Zweihander Vs. Longsword

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

So I made a new character in a game with city sizes 7 (crazy huh?) and came across a Pawn Shop with tons of weapons from Random’s Medieval Stuff mod. And in there was a Zweihander… My favorite melee weapon in Cataclysm with REALLY good stats for the base game. But in there was also a Longsword from Random’s mod. And it dealt more in cutting damage, was faster, less volume, and had better bashing then a giant Zweihander…

I know some about swords, mostly European swords. And I know that Longswords can be used in two hands just like a great sword. But typically they were shorter and less weighty then the giants known only as the Claymore and Zweihander.

So seeing this my heart was broken in two. And there is probably some justification to this via physics or just something that I don’t know.

I guess this is just a nitpick but god damn it my favorite two-hander just got outclassed by a Longsword.

2

If the Zweihänder was sharpened as the Longsword was then theres no reason why it should do less dmg.

The only thing worse about it would be the time and room needed to prepare for a swing.

3

Speaking seriously here, any sword can be dangerous.
A knife wound in the right area, and your’e out buddy. Honestly, the point of a Two-hander is to cleave through armor, or knock someone off their horse.
In most tactical situations where a sword is a possible answer, a longsword will perform much more effectively. That said, the swing speed is a force multiplier and a longsword can be swung quite a bit faster than a heavy two-hander, or claymore.

4

[quote=“Valpo, post:2, topic:10739”]If the Zweihänder was sharpened as the Longsword was then theres no reason why it should do less dmg.

The only thing worse about it would be the time and room needed to prepare for a swing.[/quote]
A two-hander is not about sharpness per say, but relies more on the fact that it is a giant piece of steel with an edge on it. In fact, over-sharpening a sword will wear it down and even cause it to blunt easier in a fight. So, don’t go for some crazy, “i can split an atom with a swing.” and go more for, “I can smash through a wooden post.”

5

Well, if someone went through and added organs and locational targeting, then you could make many different weapons viable vs different mobs and npcs.

6

[quote=“Nikolai Don Bonavitch, post:3, topic:10739”]Speaking seriously here, any sword can be dangerous.
A knife wound in the right area, and your’e out buddy. Honestly, the point of a Two-hander is to cleave through armor, or knock someone off their horse.
In most tactical situations where a sword is a possible answer, a longsword will perform much more effectively. That said, the swing speed is a force multiplier and a longsword can be swung quite a bit faster than a heavy two-hander, or claymore.[/quote]

Speaking from someone who actually took lessons in HEMA, this is entirely a myth that you can’t swing a Two handed sword as fast as you can a longsword. Not to mention that the Zweihander Is not actually a two handed sword. It’s actually a “Halfhanded” sword, which means it can be comfortably wielded either way

In fact, a Zweihander wielded in two hands can be swung far faster than an Arming Sword(Longsword is the wrong term, that’s actually the TWO HANDED sword) wielded in one hand, and with greater range of movements. Two hands gives you more leverage.

You’re right about the role of a Zweihander, and that’s to deal with armored enemies. Specifically it’s great against Dismounted Cavalry, as a sidearm for Pikemen.

7

Well this isn’t the response I was expecting. I wasn’t talking about in real life (Ie, this is in The Drawing Board) I was talking about in the game play terms. Not that this type of info isn’t bad. No the exact opposite.

But uh… I think your info might be flipped evilexecutive. The Zweihander is a two-handed sword, if you translate the word “Zwei” from Zweihander you get Two. So it translates to Two-Handed; which is what the sword is. And the “Bastard Sword” is what the “Half Handed” term in referring too. The name Longsword can both be interpreted to a Two handed sword and a “Bastard Sword” so I get your confusion.

Now if you are strong enough you can wield a Zweihander with one hand; It only weighs two kilograms. But the length of the sword (which can be as long as 5 ft) makes wielding it in a combat situation almost impossible. Unless your Arnold; he can tie those things to his M60s and kill every thing in order to get back his beloved daughter.

Movie references aside i’m not trying point you out evil, just to point out what you got wrong…

Like an asshole…

Please don’t kill me. I make mods.

8

[quote=“Artyom177, post:7, topic:10739”]Well this isn’t the response I was expecting. I wasn’t talking about in real life (Ie, this is in The Drawing Board) I was talking about in the game play terms. Not that this type of info isn’t bad. No the exact opposite.

But uh… I think your info might be flipped evilexecutive. The Zweihander is a two-handed sword, if you translate the word “Zwei” from Zweihander you get Two. So it translates to Two-Handed; which is what the sword is. And the “Bastard Sword” is what the “Half Handed” term in referring too. The name Longsword can both be interpreted to a Two handed sword and a “Bastard Sword” so I get your confusion.

Now if you are strong enough you can wield a Zweihander with one hand; It only weighs two kilograms. But the length of the sword (which can be as long as 5 ft) makes wielding it in a combat situation almost impossible. Unless your Arnold; he can tie those things to his M60s and kill every thing in order to get back his beloved daughter.

Movie references aside i’m not trying point you out evil, just to point out what you got wrong…

Like an asshole…

Please don’t kill me. I make mods.[/quote]

Sorry if I’m coming off like an ass, I’d just like to put out some first-hand experience with this.

Eh’, it’s fine. I own a zweihander that’s also 5’ in length; weighs five pounds, and its center of mass is closer to the hilt than it is to the tip of the blade. I’m mostly speaking from first-hand experience with Zweihanders, in that they can indeed be swung faster, and with better range of motions than an Arming Sword/Misconceived longsword), but still only when wielded with two hands. In a single hand it’s only a little slower to use, but not so much that you can’t use it at all.

I’m not a master of Halfhand fighting, but my training with them is on a competent enough level that I could fight an untrained person without worrying of dying to them. My skills with HEMA focus more on the Florentine Style, and classic Dirk Fighting. In florentine I use an Arming Sword in conjunction with a Parrying blade, which takes a lot more skill than I will admit to having.

Even though the Arming Sword or Saber I use for fights is vastly shorter than a Zweihander(So most people would assume I’m faster), I’ll still lose basically every fight against someone with that class of weapons. I mean, with florentine I can -temporarily- hold my ground against someone with a half-hand weapon, but it’s just playing dice with how long until I fuck up with my guard and fail to predict which direction he wants to swing from. It’s really hard to do this, and usually just ends up as being pure luck which direction I put my crossguard against.

Now, Zweihanders and Shields, are some incredibly annoying things to deal with. It’s basically only possible to counter that shit with your own Half-handed sword and shield, or a pike. Simply because the pike counters absolutely everything, through pure reach. And for obvious reasons a mirror fight immediately comes down to one of two things: Physical Strength, Skill, or some combination of the two.

I get really anal about misconceptions with medieval martial arts.

9

That all being said, I would probably categorize the relationship between Zweihanders and the Half-hand techniques with the following.

1-handed: -2 to Melee skill
2-handed: +1 to Melee skill

You don’t really need good strength to one-hand a Zweihander, but with two hands they should absolutely out-class any weapon that’s only meant to be wielded one handed. And of course, one-handing a half-handed sword is fairly difficult. These weapons are on the lower bounds of what constitutes a two handed weapon, and on the upper bounds of what’s a half-handed sword.

That all being said and done, I think there should be a combat system that uses two hands in one way or another. That way the relationship between various weapons and hand-configurations could be much better represented.

10

Now, until the game has any sort of system in place for representing both hands, here’s what I would change the Zweihander to, since the idea now would be that you’re only going to be carrying it in two hands:

Volume: 20, Weight: 3 kg(Down from 3.18)
Bash: 22, Cut: 40, To Hit: +1
Moves Per Attack: 130(Down from 168)

For Comparison, the one-handed Arming Sword has a Bash of 13, Cut of 45, and a Moves Per Attack of 150, with a To-hit of +2.

The Longsword has a bash of 16, and a cut of 46, with a to-hit of +2, while also having a moves per attack of 162.

The advantage this way of having a Zweihander over an Arming Sword or a Longsword is that with it’s balance and hand-configuration lets you swing it more quickly, and in wide sweeps. The Longsword and Arming sword have a higher to-hit, and slightly better cutting damage in exchange. Its downsides are that the Zweihander’s size means it takes up -considerably- more volume than the others.

11

Hmm. I could’ve sworn I made sure the longsword deal less damage due to being lighter. Though it’s possible I balanced it by BUFFING it relative to the lighter broadsword instead. ;w;

Wait, are you looking at the zweihander before or after it was buffed by Coolthulhu?

Additionally, it used to have a transform use_action for switching stances, with the two-handed version being harder-hitting and changing a few other properties. This was axed due to others saying it was a tad silly. ._.

12

Even after the buff, it isn’t exactly top tier.
Using the damage-per-turn * (100% + 10% * to-hit) scaling, zwei is 37 points (a bit better than machete or a combat knife - those are 35), while arming sword and longsword are both 46 (best achievable without diamond is 47 - rapier).

We need more armored enemies for weapons like zwei to matter.

13

Oh shit. How did I manage to get the arming sword and longsword THAT high? o.O

14

You based them on bastard sword, which managed to (barely) avoid the nerf that wrecked the weeb weapons folded thousands of times.
Bastard sword is 46 points.

15

Bastard sword? I wasn’t aware this was a weapon in the game.

You mean broadsword? I thought that was what I based the damage-per-turn off of.

I’m also still pondering whether the slicy Japanese weapons should had their bashing damage nerfed rather than the cutting damage. Though if armor was more important for monsters, that also would’ve been a good way to nerf weapons that aren’t designed to deal with heavy armor.

16

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:15, topic:10739”]You mean broadsword? I thought that was what I based the damage-per-turn off of.

I’m also still pondering whether the slicy Japanese weapons should had their bashing damage nerfed rather than the cutting damage. Though if armor was more important for monsters, that also would’ve been a good way to nerf weapons that aren’t designed to deal with heavy armor.[/quote]

Yeah, broadsword. Though our broadsword is probably a bastard sword too.

Currently the armor works in such a way that having damage focused on one type is better than having it split when it comes to armor piercing.
Changing it would require something like calculating one armor for each attack based on proportions of cut vs. bash or something like that.

17

Possibly, yeah. Enemies do have separate armor values for cut vs. bash, so expanding on the mechanics for that could help too.

Hmm. Should I nerf the arming sword and longsword then? I’ve been meaning to look at the medieval weapons to see if they need rebalancing anyway. I do recall at least one of the spears has an abnormally low volume.

Also on my list of things I keep forgetting, I was gonna buff the awl pike. How do reach attacks affect the effective damage per turn, in terms of balancing?

18

The term “Bastard Sword” is another term for a Long sword. It’s literally a bastard child between an Arming sword and a Two-hander like a Claymore or Zweihander

Though I might be wrong D:

19

I know. Hand and a half sword, etc. o3o

Meanwhile the broadsword is meant to be the early modern “claymore” or basket-hilt sword. Instead of the proper claymore that’s an older two-handed sword.

And certainly not a claymore as in the M18. o3o

20

If you try to swing that around the RNG gods will go

“What the fuck are you doing?”

And blow you into kingdom come.