>From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
>
>It would if I hadn't tried to use both. Give me a
>sword any day.
Yeah, swords are, very simply, the best melee weapon design (it's an axe, with blades on both sides, balanced, and with an edge that goes all the way from hand to point, that delivers significant blunt force along with the cut). RPGs always want there to be some choice between weapons, so they make other weapons their equal. But they simply are superior to everything else in almost all real life circumstances - massed combat being an exception only in certain cases. Roman swordsmen troops could take apart any phalanx in rough terrain.
The reason that more people don't use swords historically is that they're very expensive to make. Spears are cheap. If a culture sees women as being less important in a fight, then it's going to give them the spears, and the swords - those they can manufacture - to the men. In many historical cultures good swords (ones that don't just break on the first strike) are so expensive that only nobility can afford them.
Why did knights and samurai carry swords? Because if you have the option, there's simply no other choice.
Mike
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