wizzzargh wrote:And besides, the reason you see swords being defensive weapons is because in movies, swords are the only melee weapons that matter, the other weapon types being delegated to minions and sidekicks.
Historically a sword was a very good defensive weapon if you actually had one, but offensively they were no better than a mace (and much
worse against any sort of armour) and they were also really expensive and difficult to make compared to other weapons. Once the halberd was invented they got even less useful. There's a good reason bayonets always have a spear head instead of a sword mount.
I don't like the idea of a defensive weapon class at all. If another reaching/cleaving-style weapon class ability ever gets added, my vote still goes to making maces partially ignore AC; long blades can just be the "basic" weapon class.
If I really wanted to make swords in Crawl more realistic, the first thing I would do is make them weigh less. Real-life medieval swords over 4 kilograms were
very rare, and if you
did have a sword heavier than that, it would be a really crappy sword for fighting. In crawl, a long sword weighs 16 aum and a plate armour weighs 65 aum. In real life, a medieval long sword would weigh no more than 1.5kg, and Renaissance swords were even lighter. A full plate armour would usually be at least 15kg. It is similarly bizarre that long swords are heavier than maces (12 aum).
I would know.