CHOP VS SLASH! Sword Designs - is there a difference? 

Masterful

Modern day poet. Keep it up

Take your "Like" sir.

... "And by projectile end them. To aim - to hit, Or more; and by hit to say we break the armour and the thousand butted rings that flesh is behind: 'tis a penetration Devoutly to be wish'd. To aim, to hit; To hit, perchance to kill - ay, there's the rub: For in that hit of heart the death may come;"

Finally some class in the comment section

Was coming to post this. Existing weapon techniques in the arts I've studied absolutely supports all of those attacking types with a dao.

Honestly though I think it looks like a pretty good stabber for a curved sword since the tip is still in a straight line forwards from the handle 👀 But maybe it wouldn't be super effective against armor since the tip is a little broad? either way I really want one now :P

Isn't a lot of Wushu just theatrics? I'd expect the second hand pushing on the pommel would be mainly for visual effect.

@@keithklassen5320 there is the contemporary sport of wushu, which is designed to show athleticism, and the traditional art of wushu, which most people in the west call kung fu. We're talking about kung fu.

The sword itself is a compromise. "The queen of weapons", it is said.

If you compare a sword to a stick, it has less percussive force but more cutting ability. That in itself is a compromise.

Actually swords have have at least simmilar percusive power because blades by virtue of well, being a blade, sharp, focuses force on a smaller surface and are made of metal which are both denser and harder than wood. Unless we are talking about smallswords and some rapiers as they by being light, having blade geometries that are optimised for thrustng and/or having the center of balance and by that the center of percusion too close to the hand (or too far away from the tip); or by stick you mean something like a the irish shillelagh, which is more of a club (the difference between a mace and a club is that a mace has especially crafted knobs, on a club it is either a sphere, a sherical shape or an irregularly shaped knob, either being attached or directly part of the stick) or maybe even a baseball bat, which is also if we are being pedantic a club.@@AnoNYmous-bz2ef

Mfw the players chop down a tree with a legendary curved greatsword and completely ruin it

Many weapon designs are not multipurpose tools and if you used them as such you are probably going to damage them.Imagine trying to use that falchion as a tool with its thin edge. It would seem odd to care so much about one detail but ignore the other. An axe for chopping wood and an axe for chopping people still have very different designs and are not likely interchangeable. While there are some exceptions like a machete made of modern steel I would think you would end up with a lot of dull, chipped and bent weapons if you regularly used them as tools particularly if they only have access to medieval level metal working.

@@101Mant Honestly fantasy weapons tend to be a whole different conversation too. A lot of times they make crazy designs that wouldn't even work in real life. Like most of the time Greatswords, Hammers, and Axes in RPGs tend be way oversized. Then you also have the fantastical level of black smiting and super materials such as Adamantium that makes weapons that are almost indestructible, never dull, and slice/smash almost everything.

I was working out a attack type vs armour type chart. Then got to wondering if I should give penalties for using a weapon in the "wrong" category. I mean you can slash with a spear.

Are you talking about peregrine falcons?

***Falchion

Thanks

I've seen falchions with an extremely thin, sharp blade. It reminded me of a razor, so I think it would be devastating against flesh/fabric, and almost useless against metal armor. The thicker, heavier "reenactment falchion" is safer, of course, but besides that, this tip-heavy blunt steel bar has a lot of power. If the people playing are counting hits, it's better for hit detection.

Shad did a video on the subject once... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_aGGUH5CP1Y.html

when im drunk im not accountable

I would rather be poked with THE soft cushions.

@@stevewaldorff4327 you should try chopping and slashing at those cushions!

@@beepboop204 With your tongue! And the sword you carried from birth!

@@Vlad_Tepes_III get... out... of... my... head......

Tbh I see no value in distinguishing them. Yes there's a difference between chopping and slashing but at that point you may as well add rules for delivering a Cut 1 vs. a Cut 5. It's irrelevant for the purposes of the game. Frankly, I think most RPGs (certainly in the D&D lineage) have ended up in the worst possible spot: they either need to be more simulationist (or at least better simulationist - ditch the D&D simulation and design a better one from scratch) or more abstract.

@@Robert399 I agree that table-top RPGs shouldn't be involved in that level of minutia. I'd distinguish however between simulationism and fine granularity in game mechanics. It's perfectly viable (and I'd argue preferable) for a simplified and abstract combat system to be designed with simulation in mind, by making sure the likely outcome of the mechanics is in accord with realism.

Isn't Matt saying that the blade he shows off is both? essentially by combining the types you are allowing that a skilled user will adapt to get the best from it. But no amount of skill (the designers assume - wrongly) will let you use a slash/chopper as a blunt bludgeon.

I'd say that there might be a meaningful distinction to be made, IF the game is factoring in some sort of concussion/stopping power effect. If I´m wearing a mail coif, and somebody wallops me straight on the head with a falchion, it is probably more likely to give me a head injury than if someone administered a drawing cut in the same place. However, this is a very specific thing which I have not seen in any game.

@@eyegrinder94 "If I´m wearing a mail coif" So it's rather about what kind of armor you are wearing, that influences the type of attack to which you are the most vulnerable. In most games, it makes absolutely no sense to dive so deep into it. The player has no ability to choose the type of attack his character performs. Even if he had that ability, he'd lack the precision needed. So what's the point? For realism? Well, I find it quite unrealistic, when a narrow spike-like tip deals more piercing damage than a broader tip. The former might offer more penetration against armor, but it most surely won't cause as much internal trauma. In conclusion, plenty of games would be better off by simplifying their system. Damage is damage.

I disagree. Cutting bread is a sawing motion. I've never seen anyone slash bread into slices.

@@Matt_Alaric ... hold my beer.

A sword that is fully optimized for chopping is... an axe.

And axes were very much so a favored cavalry weapon, as were maces and hammers. So chopping motions were definitely done on horseback. Also if you were trained to fight in armor it wouldn't slow you down that much. What it does is put an increase drain on your stamina.

@@adambielen8996 Okay, you got me, but I don't think that once armour fell by the wayside cavalry weapons reverted to slashing weapons eg sabres rather than axes - not too many axe armed troops in WWI or the Franco Prussian War...

@@rags417 Lances also fell out of fashion despite being a demonstrably better cavalry weapon. Sometimes other things end up taking precedence, like cavalry firearms making lances impossible to use but a sword can still be stored in a scabbard.

@@adambielen8996 First off, lances were still being used at Omdurman in 1898. Second, my point was that the distinction between "chop" and "slash" weapons probably has more to do with tactical employment rather than target type - chopping isn't necessary to defeat a heavily armoured opponent, but chopping is easier against an opponent who is slowed down by armour. Stabbing does just as well (or actually much better) in this case, which is why the trend towards more pointed swords in the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

drug dealers do chops, not slashes

Slashing vs chopping is somewhat like a saw blade vs an axe head, but having said that the semantics of language know no bounds.

@@MarikHavair It should have bounds when it comes to technical terms.

The micro teeth are a product of hammering from European blacksmithing style, when you fold the metals there’s less teeth despite also having some hammering to flatten the metal, you can still find examples in kitchen knives

@@widdershins5383 I think that it's hard to make blade sharp without "micro teeth".

I think Mat said that chopping is bad technique against fabric armour.

@@KAESowicz Oh... i forgot that But you can still slash with a falchion though, while it is still optimized mainly for chopping

@@chieckenman4432 of course you can, it's just not that handy to slash with falchion.

what he means to call out is the sentiment that falchions are in line with axes, and are meant to fight chain and plate mail

@@neverseemstoAsh I understood that, my issue is we often don't even think of fabric armor as armor. It is absolutely armor, and it was also probably quite prevalent, cheaper to manufacture and easy to wear. Of course the archeological record is sparse because fabric doesn't tend to preserve well like metal. Point being fabric armor is armor, and a weapon like a falchion would be a good anti armor weapon. Likewise a very pointy sword may be considered anti armor and capable of penetrating mail, but it certainly isn't anti armor in regards to plate armor.

The combat, the armour system, the weapons and so much more in Exanima make it the only game worthy of your time Matt. But it's a really complex game that needs a lot of time to learn and understand. It's the real deal though, other games are nothing.

I desperately want to read this as Muslashi

Absolutely. In "Book of Five Rings" he spent what amounts to an entire short chapter on what he called "slashing" vs "cutting".

@@stephenballard3759 which translation are you reading may change that. There is an infamous and unfortunately common version that has an enormous amount of commentary inserted without distinction by the translator, and from what I recall of when I read a proper translation of the book of five rings, musashi spends very little time speaking of techniques. Admittedly I could be wrong, I haven’t read it in a while and not particularly deeply, I’m just commenting to put out the information that there is a rather corrupted version in common circulation and it’s worth double checking which version you’re reading from if this scandal wasn’t something you’d heard of.

@@chancedean5341 No idea. I read two different versions over thirty years ago in my teens. They were given to my mother by some Japanese researchers at her genetics lab when they came to our home for dinner and learned I had an interest in martial arts.

@@stephenballard3759 then I’d place the probable fault on myself then, I just feel obliged to spread the information when appropriate, given how bad it is for that translator to put his words in Mushashis mouth, people thinking they’d been receiving genuine insight of a legend but it’s just an arrogant “interpreter”.

'Tajo' sounds more like a slash to me. Corte translates to 'cut'

The pronunciation is the same. The two words differ in gender: "el corte" (the cut) vs "la corte" (the court)

@@catocall7323 I failed to mention in my comment that my language isn't Spanish, it's Portuguese. There's no "Tajo" in it, the equivalent would be "Talho" but it's seldom used.

@@taylor_green_9 The gender difference exists in Portuguese too, "a corte" and "o corte", but their pronunciations are different from each other. "A corte" is pronounced with a "closed" O, as if it were written "côrte", while "o corte" would be pronounced with an "open" O, as if it were written "córte". I also don't speak Spanish, so I don't know of a better way to explain this.

@@fernandosales8320 Sorry! I shouldn't have assumed your language was Spanish

Funny, I've never seen anyone say the katana *can't* thrust. Only that it's not a particularly great thruster.

@@Pyrela I've definitely seen it, for every weeb katana worshiper there's a HEMA "enthusiast" who embodies the dunning-krueger graph

My simple reply on the "rapiers can't cut" is "then why does it have a sharp edge?"...

@@edzejandehaan9265 Good one. Same goes for the katana; "Then why does it have a pointy tip?"

@@Pyrela It can thrust pretty well. The stiffness and short length make up for the wide point to a certain degree.

Not an expert but if someone did it in the past, it would have been a very unreliable way of catching a blade. Iirc there's an oddly-shaped offhand... tool(?) in Chinese martial arts called a Gou-rang.

11:57 Too thin Edit: Wrong time stamp. Should have been 11:27

I conceptualize of that as hybrid thrust-slash, as a chop is a hybrid bludgeon-slash.

Yataghan, Sosun Patta, Ram Dao Kirach, Ginunting. Yeah. They chop and hack.

I don't quite understand the physics behind it, but axes have the cutting surface forward for a reason. The same principle can be seen in Kukri, Kopesh, Kopis, Falcata, and Kora. I believe it's a different, but related point, but when you have a strongly curved blade with the tip back, you'll feel less impact and it will push the target back. If the curve faces forward though, it will be a much more abrupt stop and it will pull on your hand. In any case, it is bound to transfer more energy into the target, but it's not necessarily as clean of a cut as backward-facing curved blades do. I could say it has something to do with the cutting angle, but I feel like this would be missing the point. If anyone can explain to me what I am missing, please go for it.

Generally, yes. It draws the energy towards the tip, making it cut more by percussive force concentrated on the sharp edge, compared to 'lighter' slashing blades cutting more proportionally by edge mechanics (drawing the micro-serrations across as saw, possibly coupled with a smaller amount of percussive force). Tip-concentration also lends itself to the 'casting' motion of chops as well-kind of like a (weighted) whip.

It depends with the rapier. How well they can chop varies, and when they can, the maximum mass that they can successfully chop through is more limited. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9MloYsf7XII.html

@@nevisysbryd7450 I watched the video, and while that's *definitely surprising* to see just how well *that* rapier in particular chopped *its* target, not *only* is flesh much *denser* than Tatami, but it's also supported by *bone* , which's both denser, and *much harder* than Tatami; that means that chopping Tatami *doesn't* translate to chopping flesh. That said, you *did* make your point as to Rapiers being able to chop if they're designed right. With that outta the way, what're your thoughts on the *rest* of my comment?

​@@ezrafaulk1799 I was the person who gave it its current one 'like'. Although I recommend removing the lack of bisecting from the definition of slashing, as that sort of motion can, if rarely, slice all the way through (there is a form of slicing thrust by cavalry, especially with sabers, that has been known to slice entirely through the neck and decapitate). I think it is more about the motion itself, rather than how deeply it happens to cut in or through. Otherwise, pretty much complete agreement. And, yes, tatami is not a perfect simulation; rapiers will not likely bisect a leg in two, although it may a forearm. Curiously, my studying this all is also related to ttrpgs (I am making one myself) as well.

@@nevisysbryd7450 Hey, sorry; I replied to you via my phone, but it apparently doesn't show that on computers. I'm well aware that a slice *can* potentially bisect, just as I'm well aware that a percussive cut can potentially *not* bisect (hence my defining a cleave as the percussive cut equivalent of a slash); the reason I specifically defined a slash as *non-bisecting* is because, to *my* understanding, *any* bisecting cut that involves *swinging* motion is gonna have a *measurable* degree of *percussion* , which'd make it a *chop* instead of a *slash* . I'll *happily* admit I *could* be wrong, but I'd have to *see* a *pure* slice ( *no* measurable degree of percussion) involving swinging motion, which's what a slash is, bisect a target before I just admitted to being wrong *entirely* ; if you can *show* me that, I'll *gladly* watch. Also, it's very *cool* to know you're working on making your very own *whole* TTRPG; knowing *that* , what do *you* think of the idea of replacing the edged weapons's overly specific *slashing* damage type term with the more general *cutting* damage type term? I personally like it because it avoids both introducing a *fourth* physical damage type that'd only overcomplicate the physical damage system, *and* having the damage type any of them deal sound wrong in *any* of their cases; that's why I'm doing that in the homebrew 2E Pathfinder resource I'm writing.

@@ezrafaulk1799 I think the 'slashing' convention is partly due to it originating back in a time when laymen were making a system about stuff they did not understand all that well, for an audience even less familiar with it. 'Slash' is also largely reserved for use with weapons in language, probably giving it a cool factor in their minds. And the convention has not died since. As for whether replacing it with 'cutting' is a good idea, it is at least worth considering. 'Cutting damage' does not roll off the tongue in the same manner as 'slashing damage'... it is a lot more logically consistent, though. Although if you really want to deal with slices being different from chops in a ttrpg mechanical level, the only way to do it is to have them be either separate damage types, or damage sub-types. And you would really need at least a third type/subtype, as percussive force to slicing is not a binary but a spectrum with several ranges on it (pure chop-drawing chop-slash-slice, or something like that). How much of that you want to deal with depends on the system, audience, and desired experience. For pathfinder, yeah, unless you want to make something of a rock-paper-scissors setup with damage types to armor, separating cutting damage into multiple/subtypes is probably overcomplicating it. An absolutely pure slash is only going to occur with a push/pull or 'draw' cut, and I doubt that will go through bone ( _maybe_ a finger?), and even then, you can drive it in by pushing on it (much like pushing a wedge). You could hypothetically angle a slash with a blade with a strong curve to cut with very little percussive force, though, since the retracting angle can make it cut by sawing rather than driving the edge in. I think defining a slash as lacking _any_ percussive element is a misuse of the word, as it generally implies swinging a blade with _some_ level of hacking, and it then renders a 'slice' redundant. My stipulation is that attaching effect to the motion creates a logic and linguistic problem in use. While it may not ever happen in practice, you can hypothetically create a 'slashing' motion with a twenty-foot blade that, if it keeps cutting in that motion, will end up bisecting the material it is in contact with _eventually_ by sawing through it. Similarly, you can perform a chopping motion that fails to bisect the target fully (eg, a motion with a sword that would chop through an arm yet would fail to bisect a torso due to lacking the sheer mass and thus inertia to carry through). I think a better use would be to use the terms like 'slash' and 'chop' (or perhaps hew or hack?), with the modifier 'through' after to distinguish that the motion cut all the way through the target. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5tP0VSv7Ro4.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fKFE8ZZwDeU.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Gi6MhDFDSAc.html

"What slash means to me." Matt Easton has forgotten more about sabers than I'm ever going to know. Not my specialty, so if you say "Slash means..." I'm probably going to believe you.

Well, he showed one in the video, the shamshir, and mentioned another, the small sword. And I'm sure they were practical in... *CONTEXT*

On another post where I expressed a dislike for serrated blades on knives, another person posted that his serrated blade was great for cutting through 3" rope---to which I replied that there were few ship's hawsers needing cut in central Kansas, while I did occasionally use a straight pocket knife to strip the end of a wire.

I guess it would be better against gambesons, or mail. As the weapon "stops on contact", you will transfer more force into the target, so even if the blade doesn't chop into the target, the blunt impact might still break bones underneath the armor (especially with tip-heavy blades).