Renaissance and Early Modern fencing includes a style known as a case of rapiers, in which one fights with a rapier in each hand. The manuals of the time illustrate it and the masters taught it, but accounts of their use indicate that it was not a popular style, by which we can also infer that it was no better than fighting with rapier and buckler or rapier and main-gauche. One commentator notes that as an off-hand parrying weapon, the rapier is much heavier and slower than a buckler or main-gauche.

One account in Hutton's The Sword through the Centuries talks about a sixteenth-century judicial duel fought with a case of rapiers, by order of the king, Francis I. The combatants ended up throwing away the swords to go after each other with their daggers instead.

I can't claim any special expertise, but I have done both SCA fighting and some Amptgard boffo fighting.  Of the two I preferred the former as the second is all flash and pizzaz and no meat....

Observations:  you very rarely see two weapon fighting in the SCA unless someone is having fun.  Weapons tend to be heavier and the lack of a shield is punishing even with good armor. However, when used offensively they can overwhelm less skilled fighters.

Two handed weapons do not nearly suffer the lack of the shield however. Reach is a big one here, and in even remotely competent hands (mine for example) the speed and defensive advantage of reach more than offset the lack of a shield.  Reach IS a defense as well as an offense.

Sheilds are uber. Combine it with any reasonable one handed weapon and the board beats all. In SCA at least, where it will never break or you won't get broken limbs from a massive strike.   Even a noob can stand for a few minutes to, say the Marshall, or other expert with a good shield.  Most games seem to seriously undervalue the advantage a shield gives you even if you just hold the fucker up between you and the other guy.


In boffo (call it more cinematic games) things seem to radically change.

One, since boffo weapons tend to be rediculously light, two weapon fighting is the most popular and uber forms to use.  Two weapon become flailing whirlwinds of death very quickly.

Reach remains a very good advantage to have, however, but still lack any real sexy factor.  

Shields are no longer uber. They still have some utility, but since they tend to be very lightly made,  a strong and 'unfair' fighter can just knock them out of the way with a big weapon and two weapon guys are beatsticking both sides they can't really block everything.  Still, a good shield guy using a foam boogie board shield can hold off three or four guys even surrounding himself like he's a spartan in 300... only dorky.  That said, sheild and spear can be potent even in boffo, but you loose a lot of utility of a reach weapon like a spear when you only control it with one hand.

Note the change of dynamics from a fairly realistic style of combat (where being hit really fucking hurts, and weapons have something approaching a realistic mass and you're suicidal to fight without armor...) and a cinematic style combat (where weapons are essentially weightless and being hit USUALLY means nothing more than taking a breather for thirty seconds while the fight resets...and armor is, at best, a delaying tactic (since it just means a second or third hit to 'kill')... shields rapidly loose favor compared to two weapons. Its reasonable to suggest that  two weapons really DO double your attacks in a cinematic style, or even a less cinematic style, while the real deciding factor appears to be the lethality of any given hit.  Where hits hurt and are potentially 'ending', two weapon fighting doesn't offer enough of an advantage to offset the life saving utility of a shield, while two handeder do offer some protection if only due to reach and easier parries (which don't seem to dominate much in either style), while their offensive advantage does seem comparable to the twin-beatstick style, better perhaps...

Me? I like the cool factor of two weapon fighting, but you won't see me trying it in the SCA any time soon.  In either 'style' of combat it becomes pure offense very fast.

I was going to mention SCA fighting.  We had a lot of people around here use the 2 "swords" in the late-90s.  No idea if that's still popular or not.

The thing is... I'm really not convinced SCA fighting is much like real sword fighting. There's a lot of rules in the SCA that make the techniques pretty different from what you'd see with a real weapon.  You aren't really allowed to follow through, so a lot of the blows are more like "flicks" than "swings". There's some strangeness with the way the rattan / armor / scoring works as well so you have techniques like swing past the head then pull backwards to hit them on the back of the helmet maneuver.  There's an awful lot of swing back and forth in a vertical arc from side to trying to hit the thighs to force someone down on one knee as well.

It's interesting, and challenging, and fun, but only kinda/sorta realistic-ish...

Any demonstrations I've seen of more historical fighting techniques didn't look very much like SCA fighting.

Hrm. I haven't actually done any deep SCA fighting since the early 2000's. Even then I only did 'fighter practice' with the local marshall and a few other guys, with a few local parties with the rest of the local kingdom where we did some awesome shit (tourney style fighting over a low wall, for example).  The only guy who ever did two weapon fighting was the Marshall pretty much, and that was always as a lark.  

I never saw anyone trying to flick. The rule was that if the guy you hit didn't feel it, it didn't count, so flicking was pretty dumb.  Lack of follow through? Sure, you aren't out to kill motherfuckers, after all. Many many 'safety' rules? Sure, thats why you'll never see a flail in the SCA, and yeah, that does occasionally hurt versimiltude.

On the other hand, I think swinging for the legs is more a reaction to the effectiveness of shields more than some weird SCA only thing. Cutting a man's leg out from under him is lethal in a real fight and getting past a shield often leaves you little choice but to go low when ever you can.

The 'flick' stuff, and weird head moves are all boffo rules I saw recently. Of course, one of the hard core guys I was hanging with at the time had come from Texas where their boffo guys also did SCA, so they tended to hit harder than the local boys. I have seen a boffo fighter lying on the ground crying from a 'hard' hit.  Of course, the most respected fighter I saw personally was an archer good enough to catch his arrows on teh bounce and reshoot them... so reality rapidly starts to fall on the wayside in boffo.

Quote from: Originally Posted by Philotomy JuramentInstead of altering the way damage is rolled, wielding two weapons could result in an increased chance to hit (i.e. +1). Going this route gives you three basic options: weapon + shield (increased defense), weapon + weapon (increased chance to hit), or two-handed weapon (increased average damage), which is nice, mechanically.

The Guildschool system we use does this.  
We use protection as well as avoidance, and Protection is more important that avoidance.  Which tilts combat users to the shield+single hand.
2 weaps gives twice the init rolls and twice the chances to hit, but is rarely used, sometimes with a main gauche.

2 handed use of a weapons, small or large, gives advantages as well.  you can use heavier weaps, but even for medium sized ones, you have a slightly better chance to hit (depending on how strong you are and how big the weapon is) and do more damage.    And in a system with protection, this matters.

Quote from: Spike;354996On the other hand, I think swinging for the legs is more a reaction to the effectiveness of shields more than some weird SCA only thing. Cutting a man's leg out from under him is lethal in a real fight and getting past a shield often leaves you little choice but to go low when ever you can.

My friend and I played at swords for a while, and we found that we had a liking to attack the legs even without shields; it seems they were an easier target for us to hit than the better defended torso.  After some time we eventually stopped, I guess as we learned how to defend our legs better.

Of course I'm not going to accuse us of being masters or anything, as my friend was quite fond of using two swords and I lacked the ability to own him in the face for it (though, likewise, he got no edge on me despite the fact that my sole armament was one sword).  It's a shame we never made a good shield, as he talked an awful lot of smack about shields being useless and I really wanted to show him why they were so popular.

The thing I think is overlooked is why and how the person is fighting. There are a lot of intangible elements in fighting that it is difficult to put into a game system.

For example, a shield is good when you are fighting in large groups because you can't be aware of every attack coming at you. Your friend's shield is really helpful when trying not to die.

If someone has two weapons, they can attack with both arms like a boxer, while someone with one weapon can't... but someone with a spear or sword can prevent that by threatening him.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there are so many if, ands, and buts that any system is going to be arbitrary and not really reflect the things that happen.

I think that to be fair in an RPG, it is best if the different fighting styles deal roughly the same damage over a number of rounds unless the style grants a defensive bonus.

On the other hand, the different styles could have situational bonuses. Maybe some kinds are better for the battle field, like sword and shield, while others are better for single combat when you have a lot of space (two hands) or single combat when you are in closed (two weapon).

Quote from: Cranewings;355140I think that to be fair in an RPG, it is best if the different fighting styles deal roughly the same damage over a number of rounds unless the style grants a defensive bonus.

I think this is incredibly wrong headed thinking in 'game design'.  Various 'techniques' of fighting are not inherently equal, which is why some succeed over the long term and others fail.  Trying to balance inherently inequal things is a metagame consideration that leads to boring games that, in all probability, will lead to breaking the suspension of disbelief.

If you start with the premise that 'all forms of melee should do equal amounts of damage over any given combat round' where do you draw the line? What about pugilism?

You design a monk style class for your game and find out that based on your assumptions the Monk does not, in fact, do anywhere near equivilent damage... so you boost unarmed combat.  Congratulations: You've just made a mockery of a quarter million years or so of tool use.

I apologize for the sudden harsh but this sort of 'leveling' is just wrong.

Now, on the other hand if you want to give any given style its own unique situational advantages, I am perfectly cool with that. You can even try to make them 'equivilent' by balancing their various advantages: two weapon fighting is just as offensively boosted as sword and board is defensively boosted.  It may or may not be accurate to reality, but it works fine and keeps people from scratching their heads over why mideaval armies (and earlier) stuck to using shields since there was no real benefit... or what have you.

Obviously, some genre considerations need to be taken into account. If you want kung fu action, you gotta give the monk guys lots of neat shit to do, while the weapon guys just get to swing stupidly for lots of damage... or something.

I agree that the trend towards trying to balance out everything round-by-round in combat like that isn't very good.

Fighting with a knife is worse than fighting with a sword - but there are non-combat reasons you might want to have a knife. Maybe it's a back-up weapon. Maybe it was a concealed weapon. Maybe you're climbing the rigging on a ship, or crawling through some tunnel. Maybe there are roleplaying reasons for using it, like it being a ceremonial blade.

Why shouldn't empty hand do the same damage? I think it is important to define damage, and if you define it as, "sufficient injury to impede effective fighting" then hand to hand can be just as bad as a sword or knife.

For example, if someone stabs you in the stomach, you could potentially keep fighting and stab them back. On the other hand, if someone punches you in the face once, it could spell disaster.

Take the hand. If your hand is open with the fingers pointed up, as it is in a lot of real world fighting styles, someone could stab you in your hand. If they do, you might not even realize it, though the injury will be with you for a long time.

On the other hand, if someone hammer strikes you on top of your finger, you will know it instantly, despite adrenaline, and may not be able to fight with it.

My first point is that single expert blows from empty hands, even untrained ones, are very dangerous. We have all heard stories of people dying in bar fights. On the other hand, sometimes people have to be stabbed a dozen times before the quit.

Excluding damage, there are still differences between empty hands and weapons. For example, you can block a kick with your arms. A good kick could potentially break your arm or make it go numb, but it isn't nearly as bad as being kicked in the ribs or neck. On the other hand, you can't block a sword with your arms, so you must evade the strike or stop it at the source, which is much more difficult.

So the first difference - a weapon requires a weapon for defense, while an unarmed strike doesn't.

The second thing is range. Even a dagger grants enough additional reach that it provides an advantage, let alone a sword. D&D is on the right track with AoOs, however in real life the advantage of more swings is even larger.

Which brings me to my point: In my mind, for immulation's sake, there isn't a difference in combat between damage from one thing and another - only the tools needed for defense and the later effects of that damage.

The range and utility of weapons, and the difficult to acquire means of defending yourself from them are the real tickets.

Quote from: Cranewings;355143Why shouldn't empty hand do the same damage? I think it is important to define damage, and if you define it as, "sufficient injury to impede effective fighting" then hand to hand can be just as bad as a sword or knife.

Why would you believe something like this?  What inspired you to think this is true?

Quote from: Stuart;355142I agree that the trend towards trying to balance out everything round-by-round in combat like that isn't very good.

Fighting with a knife is worse than fighting with a sword - but there are non-combat reasons you might want to have a knife. Maybe it's a back-up weapon. Maybe it was a concealed weapon. Maybe you're climbing the rigging on a ship, or crawling through some tunnel. Maybe there are roleplaying reasons for using it, like it being a ceremonial blade.

A knife is probably a better weapon once someone is one the inside of the person's defenses. I can see how it would be more effective at incredibly close range.

Quote from: Cranewings;355143Why shouldn't empty hand do the same damage? I think it is important to define damage, and if you define it as, "sufficient injury to impede effective fighting" then hand to hand can be just as bad as a sword or knife.

For example, if someone stabs you in the stomach, you could potentially keep fighting and stab them back. On the other hand, if someone punches you in the face once, it could spell disaster.

Take the hand. If your hand is open with the fingers pointed up, as it is in a lot of real world fighting styles, someone could stab you in your hand. If they do, you might not even realize it, though the injury will be with you for a long time.

On the other hand, if someone hammer strikes you on top of your finger, you will know it instantly, despite adrenaline, and may not be able to fight with it.

My first point is that single expert blows from empty hands, even untrained ones, are very dangerous. We have all heard stories of people dying in bar fights. On the other hand, sometimes people have to be stabbed a dozen times before the quit.

Excluding damage, there are still differences between empty hands and weapons. For example, you can block a kick with your arms. A good kick could potentially break your arm or make it go numb, but it isn't nearly as bad as being kicked in the ribs or neck. On the other hand, you can't block a sword with your arms, so you must evade the strike or stop it at the source, which is much more difficult.

So the first difference - a weapon requires a weapon for defense, while an unarmed strike doesn't.

The second thing is range. Even a dagger grants enough additional reach that it provides an advantage, let alone a sword. D&D is on the right track with AoOs, however in real life the advantage of more swings is even larger.

Which brings me to my point: In my mind, for immulation's sake, there isn't a difference in combat between damage from one thing and another - only the tools needed for defense and the later effects of that damage.

The range and utility of weapons, and the difficult to acquire means of defending yourself from them are the real tickets.

Having done plenty of boxing and martial arts, I think there is a serious difference between being hit by a bony hand, and being hit by a blunt object or bladed weapon. And the difference between a gun and a hand is even more pronounced.

I was gonna say, I had four dudes punching me in the head this Halloween and I didn't even feel it until after the adrenalin wore off, well... except for the broken nose, and even that didn't stop me.

Now... if that had been rocks, hammers, knives, swords, baseball bats....hell just about anything other than fists... I'd be the ghost poster now.


I be internet tough guy now?

Yay me!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;355147A knife is probably a better weapon once someone is one the inside of the person's defenses. I can see how it would be more effective at incredibly close range.

I think a "short" slashy, stabby sword like the Greek Spatha would still be superior in close combat.

If by incredibly close range you mean grappling... maybe.