New Weapon: Two-Handed Sword (and a new rule for longswords)

[SirKicley]

Okay. Well reasoned. I can live with that. Consider the Injury rating adusted.

FWIW, the rule of thumb for RPGs and finding the right balance: IF one choice is obviously better in multiple ways than others of it's ilk, then it's design is not quite right.

In the instance of your greatsword, the damage was better than all swords, and the injury was as good as an axe, and the Edge was better than an axe. So that's the reason I could see that there was reason to question. In other words: why use an axe?


In D&D 3rd / Pathfinder - Haste for instance is almost a go-to spell for 3rd level spells. It's typically considered to be the first choice. Lots has been said about it's relative power in the game. Stinking Cloud was always a very popular second level spell - so they moved it to 3rd level to offset it. If it's an obvious choice - better than any others in that category, then there's a design flaw.


MMO makers struggle with this all the time; they see that there's a trend of all players selecting the same "build" and they realize they made something too lucrative - so they update it and nerf it, and usually wind up ruining it's effectiveness completely by swinging the pendulum too far the other way. Then 2 months later they have to make another adjustment. Meanwhile the players have all gravitated towards another obvious built.....rinse and repeat....

[Otaku-sempai]

I grok ya. I"m at peace with the final version and I'm glad that some fellow players see potential benefit in including the great sword as an optional weapon, now that everthing is balanced. I'm just happy to have contributed.

I can be stubborn, but I try not to be intransigent beyond reason. I hope you like the revised write-up (now with a picture of a sheathed great sword).

[Osric]

These may be pleasant reading for those who want to argue the case in favour of great swords.
"... their knives had been taken from them by the wood-elves, and the great sword Orcrist too."
-- TH ch. 10 A Warm Welcome.
"On the throne sat a mail-clad man, a great sword was laid across his knees, but he wore no helm."
-- LotR Book VI ch. 4 The Field of Cormallen.
"...it had been known, firstly, that Isildur had the Ring, and had fled towards the River; secondly, that his mail, helm, shield and great sword (but nothing else) had been found on the bank not far above the Gladden Fields..."
-- UT, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields

Of course the swords Orcrist and Narsil/Anduril are "great" in many senses of the word. But the latter two quotes would seem to be descriptive of size rather than status, even if there's no sense here that the term "great sword" is being used as a descriptor of a specific, recognised type of weapon.
And indeed, these are the only quotes that say "great sword". Orcrist and Narsil/Anduril get mentioned a lot throughout JRRT's work, and in only these instances get called "great swords". Evidence for those in favour of them; weak evidence easily disregarded for those who are against them.

Like others here, my position on the right Edge and Injury stats for such a weapon are what SirKicley said.

Crucially, no one's going to get favoured Great Sword skill from their basic package, and I'd argue strongly that no home-brewed character should be allowed to do so either, given their extreme rarity.
Lucky is the chap who finds one and already possesses the cultural weapon skill 'Swords', and therefore doesn't have to 'start at square one' to develop skill with it (but of course getting Favoured status for it would then call for the expense of splitting it out from the group skill).

Cheers!
--Os.

[Otaku-sempai]

These may be pleasant reading for those who want to argue the case in favour of great swords.
"... their knives had been taken from them by the wood-elves, and the great sword Orcrist too."
-- TH ch. 10 A Warm Welcome.
"On the throne sat a mail-clad man, a great sword was laid across his knees, but he wore no helm."
-- LotR Book VI ch. 4 The Field of Cormallen.
"...it had been known, firstly, that Isildur had the Ring, and had fled towards the River; secondly, that his mail, helm, shield and great sword (but nothing else) had been found on the bank not far above the Gladden Fields..."
-- UT, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields

Of course the swords Orcrist and Narsil/Anduril are "great" in many senses of the word. But the latter two quotes would seem to be descriptive of size rather than status, even if there's no sense here that the term "great sword" is being used as a descriptor of a specific, recognised type of weapon.
And indeed, these are the only quotes that say "great sword". Orcrist and Narsil/Anduril get mentioned a lot throughout JRRT's work, and in only these instances get called "great swords". Evidence for those in favour of them; weak evidence easily disregarded for those who are against them.

Cheers!
--Os.

I wish I knew for certain what Prof. Tolkien meant when he used the term great sword descriptively. In TOR, the term long sword is used to refer to what I could call either a bastard sword or a hand-and-a-half sword (say like the Ranger blade that Strider carries in the LotR films). I usually think of a long sword as being a one-handed blade about the same length as the average broad sword, dueling sword, etc.

I am confident that when writing about Orcrist, Tolkien meant great in the sense of legendary--as in, Orcrist was a sword of renoun (the same applies to any such mention of Glamdring). There is no way that Thorin Oakenshield could have wielded a mannish two-handed sword or even a hand-and-a-half sword.

Tolkien's description of Sam's first sight of Aragorn on the throne of Gondor with Andúril does seem to indicate a very large sword. Are there other indications in the legendarium of Narsil/Andúril's length?

Tolkien definitely refers to the sword that Isildur leaves upon the river bank (which is not Narsil, which he had already sent away) as a great sword which, by his usage could be either a true two-handed sword or a hand-and-a-half sword (a long sword under TOR rules). Nonetheless, thanks for the precedent. It is much appreciated.

[roodie]

Are there other indications in the legendarium of Narsil/Andúril's length?

None about Narsil, but during the battle of Hornburg, Aragorn grabs a shield from the armoury and uses it along with his sword, so we know that Andúril can be used one-handed

[Beleg]

I always took Narsil to be a standard hand-and-a-half sword, though that may be influenced by the films

[Otaku-sempai]

I always took Narsil to be a standard hand-and-a-half sword, though that may be influenced by the films

I think that we should accept that Tolkien was probably using an archaic meaning for the term great sword that includes any blade from a hand-and-a-half and up. That seems consistant with the legendarium.

[Beleg]

I think that we should accept that Tolkien was probably using an archaic meaning for the term great sword that includes any blade from a hand-and-a-half and up. That seems consistant with the legendarium.

I agree. If only the books had glossaries

[Osric]

I think that we should accept that Tolkien was probably using an archaic meaning for the term great sword that includes any blade from a hand-and-a-half and up. That seems consistant with the legendarium.

More than that, the term "great sword" had no particular meaning even as recently as in Tolkien's day!

It's a relatively recent coinage, very possibly having come out of roleplaying itself, though I haven't been able to track it down. "Claymore" translates from the Gaelic as "great sword", but still only refers to one-handed or a hand-and-half weapons -- the "greatest" within the sphere of the people using the term. D&D sticks to the historically semi-accurate and eminently descriptive "two-handed sword"; I think it was either an early edition of Fantasy Hero or the first edition Hârnmaster in which I first came across "great sword" or "greatsword" as a specific weapon type.

I'm sure that Tolkien intended it as a description of a sword that was great, either in powers and reputation, or in size, but without beng any more specific than that.

Cheers,
--Os.

[Otaku-sempai]

From a discussion of the issue at TORn: http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/g ... me;#607628.

In The Two Towers, it is written that Aragorn uses Andúril with a shield from Théoden's armoury during the Battle of the Hornburg. In The Fellowship of the Ring it is also stated that his sword was similar to Boromir's, who uses his with a shield consistently. This, coupled with Tolkien's comparisons of Middle-earth's clothing and war gear to that of Dark Age Europe and the Bayeux Tapestry, would suggest that it and other swords would be single-handed rather than the two-handed longsword depicted in the films, which is more akin to the late medieval and Renaissance periods.

Something new every day!