Goblin Squad Member
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Layers don't "propagate [force] through the layers" very effectively when those layers are heated up and hammered together. Yes, there is a visible grain that appears in the finished product, but one could hardly call it layers as each "layer" is melted/hammered into the adjacent layer.
I meant it in the crystalline structure sense; and I meant "crack propagation is arrested" in that sense; the harder layers are also more brittle, but share tough electron bonds with a more elastic region; the net result is that an impact that would shatter a pure hardened alloy blade instead shatters thousands of layers a few microns deep each, leaving them still firmly in place by the more elastic layers between them.
Layered steel is still used to make blades which are less likely to break and require much less sharpening; they keep an edge almost as well as a hardened blade, but can deform much more both elastically and inelastically before breaking.
If you're talking layers in that sense (ie. different blends of steel layered together) then I repeat that the higher quality European swords were also layered. Each layer was smelted independently, and then heated/hammered together.
So my reply was addressing the term "layer" in the only sense that mattered in comparing European vs Japanese steel. Forgive me for not realizing that you actually meant a sense in which there is no actual difference to compare.
The clay coating method used by Japanese sword makers that created the different "layers", as Decius uses the term, was done after the folding as part of the tempering process. Again, the only benefit to folding is to work out impurities that might create weak/brittle spots in the final product.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Simple Firearms. Let's leave the more complex versions to players to develop and create.
Repeating Crossbows.
No Katana's from day one. Doesn't match the setting in that particular spot. But if through trial and error and questing, a player learned to make a curved blade of metal folded, folded and folded again ... They'd be millionaires overnight.
Have you seen those Redguards? They have curved swords. CURVED. SWORDS. #skyrim
i like to see mercurial greatsword and longsword for is x4 critical.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And I would like to see real staff slings for indirect fire of wizard/rogue/alchemist concoctions/combinations to land just behind enemy line (on in if 4 or more ranks deep.
Speaking of indirect fire, will the rules support indirect AoE for massed archers/slingers/discus throwers, or direct AoE. They are targeting many projectiles against a 30' foot by 6 foot target of massed bodies -- something gets hit!
I want to see more about formations and formation combat. Formation archers are not shooting at individual targets. If one individual is missed it is because another was hit.
lam
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Goblin Squad Member
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Falcata - Image
PFRPG stats: 1d8 damage, 19-20/x3 critical
The blade is curved forward similar to a kukri's, ending up like a longsword with battleaxe chopping force.
The whip is a really cool utility weapon with the feats, trip, disarm, 15' reach etc.
We'll need whips anyways if we're gunna have slaves.