Elven Curve Blade, where is it from.


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Ipslore the Red wrote:


There is no proof beyond stories and more stories that katana were actually tested on bodies. This is because they were not, in fact, used on corpses for the exact reason RJGrady gave.

Further to previous. This paper from the journal Asian Social Science describes the extensive contemporary historical documentation for sword testing on corpses.

Excerpt:

Quote:


The records of tameshi-giri start appearing frequently in historical documents (both in the public records compiled by the national and local governments, as well as in the writings of private authors) from the mid 1600s, though the word suemono-giri does not appear as often (Ujiie, 1999). In those documents written in the early through the mid 1600s, such as Hankan vol. 1 (Tokugawa Shogunate, 17c), Kishu-han karo Miura-ke monjo, vol. 2 (Miura, 17c), Neiko-sai Danso, (Neiko-sai, 1600s), and Nitcho vol. 1 (Kokura Province, 17c), simpler words for “tameshi-giri” such as “tameshi” and “o-tameshi” (i.e., an honorific of “tameshi” when it is performed by a samurai of very high status) were used to indicate “test cutting of humans to maintain honorable martial skills and spirit of samurai warriors.”

For example, one such historical document, Han Kagami, vol. 1 (Tokugawa Shogunate, 17c), which was complied by the Department of Literature and Books of the Tokugawa Shogunate as the records of accomplishments of the ruling daimyo loads (i.e., rulers of provinces with the complete governing authority granted by the Shogun) of each province, documents that Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563-1645), the first Lord of Buzen Kokura province, performing his first
o-tameshi on nine corpses with his own sword when he was only 15 years old. Hosokawa Tadaoki’s son, the second Lord of Kokura Province, Hosokawa Tadatoshi is also documented to have performed o-tameshi in Nitcho (Kokura Province, 17c), which is the official daily journal of the Kokura provincial government. Han Kagami also documents that two sons of Tokugawa Ieyasu, both of whom were born right after the War of Sekigahara (1600) and became the
rulers of their own governing territories, performing “o-tameshi” on a commoner class servant who committed a crime and on a corpse of an executed felon in their jurisdiction in the early 1600s.


Love history lessons, specially about katanas and how animes give us a wrong image about them. Keep'em coming folks!


K177Y C47 wrote:

..stuff about katana being superior to the longsword..

Now granted, the Europen Longsword is better equipped to pierce than a Katana.

and pierce armor was what European weapons was made for i think.

Later on when the Katana was inventet in Japan swords was going out and firearms in in Europe.

Liberty's Edge

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

What I find kind of interesting about the excerpt Orfamy Quest provides, though, is that it's from the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate...when Japan was politically unified and there were no significant military conflicts. Were there any records of o-tameshi from the Warring States period or before?


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John Woodford wrote:
What I find kind of interesting about the excerpt Orfamy Quest provides, though, is that it's from the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate...when Japan was politically unified and there were no significant military conflicts. Were there any records of o-tameshi from the Warring States period or before?

Not a lot of records from the Warring States era, full stop.

From the same source:

Quote:


Many old documents that had been written prior to the Muromachi period were lost or destroyed in fire during the long Warring State era (1493-1573). Thus, it is difficult to locate records of tameshi-giri (and suemono-giri) in historical documents written prior to the 1500s. However, historical documents written after the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) tend to be much better preserved and reprinted, which makes the analysis easier.

Further:

Quote:


The fact that those early Edo period daimyo lords, who were born right before and after the War of Sekigahara (1600),were well documented to have been performing o-tameshi by themselves strongly suggest that for the samurai who had lived before the Edo period, particularly during the Warring State era, tameshi-giri on live humans and corpses were very common practice of their sub-culture as the battle fields had provided them with the mediums and opportunities continuously. Because the samurai class was constantly engaging in battles, it is not difficult to imagine that tameshi-giri as a social behavior served the purposes of both testing the quality of the swords they were using and testing the mental and physical skills in the use of swords.

From a tactical point of view, in the actual battle fields the samurai wore armor and used swords only as side weapons. Obviously the enemy soldiers against whom they wanted to prevail were also moving rather than just being statically posing (Tanaka, 2002). To understand that the immediate purpose of tameshi-giri on stationary corpses was only to test the quality of the blades and the physical skills in using the blades seems too simplistic because cutting unarmored corpses that are not moving may not be as good of a test of the blades nor the physical skills as cutting armored targets that are actually moving. In this sense, it seems more reasonable to assume that tameshi-giri during the pre-Sekigahara era was mostly performed as a psychological training to overcome the fear of fighting and cutting live humans with swords in the battle fields.

I must admit that I find this particular interpretation less than compelling. If cutting unarmored corpses isn't a particularly good test of fighting skill, neither is a particularly good psychological training. My personal interpretation is that it is exactly what it purports to be -- a way of testing the quality of the blade, because if your blade is going to shatter when it hits a femur, better to find out now than later, when it counts. I can also see it as training for better physical striking technique -- e.g., this is how hard you need to hit (a body) in order to actually cut deeply.

But my central point, which I stand by, is that sword-testing on corpses was actually a relatively common thing, common enough to be a well-documented practice.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Ipslore the Red wrote:


There is no proof beyond stories and more stories that katana were actually tested on bodies. This is because they were not, in fact, used on corpses for the exact reason RJGrady gave.

I would like to clarify, katanas definitely were tested in that fashion. I specified they weren't routinely tested in that fashion, because it could damage perfectly good blades. The best blades could pass through multiple bodies. Still, katanas often broke in battle. Often, the hilt was re-used with a new blade, and in some cases, lesser damage was dealt with by cutting down the blade. Although blade to blade contact is common in kendo, it is discouraged in traditional sword manuals. Miyamoto Musashi cautioned against blade contact, "slashing" instead of going for a deep cut, overly self-conscious shouting, and wrestling.

At one time, it was rare for katana, wakizashi, and tanto to be made in a matching set. It has been speculated that matching sets may have begun with particular blades that were valuable heirlooms, and when they were damaged and cut down to wakizashi length, they then became matches for replacement swords. Matching tantos probably came about as the swords became more ceremonial.

The Chinese dao was generally made with a superior profile for blade-to-blade contact. Indeed, it looks like a Hollywood "scimitar." The tulwar also has a fairly sturdy profile, although it is more similar to the scimitar and saber.

So, curved blades like the scimitar and katana were designed to maximize the concentration of force on the edge. Weapons like the kukri, falx, kopis, khopesh, and yatagan adhered to a different theory. By curving forward, they could maximize the delivery of momentum. Rather than focusing on a penetrating cut, they were designed to deliver a forceful chop, which could trip or dismember a foe.


RJGrady wrote:
Ipslore the Red wrote:


There is no proof beyond stories and more stories that katana were actually tested on bodies. This is because they were not, in fact, used on corpses for the exact reason RJGrady gave.

I would like to clarify, katanas definitely were tested in that fashion. I specified they weren't routinely tested in that fashion, because it could damage perfectly good blades.

I dunno. I think I'm still going with the if a blade will break when it hits a bone, it's not "perfectly good" school of thought.

If I'm the shogun, or even a well-placed hatamoto, and I have the entire Japanese economy at my command, I can d--n well afford to have the swordsmith keep forging katana blanks until he gets one that will pass whatever tests I set him. I'm willing and able to pay for that level of quality. If you want to carry around what amounts to a Wand of Lordly Might-or-Might-Not, you can save a few koku.

Not everyone buys high-end booze, either. Or radial tires, or steak instead of hot dogs, or candles made of wax. Up to you, really.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The problem is that a katana is designed to have a strong edge. But cutting through something as thick as a body (or worse, a skull) creates perpendicular friction. A katana is a tool, and like any tool, under limit-testing conditions, it may break.


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RJGrady wrote:
Still, katanas often broke in battle. Often, the hilt was re-used with a new blade, and in some cases, lesser damage was dealt with by cutting down the blade. Although blade to blade contact is common in kendo, it is discouraged in traditional sword manuals. Miyamoto Musashi cautioned against blade contact, "slashing" instead of going for a deep cut, overly self-conscious shouting, and wrestling.

Lots of sword routinely broke in battle...in fact, all types of swords did. I would contend that the katana probably broke a lot less than many of the other styles of sword used through the ages, because the core of tougher steel would give it greater strength, and the back of the blade was used to parry rather than the more fragile edge. The ninjato or shinobigatana, for example, was a much cruder version of the katana, and broke much more easily - which could confuse the issue somewhat as the two weapons were outwardly similar.


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K177Y C47 wrote:

Katanas are anything but fragile...

They were meant to go through armor (Lamalar Scale/Plate armor)and boen with ease. Many tests have shown time and again that a Katana is VERY good at cutting.

As for the technique, the Katana is actually made with a much more advanced technique than most European weapons. The katana is made with a soft steel core with a stronger, harder "sheath" around the core to allow the Katana to maintain a very sharp edge while also having flexibility and durability to resist shock.

In other words...

Spoiler:

That's it. I'm sick of all this "Masterwork Bastard Sword" bullshit that's going on in the d20 system right now. Katanas deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine katana in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even cut slabs of solid steel with my katana.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.

Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.

Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Katanas are simply the best sword that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d12 Damage
19-20 x4 Crit
+2 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
2d10 Damage
17-20 x4 Crit
+5 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork

Now that seems a lot more representative of the cutting power of Katanas in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = Katanas need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I don't know, Chengar. Those stats look a little low if you want to cut a tank in half.

Dabbler wrote:


Lots of sword routinely broke in battle...in fact, all types of swords did. I would contend that the katana probably broke a lot less than many of the other styles of sword used through the ages, because the core of tougher steel would give it greater strength, and the back of the blade was used to parry rather than the more fragile edge.

Katanas are fairly brittle. Parrying with the back of your blade is not simple or efficient. European swords often had stiffening on the lower part of the blade that made them superior for that kind of parry, anyway.

Quote:


The ninjato or shinobigatana, for example, was a much cruder version of the katana, and broke much more easily - which could confuse the issue somewhat as the two weapons were outwardly similar.

It also wasn't invented until probably the early 19th century, and there are so few of them you couldn't confuse them with anything. It's doubtful such a weapon even existed during the height of the samurai era. On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of lower-grade katanas out there.


RJGrady wrote:
I don't know, Chengar. Those stats look a little low if you want to cut a tank in half.

Point. It definitely needs to ignore all forms of damage reduction and hardness as well.


Two things I think I should point out ...

1) Katanas were forged to a higher AVERAGE standard than western blades because resources were scarce and if you were going to make them you wanted to make them well whereas the greater availability of metal meant a higher preponderance of lower quality blades (like the katana mass produced for soldiers in the first or second world war that wrent that good really). If you want to truly compare them you need to do so against the damascan steel and similar high grade swords produced in the west (maybe a must be masterwork clause for katana but even that assumes your in a region with low resources).

2) Again its a fundamental design difference the katana was designed to slash at a foe who was lightly atmoured while a longsword was designed to be shoved into and hopefully through heavy plate (which it wasn't that good at and why it was replaced by war hammers that combined a better weapon for driving a point in AND don't actually need to pierce armour to do damage due to force transferal). It's also why we saw cavalry sabers that could provide slashing attack down at lightly armoured oponents. Of course a katana gives a better slashing attack than a longsword but it gives a worse piercing one.

I don't know whether the one you bought was made with modern metalurgy or techniques but I shudder to think what cutting through slabs of solid steel is doing to its "razor edge".

Shadow Lodge

Liam, if you're not interested in going the two handed route with the elven curveblade, make it a small version. 1d8, crits on a 18-20 x2. I use one like that for my Magus and I LOVE it.


RJGrady wrote:
Katanas are fairly brittle. Parrying with the back of your blade is not simple or efficient. European swords often had stiffening on the lower part of the blade that made them superior for that kind of parry, anyway.

I'm sorry, but it's going to take more than your say-so to convince me that a katana, with a core of tougher steel, is more brittle than A. N. Other sword with, at best, a core of tougher steel, especially when European swords had to parry with the edge, which WAS brittle.

All the evidence I have seen makes clear that a quality katana was a very tough, flexible blade with a superior cutting edge and great durability. Were there inferior ones? Undoubtedly, just as there were inferior versions of every sword ever made, and battlefields are littered with the broken remains of them around the world. You get nowhere comparing the worst of one kind of sword to the best of another. The worst were probably as bad as the worst of any other kind of blade, but the best quality katanas were superb weapons and very hard to break.


Chengar Qordath wrote:

.... Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind...

If it takes 10 minutters to fold it. And they work without break 8 hours a Day. it takes 57 years to fold it 1 mill times:)

If they fold it 20 times and start with only 2 layers, and i dont think they do, then it will have 1048576 layers of steel and the same of iron. Pehaps that is what they do?

I realize that a Katana is a great sword, but that stat block shows a lag of game undestanding.
How would you stat up other weapons?
Sorry if i Sound rude. But i would also like to know how think the steel slabs you Cut are.


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Cap. Darling wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:

.... Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind...

If it takes 10 minutters to fold it. And they work without break 8 hours a Day. it takes 57 years to fold it 1 mill times:)

If they fold it 20 times and start with only 2 layers, and i dont think they do, then it will have 1048576 layers of steel and the same of iron. Pehaps that is what they do?

I realize that a Katana is a great sword, but that stat block shows a lag of game undestanding.
How would you stat up other weapons?
Sorry if i Sound rude. But i would also like to know how think the steel slabs you Cut are.

Someone's sarcasm detector is broken...


Chengar Qordath wrote:
Cap. Darling wrote:
Chengar Qordath wrote:

.... Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind...

If it takes 10 minutters to fold it. And they work without break 8 hours a Day. it takes 57 years to fold it 1 mill times:)

If they fold it 20 times and start with only 2 layers, and i dont think they do, then it will have 1048576 layers of steel and the same of iron. Pehaps that is what they do?

I realize that a Katana is a great sword, but that stat block shows a lag of game undestanding.
How would you stat up other weapons?
Sorry if i Sound rude. But i would also like to know how think the steel slabs you Cut are.

Someone's sarcasm detector is broken...

He he sorry. I will try to fix it one of these days:)


Rebis Ouroboros wrote:
Liam, if you're not interested in going the two handed route with the elven curveblade, make it a small version. 1d8, crits on a 18-20 x2. I use one like that for my Magus and I LOVE it.

Where are the rules for that?


Liam Warner wrote:
Rebis Ouroboros wrote:
Liam, if you're not interested in going the two handed route with the elven curveblade, make it a small version. 1d8, crits on a 18-20 x2. I use one like that for my Magus and I LOVE it.
Where are the rules for that?

Weapons made for small creatures scale Down but it would get -2 and not work with finesse so it is most likely another trick:)

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Dabbler wrote:


I'm sorry, but it's going to take more than your say-so to convince me that a katana, with a core of tougher steel, is more brittle than A. N. Other sword with, at best, a core of tougher steel, especially when European swords had to parry with the edge, which WAS brittle.

All the evidence I have seen makes clear that a quality katana was a very tough, flexible blade with a superior cutting edge and great durability. Were there inferior ones? Undoubtedly, just as there were inferior versions of every sword ever made, and battlefields are littered with the broken remains of them around the world. You get nowhere comparing the worst of one kind of sword to the best of another. The worst were probably as bad as the worst of any other kind of blade, but the best quality katanas were superb weapons and very hard to break.

But that's the whole point of pattern-welding--making sure the edge is hard and the spine is ductile, and you can do that with rods or flats (as European smiths did). The downside is that every weld is a potential defect in the finished product, and nondestructive evaluation was a few centuries away.

The trick with katanas, AIUI, is the quenching method, yielding a compression-toughened martensitic steel edge; the downside is that the high compressive internal stresses in the edge region only really help with Mode I (opening) fracture. Which is why, AIUI, you're not supposed to twist those blades against any kind of resistance, because compression toughening doesn't help anywhere near as much with Mode III (antiplane shearing) fractures. OTOOH, Mode III fracture toughness tends to be higher than Mode I fracture toughness for the same material--it's been a while, but IIRC that falls out of linear-elastic fracture mechanics and the amount of work to grow each type of crack.


John Woodford wrote:


But that's the whole point of pattern-welding--making sure the edge is hard and the spine is ductile, and you can do that with rods or flats (as European smiths did). The downside is that every weld is a potential defect in the finished product, and nondestructive evaluation was a few centuries away.

I think you may be misunderstanding what pattern-welding is. Pattern-welding is actually a technique to make steel more uniform, not less. Prior to the Bessemer converter and the blast furnace (which arrived in Europe about 1200AD not in Japan until the Meiji era), it was hard to make steel in any quantity with any consistency. If you needed to make a sword, you'd start with a half-dozen steel rods of varying consistency, content, hardness, et cetera. Pattern welding -- the fold-flatten cycle -- removes impurities, and more importantly, evens out the carbon content, so you end up with a consistent grade of steel throughout the sword.

Pattern welding was, in fact, used in most of Europe only until the discovery of the blast furnace. There was no point to it once you could make decent quality steel in quantities large enough to be useful. By 1400, if you needed ten pounds of weapons-grade steel, you made ten pounds of weapons grade steel, not ten one-pound chunks of whatever crap you got out of the bloomery this time.

The Japanese had a different, additional trick. They pattern-forged the individual types of steel -- typically three different types -- to make different sections of the blade. The core of the blade was literally made of a different type of steel (shigane) than the cutting edge (hagane), and typically some mid-level steel (kawagane) was used for side plates. There's a good diagram here.

As far as I know, European swords were made with a single, uniform kind of steel; if you needed ten pounds of steel to make a sword, you started with ten pounds of steel, without worrying about which steel would make the edge. The only thing pattern welding was used for was to make sure you had uniform steel to work with.

The quenching technique also certainly helped, as you point out. Basically, katana forging involved a lot of elements that were not present in Western swordmaking,... and, yes, IMHO, the end result was simply a better sword.

And before anyone starts burbling about "damascene,".... Yes, genuine Damascus swords were better than katanas. But that's not because they were pattern-welded. It's because they were made from better steel. The Indian smiths that invented wootz steel had a lucky break; the iron ore they were using had a lot of very nice trace elements, notably vanadium, that resulted in a very good, strong, flexible steel. They didn't know that, of course. They just mined the ore and sold the steel to the West. (Since it came in small ingots, the swordsmiths then pattern welded it to get a decent blade-sized chunk, ergo the markings.) When those deposits were mined out, they moved to different deposits, and the secret to Damascus steel was lost.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I've read the Verhoeven paper, and what he's primarily talking about is the surface patterning. AFAICT he doesn't address the question of whether a patterned blade has any mechanical advantage over a granular blade; my understanding of the metallurgy involved is that it wouldn't necessarily, but I may be wrong.


John Woodford wrote:
I've read the Verhoeven paper, and what he's primarily talking about is the surface patterning. AFAICT he doesn't address the question of whether a patterned blade has any mechanical advantage over a granular blade; my understanding of the metallurgy involved is that it wouldn't necessarily, but I may be wrong.

That's my understanding as well. The patterning is mostly pretty if you have high-quality steel.

If you don't have high quality steel lying around your forge -- see, for example, all of Europe c. 1100 ACE -- then the pretty patterns are a side effect of making decent quality steel from the kind of %^&* that Hrothgar the Swordmaker had at his disposal.

What made the katanas special was a combination of several factors. Good quality steel (which the Europeans eventually had), awareness of the role of different types of steel, composite blade structure to take advantage of those types, and the special quenching methods. The Europeans eventually had the first in large quantities, and at that point they largely abandoned pattern welding because it by itself didn't make a better blade.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Dabbler wrote:
RJGrady wrote:
Katanas are fairly brittle. Parrying with the back of your blade is not simple or efficient. European swords often had stiffening on the lower part of the blade that made them superior for that kind of parry, anyway.

I'm sorry, but it's going to take more than your say-so to convince me that a katana, with a core of tougher steel, is more brittle than A. N. Other sword with, at best, a core of tougher steel, especially when European swords had to parry with the edge, which WAS brittle.

First of all, katanas were made of inferior steel. That's the whole reason specialized forging techniques were developed. Second, and I hate to ask this, do you know what a ricasso or fuller is?

Quote:


All the evidence I have seen makes clear that a quality katana was a very tough, flexible blade with a superior cutting edge and great durability.

All that is true. And they were brittle. Not "bad." Something can be both tough and brittle. By brittle, I mean, under certain stresses, including some commonly experienced by weapons in combat, they will break, rather than bend. There are even weapons especially designed to do this, such as the sai and jutte.

By contrast, if a longsword bent in combat, it was sometimes possible to step on it with your foot and bend it back into some semblance of functionality. Mind you, sometimes longswords shattered, and sometimes katanas just bent, but in general, longswords are more ductile and resilient, while katanas have a brittle and hard edge with most of the ductility being in the non-edge. The katana is a great design, but the trade-off is that the edge can chip, and worse, can allow the blade to shear. On the perpendicular, the difference in flexibility between the edge and the non-edge meant that when wrenched from side to side, it might not flex, but instead stress along the points of different tempering.


RJGrady wrote:
All that is true. And they were brittle. Not "bad." Something can be both tough and brittle. By brittle, I mean, under certain stresses, including some commonly experienced by weapons in combat, they will break, rather than bend. There are even weapons especially designed to do this, such as the sai and jutte.

A katana could bend 45 degrees and spring back to shape. Doesn't sound brittle to me, and NO ONE would employ a sword that broke if it his bone. That's just dumb.


RJGrady wrote:


First of all, katanas were made of inferior steel.

No, they were made from inferior steel. The whole point of the pattern folding was to make the steel better. In the same way that glass is made from sand, but not of sand. In fact, one key aspect that made katana steel better than European sword steel is that the Japanese sword smiths were aware of the different types of steel (shigane, kawagane, hagane) and worked them separately to take advantage of their properties.

The Japanese had words for aspects of steel that the Europeans didn't suspect. Shigane, for example, is basically a low-carbon (mild) steel, but the phrase "mild steel" doesn't even appear in the Google Books database until 1817. "Steel" was "steel," from a European perspective.

So, yes, there were better steels available. Indian wootz steel, as used in the Middle East, was a good example. But the Europeans couldn't articulate the differences between good steel and poor steel, and certainly didn't take advantages of different types of steel.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you can show me a European sword forged from a composite-core blank, as was routine in katana-making.


Dabbler wrote:


A katana could bend 45 degrees and spring back to shape. Doesn't sound brittle to me, and NO ONE would employ a sword that broke if it his bone. That's just dumb.

To be fair, not all katanas could do this. The ones that didn't had a tendency to break during testing. One could argue that this is why they were tested.

One of the things that RJGrady may not be aware of is that the joint in a forge-welded piece of metal is often stronger than either of the pieces forming the joint. Naturally, this doesn't always happen.

To get this kind of good (diffusion) bond, you need several key aspects:


  • You need a really good smith
  • You need to put a lot of work into the bonding process
  • You need relatively clean surfaces, ideally with some sort of flux to clear away impurities
  • You can't be expected to do this in a mass-production environment
  • You need to be working with relatively small pieces of metal, no larger than you can fit on a forge.

Fortunately, traditional swordsmithing fits all of these.

The end result, though, is that you don't get "stress along the points of different tempering" precisely because, with forge welding, there are no such points. In the words of the website I cited, "neither metallurgical discontinuities nor porosity exist across the interface," so there's no locus for stress. Now, yes, a badly forged sword will not have proper bonding, but those are static flaws in the metal of the sort that testing will discover.

Which gets back to "if the blade will shatter when it hits bone, I don't want that blade." And hence, tamashigiri.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Orfamay Quest wrote:


Or perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you can show me a European sword forged from a composite-core blank, as was routine in katana-making.

Okay.

Page 284, Toledo sword masters were known to use the well-known technique of welding two strips of steel to a wrought iron core, creating a composite core.

Japanese swordsmiths were relatively unsophisticated at metallurgy compared to Europeans. They were very good at forging katana blades. They developed their technique over centuries by using folding, heat, differential quenching, and other techniques. They had some knowledge of using charcoal in creating steel but did not know that different cores had different amounts of natural carbon. Katanas are exceptional because the Japanese smiths made exceptional effort at hardening the edge. The steel product was not exceptional. Nor where they any better than the best European swordsmiths (and arguably, were not as good some). Japanese swordsmithing was not any more exceptional than, say, Italian swordsmithing. Wootz steel, by contrast, is an actual alloy with exceptional properties, and charcoal was used purposefully to give it exceptional strength.

But this is not a katana thread, so that's about all I'm going to add to this tangent.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16

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Ahhh... The legendary "Katana debate", which inspires dread wherever it appears...

Orfamay Quest wrote:
As far as I know, European swords were made with a single, uniform kind of steel; if you needed ten pounds of steel to make a sword, you started with ten pounds of steel, without worrying...

European swordsmiths were welding together steels with different hardnesses to produce blades that were both sharp and resilient as far back as the Viking era. Their blades were not normally designed to hold an edge as sharp as that of a katana, as European warriors favored sturdier blades able to withstand rough treatment that would leave a katana in fragments.


Sir_Wulf wrote:


European swordsmiths were welding together steels with different hardnesses to produce blades that were both sharp and resilient as far back as the Viking era.

Nope. They were welding together steels of different hardnesses because that's the only way they could get enough steel of relatively uniform type together. You can see this because as soon as they were able to make steel in quantity (via the newly developed blast furnaces), pattern-welding disappeared from Viking swords.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I'll just note that one well-known longsword technique of European swordsmanship was to grip the sword by the blade with your gauntlets as a haft and then use the hilt as an improvised hammer. Try that with a katana.


RJGrady wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:


Or perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you can show me a European sword forged from a composite-core blank, as was routine in katana-making.

Okay.

Page 284, Toledo sword masters were known to use the well-known technique of welding two strips of steel to a wrought iron core, creating a composite core.

Fair enough; this is new to me. But note that they're not merging different types of steel -- they're welding steel to iron. Not high-carbon steel to mild steel. Mild steel, of course, has a substantially higher tensile strength than wrought iron, which makes for a better sword core.

That's a substantial step in sophistication, not least because, as far as I can tell, the formalized notion of different types of steel was unknown in Europe until something like the 18th or 19th century.

ETA: I'd also like to point out that these legendary Toledo swordsmiths described in the paper screwed up, badly. They put a wrought-iron wrapping around a steel core. That's more or less exactly backwards if you want to maximize edge hardness and core flexibility.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

There is no meaningful difference between pure iron and mild steel. I'll mostly just note that you have no idea what you're talking about. You have obviously done a lot of reading on katanas, but you don't much about smithing in general or even Japanese smithing specifically.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
RJGrady wrote:


First of all, katanas were made of inferior steel.

No, they were made from inferior steel. The whole point of the pattern folding was to make the steel better. In the same way that glass is made from sand, but not of sand. In fact, one key aspect that made katana steel better than European sword steel is that the Japanese sword smiths were aware of the different types of steel (shigane, kawagane, hagane) and worked them separately to take advantage of their properties.

The Japanese had words for aspects of steel that the Europeans didn't suspect. Shigane, for example, is basically a low-carbon (mild) steel, but the phrase "mild steel" doesn't even appear in the Google Books database until 1817. "Steel" was "steel," from a European perspective.

So, yes, there were better steels available. Indian wootz steel, as used in the Middle East, was a good example. But the Europeans couldn't articulate the differences between good steel and poor steel, and certainly didn't take advantages of different types of steel.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you can show me a European sword forged from a composite-core blank, as was routine in katana-making.

"Carburizing wrought iron is often referred to as case hardening and has been known to metal workers from antiquity.13 The process is to take an iron or low carbon steel bar or plate and pack it in an organic material in a sealed vessel and then bake at high temperature (a red heat) for a long period of time. The organic material supplies carbon, which leaches into the item creating steel over time. One of the best materials for this is charcoal dust. There is another method where the bloom is left to bake in the furnace for a long period of time after it has formed and the carbon monoxide of the fire supplies the carbon to steel the iron. This process is very difficult to control and would produce a product highly variable in carbon content. This process seems to have been used on tools and edged weapons but little evidence exsists for use on armour.14 The first European mention of this process is in the 12th Century.3

Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick, Book XIII, Ch. IV, 1558

"Take soft iron armour of small price, and put it into a pot, strewing upon it [soot, and organic powders to supply carbon], cover it, and make a good fire about it: then at the time fit, take the pot with iron pinchers; and striking the pot with a hammer, quench the whole herness red hot in water; for so it becomes hard ... But, lest the rings of a coat of male should be broken, and flie in pieces, there must be strength added to hardness. Workman call it a return. Take it out of the water, shake it up and down in vinegar, that it may be polished and the colour be made perspicuous: than make red hot a plate of iron and lay upon the same: when it shows an ash colour, cast it again into water, and that hardness abated, and it will yield to the stroke more easily: so of a base coat of male, you shall have one that will resist all blows.""

From: http://www.oakeshott.org/metal.html

Looks like a decent source to me and matches stories i have heard from around the SCA and ren-faires. Note, i am not trying to cite the SCA or ren-faires as a source. But Europeans seem to know a thing or two about steel.

Otherwise, and these are just the hear-say stories i have been exposed to, is that the Europeans had basically abandoned serious quality swords due to having lots of guns by the time they met the Japanese and their swords so the Katana was very impressive.


RJGrady wrote:
There is no meaningful difference between pure iron and mild steel.

Well, if you consider "less than half the tensile strength" to be not a meaningful difference, you might be right.

The tensile strength of wrought iron is about 350 MPa. The tensile strength of mild steel is over 800 MPa.


Torbyne wrote:


"Carburizing wrought iron is often referred to as case hardening and has been known to metal workers from antiquity.

Case-hardening is different than using a composite core.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Orfamay Quest wrote:
RJGrady wrote:
There is no meaningful difference between pure iron and mild steel.

Well, if you consider "less than half the tensile strength" to be not a meaningful difference, you might be right.

The tensile strength of wrought iron is about 350 MPa. The tensile strength of mild steel is over 800 MPa.

You're not right, you're not even wrong.


Cap. Darling wrote:
Liam Warner wrote:
Rebis Ouroboros wrote:
Liam, if you're not interested in going the two handed route with the elven curveblade, make it a small version. 1d8, crits on a 18-20 x2. I use one like that for my Magus and I LOVE it.
Where are the rules for that?
Weapons made for small creatures scale Down but it would get -2 and not work with finesse so it is most likely another trick:)

While it wouldn't work with Weapon Finesse, you wouldn't take a -2. A Small 2 handed weapon can be wielded by a Medium creature as a 1handed weapon without penalty.


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GhanjRho wrote:
Cap. Darling wrote:
Liam Warner wrote:
Rebis Ouroboros wrote:
Liam, if you're not interested in going the two handed route with the elven curveblade, make it a small version. 1d8, crits on a 18-20 x2. I use one like that for my Magus and I LOVE it.
Where are the rules for that?
Weapons made for small creatures scale Down but it would get -2 and not work with finesse so it is most likely another trick:)
While it wouldn't work with Weapon Finesse, you wouldn't take a -2. A Small 2 handed weapon can be wielded by a Medium creature as a 1handed weapon without penalty.

Not according to the CRB.

"Inappropriately Sized Weapons: A creature can't make optimum use of a weapon that isn't properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn't proficient with the weapon, a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies."

Where are you pulling that rule, other than 3rd Edition D&D?


Sir_Wulf wrote:
Ahhh... The legendary "Katana debate", which inspires dread wherever it appears...

Indeed. The eternal case of "Ermagherd, Katana best wepon EVAR that cuts through bullets and tanks with single stroke with anime supah-powah!" versus people who actually know what they're talking about.

Personally, I tend to be of the opinion that it was a decent sword for the kinds of things katanas were used for in Japan, but probably wouldn't have held up too well on a European battlefield. Which just makes sense; full plate and even chain mail weren't around in Japan, so why make weapons designed to deal with them?


RJGrady wrote:
I'll just note that one well-known longsword technique of European swordsmanship was to grip the sword by the blade with your gauntlets as a haft and then use the hilt as an improvised hammer. Try that with a katana.

That's about as disingenuous as claiming: "scimitars are superior to rapiers - with a scimitar you can slice a silk scarf in two, try doing THAT with a rapier!" They were different weapons, used in different ways.

This discussion is concerning how the weapons were made, not wielded, and their relative toughness and fragility. You insist that katanas would break when encountering bone, and I have to point out that any weapon with that major flaw would not be a viable weapon AT ALL. Especially as enemies sometimes wear armour stronger than bone. Yet the katana was used, and was almost deified for it's properties, implying that while some may have been flawed, most probably could handle the stress of battle at least as well as their counterparts in other cultures.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Dabbler wrote:
RJGrady wrote:
I'll just note that one well-known longsword technique of European swordsmanship was to grip the sword by the blade with your gauntlets as a haft and then use the hilt as an improvised hammer. Try that with a katana.

That's about as disingenuous as claiming: "scimitars are superior to rapiers - with a scimitar you can slice a silk scarf in two, try doing THAT with a rapier!"

In what way was I being disingenuous? I was simply pointing out the falsity in comparing the edge strength of a katana to that of a European blade and concluding katanas were better steel.

Quote:


They were different weapons, used in different ways.

That was exactly my point.

Quote:


This discussion is concerning how the weapons were made, not wielded, and their relative toughness and fragility. You insist that katanas would break when encountering bone, and I have to point out that any weapon with that major flaw would not be a viable weapon AT ALL.

That's absurd. No weapon more complex than a steel-hafted steel club can be trusted to that extent.

Quote:


Especially as enemies sometimes wear armour stronger than bone. Yet the katana was used, and was almost deified for it's properties, implying that while some may have been flawed, most probably could handle the stress of battle at least as well as their counterparts in other cultures.

Not only have I been a major geek for katanas and European blades for decades of my life, I'm also a good cook. I've cut bones with blade plenty of times. I even have a pair of scissors that will cut bone. But bone is serious stuff.

If you're going to take a 1 1/2" wide blade and pass it through three dead bodies, you better make sure your stroke is straight. If it gets stuck at any point, you're going to wrench the blade. Consider the effort that goes into making a good katana. Now I want you to visualize every single one of those blades being used in such a way it could be destroyed. Rather than test every single blade, swordmakers, like most craftsmen, would examine each of their creations, and occasionally test them to see if they were up to snuff. Certainly, you could risk a few broken blades to be able to sell your katana to Lord So-and-so at a substantial upcharge for the five-body rating. But saying those blades are better is an error in mathematical thinking; because of survival bias, you have no way of knowing if those blades were better constructed, better wielded, or if they were just the lucky ones. It's like buying an infant car seat; I don't want one that has already proven it can save a life in a car accident, I want a new one!

As for handling the stresses of battle: every weapon has trade-offs. Roman legionaries were simply shocked to watch Celts bend a sword over someone's helmet, stop, and bend the sword back roughly into shape, and keep fighting. The simple fact is that a katana is a relatively less durable blade compared to most European sidearms. It has a relatively more wicked curved edge and a good spine for cutting. But for blocking? There is a reason classic kenjutsu avoids nearly any blade contact. There is a reason the wakisazhi typically had a different method of blade construction, one that yielded a harder, more durable blade. There are reasons you don't take a whetstone after a katana, but you sharpen the heck out of a falchion.

They are different weapons. And you could literally beat a katana to pieces with a medium-grade Viking sword.


Can'tFindthePath wrote:
GhanjRho wrote:
Cap. Darling wrote:
Liam Warner wrote:
Rebis Ouroboros wrote:
Liam, if you're not interested in going the two handed route with the elven curveblade, make it a small version. 1d8, crits on a 18-20 x2. I use one like that for my Magus and I LOVE it.
Where are the rules for that?
Weapons made for small creatures scale Down but it would get -2 and not work with finesse so it is most likely another trick:)
While it wouldn't work with Weapon Finesse, you wouldn't take a -2. A Small 2 handed weapon can be wielded by a Medium creature as a 1handed weapon without penalty.

Not according to the CRB.

"Inappropriately Sized Weapons: A creature can't make optimum use of a weapon that isn't properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn't proficient with the weapon, a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies."

Where are you pulling that rule, other than 3rd Edition D&D?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons wrote:
The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder's size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. For example, a Small creature would wield a Medium one-handed weapon as a two-handed weapon. If a weapon's designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can't wield the weapon at all.

For an example, a named weapon in the Rise of the Runelords AP is the Runechill Hatchet, a giant's (size Large) handaxe. The weapons description specifically states that Medium characters may wield it as a battle axe and Small characters may wield it as a greataxe.

Also, Amiri.


RJGrady wrote:
<stuff>

You seem to be consistently saying "Katanas were inferior and broke easily because I say so" in effect. I think that actually we are arguing different words with the same meaning.

I understand what you mean by the katana being "brittle" but that does not translate as "breaks easily" - and certainly not in contact with bone (heavy armour is another matter). The tough core of the katana gave it the strength to endure the stresses it was designed to encounter, and it was certainly designed to encounter bone because you cannot chop even un-armoured people and not hit bone. At the same time I am not saying that the katana was a superior strength blade overall, because strength and durability is always a trade-off in weapons: you can make them stronger simply by making them thicker and heavier, but that doesn't make them wieldy, quite the opposite.

However, they were all wielded by people for the purpose of combat, and people can be amazingly consistent in large numbers over time wherever you go in the world. Hence the swords from any given culture were probably the best combination of strength and lightness that could be managed at the time. No warrior wants a weapon that will break, or that he cannot wield, so ALL were probably at the very edge of the limit of being strong enough and being wieldy enough. Or to put it another way, the medieval longsword and the katana were probably equally likely to break - or not - in the combat they were designed for. They may have broken in different ways, but ultimately in terms of durability they were likely very similar. Any advantages in quality of materials and manufacturing technique in the one or the other was offset by that same weapon being made at the edge of what was acceptable in order to be as effective as possible.

An interesting little article I turned up:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/longsword-and-katana.html


Ooh, good article and I really liked the example longswords shown. Not so much the katanas though, the curve looks to weird on those... thanks for the find :)


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Ugg I am too tired to be reading this stuff I'm starting to picture you guys as your pictures. Imagine a smoky tavern room where in a table by the corner a motely group including a Dwarf, an Illithid, a walrus, two knights, a demonic black armoured figure with glowing red eyes, a rat and a priest are all engaged in an amiable discussion about the merits of different types of sword making. Especially as the rat (Sorry Dabbler) is carrying a couple of books and has just said here's an interesting little article I turned up.


Liam Warner wrote:
Ugg I am too tired to be reading this stuff I'm starting to picture you guys as your pictures. Imagine a smoky tavern room where in a table by the corner a motely group including a Dwarf, an Illithid, a walrus, two knights, a demonic black armoured figure with glowing red eyes, a rat and a priest are all engaged in an amiable discussion about the merits of different types of sword making. Especially as the rat (Sorry Dabbler) is carrying a couple of books and has just said here's an interesting little article I turned up.

Lets not forget us disembodied voices that people are arguing with. In my experiance that is a very common practice for all mysterious strangers who sit in dark corners of taverns.

Sovereign Court

GhanjRho wrote:


For an example, a named weapon in the Rise of the Runelords AP is the Runechill Hatchet, a giant's (size Large) handaxe. The weapons description specifically states that Medium characters may wield it as a battle axe and Small characters may wield it as a greataxe.

Also, Amiri.

Indeed, Amiri! Who, at first level, with 18 Strength and one point of BAB, is +3 to hit with her large bastard sword.

The rule you just quoted is literally the next line after the one Can'tFindthePath quoted. It just explains what, beyond the aforementioned penalties, happens when you wield a weapon that isn't sized for you.

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