Quote:
Originally Posted by McAllister
Fashion: uh... guns cause armor to go out of style, armor going out of style causes swords to get thin and stabby, which changes the aesthetics a lot? Not sure what to say, really.
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Guns took a long time make armour go out of style. Armour went bulletproof first. Look, for example, at the siege of Malta (1565), I don't think a single Knight of Saint John the Hospitaller succumbed to small arms fire during four months of continuous battle.
Similarly, it was not a reduction in armour that made swords thin and stabby but an increase in it. Mail is expensive, outrageously expensive. When mail was the best armour on the field less than 20% of combatants wore it, there were lots of textile clad opponents to slash. Then plate hit. Plate is between 1/10 and 1/20 the price of mail. Quickly everyone became impervious to slashing. Only chinks and gaps remained as targets. Swords became short steel spears.
Eventually swords became marks of social status and used only in ritualized dueling. At which point their combat effectiveness is secondary.
Once TL5 comes around, swords are back in combat and slashy once again because of the lack of armour and ubiquitous firearms not despite them.