Any ideas out there on what the stats would be for oriental weapons specifically, the katana and the wakizashi?

Spikor wrote: Any ideas out there on what the stats would be for oriental weapons specifically, the katana and the wakizashi?

Spikor wrote: Any ideas out there on what the stats would be for oriental weapons specifically, the katana and the wakizashi?

OK well were starting to drift more into my realm here so I got to disagree with on the lessing of damage every hit. A finely made Katana is a work of art, a test theyuse to use is to see how thick a piece of wood they can cut it through. While the Europeans were just figuring oout how to put edges on swords,, Japenese sword masters were folding there weapons. I would rather take a Katana against a guy in chain or leather then a long sword, against plate just give me a big ass mace or warhammer. AS for the rules on thursting your dead on in my Iado class the primary thrust attack in called a Skiet (probally spelled wrong) were you have to actually dip the blade to thrust up.. always felt very wierd to me.

I don't want to get too hot-topic on this, but

there are lots of really overblown myths concerning the katana.

That's that. I've trained with Andy Mayer, who taugh ShinKendo for many years, a school that is very controversial because it takes kendo to a more martial, non-sport level. Their founder is Obata, who holds the record for hard test cutting in Japan since the 1300's; Andy trained under this guy. I know the guy that forged Obata's masterful katana, Paul Champagne, master swordsmith (I've handled one of his $8000 katanas as well).

The katana is a fine weapon, but its just a sword.

Jake

I agree 100%. My main reason of prefering the Katana over the Longsword is weight. I hate heavy weappons. Now granted the longsword has its advantages. Wanna see a 9K Katana shatter parry with spine of teh blade or the flat. But ive never seen platemail take a full cut from either all i know is i rather get hit by either one then a damn warhammer or pick Thats just got to hurt.

what wieght are you thinking of for a katana and a longsword? A period longsword (4' total) weighs in at 2.5 lbs, and is masterfully balanced. I am not very familiar with katana weights, but I know that they are more dense and use more metal, but are also almost a foot shorter.

Jake

HUH??? UMMM ::WALKS INTO OTHER room:: ok I got a so called long sword down (replica of Excalubir out of the Ecalibur movie) and a katan ain teh other hand. No granted the Exclaibur is a show sword but it feels heavier. Hmm now also rember i have fought with longsowrds maybe 4/5 times and have practiced with Katana for close on 15 years. So maybe its more a use to thing then actual weight.. but i bow to your knowledge my friend.

The replica you have--or any replica that was made after a movie or that cost under $300 is going to be horribly--and I mean really horribly--made. Katanas, due to their more simple design (I can hear the indignation in the masses, but it's true) are easier to make in lower qualities.

The thing is that in Japan they have historical standards for the kinds of swords that are made, thus a reasonable high mark of crafstmanship. What we find in the west, though, is 99% crapsmanship and "sword like objects." The cheapest you'll find a sword with period wieght will be Del Tin or similar--the wieght will be pretty close, but the balance will still be wrong. We in the west have victimized our own martial heritage in a fashion that only the west could, and it's image has suffered, as have people's understanding of it.

Jake,
who is stepping off of his soapbox

Its a good soap box to be on. The number of smiths today who can forge even reasonably good swords in the west can probably be measured on the fingers of one hand.

The vast majority of swords out there are good for one thing and one thing only...they look cool hanging on the wall.

Set aside evidence for the time being and just focus on pure logic. Medieval battles could last ALONG time. Many of them ended because darkness prevented further fighting. Take a typical 8#, 12#, or even heavier replica sword. Can you even concieve of a man swinging one of these things all day with one arm...I don't care what kind of shape they're in...it isn't likely.

Before the rise of nationalism and largely conscript armies the people who fought in Europe were professional soldiers with many centuries of tradition and expertise. Its become fashionable (since the so called Renaissance actually) to think of them as big dumb barbarians. Wrong. Very wrong. The idea of the Renaissance rising up out of the dark ages to restore culture is a HUGE myth. Charlemagne's court could rival any renaissance princes and that was in the 800s.

The katana is a fine sword, but it is in no way shape or form inherently superior to a western sword. That too is a myth, a myth that stems from the idea the west was barbaric while the east was cultured. Also not true.

Hi there,

Spikor, here's my call, speaking as someone who knows a bit about fighting and has no particular axe to grind regarding the East/West comparison.

Katana = arming sword or longsword, depending on the length.

Wakizashi = shortsword or hefty dagger, depending on the length.

I don't see any reason to modify any of the rules or maneuvers for using them in-game.

Riddlemaster, some of this discussion is getting muddied by the fact that you don't have a "longsword" in hand - you have a modern-commercial object that serves as advertisement for a movie. All historical swords are way, way lighter than most people think.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi there,
Katana = arming sword or longsword, depending on the length.

Wakizashi = shortsword or hefty dagger, depending on the length.

I don't see any reason to modify any of the rules or maneuvers for using them in-game.

To clarify,

By "or," in my above post, I mean to say that both of the TROS designations may be used. That is, katana varied in length, as did wakizashi, or any weapon out there. For instance, if I were playing TROS set in one of the eastern-style settings of Weyrth, or in a historical or fantastical Japanese setting, I would permit a player to define katana as either longsword or arming sword depending on what the player wanted.

It's not a matter of having to define (say) "katana" as one, single, specified, this-is-it TROS designation.

Tanto = dagger, certainly.

Best,
Ron

The reason I specified using the sabre or scimitar instead of the longsword, is that they have the reduced thrusting TNs, which it seems most agree is a factor with the japanese blades. They are also more similar in length ranges, on average, I'd think. Statswise, I think these make the most sense. As well, I think that the sword and shield, or two weapon combination (case of rapiers) would be the most likely proficiency. For example, I'm going to guess, that half-swording was never used with the very sharp japanese blades. I'd like to see a proficiency that focused on the two blades (katana/wakazashi), but had less thrusting, and more other maneuvers, than case of rapiers.

If you must use the longsword stats, consider reducing it's thrusting strength, and creating a new proficiency at the very least.

Mike

It wouldn't be case of rapiers. Rapiers are thrusting only weapons, and katanas are not. The proficiency would, if anything, be more similar to cut & thrust or even longsword/greatsword, depending on how one uses the katana. That is to say, a short katana with a wakazashi would definitely be cut & thrust, but a longer single weapon would be longsword/greatsword proficiency.

As for two weapons, that's cut & thrust, all the way. Cut & thrust users always have an off-hand something or other.

Lyrax wrote: It wouldn't be case of rapiers. Rapiers are thrusting only weapons, and katanas are not. The proficiency would, if anything, be more similar to cut & thrust or even longsword/greatsword, depending on how one uses the katana. That is to say, a short katana with a wakazashi would definitely be cut & thrust, but a longer single weapon would be longsword/greatsword proficiency.

As for two weapons, that's cut & thrust, all the way. Cut & thrust users always have an off-hand something or other.

All of these weapons, when used in an oriental fashion (that was a key phrase) should have their own proficiencies, I think. No-dachi should default to longsword/greatsword at the smallest penalty, and Katana/Wakazashi for cut & thrust.

Of course, if there are no european styles (i.e., no longswords, greatswords, etc.), then replace cut & thrust with katana, greatsword with no-dachi, etc.

Valamir wrote: Its a good soap box to be on. The number of smiths today who can forge even reasonably good swords in the west can probably be measured on the fingers of one hand.

The vast majority of swords out there are good for one thing and one thing only...they look cool hanging on the wall.

Set aside evidence for the time being and just focus on pure logic. Medieval battles could last ALONG time. Many of them ended because darkness prevented further fighting. Take a typical 8#, 12#, or even heavier replica sword. Can you even concieve of a man swinging one of these things all day with one arm...I don't care what kind of shape they're in...it isn't likely.

Before the rise of nationalism and largely conscript armies the people who fought in Europe were professional soldiers with many centuries of tradition and expertise. Its become fashionable (since the so called Renaissance actually) to think of them as big dumb barbarians. Wrong. Very wrong. The idea of the Renaissance rising up out of the dark ages to restore culture is a HUGE myth. Charlemagne's court could rival any renaissance princes and that was in the 800s.

The katana is a fine sword, but it is in no way shape or form inherently superior to a western sword. That too is a myth, a myth that stems from the idea the west was barbaric while the east was cultured. Also not true.

[quote"Bob Richter"]The Katana is NOT superior to a Western sword, but neither is it identical to one. It has its own strengths and weaknesses and its own methods for use.

My point exactly.

Suggested Katana Stats:
Cut
ATN 5
ST + 2 damage, -2 vs. metal armors
Thrust
ATN 7
ST dam, or mayble ST +1
DTN 7 (katanas were never meant for real intense parrying, as I understand it)

This is all based on my limited but otherwise solid understanding of a katana. Katana would have its own proficiency that would consist of:
Cut (0)
Thrust (1?)
Counter (2 or 3?)
Iai (a quick-draw maneuver that I wrote for TFOB)
and maybe a few others.

Fighting with the wakizashi simultaneously was a rare thing, practiced by the (let's face it) partially mythological Myamoto Musashi and not many others. I would suppose, however, that someone with the katana could use the wak. at no default penalty, lumping them in together. A daisho proficiency--separate from katana--would cover Musashi's style.

Jake,
who saw Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress for the first time last night

I'm afraid I disagree. Metalworking has a substantially longer, and more importantly coherent, history in the far east than it does in the west. Hugely so. Chinese archeology has revealed bronze swords constructed around a steel core in the region of 2000 years old, IIRC, and still shaveable sharp. I am not aware of ANY comparable metalworking anywhere else. Far eastern matallurgy is not just different, its very different, and the properties attributed to it do not IMO come from romanticism. I also don't think that the european combatant was much of a match for his far eastern opposite number; the social histories are very distinct and produce distinct specialisations.

I'm afraid I disagree. Metalworking has a substantially longer, and more importantly coherent, history in the far east than it does in the west.

Radiocarbon dates further suggest that European metalsmiths developed copper metallurgy independently from Near Eastern metalsmiths because it shows this technology developing in various European locations around the same time as in the Near East. By the fourth millennium B.C., for instance, smiths in the Balkans were casting copper ax heads with the hole for the ax handle in the correct position...The European Bronze Age...therefore commenced at approximately the same date as the Near Eastern Bronze Age

While there is some error in saying the Renaissance rose up out of the dark ages to restore culture, it's not FAR wrong. Charlemagne's court was more or less a one-off thing, and the knowledge lost over that peroid (between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance) was horrendous. The ancient Greeks KNEW, not thought, KNEW that the Earth was round. The average Roman citizen could even READ. That Europe took giant steps backward between the fall of the Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance is an indisputable fact that only a (very foolish) historical revisionist would stick his foot in.

Thanks Jeff. The "Barbarian West" is one of those myths that has become so ingrained that its extremely difficult to combat. Sure there were set backs, there are set backs whenever looting and pillaging occurs on a large scale, no one would claim that culture and science advanced in a smooth line from Rome to Renaissance...but the idea that it took a 1000 year hiatus is equally wrong.

quot;Jaif]
From "Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times" by Thomas Martin, pg 14:

Except for the focus on thrust. I think Mike is on the right track. The japanese blades were cutting weapons, and any sort of thrust was uncommon and took skill and technique to do properly. I think the weapons should be modified from the longsword/arming sword and short sword stats, and a new proficiency made to cover these differences.

I don't know how you can claim that medieval weapon/armorsmithing could be inferior to classical roman/greek stuff, but let's take a look at the peak armors and weapons.

ARMOR

Greece: Bronze breastplates and helmets.

Rome: Light armor made mostly of Bronze.

Medieval Germany: Steel plate heavy armors.

Japan: Bamboo, with iron reinforcing bars.


WEAPONS

Greece: Spears.

Rome: Javelins and short swords. Also note huge tower shields.

Medieval Germany: Doppelhanders, pikes, greatswords, bastard swords, flails, warhammers, etc.

Japan: Katana.

If you ask me, the armors are not even a comparison. Medieval germany had good armor, and nobody else did. The weapons are harder to compare, but I think that Japan and Medieval Germany had the best weapons. Japanese weapons are extremely effective against non-metal armors and unarmored individuals, but the medieval weapons are effective whether the target is armored or not.

Note that I said "coherent". Sure, greece develops metalworking - but greece as a polity is not around continuously.

By contrast, Rome has the most sophisticated technology in western history until the industrial revolution.

Hmm. Interesting. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Europe had no scientific progress, but, let's admit that they weren't up to par with their contemporaries in many fields. When Grenada was "liberated" from the Moors in 1492, there were hundreds of thousands of books in the city, more than people. As opposed to most Eurpopean cities which may have had one or two "libraries" with a book or two. A dozen books was about the limit in the vast majority of places.

What happened to all those books in Grenada? They were burnt. In fact, if it weren't for an exception to this practice, in Toledo a century or so earlier, there would have been no major libraries in Europe at the time. As it was, the library at Toledo was important enough to transform that city into center of learning.

No, the Europeans were not completely backwards, and a few monks here and there had managed to salvage a few books. But they had nothing in most sciences on the arabs to say nothing of the far east. It wouldn't be until the seventeenth century that even an semblance of parity in learning came about.

But this is all moot. We are talking armor and weapons, here, not algebra (from the arabic al-gebr) or astronomy (the Mayans were kicking everyone's ass in this until they dissappeared), or statesmanship that allowed for large countries (China proper was at no time less than ten times the population of Europe, and at times fifty times larger). No, the Europeans were good at one thing, really. Killin'. Not to say that they killed barbarically, they often killed each other in great splendor and gallantry. But they killed each other nonetheless. Mostly a matter of the interesting geography of Europe that makes languages and cultures fractured over short distances. Blame the Romans, too, for starting it all with the Imperial Attitude.

This is not to say that other cultures never fought, BTW, just that for them it was an occasional passtime instead of a full time occupation. :-)

In any case, along with killing comes weaponry technology. Neccessity is the mother of invention, and the Europeans felt it a necessity to wage war. And as such this particular technology did not suffer. Just when they would look to be falling behind, A king Richard would go off to the mideast and come back knowing how to make the better steel that his men had been run through with. These foreign ventures kept the Europeans at least at a par with others in terms of weaponry. But nobody needed armor like the nobility of the west, and given this need it should be obvious to anyone who's ever seen a suit of Maximillian plate that the Europeans new how to make a man invulnerable on the field of battle.

Tell me that folks who can make that stuff, can't make a good sword.

Just my ten cents.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
Tell me that folks who can make that stuff, can't make a good sword.

Mike makes an excellent point. Science and culture and practical know how are two completely different things.

We see a similiar seperation in ship building. It wasn't until the 19th century where the "rule of measure" began to replace the "rule of thumb" when it came to making ships. For the centuries prior craftsman with (by comparison) only the crudest of plans and no mathamatical rules to speak of crafted ships that were at the time the most ocean worthy vessels ever constructed. They didn't need engineering science to do this, they needed only generation after generation of tradition to direct their craft. Nor did this mean they were hidebound to the past as anyone who's ever traced the remarkable evolution of sailing vessles will see the innovation was nothing short of spectacular.

Having studied this in some detail it is quite easy for me to acknowledge a similiar tradition of remarkable craftsmanship and innovation existed among armorers who didn't need to understand the metalurigical science behind what they were doing in order to create remarkable tools

Jaif wrote:

While there is some error in saying the Renaissance rose up out of the dark ages to restore culture, it's not FAR wrong. Charlemagne's court was more or less a one-off thing, and the knowledge lost over that peroid (between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance) was horrendous. The ancient Greeks KNEW, not thought, KNEW that the Earth was round. The average Roman citizen could even READ. That Europe took giant steps backward between the fall of the Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance is an indisputable fact that only a (very foolish) historical revisionist would stick his foot in.

This is a misconception, and I challenge you to document it. The europeans advanced on many fronts throughout the feudal period. No one disagreed with Columbus that the earth was round - they argued how big it was. The silly part was that Columbus was wrong, but luckily there was an extra couple of continents there for him to land on. :-)

I suggest everyone read "Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel" by Frances & Joseph Gies.

Btw, I'm not arguing that the all is European, nothing came from china, etc. But the concept that Europe was an empty wasteland of the mind until someone screwed in a new lightbulb in 1500 A.D. is plain silly.

-Jeff

Noone is saying that European culture stagnated from 500 AD to 1500 AD, when suddenly everything changed. That WOULD be silly. For one thing, the Renaissance began rather earlier than 1500, and for another it was hardly an overnight thing.

Some people DID disagree with Columbus: the common sailors who manned his ships. They, at the very least, were afraid of sailing off the edge of the world. Columbus was himself a renaissance explorer, and (of course!) the learned renaissance men of his time were unlikely to disagree about the shape of the world, but the "flat world" conception still largely held sway among the common people, as it had among even noblemen and scholars in times not too far previous.

That the Roman Catholic Church surpressed learning and knowledge is a truly indisputable fact. Nicholas Copernicus was put to death for his views (which turned out to be more correct) of the universe. Galileo Galilei died under house arrest because he said he saw spots on the sun. And this was at the beginning of the Renaissance!

Aside of a new wave of revisionist history, it has never been doubted (certainly not by the people of the period...!) that much was lost in the gap between the fall of the empire and the renaissance. Had it NOT been so impressive, do you honestly think the people of the time would have been so impressed with it?

Bob no one is argueing any of that, so your straw man is entirely unwarranted.

What was being discussed was the quality of swords and armor put out by late medieval to renaissance era smiths.

Further, Gallileo could be persecuted for his astronomical theories because the noble lords didn't care. Weapons and armor is something the noble lords DID care about and on that issue the church's track record on supression (witness the laws forbidding fighting on Sunday, and the use of the crossbow) was almost entirely ineffective.

Valamir wrote: Bob no one is argueing any of that, so your straw man is entirely unwarranted.

What was being discussed was the quality of swords and armor put out by late medieval to renaissance era smiths.

Further, Gallileo could be persecuted for his astronomical theories because the noble lords didn't care. Weapons and armor is something the noble lords DID care about and on that issue the church's track record on supression (witness the laws forbidding fighting on Sunday, and the use of the crossbow) was almost entirely ineffective.

Aside of a new wave of revisionist history,..

it has never been doubted (certainly not by the people of the period...!) that much was lost in the gap between the fall of the empire and the renaissance.

Some people DID disagree with Columbus: the common sailors who manned his ships. They, at the very least, were afraid of sailing off the edge of the world. Columbus was himself a renaissance explorer, and (of course!) the learned renaissance men of his time were unlikely to disagree about the shape of the world,..

... but the "flat world" conception still largely held sway among the common people, as it had among even noblemen and scholars in times not too far previous.

Jaif wrote:

I'll have to reread books - I'd like to know which sailors and what their stories are and how we know their beliefs. However, it's rather immaterial: saying that the 'average' person in the middle ages was uneducated is vastly different than saying Europe was behind technologically. The fact remains that Christopher Columbus set sail in ships of a design far in advance of Roman ships.

-Jeff

Why on Earth are we talking about Columbus? The man lived in the middle of the Renaissance, after some VERY important developments in shipbuilding and navigation. Of COURSE his ships were superior to Roman vessels. For a truly pre-renaissance period, we need to back up about 200 years.

Bob,

To directly answer you, 200 years before you probably have cogs with keels, a development over square-rigged, flat-bottom boats. Ok, that development may have taken place in 1000-1100 instead of 1300 (I don't remember off-hand), but close enough. Compasses were probably also coming into vogue, and you are welcome to look up what changes in planting systems, clothing, architecture, and so on occured yourself.

I must say that at this juncture your point eludes. I've stated specific areas of growth through the middle ages, cited a handy reference for these and others. Your statements, on the other hand, have either been pejorative in nature - 'revisionist' - or overly general and unsupported.

...

Interesting. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Europe had no scientific progress, but, let's admit that they weren't up to par with their contemporaries in many fields.

One last point, and this one mostly my opinion based on admittadly a small amount of reading (I'm no historian). My view of the middle ages is through an economic lens: specifically, the middle ages in europe was a time of economic depression, when the old latin economic systems were broken by the arab Jihad. Unlike capitalist America, the Europeans of the time were unable to simply shrug this off after 10, 15, whatever years. Instead, it took hundreds of years of fighting and technicological growth to overcome the situation.

I'm not as mixed up as you think. As the goths came in they may have broken up the empire and established their own little fiefdoms, but they kept the society pretty much intact. However, from what I've read a large part of that society was based on trade across the mediterranean, and when that trade was cut off it demolished the economy of southern Europe, leaving the way open for a rise in power of the agrarian north.

-Jeff

Here is a link with some fairly mainstream lectures on this subject:

http://orb.rhodes.edu/textbooks/Nelson/Nelindex.html

Can I go out on a limb here and suggest that you guys just agree to disagree and leave it at that?

Some language and not-quite-name-calling-yet is just starting to slip in, and I can see the initial simmering of a flame war, which is something this forum really doesn't need.

Besides, you're all wrong - humans only got technology when the aliens landed at the Nazca plains and gave it to us :-)

Totally off the topic this thread has taken, and back onto the original premise, for anyone interested in some good references as far as asian weapons go, I have to recommend two books:

Chinese Martial Weapons, by Dr. Yang-Ming
The Fighting Arts and Weapons of Indonesia, by Donn Draeger

Both come heavily illustrated, so you get a real good idea of the weapons used, a bit of mythology and history, and some breakdowns on what the designs are supposed to do or weigh.

Chris

I thought I'd resurrect this thread just because I don't care for what Mr. Contracycle wrote. His dislike for traditional Western culture is well-known, and he likes to believe anything that goes against what he perceives as being "The Man" (in this case, Western metallurgy) keeping the poor, underrepresented (in this case, the East) down.

I first take issue with his assertion that Eastern culture is more "coherent" or enduring than Western culture. The Chinese were the greatest civilization the East had until very recently. Just like in the West, they experienced ups and downs of fortune and technology. Case in point: the clock. We know the Chinese invented it; by the time Western powers made large-scale contact with them, they had all but forgotten it, while it was a common itm in Europe. China has its "dark ages" during which much learning (and technology) were lost, too, brought about by invasion, plague, and the whole host of reasons it happened in the West. China has never been your precious "stable polity" either. Why do you ignore the achievements of India, who produced wootz, arguably the steel best-suited to martial applications before the modern period? If you're going to backpedal and say that you meant to include India, then I counter that India is not the *far* East, and has more in common with Western culture than it does with China.

I refer him to Dr. Alan Williams' work, "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" for research into whether or not Europe equalled the East in metallurgical achievement and particularly to answer his questions about "whether mediaeval metalworkers even matched the achievements of greece or rome, let alone china". I especially think it's telling that China never was able to produce plate armour. I deduce that, like Europe before the advent of armour of large sheets of steel, China simply lacked furnaces of sufficient size and sophistication.

I also call on him to produce reference for his claim that they produced "iron swords around a bronze core" 2000 years ago. AFAIK, the only area in which China outdid the Europeans was in the making of cast iron, which doesn't really matter in weapons technology. To say that " I also don't think that the european combatant was much of a match for his far eastern opposite number" is sheer wishful thinking. Since most of your argument seems to be your uneducated and highly biased opinions, I offer my own: IMO, most European fighters would have easily stomped their far eastern opposite numbers.

Hello,

None of these threads are currently active. You are invited to http://www.trosforums.com for any and all discussions about TROS and related matters.

Best,
Ron