Close combat continued

Hand help impact weapons

Also known as "melee" weapons, this particular section is all about the faithful sword, dagger, mace etc etc. Melee weapons come in all sorts of sizes, shapes, lengths and uses. I would define a melee weapon as something that is not a physical part of your body and requires you to hold it or otherwise wear it, but also does not fire projectiles. If you've a sword that fires blasts of fire at someone, just refer to both the magical section and projectiles when firing the blasts, otherwise it's gonna be a melee weapon.

Now, some ground rules for "Hand held impact" weapons. The first thing to take into consideration is that these weapons need to be used with some knowledge of what they are good at doing. Along with this knowledge is the type of ways particular variants are used. Some weapons are good for wading through hordes, hacking and slashing anything in range, others require poise and precision timing, one strike = one kill.

I just hit on my next point, different types of melee weapons will have different ranges, in particular both a minimum and maximum range. Getting up close to a person can make their longsword useless cause they can't swing the blade at you, oppositely you can try and stay out of the swing range of the person and again the weapons useless. These points are crucial to remember when using melee weapons, you must always remember that to use them properly you must keep the target within the effective range and that will mean precision movement of your character to bring the best out of the weapon.

I will next give more in depth examples of melee weapon types and their practical uses.

Slicing: A slicing weapons is one that will use the sharpness of the blade to do the most damage. The damage you inflict however will be mostly flesh damage, however the heavier types of slicing weapons could quite easily go through bone as well. Slicing weapons aren't generally heavy duty and are ill suited to direct hacking motions. A good example of this is the old fabled "samurai" sword. Made famous by the elite warriors, "samurai", this weapon is deadly when in the right hands. It concentrates on single strikes that utilises the benefits of the uber sharp blade. This essentially means sweeping motions that "drag" the blade across the point of impact, causing the blade to cut and sink in, causing more and more damage as it gets deeper and deeper. the result is typically a wound that is extremely clean and straight. This however requires a lot of knowledge in how to wield effectively. Less damaging but easier to use slicing weapons include most daggers and swords that fit the above description of damage type.

Hacking: This type of weapons utilises a heavier blade type and, as the title suggests, hacks into the target using brute force and momentum to cause damage. This is generally a good type of weapon to use when people are wearing heavy armour, as even if the weapon simply impacts the armour, should the attack be struck with enough force, it will simple bludgeon the enemy with crushing force. The most famous type of hacking weapons is the "bastard" sword (titles because it's dual ability to be wielded with both one and two hands) this type of weapon was used mainly during the middle ages when the process of a twisted iron and steel core added the necessary strength to deliver the crushing blows without the blades bending or breaking. It requires very little skill to use as the blows struck with it are very crude in their effectiveness, along with most weapons under this title. These weapons are, though, generally quite heavy, requiring someone of a very strong build to wield for long periods, further suiting the heavy blows that are struck with it, but they can be quite unwieldy when used by someone less than barbaric physique. Also any axes come under this bracket of weapon too, since they rely more of the heaviness of the axe head, than the sharpness of the blade edge.

Piercing: These types of weapons are used to punch holes into targets, much like a bullet. Generally very thin and long, coming to a fine point, these work with thrusting strikes that utilise the thin point of the blade. These are however very ill suited to blocking any types of strikes from other weapon types, because they are very light weight in design with the blade rather flexible to prevent the blade breaking under the tremendous force of punching a hole through, say, plate armour. One particular weapon that comes under this type is the type of dagger that was used by archers during the middle ages. The blade is typical of a piercing weapon and was used to find the weak points of armour when the archers "mopped" up after battles or by assassins that wished to suddenly pierce a victim by surprise, causing fatal, but non-messy wounds that might leak blood everywhere and attract notice.

Bludgeoning: This weapon type is the least used, but possibly the most devastating when used properly. The weapon doesn't generally have any cutting edges, but relies on the shear weight of the weapon and the strength of the blow to inflict serious crushing blows that will almost negate any armour the target is wearing. But this weapon type does have some serious disadvantages. The weight of the weapon generally means that the strike ratio is considerably slower than other weapons and therefore the blows are easier to spot coming, this added weight also has the disadvantage that the user can tire very quickly. Also the heavier (and hence more damaging) weapons generally have to be held with two hands, meaning no shield hand. But should your character happen to be some huge conan the barbarian type then wielding such a heavy weapon wont be a problem. Bludgeoning weapons have quite a lot of variance in them, coming in the generally single hand wielded mace, up to the double handed warhammer. Also the "flail" (spiky ball on a chain) type weapons come into this bracket and get and extra note. Flails are actually the one bludgeoning type weapon that is quite flexible (think Gogo from kill bill XD). The chain meaning that it can be swung around really quite fast, adding extra momentum to the blows, but at no extra weight cost! Also the chain can be used in a range of ways, including wrapping around a weapon to potentially disarm an opponent, or wrap around someone's appendage (e.g. leg) to potentially pull them off balance. This does have the disadvantage of someone being smart enough to tie up the chain, thereby taking your weapon out of action until you can retrieve it.

AS AN END NOTE TO THIS SECTION, THIS GUIDE IS ONLY A BASIC GUIDE AND I WOULD NOT SUGGEST SIMPLY READING THIS AND HAVING DONE WITH YOUR RESEARCH ON HOW TO USE YOUR WEAPON, WHATEVER WEAPON TYPE YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO USE, IF IT'S NEW TO YOU, I WOULD STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT YOU RESEARCH HOW TO USE IT FIRST.

FOR UNIQUE MELEE WEAPONS I WOULD SUGGEST THE YOU LOOK THROUGH THE ABOVE WEAPON TYPES AND FIND THE ONE IT FITS TOO, THEN ABIDE BY IT'S PROS AND CONS. IF YOU MAKE UP A WEAPON PLEASE DON'T TAKE THE PISS, NOT ONLY WILL YOU BE SHUNNED BUT DEPENDING ON HOW BAD YOU TAKE THE PISS WITH IT, YOU COULD FEEL THE WRATH OF THE MODERATORS, AND THE WEAPONS THEY USE AREN'T VERY NICE. XD