Difference between Greatsword/Thrusting Greatsword

[DanHoward]

I don't have my books with me. Don't really care for the exact details. Point is that all baldes can have a "falchion" variant. The swords mentioned would be treated as falchions in GURPS, not blunt broadswords.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Any blade from knife to two-handed can be a falchion variant. IIRC you just look up the stats for a regular blade, add +1 cut damage and reduce thrusting damage by -1. If it doesn't have any kind of point at all (like the orc example) then I'd convert thrusting damage to cr. A machete is a falchion, so is a kukri.

Ok, just 1 more thing, what about bastard swords? they already have parry 0U if used in 1 hand, how a bastard falchion would be in 1 hand?

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Ok, just 1 more thing, what about bastard swords? they already have parry 0U if used in 1 hand, how a bastard falchion would be in 1 hand?

Broken down, here seem to be the effects of "falchionizing" various weapons.

Knives: Assuming a Kukri is a falchionized Large Knife, we have +1 cut, -1 imp, +1 Parry (an effect of the kukri's unique shape, perhaps), +$10, +0.5 lbs, +1 MinST.

Shortswords: Compared to the Shortsword from Basic, the Falchion is +1 cut, -2 imp, +1 lb, +2 MinST.

Broadswords: Compared to the Thrusting Longsword from Basic, the Large Falchion is +1 cut, -3 imp, Parry U, +$125, +1.5 lb, +1 MinST.


From this, what we can tease out is that Falchionization trades in some impaling damage for some cutting damage (we've already established this) and increases weight by 50% (Large Knife is 1 lb, Shortsword is 2 lb, Broadsword is 3 lb). It can also make the weapon a bit unbalanced if it's too large.

Thus, a falchion bastard sword would be sw+2 cut, thr-1 imp and weigh 7.5 lbs. MinST would be 13 or 14 for one-handed use. It might be light enough to qualify for Parry 0 (rather than Parry 0U) for two-handed use, where it would be sw+3 cut, thr imp, and be MinST 12 or 13. It may cost more than a bastard sword, it may not.

A falchion greatsword would be sw+4 (I think by that point it may have earned an extra +1 to sw) cut, thr imp, Parry U, weigh 10.5 lbs, and have MinST around 14 or 15.


I got the MinST values by multiplying the original MinST by the square root of the weight ratios (a trick I got from RPK). In each case it fell between two values, so I gave both. For completion, the totals were, in order, 13.47, 12.25, 14.70.