Knife hidden in a sword hilt

[Harald387]

Am I really the first person in this thread to point out the rules for Hidden/Disguised Weapons on MA p. 218?

[Nemi3e]

What if, instead of the tang being forked, the knife was. Two parallel blades on one hilt, very thin so the holes won't weaken the hilt too much

Perhaps there could even be weights at the bottom of the two pits, kept in by the blades, to counteract the knife's balance. Then when you take out the knife you can spill out the weights leaving your sword balanced.

[yoippari]

Somewhere on sword forum I believe. I can't find it at the moment though. It was either a custom job or a replica of a museum piece. Either way it did exist with personal anecdotes of how it handled.

[Donny Brook]

In this version, the dagger handle part is about a third of the sword handle.

https://www.karatemart.com/hidden-blade-blue-katana

However, if you were looking for a throwing knife, I'd say a simple ring would be sufficient and would not significantly shorten the sword handle when removed.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by The Grand Cliche

In a recent game, one of the players was thinking about ordering a custom sword for his character, a normal sized bastard or long sword, but with a concealed knife in the hilt. With a twist of the hilt, the knife comes out. This is supposed to be a last-ditch weapon for the fighter.

How would this affect the behaviour of the sword? Since half of the hilt is missing, including the pommel, I gather balancing would be problematic.

Something like a -2 penalty to sword skill if the knife is missing? No pummeling or two-hander grips?

How good is the ironmongery of the time? Can your grip stand the strain while being hollow?

Is there room for a full tang? That is not needed (there are folding, fighting blades) but is highly desired for a sword.

Is there any practical benefit that cannot be gotten by just keeping the knife on ones belt?

That said, I have a kukri that has two knives in the hilt. No bigger than the small blade of a Victorinox and certainly useless for fighting, they do not use a hollow hilt as suggested. Rather they have a chamber carved in the hilt to sheath them. The chamber is no bigger than the blade (the hilt of the small knives projects downward parallel to the larger).

[Black Leviathan]

Rather than trying to figure out how to shove a knife in the pommel of the sword without weakening the tang build a crossguard that is formed by one or even two disguised daggers and their sheaths. You can still get that surprise attack, possibly even have a balanced weapon for throwing.

[corwyn]

Not even a comment about necroing a 10 year old thread?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by corwyn

Not even a comment about necroing a 10 year old thread?

Is it an interesting thread? That is all that concerns me.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

If you're talking about a blade that pops out of the hilt, I would consider it the equipment equivalent to a "dirty fighting" perk.

A good example of how this might work in combat is in the movie Steel Dawn. Not the best movie but it had some cool sword fighting choreography with a few dirty tricks involving concealed blades.

Originally Posted by corwyn

Not even a comment about necroing a 10 year old thread?

Personally I think it is better to resurrect an old thread and contribute to that instead of starting a whole new thread about exactly the same thing. It makes searches far easier and keeps all relevant info together in one spot. It also ensures that any useful info in the original thread doesn't get missed in the new discussion.

Additionally, I think it is fun to occasionally bump an old thread to compare today's posts on the issue with what was said back then.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Lord Carnifex

some katana were designed to allow the carrying of one or two smaller knives in the same sheath and partnered with the hilt. Though these were utility knives for various purposes (their names escape me at the moment), not fighting knives.

"Kogatana", I think.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

where have you seen this? In a museum catalogue or a fantasy game?

Well, for the fantasy game version, there's King Wrynn's* sword in World of Warcraft :) (Skip to 2:40 if you don't want the dramatic setup, or back to 0 if you really want the whole leadin.)

WoW is of course well known for its highly realistic weaponry.

Originally Posted by corwyn

Not even a comment about necroing a 10 year old thread?

I'm also in the camp that there's nothing wrong with it, as long as the poster has something useful to add or expand upon. Necro'ing for a "me too" post is useless -- but then, so is "me too" on a current thread, and it'd be even more useless to create a new thread just to say "me too".

The Paradox Games forum is pretty strict on necro'ing, and it hurts that place. Reposting the same questions over and over just wears out the people that are willing to answer them, or fills the search box with forty variations on the same thread. You want to teach people to use the search functions and find old conversations; strict anti-necro rules and moderation teaches people the exact opposite, to not even bother to look for a previous answer, since the old stuff will just get immediately locked and deleted anyway.

Biggest pitfall is mixing answers for different versions of the game, obviously much more of a problem for an ever-changing computer game like a Paradox game obsoleting the answers in months than for GURPS.

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* either one...