Which one?

2 for sure it doesn't matter what the weapon looks like, they could swap the stats for all i care. a higher skill ceiling is the best pick for a healthy game

>realistic approach
>any sword at all not useless against armored opponents

Nwn (which is dnd 3.5) got it right

nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Longsword

nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Katana

>The katana is the pinnacle of the swordsmith's craft, combining grace and artful design with razor-edged efficiency

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you can use a sword to stab through weakpoints, but yeah, it's pretty weak against the armor.

Ok I agree description is cringy. But look at stats/ requirements

>Western sword
>Functional vs armor
Retard, both were equally useless against someone with armor.

4=2>1>3

Realistic is fucking dumb, real life mechanics are unbalanced and not fun most of the time, why the fuck would you put them in your game

1 is meh, its okay to play dress up but it feels a bit hollow.

Both 2 and 4 are valid approaches depending on the setting you are making, if they are exclusively medieval/ancient asia then go with 4, but if they mix or is a straight up fantasy then 2 is better.

Cope westcuck, a meme image won't make it any less true.

but it's just yet another pointless sword variant. having different skill requirements makes no sense

>1d8 vs 1d10
Yeah, no. Garbage. Fuck off.

Romans had an army based around swords and they wrecked everyone's shit for literally hundreds of years

Except it isn't true at all. Katanas are weaker overall

do I have to list all the people who did good with spears

>he's never heard of half swording

Educate yourselves, plebs.

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>1
Nice mmo
>2
The only correct one, always prioritize meaningful decision-making
>3
Abloo bloo /k/ autism
>4
Abloo bloo /his/ autism

A professional heavy infantry is just cheating regardless of what weapons they have. Same with the Macedonians.

Your picture depicts half swording used against an unarmored opponent, you could have tried a little harder.

what if you cut your fingers

Similar stats, different movesets for me thanks.

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>Shwing shwing wahoo

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Name 5 games.

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swords are pretty blunt, as opposed to sharp, plus the actual technique gives some space between the palm and the blade when holding it
you're still better off hitting someone armored with a hammer or a rock, in the end, the sword guard isn't as effective but works in a pinch

Based

>they grab the handle

>realistic approach

what an absolute bullshit

Katanas are head heavy, one bladed, rigid, curved, cutting swords they do far bigger damage with a strike than shortswords do BUT are actually "slower" because they are heavier (despite being usually depicted as the agility based swords) which is the only thing you got right

westcucks recently went really overboard with their half knowledge memes about trying to discredit katanas and pretending that short/longswords are some ultimate weapons. There is a reason longswords were only used for around 2 centuries in western europe and then went extinct while swords having more similar shapes to Katanas (like sabres) dominated the battlefields all around the world till modern days. Being a jack of all trades trusting/slashing sword is overall worse than being a weapon that excels in slashing, which is the most efficient way to render your opponent useless

3 every time. I love it when games encourage you to use different equipment to take on different types of enemies.

Mario
Pokemon
Age of Empires
Starcraft
Minecraft

Pretty fucking easy challenge you pleb.

Both techniques are considered half swording, and both can fuck over an armored opponent. Try that shit with a katana and get back to me though.

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Low IQ post

>pretending that short/longswords are some ultimate weapons
that would be spears surely and slings if we're talking ranged

le lindybeige-tier conjecture autists have arrived

4 is ideal, if you insist on katana being in your european setting then 3, although speed should be more or less equal. Katanas, while weaker, weren't bulkier or inferiorly balanced.

Even the most primitive of fire arms out perform the most advanced melee weapons.

based
are you retarded?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_military_personal_equipment#Spears_and_javelins_(hastae)

1

>However, during republican times, the hastati were re-armed with pila and gladii, and only the triarii still used hastae.

If all of them have negative stats then I'll pick unarmed.

>unarmed is just as good as using weapons, because of reasons
>unarmoured is just as good as using armour, because of reasons
this upsets me

you mean the single spear they threw at the start of combat and broke after use? right, they totally didn't use the gladius for everything else

low IQ bait

spears are by far the most efficient overall

what people don't understand is that swords were more like "convenient to carry" sidearsm, not main weapons except for rare, very specific formations.

If a spear/helbard/warhammer/etc. is your rifle than a sword would be your pistol

>Low IQ thread so OP can get validation on his retarded opinions.

Aesthetics. First, foremost, always. I dont want to be wearing full plate and then using a fucking katana, same as I dont want to be using samurai armour and ten wielding a zweihander. Let me look however I want but have stats tied to different weapon classes.

Spears and by extension, polearms are for slaying monsters/beasts/cavalry and for arming poorly trained, or untrained peasants. Swords, daggers, qaurterstaffs and fists are for slaying or fighting men.

Best answer in the thread.

>quarterstaffs
sounds autistic as fuck mate just get a spear

>for arming poorly trained, or untrained peasants

you say that like it's a bad thing. they're very cheap and easy to use - this is good

>unarmed is just as good as using weapons because fuck huge rings and brass knuckles don't count as weapons
Thug class when?

>shitty class design when
there are plenty of jrpgs around already

You guys missed the point completely. While katana is slightly better, you need to remember feats in dnd world are very important and you only get one every 4 levels (sort of). Long sword is unlocked to all martial classes + elves if you go spellcaster with some fighting elements. If you want to go katana, you sacrifice a feat, which also means you postpone other weapon based feats like improved critical or focus, and sometimes have to make sacrifices to use it. Dnd "skill tree" (feats) is not like in arpg (lol just get them all by midgame), you actually have to make sacrifices and reach level cap without having everything you want.

Explain how it's shitty.

this
longswords went from underrated to extremely overrated weapons on the internet in the recent years, meanwhile katanas went from overrated to extremely underrated weapons. All this because some openly biased western swordfag youtubers started spreading literal their own mental gymnastics about them instead of actually looking at history.
all weapons are designed for different circumstances and they excel better in different situations, but katanas fit much bigger range of circumstances when they excel better at than longswords. Longswords were only ever a preferred weapon in a specific time in western europe when heavy plate armor just started to spread. There wasn't too much plate armor where you would better just carry around a mace/warhammer instead but there was enough that you would rather exchange better cutting capacity for a bit better pointy thrusting capacity so you aren't completely useless against a heavy plate armor with your sword and you can still attempt to thrust into the seams. Otherwise you are much better off with cutting oriented swords or an armor piercing weapon like a warhammer.

first of all it's "unarmed", not "hand to hand", which includes fist weapons

it's shitty design because you get the same benefits of other classes without having to invest in their gear/skills

How the fuck is a katana being slower than an european slashing sword of the same length realistic?

they either have to risk breaking their hand if they fuck up grabbing it one handed, or risk getting entirely fucked up if they drop their weapon and attempt to grab it two handed

roman army was based around the pilum 2bh

I, too, believe that everything I see in medieval pictures was real, practical and optimized for efficiency and was not wacky dumbshit made by uneducated retards for other uneducated retards.

>bugman eyes completely gloss over "pila"
how embarrassing for you

This. If the weapons are too similar then the choice should be decided by how they feel in combat. Katana is better suited against unarmored enemies, can swing faster and can inflict bleed ailment while board swords have additional armor piercing, additional hitstun and knockback.

Why does all of them give negative stats?

Katana often have a higher center of mass than European swords of the same length, although this is obviously a massive generalization.

Imagine being this retarded.

I want every armchair medieval historian who believe that half-swording was real to be dragged in the street and shot in the mouth in front of their family.

seriously, the sword on the left is styled after ~300BC european swords, wheras the katanas are 17th century AD.
it should have a rapier or a sabre on the left and double the stats

5.) You are playing a game and both weapons are therefore fictional and able to be magically enchanted to be different levels of power based on what you want within a set balance leaving your choice purely cosmetic while not fucking the RPG side of things up.

>durability
They're all garbage

2, 3, 4, utter shit, and 1

Best post in the thread. I've watched the rise of HEMA youtubers over the past 5-6 years and it's crazy how many barely educated normalfags ruined sword discussion. Even I got into swords as a HEMAfag and only in the later years did I realize how annoying these people are. They also spam half-swording and mordhau everywhere as though they were the ultimate technique that makes longswords the best. About 60% of all kenjutsu schools incorporate "half-swording" in one way or another, they just don't hold the sword backwards and swing it like a retard. Mordhau is worthless in real life against armor.

2 in mixed setting, but preferably 4.

Maces > everything else

If you honestly think the people who had the time or money to hired people to HAND COPY books back in the middle ages and who could actually read them and knew people wealthy and educated enough to sell them to were just making shit up to troll you're the retard here.