Weapon Weirdness

[AnonymousSpeed]

Why are steel weapons heavier and more fragile than iron weapons? Steel is generally lighter than iron, if not about as heavy, even in its more primitive forms.

Why are silver weapons so much lighter than steel weapons, and why are they so powerful? Silver is a pretty dense and soft metal.

Why does a short spear weigh more than a regular spear?

Feel free to add to these oddities, or correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

[Dragoncat]

Why do killer weapons make you more likely to do a really brutal attack? On that note, why does spinning a weapon make the attack stronger?

How do hand axes and javelins come back after you throw them?

Video game logic is fun.

[eclipse]

Who thought making weapons out of glass was a good idea?!

How in the world can a book weigh more than an axe?

And most importantly. . .if someone is hit by the curse of a Devil Sword/Devil Axe, they absorb all the damage they would've done.  Yet the enemy doesn't receive any damage.  It's still a weapon with non-negligible weight, headed straight for the enemy - it's still going to hurt if it connects.  Do they miraculously dodge it or something?

[Light Strategist]

Tree Branch, Log, Broom etc.

Tree Branches and Logs, I can kinda understand. But freakin' BROOMS?

[Rezzy]

Why are we making Bows out of metal and not wood?

[Ertrick36]

Why is it that simply your size and weight (Con) affects your ability to use weapons swiftly when it should be a combination of strength and dexterity that would determine that?

Why is a Heavy Spear only slightly heavier than most lances and even matches weight with the Brave Lance?

Why does a longbow weigh as much as a steel bow; longbows are really frickin' big and kind of cumbersome to draw, so they should realistically be the heaviest bows besides obviously ballistae and other such artillery.

Why can't ordinary bows attack from melee range in most FE's?

Why are swords often considered the best weapons in these games when they're really just for self-defense, duels, or when the warrior would rather not damage their other weapons?

And to follow up on that, why is it that bladed weapons tend to be the armor piercing weapons of the series, when polearms are generally considered better for that?  I can at least see how the rapiers would work for that, but there's also giant cleave-like swords that look like they'd barely cut through chainmail, and rapiers also work on horses for no apparent reason.

Now that I think about it, how do any of the weapon effectivenesses work?  I can buy into stuff like the Falchion or blessed weapons being imbued with some kind of magic, but why do bows work so well on pegasi, or horseslayers work on horses (aside from the fact that it's literally called "horseslayer", I mean)?  Why do horseslaying weapons also work on beastkin?  And how exactly does the weapon triangle make it so that weapons are effective or ineffective against other types of weapons, and how do the "reaver" and "dual" versions actually reverse that?

7 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Why are we making Bows out of metal and not wood?

Why do bows of different material give drastically different battle stats, and why do the likely heavier and more cumbersome materials make those bows better?  I could understand if the draw string was made of a different material or if the bow was bigger or shorter, but all metal will do is just make it heavier without giving any actual advantage at all.  I mean, unless it's just used in small sections of the bow (the tips and center) to keep it rigid and sturdy.

In fact, FE as a whole seems to have a very poor understanding of bows and archery in general.  In the pursuit of proper gameplay balance (to which I'll just say, there are better ways to do so that can still retain a sense of realism in archery), they've turned archers into pansies when historically they were very capable warriors and served key roles in various medieval battle formations.  A trained archer is certainly more capable than a nobleman who went to fencing practice every Wednesday, that's for sure.

 

That's enough musings for now.  I'll lose my frickin' mind if I go on any further.

[The Roger The Paladin]

28 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Who thought making weapons out of glass was a good idea?!

How in the world can a book weigh more than an axe?

And most importantly. . .if someone is hit by the curse of a Devil Sword/Devil Axe, they absorb all the damage they would've done.  Yet the enemy doesn't receive any damage.  It's still a weapon with non-negligible weight, headed straight for the enemy - it's still going to hurt if it connects.  Do they miraculously dodge it or something?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/agra/Worlds-heaviest-book-unveiled-in-Agra/articleshow/46613674.cms
There's a heavy book for you.

There's a Spartacus youtube poop relating to the weather and the Song of Storms by a youtuber named Chincherrinas (most famous for the Frollo Show) where there's a sequence during which a fat man hits someone with an axe only for his own head to go flying off as if he'd been hit. While I am not naming the youtube poop due to the title, if one were to look it up, they'd see the sequence at the 1:20 mark which I imagine as the event that happens when someone is killed with the devil axe's curse.

[NinjaMonkey]

18 hours ago, eclipse said:

How in the world can a book weigh more than an axe?

Clearly you've never owned the Encyclopaedia Britannica at any point in your life.

17 hours ago, Light Strategist said:

Tree Branch, Log, Broom etc.

Tree Branches and Logs, I can kinda understand. But freakin' BROOMS?

A broom can easily be used as a makeshift staff.

17 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Why can't ordinary bows attack from melee range in most FE's?

Bows are designed to be long range weapons, not close combat ones. Thus, there's no way to effectively use a bow in close quarters (you could probably try to garotte your enemies with the bow string, but still...). In fact, real life archers carried daggers upon their person, just in case they found themselves needing to fight an enemy at melee range.

[Ertrick36]

6 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Bows are designed to be long range weapons, not close combat ones. Thus, there's no way to effectively use a bow in close quarters (you could probably try to garotte your enemies with the bow string, but still...). In fact, real life archers carried daggers upon their person, just in case they found themselves needing to fight an enemy at melee range.

Yeah, I know bows are designed around ranged combat.

But my general point still stands; they had ways to attack from close range.  From what I've learned of archery - particularly very ancient archery typically employed by hunters (though still used by medieval archers to some extent) - archers trained for scrapping.  Whether that was fighting with daggers or using the arrows themselves in an emergency, they were ready to fight close range.  And they could switch fairly quickly to that kind of fighting since their dominant hand would be free so long as they aren't in the process of drawing an arrow.

I mean, it'd undoubtedly be less effective than their ranged combat or a knight with a lance, but they wouldn't just stand there like a sitting duck.  That's why I said there are possible balancing measures that could remain realistic; their effective battle stats could drop significantly at melee range to reflect the lack of power they'd have trying to scrap against their foe.  And though I do play up the usefulness of archers a bit, they'd still effectively be sitting ducks if armor knights or cavaliers got up in their faces.

I'm just saying that an archer just standing there, not even retaliating against someone whose right in their face, is stupid.  Unless they're carrying a long bow (as that's too cumbersome to carry into a melee scrap), they should be able to strike back in some form.  And if they did it the way I proposed, it'd still keep with the theme of them primarily being ranged units and they'd fittingly still be in trouble against a armored and mounted opponents.

1 hour ago, NinjaMonkey said:

A broom can easily be used as a makeshift staff.

Depends on how sturdy the shaft is.  Also, it'd be a good idea to break off the brush part of it, as that'd just get in the way if you intended to use both ends of the shaft to attack (which is what any defensive staff wielder would do).

That is, if you're talking about turning it into a battlestaff.  If you mean magic staff, then you're probably out of luck unless the broom just happens to be imbued with magic or the wood just happens to have been carved out of a sacred, magical tree trunk.  I guess it'd depend on the lore behind staves in the series, but I highly doubt any old stick could just become a magical staff in an instant.

1 hour ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Clearly you've never owned the Encyclopaedia Britannica at any point in your life.

Or even just a tome.  Those suckers are surprisingly big and heavy.  I've held some that are actually heavier than my father's woodcutting axe.  I imagine the more powerful and elaborate spell tomes are probably very hefty; heck, siege tomes in Genealogy locked their users in one place, and I'm sure that's partially due to their 30 weight.  In a way, mages having their spells rely on strength in the old FE's somehow made a little sense for this very reason.

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

Speaking of con being weird (even though I honestly kind of miss it), why is it that I can carry four weapons that collectively weigh several times my body mass, but as long as the only one I'm currently using is an iron sword, I suffer no penalties?

[The Roger The Paladin]

47 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Speaking of con being weird (even though I honestly kind of miss it), why is it that I can carry four weapons that collectively weigh several times my body mass, but as long as the only one I'm currently using is an iron sword, I suffer no penalties?

Pocket dimensions duh. But in all seriousness, unless the characters are being followed around by weapons carriers who hold their spare weapons, it doesn't make much sense.

20 hours ago, Rezzy said:

Why are we making Bows out of metal and not wood?

I like to think in the iron bow/steel bow/silver bow/killer bow instances it's more the arrows that change. I know that's not canonically the case but it's what makes sense to me as an archer.

22 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Why are steel weapons heavier and more fragile than iron weapons? Steel is generally lighter than iron, if not about as heavy, even in its more primitive forms.

Why are silver weapons so much lighter than steel weapons, and why are they so powerful? Silver is a pretty dense and soft metal.

Why does a short spear weigh more than a regular spear?

Feel free to add to these oddities, or correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

I've got nothing for the first one except "gameplay balance", because no one would use iron weapons if steel weapons were objectively superior as in real life. The second one only makes sense if you're fighting werewolves... though Wolf Laguz come pretty close I guess. At least silver is rightly the most fragile?

I guess the short spear, instead of actually being heavier, has it's weight distributed in a manner that makes it more awkward to use, and the wt stat takes that into account.

22 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

Why do killer weapons make you more likely to do a really brutal attack? On that note, why does spinning a weapon make the attack stronger?

How do hand axes and javelins come back after you throw them?

Video game logic is fun.

Furthering the theme of headcanon, I like to assume the critical hit animations are more or less a flourish for the player's entertainment and a critical is more or less when you hit an artery or otherwise do similar damage. So to me a killer lance is closer to being a Gáe Bulg spear.

On a similar note, I imagine the hand axes and javelins don't so much return as get fetched... canonically. The returning aspect is to simplify gameplay, because having to go after them would be zero fun.

Anyway, that's enough playing devil's advocate or throwing around headcanons.

[NinjaMonkey]

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

That is, if you're talking about turning it into a battlestaff.

That would make the most sense, yes.

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

Unless they're carrying a long bow (as that's too cumbersome to carry into a melee scrap), they should be able to strike back in some form.

In Radiant Dawn, Archers could use crossbows, which serve as a 1-range option.

[AnonymousSpeed]

36 minutes ago, Mad-manakete said:

On a similar note, I imagine the hand axes and javelins don't so much return as get fetched... canonically. The returning aspect is to simplify gameplay, because having to go after them would be zero fun.

I always figured that you just had multiple one use javelins/hand axes. As in, a 20 use javelin is twenty individual javelins you can throw at people and then forget about.

[Rezzy]

1 hour ago, Mad-manakete said:

 

I like to think in the iron bow/steel bow/silver bow/killer bow instances it's more the arrows that change. I know that's not canonically the case but it's what makes sense to me as an archer.

 

That would make sense.  It wouldn't be that hard to change the weapon from Bow to Arrow, and would explain the weapon durability more logically.

28 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I always figured that you just had multiple one use javelins/hand axes. As in, a 20 use javelin is twenty individual javelins you can throw at people and then forget about.

They could always have the "Of Returning" magical enhancement.

[illegal knight]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I always figured that you just had multiple one use javelins/hand axes. As in, a 20 use javelin is twenty individual javelins you can throw at people and then forget about.

Logically correct. But the "quantity" didn't decreased when the target dodged it, so.... well... no idea (including hand axe and arrows). So yes, there's "of returning" magical enhancements.

[Griffinlwgameplayer]

How come unique weapons that have lasted centuries break very easily as soon as they get in your unit's hands

[Karimlan]

Why do Fighters in the GBA Fire Emblem games look goofy in their attacks?

[NinjaMonkey]

1 hour ago, Griffinlwgameplayer said:

How come unique weapons that have lasted centuries break very easily as soon as they get in your unit's hands

The metal gradually corrodes over the centuries.

[Ertrick36]

1 hour ago, Griffinlwgameplayer said:

How come unique weapons that have lasted centuries break very easily as soon as they get in your unit's hands

What Ninja said, also they haven't been in use for those centuries, so the only thing that's been tested is their ability to collect dust.  Assuming you're talking about weapons like the Divine Weapons from Elibe that are only ever used to fight dragons occasionally.  There's not much of explanation for why the Regalia of Archanea or some of the other great weapons you see your noble friends/foes toting around all the time break after less than a hundred uses because I have to imagine they've been in use for many conflicts outside of the big scary dragon wars.

At least with Genealogy you could say the weapons were simply repaired by a random dude with a beard for hair for a small fortune of 50000 gold pieces.

27 minutes ago, Karimlan said:

Why do Fighters in the GBA Fire Emblem games look goofy in their attacks?

GBA Fighters got nothin' on the notorious crabwalk their ancestors from the SNES days were known for.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 7/6/2018 at 1:49 PM, Ertrick36 said:

There's not much of explanation for why the Regalia of Archanea or some of the other great weapons you see your noble friends/foes toting around all the time break after less than a hundred uses because I have to imagine they've been in use for many conflicts outside of the big scary dragon wars.

Clearly they started with 999 uses but were worn down over time.

[Moblin Major General]

On 7/5/2018 at 12:16 AM, Light Strategist said:

Tree Branch, Log, Broom etc.

Tree Branches and Logs, I can kinda understand. But freakin' BROOMS?

Getting hit with a broom hurts. 

Also, why are shurikens such good weapons when all they were used for is triggering shiny object disorder in opponents or just minorly inconveniencing them?

[Ertrick36]

On 7/7/2018 at 2:38 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Clearly they started with 999 uses but were worn down over time.

Goddammit, why didn't I think of that.

On 7/8/2018 at 9:13 AM, Hylian Air Force said:

Also, why are shurikens such good weapons when all they were used for is triggering shiny object disorder in opponents or just minorly inconveniencing them?

I guess the same reason why throwing knives are good weapons in Fates.  Hell if I know that reason.  They aren't good weapons in real life; they practically have the same function as shurikens in that they're better for distractions than for actually hurting your foes.  Though that doesn't stop all of my idiot former classmates who think they could be just as effective at fighting with such weapons as one could be with an automatic rifle just because they went to some karate school in a strip mall every Wednesday.

It's funny too how the classes that use those weapons are just as useless on the battlefield in reality.  Butlers and maids for obvious reasons, but ninjas also weren't historically as good of combatants as modern media make them out to be.  Their main strength is in not being seen and being able to escape a conflict swiftly (which they sometimes used shuriken for), not slicing and dicing all manner of things within the blink of an eye.

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Their main strength is in not being seen and being able to escape a conflict swiftly (which they sometimes used shuriken for), not slicing and dicing all manner of things within the blink of an eye.

There is even a saying that goes something like "a ninja makes their enemy question whether or not they ever existed"; so Azura is the best ninja. And you don't make your foe question your existence by going in shuriken and kunai ablazing.

 

8 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

It's funny too how the classes that use those weapons are just as useless on the battlefield in reality.

I think there is at least one historical precedent for this modern penchant though. The Roman gladiators weren't dressed at all for real battle, it was just for show with ridiculous armaments that offered handicaps and advantages that kept matches exciting. 

[DisobeyedCargo]

Why do brave weapons automatically let you double the amount of attacks you perform?

[NinjaMonkey]

They give an extra burst of confidence to the user, and that makes them hit twice instead of just the one time.