, for 2 techniques i know somewhat well and are, at least in my opinion, viable for use in CDDA.:
Half-Swording: You grab the blade with 1 hand, basically shortening the blade and taking some of it’s power away, but you have greater accuracy with it and can thrust the blade better. This was mostly used against enemies in heavy armor, as you couldn’t penetrate something like plate armor with a Sword, you had to thrust your blade into the weak points of the Armor. This could translate to a skill where you loose a bit of damage, but the damage is completely changed to thrusting damage instead of cutting damage - armor penetration could also be a possible part of this skill.
Murder-Stroke: You turn the sword arount, grab the blad and basically use the pommel and Crossguard as makeshift Striking Weapons. Again, mostly used against armored targets, this technique gives you the ability to penetrate the enemies armor like with a mace. This can end in quite a heavy attack which is quite damaging - it also does blunt damage.
edit: small edits and corrections, yay