Thoughts on encumbrance from a medieval historian

[mhd]

Because... a lighter, smaller weapon is faster than a heavier, larger one.  The reach is better on a rapier, but not the speed.  I can deploy a dagger and attack with it faster than a rapier with identical strength.

 

Note that in RQ we have a combination of both size and dexterity based initiative modifiers, so there's the opportunity for this to balance out. If you just base everything on sheer speed, there's an element missing. Depends on how the reach rules are... Never mind that the "smaller/lighter" mantra fails in a lot of situations. A spear is faster between attacks than a machete. Which is why you'd want to machetes. Where you can add their initiative bonuses *ducks*

 

Fun fact one of the reasons that the Bowie knife is so heavy is so that (in theory) you can use the flat of the blade to break the arm of your opponent when entering in combat. You guys should go to a knife seminar and hear the mamy points of knife design.

 

Oh yeah, listening to knife nuts made me much more tolerant about gun nuts. M1911 fetishists have nothing on Fairbairn ninjas.

[Markdoc]

I don't quite think that e.g. the Estoc was mostly an aesthetic choice

 

If you look at real life estocs, though you'll note that their blades range in size from nearly 1.6 metres down to just a bit over a meter (in other words, from great sword size down to longsword size if we wanted to cram them into RPG boxes.) Some had ricassos, some had extended grips above the hilt, other don't. Some have extended hilts, others - even with the same blade length - don't. Some have bated blades all the way up - others have a cutting edge near the top. Blades could be triangular, square or rhomboid. So is an estoc a great sword, a bastard sword or a longsword? Really, it's none of the above, but for an RPG argument, you could point to real life examples that kinda fall into each category, making the point just exactly how arbitrary each category is. In addition, some estocs were very heavily ornamented or altered - I've even seen one that incorporated a pistol. So yes, æsthetics (meaning more precisely "personal design preferences" rather  than just "prettifying") obviously played huge role.

 

It's not like anyone ever designed the optimal estoc from which other weapons were based - in reality they were made to order (often a pretty loose order) and what that order was depended very much on what the customer felt like, right down to "squiggly hilt or plain?" And that obviously affected how the weapon was used, how effective it might have been and so on. Role-players often have great difficulty coping with this degree of uncertainty, which is any we get these neato long lists of weapons ... that don't really reflect reality. Given that, obsessing about precise stat.s seems bit pointless to me. A general guideline is every bit as accurate (perhaps more accurate) than any attempt to add fiddly bits in the vain hope that it is "simulating history".

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Because... a lighter, smaller weapon is faster than a heavier, larger one.  The reach is better on a rapier, but not the speed.  I can deploy a dagger and attack with it faster than a rapier with identical strength.

 

Which is precisely the sort of thing we often hear from gamers. Trouble is, I can attest from personal experience that it. is. not. true. Absolutely false, to put it another way. And of course that's even ignoring the fact that heavy daggers such as some of the bigger Espada are actually heavier than some of the lighter rapiers ....

 

I've handled and sparred with both, and I can assure you that this trope is based on gaming lore, nothing else. I've even been lucky enough to hold and test (not in an actual fight of course) genuine battle swords, so it's not just repro stuff we are talking about here. Every other person I know with real weapons experience agrees. A knife does not give you a speed advantage, and an epee is not necessarily faster than a knight's sword (they're all about the same, with the knife perhaps the "slowest" of the three, inasmuch as that makes any sense). In reality speed is about reaction time and experience, not about weapon size at all. So this oft-repeated trope that "daggers are faster" is a gamist myth, not based on real life. The largest effect of weight for single-handled weapons is endurance. 5 minutes of sparring with an epee will make you breathe hard - with a knight's sword, it'll make your wrist and forearm ache.

 

The speed of a weapon depends on many factors and overall size is actually far from the most important of these. Yes, larger two handed weapons are generally heavier and a bit more cumbersome than single-hand weapons - but the extra leverage means that you can get the blade moving faster than you can manage with a single-arm swing, and an experienced pole arm fighter can turn his weapon into a blur of motion that is very hard to penetrate - far faster than a person can swing a knife. In truth, (as has already been pointed out) the difference in the weight of a dagger and the weight of a rapier is negligible - in terms of speed (meaning "who gets to attack first"), reach, leverage and shape/weight distribution is far more important than trivial weight differences and it's how fast you can react or move your arm that counts. Which is why in a fight between a knife wielder and a person armed with a rapier, the person with the sword is not only almost always going to attack first, but is probably going to get more hits in to boot - unless the fight moves to a grapple, in which case the situation reverses.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Actually, my ideal list would even be simpler and more formulaic than the default list, closer to the alternative size-based one in FH. Don't quite see why a hammer has a stun multiplier, but a mace wouldn't. Or swords and their OCV bonuses...

So a "medium size stabby/slashy" weapon would have a given set of stats, no matter what it was called in real life. All the minor differences mostly boil down to personal preference, e.g. a weapon-specific CSL because a top-heavy curved one-edged weapon is just better for PC A, not inherently better than a double-edged straight one. Although I'm not quite sure whether I'd really consider an axe with a backspike to be functionally identical to a cut and thrust sword, despite it being the same size category, damage types etc.

 

This - exactly this. For those who could afford it, every weapon was custom made, so (in a sufficiently technologically advanced society) you can have your axe with or without backspike, a "longsword" with a long, heavy blade or a slightly shorter, lighter one ... etc. In real life terms, similar weapons appear to have functioned more or less identically, and so it comes down to æsthetics (or preference, if you prefer). Certainly some of the additions I have seen on medieval weapons do not seem to have been added for combat effectiveness and may have even slightly impaired it (the frilly pompoms on the lathe of a crossbow in Gravsteen, for example).

 

I'd be inclined to differentiate between Slicy/Stabby and Crushy/Spiky, given what we know about how weapons were actually used, but anything more than that seems like needless (and probably inaccurate) extrapolation.

 

cheers, Mark

[mhd]

If you look at real life estocs, though you'll note that their blades range in size from nearly 1.6 metres down to just a bit over a meter (in other words, from great sword size down to longsword size if we wanted to cram them into RPG boxes.) [...] So yes, æsthetics (meaning more precisely "personal design preferences" rather  than just "prettifying") obviously played huge role.

Yet they were estocs. I'm not saying that weapon categories aren't fluid, I'm just saying that given the armor people at that time were facing, choosing between an estoc design and e.g. a scimitar-like blade was just how one would look at court, which your original comment sounded a bit  to me at the time.

Weapon and armor selection in fantasy RPGs is ridiculous anyway. And HERO seems a bit ill-equipped to find justifications to tone this down. If we'd even want to. Conan with a rapier ain't wrong to me

 

Regarding speed, it's not just about the time difference between two attacks, of course, but also between attacks and parries, feints, different angles etc.. So being "fast" might also be expressed as a CV bonus. As some sort of statistical value, of course, making it dependent on prior actions and circumstances is waaaay too silly. Nobody wants combat tables with different modifiers depending on distance to your enemy, whether you blocked last turn etc.

 

I once played a game that made you cross-reference weapons to get attack/defense modifiers. Yikes.

[Ninja-Bear]

One other thing to keep in mind with weapon lengths is how they they intend to damage a target. Broadly speaking, linear attacks are always going to be quicker than circular attacks. Its basic physics.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I've handled and sparred with both, and I can assure you that this trope is based on gaming lore, nothing else. 

 

 

I guess experiences vary because I've handled both and I can assure that it is true.

 

Here's what I mean: arguing a heavy dagger is slower than a lighter sword is the entire point.  Light, small weapons are faster than big heavy ones.  That's just basic physics.

[Markdoc]

I guess experiences vary because I've handled both and I can assure that it is true.

 

Here's what I mean: arguing a heavy dagger is slower than a lighter sword is the entire point.  Light, small weapons are faster than big heavy ones.  That's just basic physics.

 

Yeah, but no. My point was that saying "Daggers are faster than swords because they are lighter" is objectively wrong, because of course some daggers are not lighter than some swords. If you think weight is a critical factor, you're going to logically have to segregate your weapons by weight and then add your DEX penalties, not by weapon type, but by weight. And honestly? I don't think anyone wants to go there.

 

In addition to that, of course is the basic (flawed) argument that dagger is somehow faster and an empty hand faster still. There are two problems with this argument.

 

The first is the suggestion that negligible differences in weight have significant effects on speed. You can demonstrate the falsity of this pretty easily yourself: drop an object and stab at it with either your finger or a knife. Note how far it falls before you hit it. You can easily demonstrate that there is no appreciable difference (in reality, the knife hits first by a marginal amount, but that's just because most most people don't have fingers as long as a knife). But - and I've done this with friends when we have had this discussion before - the hand is not faster than the knife (or vice versa: the limiting factor is how fast you can strike). So the idea is pretty easily proven false. If you don't feel like setting a phone up to film a falling ball, you can also demonstrate much the same thing simply by timing striking with the knife - it's no slower than a fist. The limiting factor here is not the paltry weight of the weapon - it's the speed of your arm and upper body. Obviously, that becomes less and less true as you move to weapons that are of significant weight like axes and great swords, but when you are comparing daggers and swords, typically you are talking about differences of a kilo, kilo and a half - and that's just not significant in the context of body movement. So yes, in theory, a lighter weapon would be faster - but in reality the difference is so small as to be insignificant.

 

The second flaw in the argument is the idea that "speed" (i.e: ability to strike first) is determined by hand/arm speed. This you can also test - try attacking with a  knife against someone with a blade (foil, epee, whatever: you can use a short stick and a long one, for that matter). Notice how the sword guy always gets the first hit in? "Speed" in this context is governed not by the negligible weight difference of the weapons, but by reach and ... what for want of a better word ... we call "Angle". When defending against an attacker (of attacking a defender) with the shorter weapon the person with the longer weapon can strike at multiple points on his opponent by leveraging the extra reach - for example, a feint thrust towards the torso can easily be actually targeted at the torso - by continuing the thrust - or the lower legs, simply by revolving the arm and exploiting the fact that a small difference in the angle of the attacking line turns into a much greater difference in the point of contact. To defend against both potential attacks with a knife you need to be able to drop your arm to below knee height (i.e..actually move your whole upper body) in the time that arm twist takes, assuming you are using a standard guard. And that's nearly impossible, because the angle achievable with a longer weapon means that the point can move faster than the arm behind it. This is pretty basic fencing stuff.

 

There's a reason that the standard duelling weapons - even among commoners - were longer weapons. In real life, nobody wants to bring a knife to a sword fight. Still, I  know from past experience with this debate that the idea that knives are somehow "faster" dies very hard among gamers, so perhaps we can simply agree to disagree.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Yet they were estocs.

 

Well yes - estocs: defined as a one handed, two-handed or hand and a half sword, with either a cutting blade or not ... I'm teasing you of course - I think the point's been made and we basically agree.

Regarding speed, it's not just about the time difference between two attacks, of course, but also between attacks and parries, feints, different angles etc.. So being "fast" might also be expressed as a CV bonus. As some sort of statistical value, of course, making it dependent on prior actions and circumstances is waaaay too silly. Nobody wants combat tables with different modifiers depending on distance to your enemy, whether you blocked last turn etc.

 

Given what I've seen (and played!) a few people do want that sort if thing. But not me. As for your first comment, if you look at the weapons and armour list I posted in downloads, you'll note that I gave a few weapons classed as being particularly light/fast or hard  to defend against a +1 OCV to reflect that fact.

 

cheers, Mark

[procyon]

Not necessarily a SME, but I have more than a couple years of fencing and kali/escrima experience, with a small amount of kendo thrown in.

 

I agree with Markdoc on weapons and speed.  Folks who thing their arm is faster with a knife than with a rapier - haven't done it enough.  If that was true, duelists would have thrown their rapiers to the ground and pulled knives.

 

And on the armor issue vs weapons - the biggest thing that seems to make a difference if the weapon doesn't penetrate - is momentum.  A .22 that hits a ballistic vest stings.  A ballpeen hammer with about the same energy really smarts.  I am pretty sure that is why big, bashy weapons got popular when heavy armor came around.  Fast, light, slashy/pokey stuff might get through.  Heavy/smashy type stuff hurt even if it didn't.

[mhd]

Although a lot of the "blunt trauma" faction also seriously underestimates the capabilities of medieval armor to dissipate force. Just smashy doesn't do it, unless you just want to knock your enemy down or off his horse.

[procyon]

Although a lot of the "blunt trauma" faction also seriously underestimates the capabilities of medieval armor to dissipate force. Just smashy doesn't do it, unless you just want to knock your enemy down or off his horse.

 

It isn't the smashy that does it.  It is heavy plus moving.  Greatsword or maul would be about equal if they connect and don't pentrate.  Small blunt objects won't have the effect, as smacking someone in the helmet with a baton is going to ring their ears and make them flinch.  Momentum is simply mass x velocity.   And energy can be dissipated as work.  Momentum is conserved and transferred - so that big heavy object is going to transfer momentum to whoever is inside the armor as it finds its way back to the earth.  Which means more of the energy gets dissipated inside the armor as 'work' on the fella wearing it...

[Ninja-Bear]

Sorry Marcdoc but your first test of hand versus a knife to test speed doesn't prove your point as much as yoy think it does. In a test of pure speed I'm not arguing your results however there us more than just sped to a technique. one also has to have power in the technique also. This is an argument against point fighting because people got into a habit of throwing incredible fast techniques because the first point scores. Then some people couldnt switch to throing anything with power. Bruce Lee favored the open hand eye jab precisly because its quicker than a closed fist. Why is that? The eye jab you can use a relaxed hand and arm the target is the eyes which if you hit doesn't need a lot of impact to your hand plus it also takes advantage of people natural flinch reaction so it can be effective without even making contact. Which brings up the closed fist. why should that be slower? One reason is the paradox of to be fast you must be relaxed however at the point of Iimpact you must tighten up the involved muscles to impact damage and to ABSORB impact as well. Ever hit a punching bag with your wrist limp and not in alignment? It hurts! Why do boxers wrap their wrists? To keep them aligned. Now you want to add a knife. What happens if you stab and don't have a solid grib on the handle? You can very well slid your hand up off the grip and slice yourself of course that also depends on hand guards and such.

 

Basically I don't think your expeiment don't take in account of all the relavant factors.

[mhd]

Which means more of the energy gets dissipated inside the armor as 'work' on the fella wearing it...

Which doesn't simply transfer into wounds, even if it's a spherical knight. Concentrated work on one spot hurts a lot more than the same amount spread out by the armor. And good armor was pretty fantastic at that.

And of course, you've got your redirection and absorption before that, due to the shape of the armor and/or padding. Sure, that stuff is quite hard to penetrate, but it's not like blunt trauma is the easy alternative, it's pretty great against that, too. Armor gaps are probably a better idea, statistically speaking

[Markdoc]

Sorry Marcdoc but your first test of hand versus a knife to test speed doesn't prove your point as much as yoy think it does. In a test of pure speed I'm not arguing your results however there us more than just sped to a technique. one also has to have power in the technique also. This is an argument against point fighting because people got into a habit of throwing incredible fast techniques because the first point scores. Then some people couldnt switch to throing anything with power. Bruce Lee favored the open hand eye jab precisly because its quicker than a closed fist. Why is that? The eye jab you can use a relaxed hand and arm the target is the eyes which if you hit doesn't need a lot of impact to your hand plus it also takes advantage of people natural flinch reaction so it can be effective without even making contact. Which brings up the closed fist. why should that be slower? One reason is the paradox of to be fast you must be relaxed however at the point of Iimpact you must tighten up the involved muscles to impact damage and to ABSORB impact as well. Ever hit a punching bag with your wrist limp and not in alignment? It hurts! Why do boxers wrap their wrists? To keep them aligned. Now you want to add a knife. What happens if you stab and don't have a solid grib on the handle? You can very well slid your hand up off the grip and slice yourself of course that also depends on hand guards and such.

 

Basically I don't think your expeiment don't take in account of all the relavant factors.

 

All true - but all irrelevant. My point is exactly what you are saying, which is that having a open hand doesn't make you faster than the same hand with a knife. The reverse is true, in fact - you need to put more effort - meaning more upper body movement) into an effective strike with a fist than you do with a knife - just as you point out with a the eye jab. Likewise, being armed with a knife doesn't give you a speed advantage over being armed with a sword.

 

In all these cases, the limiting factor is how fast you can move your limbs and body, to exert the amount of force you need to do damage. The trivial difference made by a dagger vs a sword means nothing compared to the factors involved in the actual strike.

 

cheers, Mark

[procyon]

Which doesn't simply transfer into wounds, even if it's a spherical knight. Concentrated work on one spot hurts a lot more than the same amount spread out by the armor. And good armor was pretty fantastic at that.

And of course, you've got your redirection and absorption before that, due to the shape of the armor and/or padding. Sure, that stuff is quite hard to penetrate, but it's not like blunt trauma is the easy alternative, it's pretty great against that, too. Armor gaps are probably a better idea, statistically speaking

Concentrated work would be better.  But in a hit at any location - all other things equal - more of the energy from a blow will be transferred to a target by higher momentum objects than by small.  That is why you throw big rocks out of a catapult/trebuchet to break down a wall instead of a bunch of small ones.  Both will carry the same amount of energy.  But the larger rock's momentum will transfer more energy to the wall before being redirected/deflected.  Same thing with the armor.  The higher the momentum, the less likely an object will be to divert from it's path.

 

Now, if you penetrate - that is a whole different situation.  Poking holes in the target is better than bashing away at it if you want that target to lay down and play nice.  But in combat, you can't guarantee that will occur.  So if you miss - the more an impact degrades your opponent's ability to function, the better.

 

So if you hit the knight in the faceplate with a 3 foot wooden pole or with a sledgehammer - you will generate about the same amount of energy.  But the sledgehammer is going to be more resistant to deflection due to its momentum.  It will have a much better chance of driving that helmet/padding against the cheek/eye/nose/temple and depositing energy into the target's head than the wooden pole that will likely deposit all of it's energy into the helmet.

 

So if you know you can penetrate - go that route.

If you can't - go big.

[Old Man]

Not necessarily a SME, but I have more than a couple years of fencing and kali/escrima experience, with a small amount of kendo thrown in.

 

I agree with Markdoc on weapons and speed.  Folks who thing their arm is faster with a knife than with a rapier - haven't done it enough.  If that was true, duelists would have thrown their rapiers to the ground and pulled knives.

 

Not necessarily a SME, but I have quite a few years of aikido and TKD experience, with some fencing and kenjutsu thrown in, and some (irrelevant to this discussion) shootfighting besides.

 

I disagree with Markdoc on weapons and speed.  A knife in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, and is in range to do so, can make multiple effective attacks per second.  That's just not possible with any sword.  It's not a question of mass in this case so much as form factor--even Zorro-like slashing with a rapier, which would be about the fastest type of attack possible with a sword, isn't going to be as fast or effective as an escrima- or krav maga-type multiple slash attack against multiple hit locations with a knife.

 

The rapier's significant advantage stems from its reach, not its effective speed.  It's not hard for the swordsman to keep a knife wielder at bay with the longer weapon in this case.  It would also be easier to inflict an immediately incapacitating wound with the rapier.  But it won't be faster than a knife in any way.

[Ninja-Bear]

The problem with this discussion of knife and sword and speed is that its been very broad. We should narrow down a single style knife versus a single type of sword. There are more variables to be included inconsidering effective speed. And Markdoc I think mass has more to play in it than you want to give credit for.

[Old Man]

I think there are far more considerations at play than just mass. Rotational and linear inertia are also factors as well as the length of the weapons compared to limb length. A knife is extremely dangerous at boxing ranges because it's possible to get inside your opponent's armspan. A rapier in that circumstance is likely to be jammed or bound; to be effective the rapier must be outside arm length where the opponent can at minimum put his arms in the way.

 

If you want to throw armor into this discussion it gets even more complex because you have to factor in percussive damage versus the PSI needed to penetrate armor of a given type and thickness.

[procyon]

Not necessarily a SME, but I have quite a few years of aikido and TKD experience, with some fencing and kenjutsu thrown in, and some (irrelevant to this discussion) shootfighting besides.

 

I disagree with Markdoc on weapons and speed.  A knife in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, and is in range to do so, can make multiple effective attacks per second.  That's just not possible with any sword.  It's not a question of mass in this case so much as form factor--even Zorro-like slashing with a rapier, which would be about the fastest type of attack possible with a sword, isn't going to be as fast or effective as an escrima- or krav maga-type multiple slash attack against multiple hit locations with a knife.

 

The rapier's significant advantage stems from its reach, not its effective speed.  It's not hard for the swordsman to keep a knife wielder at bay with the longer weapon in this case.  It would also be easier to inflict an immediately incapacitating wound with the rapier.  But it won't be faster than a knife in any way.

 

I think you are missing the fact that the arm, rapier or knife wielding, is only going to move so fast.

 

We have tried the game of 'see if you can hit the mark on the wall faster with a knife or rapier' in our fencing practice.  Same in when we compare knives vs the long kris/machete in escrima. 

 

I can stab the mark just as fast and often with a rapier as I can a knife over 10 seconds.  But I can do it 3' farther with a rapier.

Same with knife vs my 30" kris.  I can thrust and slash the target just as quickly with the long weapon as the shorter.  Just much farther away.(I am slightly faster over 10 seconds with a baton, but I am fairly sure it is the fact I don't have to align the blade, just 'snap' the baton back and forth.

 

If you don't believe me, get a group together and try.  Go to the practice dot on the wall at fencing and see just how fast you can go and how many thrusts you can make in 10 seconds.  Then get out a practice or wooden knife and try the same thing.  Bet the numbers are REALLY close to the same.  And the more people you put in the test, the more identical it becomes.

 

You may feel more secure with a knife.  But no group of duelists or soldiers anywhere in history agree with you.

[Markdoc]

The problem with this discussion of knife and sword and speed is that its been very broad. We should narrow down a single style knife versus a single type of sword. There are more variables to be included inconsidering effective speed. And Markdoc I think mass has more to play in it than you want to give credit for.

I"m giving it exactly as much credit as real life allows. Understand, I used to believe the whole "lighter weapons are faster" thing too: it'd been a standard part of my roleplaying. Then I tried it in real life, and real life wouldn't cooperate. Turned out in real life that speed was all in the arm and the head, and that reach, reflexes and skill was so much more important than trivial differences in weight, that we couldn't even measure an effect of weight.

 

I do believe that if you take it to extremes (knife vs greatclub, for example) then, yeah, you'd see a difference, though notvas much as you might think.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

I think there are far more considerations at play than just mass. Rotational and linear inertia are also factors as well as the length of the weapons compared to limb length. A knife is extremely dangerous at boxing ranges because it's possible to get inside your opponent's armspan. A rapier in that circumstance is likely to be jammed or bound; to be effective the rapier must be outside arm length where the opponent can at minimum put his arms in the way.

I'd agree completely that reach/range is very important - see my earlier posts. But I simply can't agree with you about knives vs swords, having seen the lunging knife guy get hit 3 times before he lands a blow. Yes, reach is that important and yes, you can still slash someone well inside arm's reach. Blocking with your arms is fine ... Well actually, against a blade, it's not. Lose the use of your arms and you've lost the fight, and unless you are an orangoutang, you can't guard your legs. Lunging with a short weapon is a very dangerous (probably fatal in a real fight) tactic. Like Procyon says, everybody I know who has tried this agrees.

 

Now in a clinch, you want a knife, no question about it. But in a face-off you want a sword: nobody voluntarily brings a knife to a swordfight, and if it gave you an edge on speed (even a small one) people would.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Ninja-Bear]

I"m giving it exactly as much credit as real life allows. Understand, I used to believe the whole "lighter weapons are faster" thing too: it'd been a standard part of my roleplaying. Then I tried it in real life, and real life wouldn't cooperate. Turned out in real life that speed was all in the arm and the head, and that reach, reflexes and skill was so much more important than trivial differences in weight, that we couldn't even measure an effect of weight.

 

I do believe that if you take it to extremes (knife vs greatclub, for example) then, yeah, you'd see a difference, though notvas much as you might think.

 

Cheers, Mark

But what did you try in real life and for how long? For example if we do an experiment with point sparring type rules, I have no doubt that weight would not play a big role. However lets use taekwondo contact rules. Twp minutes sparring with one minute rest and that extra weight will take a toll. Also im not saying that lighter weapons are faster per se but anything that adds weight to your hands will impact speed by making it slower and work your body more.

[Ninja-Bear]

Yes Oldman working working angles should be included in the equation. And by working the angles we should look at what type of weapon, slashing or chopping or thrusting. I agree it makes a difference.

[Nolgroth]

This has truly been an interesting read. I was always of the idea that smaller/lighter equals faster. Even if that is true, I am taking away from this that the margins are relatively small. I've been in favor of using a Weapon Speed type reverse Lightning Reflexes but now I wonder if it is worth it or if the differences at range versus close up make it a wash. I can't remember which variant of D&D (Pathfinder, 4E, etc.) had the bonus for reach until some condition (character with reach missed and/or less reach successfully attacked) but that seems like it would also make a difference. Some interesting concepts can be formed with that. Somebody truly skilled and lucky might keep an opponent at bay for some time with a spear or similar polearm.

 

I think Martial Arts are cost broken, but conceptually sound ways of demonstrating superior skill. In some ways, using predefined allocations of CSLs (maneuvers) to represent martial training drills is how I would approach that alternative. Now how would you cost in Martial Arts elements like "Target Fall, Grab, Target is Disarmed" into a CSL package. Would those elements just be extensions of the standard (0 cost) maneuvers?