Dark Legacy MUD Forum

actually, the katanas do exist in dark legacy, have so for many years


and yes, the strength of a blade, is directly related to the number of times the blade is folded, each fold is very time consuming.

Okay...now some people may not like this idea, but it's worth a try.

As we already have the merchant class planned to come in, why not give merchants special areas that only they can travel to (Note looking back: this might be a pointless idea, it would just cause all serious players to go back and create a merchant...not really benefit the MUD that much)? In that area, they can recieve rare items and enhance these items. This would include items such as katanas. Perhaps in one area, you can perform a quest that will let a blademaster start crafting you these exotic swords.

You would have to supply X ingots of a metal and a large fee 1k per level? 50k at level 50, 550k at e500. Although this may seem like a small fee, my reasons for it come in later. This katana will have slightly higher base damage, a damageroll and attackroll bonus on it equivalent to a decent enchant weapon, and no enchant space, BUT you can bring this katana back to him with a payment equivalent to half of the original payment and Y more ingots of the material it is made from for him to fold the blade again.

You could repeat this numerous times, but there is a slight disadvantage to this. The first time you do it, there is 0% chance of ruining the blade (which could either destroy it, dull it a bit, set it back one fold, or have no real effect, depending on metal, level, and how many folds are in it), but as you keep doing it, it raises by 5% per try. If you get lucky, you can repeatedly fold the blade, making it extremely strong compared to a regular weapon. This would also be increasing the strength of the enchant weapon on it.

Because of the exoticness (is that even a word?) of the blade, your average weaponsmith could not sharpen this weapon. You could only bring this weapon back to the blademaster to have it sharpened (1-5k per percent).

I understand that this is basically an idea only for the rich, but with the removal of enchantable damroll which is rumored to be in the works, it would effectively make weapons which are not extraordinarily overpowered because they would have no other enchants, and (possibly) no sockets (although it would be interesting to see them randomly pop with sockets).

Notes:
The enchant weapon would have to be scaled by level, a level 1 katana with the same enchant weapon a level e500 could get would cause a grossly overpowered weapon for the small cost.
This is simply a quick brainstorm 5 minutes after waking up, please excuse any typos or small oversights, but please point out any flaws you see.

what if both parties already have drawn their weapons beforehand?

Katana was designed to cut. It was designed to defeat soft armours, and curved to be as useful as possible for a long cutting stroke. Most "Duels" with Katana's are over in one, maybe two "cut from the draw" type of strokes: an upper cut from the draw, followed by a powerful down-stroke. Any other true usefulness of the Katana comes from martial training and not from the sword itself.

A weakness of the katana is that it has a flat blade cross-section. The forward edge of the blade has a temper line which will visually show wear the harder portion of steel is. The back of the blade is soft and springy. When the blade is made before tempering it actually has a forward curve, tempering causes a backwards flex, because the edge is froven in an elongated state. The edge is hard, and brittle. To make up for this the back is soft and springy.

Many period katana's that have survived as heirlooms show that the cross-section of the katana is so weak that many can be flexed to the point they retain a bend with just the hands. This shows that the blades are ment more for cutting then for parying. A strong blow on the side of the blade could easily cause it to bend out of straight. This was not too much of a problem since the blade could easily be straightened again.

What does this say? This says it would be a bad choice for stopping a blow from a longsword with a parry. It also says it would be less useful in a lunge intended to defeat heavy armour.

A longsword however is designed equally for lunging, cutting, and chopping. The crossguard finds a use as a war-hammer, and the pummel as a mace. The whole use of the word "Pummel" as to clobber something comes from the practice of winding a hilt out a sword bind to bring the hilt to bear with someplace on the enemy. In short, the blades are locked together so you used leverage to "pummel" him with your pummel.

The longsword is DESIGNED for fighting in armour, both against armour and against un-armoured enemies. Practices including half-swording and grappling can be used to even include the sword in "wrestling" or "hand-to-hand".

When was the last time you saw a Katana used for half-swording? How about used as a lever for grappling? When did you last see a Katana you could effectively use the hilt as multiple weapons?

If a Longsword user (lets say German school) in full european 1400 plate armour were to go against an equally skilled samari in their full armour, my personal bet is on the Longsword.

http://www.thearma.org/photos/Gathering03/G03Vids/JCdemclips.mov
http://www.thehaca.com/Videos/longsword06.avi
http://www.thehaca.com/Videos/abnemen5.avi

Umm...does this mean that no one wants katanas?.....

I understand your point, so how about we make it a rouge weapon? Sneak up behind someone and strike where the least armor is.

scimitars rule all

u guy's mean sai's the mini tritands.

but what about kama's the mini scytes that are exotics to, or what about battle chains =)

well we can always engrave scythes into whatever you want it to be. that cost 100 gold pieces and sever away