Are swords worth it?

[weby]

Short answer: It depends on the combat options you use.

Below assumes one hand+shield use of all the weapons.

Sword vs axe:
Sword can attack and parry, axe can only do one at time.
Sword can both impale and cut axe only cut.
Axe does one point more basic swing damage.
Sword is more expensive by far.

Thus things like:
The axe user needs also to train in the shield skill or raise dodge enough to compensate for the parry ability of the sword where the one skill raises both attack and defense.
If attacking the weapons the axe is an easier target to damage/destroy.
The sword has higher maximum quality available in the long run but a fine axe is available at low cost.

Sword vs spear:
Sword can both impale and cut spear only impale and with a ready maneuver crush.
The sword does more damage.
Sword is more expensive by far.

Thus things like:
If attacking the weapons the spear is an easier target to damage/destroy.
The sword has higher maximum quality available in the long run but a fine spear is available at low cost.


Overall at 150 points a sword is barely the better weapon generically. You start to have more than one point in your main skills(thus vs axe raises both attack and defense), ST higher than 10(thus more damage than a spear) and your wealth is normally average or slightly above thus the sword is not all the money you have.

At lower point values the cost matters a lot so more iffy as average wealth tends to be the absolute maximum.

At higher the ability to raise just one skill and the higher quality cap of the sword matters more and the price a lot less.

If the money is an issue(like average wealth and need to buy other expensive things) in that the staring then maybe a cheap sword and a club as backup weapon if the sword breaks...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Note that historically swords are almost never the primary weapon of any military unit. There is a reason for that. They aren't wonder weapons, they're tolerably good ones that have a lot of flexibility.

One-handed swords aren't, but two-handed swords are different.

[David Johnston2]

What the heck is a "Very Fine" spear? What kind of wood would you make it from?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

skilled warriors are going to have a couple different weapon skills... and which one they favor will depend on their fighting style, character background, and so on.

This is one facet of GURPS that always has made me fond of it. Most games have one weapon and armor that's clearly dominant in the game-theoretical sense -- it's just plain better in all ways, given the rules. GURPS gives you more room to equip your character in a manner suited to the character concept, rather than the combat mechanics.
There are tradeoffs to consider, to be sure, but not one simple always-best choice for all cases.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What the heck is a "Very Fine" spear? What kind of wood would you make it from?

Essential. Then you get a Shatterproof put on it.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What the heck is a "Very Fine" spear? What kind of wood would you make it from?

A branch that has fallen from the World Tree, Yggdrasil.

Because if you're going to be breaking the rule about how only swords can be Very Fine, you may as well go all-out and say it's a deity's weapon.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

To reflect the social side in game, you might grant a situation skill or reaction roll bonus or penalty to someone wearing (or not wearing) a sword - someone with Status 1+ might be expected to have at least a shortsword at all times, someone with Status 0 or less might be in trouble if they have a sword at all, that sort of thing.

This is something that tends to be greatly overstated, and is very specific to the time and place, as well as what specifically legally constitutes a "sword" in that particular jurisdiction. For example the period in Japan that the katana was restricted to Samurai was preceded by a longer period in which swords legislated weren't by class at all. For another, the in my research into 16th century highlanders, the parish histories would imply that everyone had a "sword" but these are probably including weapons GURPS would call a Long Knife. Similarly throughout Europe from the late medieval through the 18th century most infantry carried hangers of some kind, which run from Long Knives to Broadswords in GURPS terms, and in many places this was part of a soldier's kit that he was expected to keep and maintain himself, rather than return to a militia armory or whatever. In Elizabethan England, swords were regulated by length, but otherwise not by class, if you could afford a rapier, you could carry one, but if was too long there would be fines or they would take a hammer to it. So there really probably isn't a good argument for "swords are upper class only" for most places.

[JoelSammallahti]

Thank you, everybody, for your well-thought-out and polite replies! I'll try to respond to some of your points here.

One thing lots of people mentioned was that only swords and fencing weapons can be Very Fine. By Basic Set, yes! But Low-Tech, p. 59 extends Very Fine to all melee weapons. It's a whopping +49 CF... But that still only comes out to +$1,960 for the Spear and +$2,450 for the Axe.

Originally Posted by malloyd

There's no particular reason to want to push delvers to use swords if they don't want to. Anyway the lack of a U parry already covers the defensive advantages relative to Axe/Mace and the option for swing/cutting the damage advantage over spears.

Okay, but the reason to not pick a sword isn't that players don't think swords are cool, or that they're not versatile. It's that at any given price range, other options are better.

Originally Posted by malloyd

Note that historically swords are almost never the primary weapon of any military unit. There is a reason for that. They aren't wonder weapons, they're tolerably good ones that have a lot of flexibility.

Respectfully, I disagree. There have been a few somewhat marginal troops that have used one-handed swords primarily, like the rodeleros and some hussars. But the big one's the Roman legions, who used the sword as their primary weapon for hundreds of years. This was probably the best army in history before the modern era.

Now, undoubtedly they had their own ruts of tradition that kept them from improving and adapting as well as possible, but over the centuries they made changes in armor, they changed the shape of their shield, they varied the use of ranged weapons, they changed their fortifications, etc. - they were not stuck in outdated ways, overall. And they kept the one-handed sword. If the spear had been more cost-effective, they would have used it.

Something recommended the sword to them, not as an emblem of nobility, but as a practical weapon, and I don't think the standard Gurps weapon stats reflect that something sufficiently.

Now, I don't think the sword should be a wonder weapon. But it should be one among many reasonable options.

Originally Posted by Railstar

These would make a slight niche of “spears do poor against armoured targets, axes waste some of their potential in unarmoured fights, swords can adapt to either better.”

The point about more lightly armored limbs making swings more attractive is valid, but you've also got to take into account other less heavily armored hit locations. The one case, I'd assert, where that swing with the Cheap or Good sword is going to be better than the thrust with a Balanced, Fine spear is where the limbs are unarmored, and everything else including the face is heavily armored. Because if the face is no more heavily armored than the limbs, you still do more injury with the spear in the face. Admittedly, you don't get to cripple the face - but you have a much higher chance of causing knockdown/stun, so it's not clear to me you're not better off.

Heavier overall armor isn't going to make the sword top the spear either, unless we're talking very heavy indeed. I redid the calculations with DR ranging from 3-6 instead of 0-6, and the fine spear still gives you a little more injury on the average. And remember, we're talking about a wide strength range, ST 10-16. For regular soldiers, 9-12 seems like a more likely range, and that emphasises the advantages of big adds over swing damage again. If you restrict ST to that range, swords fall even further behind spears and axes.

Originally Posted by Rupert

They already have this against actually attacks on the weapon (they're also smaller than spears and thus harder to hit).

Very Fine spears and axes come from Low-Tech, p. 59. It's +49 CF. Now, the point about attacks on the weapon stands: the Thrusting Broadsword gets DR 6 and HP 11, whereas the Axe and Spear get DR 4 and HP 12. But do also note that the Cheap sword has HT 10, vs the Fine Spear's 13. The sword takes more damage to bring to 0 HP, but when it gets there, it's more than twice as likely to break. A Good sword vs a Fine spear will probably be a little harder to break with deliberate attacks, considering it's easier to hit. Still not a huge difference, though.

Originally Posted by weby

Sword vs spear:
Sword can both impale and cut spear only impale and with a ready maneuver crush.
The sword does more damage.
Sword is more expensive by far.

Yes, if you're comparing weapons of the same quality, the sword's not shabby at all. But my whole point is that for that cost, you can get a much better weapon if you go for a spear. Do the math (or I can show you mine) and you can see that the Fine spear does more injury (not basic damage, but the thing that counts) per strike than the more expensive Cheap broadsword.

Originally Posted by acrosome

But the biggest benefit to any one-handed sword over a spear is that the swordsman will almost always have a shield in the other hand. Shields make a big difference. Also, if GURPS was just a touch more realistic, the longer a weapon is the harder it would be to control its point. Spears are less "accurate" that way IRL.

My calculations were done with the spear's one-handed stats, so that's kind of neither here nor there. And I agree that swords are a lot nimbler in real life than spears (and especially compared to axes), and that could be represented by the mechanics better. The halved Rapid Strike penalty would be one approach to that.

Originally Posted by acrosome

But, as had been said, you don't really need to force your players to prefer swords, especially if their backstory isn't nobility. Heck, I'm a big fan of "peasant" weapons, esthetically speaking. I love quarterstaves and slings, and a good bill even more. :)

Same here; I've got a soft spot for clubs and staves. But note that I'm not trying to force swords on my players! But the ones who do want swords are getting a raw deal right now. All I want is to level the field.


Here's my stance: all the options should be good choices, all things considered. Some weapons are better at something, others at other things; more expensive weapons should be better overall, although not in all specifics. And that includes the points about status and Fast-Draw that I raised in the opening post. Fast-Draw is one thing: being able to have your weapon ready in your hand instantly is certainly an advantage. But it costs points too. Is it worth foregoing the greater lethality and higher effective skill you'd get for a superior-quality spear, and everything else you could spend those Fast-Draw character points on? I'm not sold on that.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

Respectfully, I disagree. There have been a few somewhat marginal troops that have used one-handed swords primarily, like the rodeleros and some hussars. But the big one's the Roman legions, who used the sword as their primary weapon for hundreds of years. This was probably the best army in history before the modern era.

The legions, as a general description covering a very wide period of time, used spears.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

Thank you, everybody, for your well-thought-out and polite replies! I'll try to respond to some of your points here.

One thing lots of people mentioned was that only swords and fencing weapons can be Very Fine. By Basic Set, yes! But Low-Tech, p. 59 extends Very Fine to all melee weapons. It's a whopping +49 CF... But that still only comes out to +$1,960 for the Spear and +$2,450 for the Axe.
.

Beware of design your own thingie systems. They can produce weird results. Even if it is theoretically possible to produce an all metal VF spear that doesn't mean any examples of it actually exist in the world.

As for Roman legionaries, they used the gladius for the same reason most warriors have historically used swords...as their backup weapon. When they went into battle the first weapon they had in their hands was always a pilum...a spear. Of course they usually ended up using their swords because the pilum was a throwable spear, allowing them to inflict significant casualties before the enemy infantry could close to close quarters.

And that's the real reason why swords remained such a widespread thing. Because they were usually easy to draw from a sheath so once the enemy had closed enough that your longer ranged weapons were at a disadvantage, you could switch to your sword to seal the deal.