Edited First Post

All depending on the present condition of the blade, the force applied by the attacker, the weapon of the attacker, the position of your hand, the position of your blade relative to the attacking weapon, the metal used to make the blade, how frequently repairs have been made to the blade, whether or not it has a fuller along the broadside of the blade, and how stiffly you resist the strike. I'm sure other variables are involved. Today we have more superior metals available than at the time swords were actually used (and the likely time TES mirrors), though our forging methods can sometimes be crap.

It is remarkable how much force one can administer with the assistance of a weapon of war, as well.

Why do you capitalize random words? just wondering.

Well I believe devs can make combinations for combats so it will not work just like button mashing, but work like actual fencing
I wish developers fix flaw of Oblivion and with new powerful tools they can make different animations for different weapons types easy,
in such way there can be different combat movement perks for each weapon tree what will make difference in weapon usage,
for example armor ignoring strike in mace tree will have special combo animation and input and not just applied to all mace strikes, such movement perks can be learned from trainers in sparring with them but need fit certain requirements like overall skill level and having requirement of lower levels perks, in such way there can author movements, and special racial movements thats will available in different native schools of fencing or combat or be strict racial, for example
Daron Flurry of blades for short blades: fast attack, fast attack, left power attack, fast attack input of standard movements will result in adding special move in end of combination with special animation and additional effect like disarming or staggering of enemy, its example of author movement what uses an old redguard fencer and can teach player if he be worthy of this
or
Rose of Summerset for long blades: parry, fast attack, right power attack, forward power attack, left power attack will trigger an stagger on forward enemy and and strikes enemies in circle around player, example of native Altmers school of fencing can be available as race trait perk for warriors path or be learned in fighter guild and enemy high elves fencers can use it in combat.
Trough such combos different effects can be achieved like
Recoil or Stagger enemy with parry, skills and parameters of weapons can be checked for chance of recoil so it will not always and depend on weapons and skills and not so absurd when puny mage parry strike of two-handed iron hammer with glass dagger.

Parry option was good feature in Oblivion,
some things nice to see improved like weapon weight, character Strength, Agility and Weapon skills taken into account versus enemy ones so we cant parry strike of two handed iron hammer with glass dagger until will have enough skills and attributes as well NPC mages cannot block our strikes with such weapons
Doc Block Recoil Stagger
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35933
If combatants are equal there can be weapon clench in duel,
Parry must be timed so we will did not have Shield Wall (leave this shields) but actual fencing.
Nice to see if there will be different version of parry for different types of weapons or different strikes (low middle high) even no need to trigger them manually (but thats will be nice if will be done even with mods) just more variability to close combat, so it will not looks too repetitive.
In such way both player and character skills will be usable great mix of action and RPG as well there will be more immersion in combat.

Also nice to see some racial movements for hand to hand or other combat skills, received as starting perks
Argonians and Khajiits can use some claw strikes in combat, nords and orcimers some heavy punches, mers some swift movements, some of them can be strictly racial like toggleable night eye power for Khajiits, water breath power for Argonians or some can be achievable for others like swift swim thats Argonians receive as starting perk or climbing and jumping and reducing of fall damage for Khajiits can be achieved by others who train enough some body skill.
There is must be starting racial perks thats replace Powers from previous games, powers must not be deleted from game just because thee will be no birthsign, spellmaking and attributes, if such features was replaced by perks may them actually work as equal replace, not just delete feature because of unfixed flaws in previous games.

That's probably why it can be done. I'm fairly certain you can't block with a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other, but maybe you can with a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other. I've speculated that in such a case, one way it could work is that using the button for the off-hand could be used for blocking with your weapon if there's nothing in it, after all, what else would you use that button for then? Unless you can punch with your empty hand if only one of your hands is full, I'm not sure what else you'd do.

thats the same sword from the gameplay trailer and he used it with a shield there, so yeah, 1h swords with 2h is in

What if your magicka runs out and your spell fizzles away? Then you would be able to have one empty hand and a weapon in the other hand. Or you could just auto-cancel the spell when you try to block/parry.

Do a nice trip-grab-and-push with your free hand to off-balance the opponent, and use the look direction to throw in a direction, like down a cliff.

eh... lets say I have this equipped: Silver longsword, Left berehand... so if I click the left hand button then I'd hit with my left barehand... not block with my silver longsword...
So can you please start calling it barehand instead of empty hand?
Its only fair if I can dualwied a Barehand and sword if you can dualwield a sword and an axe!

Why should i call it Bare hand what's the different ???

We can two hand one handed weapons too, if the swap between them was fast enough we might be able to block an incomming attack while two handing the blade, even if we had it in one hand a second ago. Would also add depth to the combat when fighting with one, one-handed weapon as you'd have to two hand for a block. But being able to equip an empty slot into one hand and controlling our other weapon with that button would be a solution too.

what i saw was an army of zombies surrounding u in a cave

YAY :twirl:

You can dual wield Staffs



I know I was like the ***ux as well.

This is not right, not to any martial artist or skilled weapons master anyways. its not aobut strength or speed, its about technique, how you block changes things. if you do it right you can block a 2 handed axe with a sword, unless your sword is made from poor metal your sword will hold. but however i think it would be much more logical to just dodge the damn thing since then he's wide open and i could slit open his throat with one swing instead of doing it the hard way and blocking and having a fight with him up to the point one is exhausted, and the other isn't.

As I predicted in a different thread, you may possibly be able to block with anything in either hand, e.g. simply by pressing left and right bumper at the same time. E.g. LMB and RMB, because if you wanna use both hands for attacking you just press them down in quick subsequence. left, right, left, right.

I actually don't get why people assume that you won't be able to block with certain things in your hand. I don't remember Bethesda ever confirming anything of the sort. Maybe because you no longer have that single Block button that you only use for blocking and nothing else. Meh, beats me.

Uhm... Block = Parry, in case you didn't know. :facepalm:

I agree here. It would also be cool if you could disarm your enemy by making special moves and the like.

Would really like it Block Block Block when your timing good you can push or Disarm with you Empty hand

so youre saying if mastered, youd have a constant 40% chance of loosing your hand all game?

BOO!

I would love a system thats sort of like "dark messiah of might and magik" the fight anims in that game are sweet

Pretty much.

and it'd actually be 60%

It's not a two-handed sword.

Well... that wasn't really the point in my post... the point was that if your wielding any single weapon and an empty equipment slot, then it'll actually be a single weapon and a fist equipment slot, therefor you'd be dualwielding hand to hand and a weapon and not just one-handed sword only... this system does so you either dual wield, go marksman, or two-handed, or shield 'n' weapon/hand to hand...
so claiming us axe and hand to hand users shouldn't be allowed to duelwield is rude, when you axe 'n' blade users can... and this would disallow us hand to hand users to dual wield with something else...
therefor I ask: Is it fair that Hand to Hand users get less choices than longsword wielders for dualwielding? Is it fair that we are getting forced into removing a feature which should OBVIUSLY be there, and would require more work to disable than add, just so you longsword wielders can get a feature which you aren't acuelly entitled too.

No actually it would NOT be more fair to have you be able to block just fine with one empty hand and a 1h sword. For you'd be dualwielding hand to hand and a sword! blocking with a 1h sword and a hand equipped with fist makes NO sense whatsoever and would make it unbalanced up against fighting styles that have both hands equipped, with something else than a fist and a normal weapon.

Hence why I said dodge OR parry/counter.

Blocking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_(martial_arts).

Parrying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parry_(fencing).

:facepalm: