Lets face it, what makes a good sword? (We're talking real life). The answer of course is sharpness, flexibility and weight.

To be honest, it doesn't look very sharp, in fact, it http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/oblivion/images/1/17/Daedric_Weapons.jpg Also, it's weight. 60 pounds, for a sword? Only a behemoth could wield such a monstrous weapon.

I know it does more damage, but, it doesn't make much sense WHY it does more damage. Personally, by just looking at those weapons, I'd rather have steel then Daedric.

Beats me. Figure the art guys wanted to create an impression of a run-down hell, subject to destruction and accelerated entropy and contrast that with the crystals and strong line of heaven. Fiendishly sharp blades did not fit in with that.

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Forget about the weight. You can scale it down to by a factor 50, then it makes more sense but it's just gameplay either way.

Well from what I read, it seems that Daedric armor and weapons are actually Ebony with the souls of Daedra trapped inside. Apart from that I'm not so sure. :shrug:

Its because when it comes to video-games, the less functional a weapon actually looks the more powerful it is. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Image:TB-Weapons-Trueflame.jpg is a perfect example of this...

Hence, not being able to wield them effectively until your character's strength is pretty high...

If you're fighting a guy in bamboo armor, maybe. I, for one, won't be taking a giant razor blade up against a sheet of metal. I'll be taking a semi-dull heavy broadsword which can deliver enough force to deal some damage to that other sunnova[censored] in plate mail.

I imagine daedric weapons are flexible enough to keep from bending and breaking, but at the same time I don't see why they'd need too, since they're made of the strongest material known to the Elder Scrolls.

And weight? Mass is relative to force, so the heavier your warhammer, the more damage it's going to do when it connects with someone else's head. After all, who needs endurance when your fights are all one hit victories?

Daedric weapons come from the shadow-realm of Oblivion, and as such they attack metaphysical concepts rather than actual physical objects. When you strike someone the weapon rearranges the Aurbic concept of that person and they in turn get rearranged by the mythic feedback, typically into chunks of torn, bloody meat. Any form of Daedric weapon works the same way. You can just as easily kill someone with a Daedric Damp Flannel as you can a Daedric Dai-Katana.

Probably untrue.


You can always just assume though that something about the unworldly materials in Daedric weapons makes them pass through mundane matter more easily than mundane weapons do, so they don't need to be so sharp. Short version: magic.

This is especially true in fantasy games, and yes, it's true. In fantasy games, the best weapons tend to look rather impractical, probably because the designers want them to look impressive or "cool", and for this, they sacrifice simple, functional designs. The Elder Scrolls follows this rule in other things too, as low level weapons and armor like iron and leather tend to look more like how you'd expect armor weapons to look like, whereas higher level items tend to be fancier and look like they would be better as ornaments then actual weapons, and really, any explanation we try to give it can ultimately be broken down to one simple thing...

It's fantasy.

The design of Daedric weapons is likely not meant to make sense, the designers just wanted something with an evil, demonic look to it.

Though in the case of Daedric weapons, 4LOM's explanation seems to work too, since it's an otherworldly, supernatural material, it might not work the same way as steel or Daedric.

Take a close look at the weapons. While they do appear rough, they are actually quite elaborate, but appropriately, they look downright crude at first glance.

And as said before, they're ebony (which itself is based on obsidian, which is capable of having a nearly molecular edge) infused with daedra.

Go then, fashin a steel sword that looks like the daedric one's. Then use a semi-sharp one. The difference, will be massive.

Of course, if you ask someone with no experience working with metal before (Though this is a presumption on my part, apologies to Dirk Zephyrs if you are in fact experienced in these matters.) to make a sword might not produce very accurate results on this matter.

But regardless, while weight is certainly an important factor if your working with a mace or club, when you're using a sword, I think that, realistically, you would certainly want a sharp edge, after all, swords aren't made to be sharp for the sake of decoration. And I definately wouldn't recommend trying to use a sword like Oblivion's Daedric weapons in the unlikely event that you get into an actual sword fight. Not that I'm an expert on swords, but I think the fact that people who made real swords for fighting never made anything like that serves to support this statement, after all I'd expect real blacksmiths to know what makes a good sword.

I'll have to take a close look at daedric weapons when I get the chance, but being made of volcanic glass, Daedric weapons should, in theory, be sharper than steel weapons. There's always the possibility that it's more of a graphical issue than anything else.

Most of them looked pretty sharp back in Morrowind, that was back when they just mean and demonic rather than hellish and corroded...

That is what I was thinking too, the designs of Daedric weapons changed a lot between Morrowind and Oblivion, back in http://www.uesp.net/w/images/MW_DaedricWeapons.jpg, they looked pretty sharp when appropriate, even though I'm not sure I'd say their designs were functional, they at least looked like they would cut pretty good. Oblivion's designs looked more crude, not that they were necessary, as has been pointed out, they're actually fairly intricate, but they do have a crude and corroded look to them.

As a whole, I think I liked Morrowind's Daedric weapons more.

Generally, while sharper often equals better, the main thing with a broadsword was it's weight (and they were often blunt, more for bashing than for cutting). But that doesn't explain all of the daedric weapons.

Hmm. You know, if I could get someone to do some textures, I'd re-model all the daedric weapons in Oblivion to look closer to their MW counterparts...

they look like sci-fi weapons.
just look at the bow.

Morrowind's Daedric dagger is one of my favourite models.

Daedra souls bound inside them do most of the damage I would assume...

As a few other people have pointed out, the extra 'damage' daedric items do is based more or less on the fact that they are infused with daedric energies. Otherwise, they'd simply be Ebony-level. Which itself is nothing to sneeze at. also as someone has mentioned, the extra weight makes it more difficult for lower-level players to carry these items about without sacrificing *something* in this case, carrying capacity.

Ornateness itself doesnt necessarily equal weak, so much as impractical- but I would assume that, through our own history wealthy enough people who wanted special, personalized (yet highly functional and effective) weapons and armor could have them custom made to order- while the rabble would get cheap, quickly made and unpersonalized items that were less effective and reliable. The problem is, because of the leveling system in Oblivion, sooner or later that complete Daedric armor set you worked so hard at piecing together is so common as to lose it's uniqueness and rarity. Sooner or later, even the goofy bandits are decked out in daedric gear.

This makes them seem like they are stamped out in a factory in china. Everyone seems to have one and as such, they kind of get old.

Morrowind handled the matter of obtaining such items very differently (and better, IMHO) In Morrowind, there were limited numbers of Daedric items that were spread out all through the land, and they were difficult to discover and obtain. If I remember correctly, even the original game neglected to provide ALL the parts of the armor (I think there was one particular gauntlet that didn't show up until one of the expansion packs came out.)

While it made it harder to obtain, it also made it more unique and rare and much more interesting and valuable.

Daedric items are powerful in Tamriel like American items are powerful on Earth.

When I think of science-fiction weapons, several things come to mind, one would be something obviously high-tech, with lots of mechanical details on it, one is something sleek, refined, and simple, the key here being simple, and one is something with a greater emphasis on the "fiction" part of science-fiction like a lightsaber. Daedric weapons look simply like fantasy to me.



I wouldn't make that connection, since American items aren't made from the souls of Americans (at least I hope not ) Any advantage American made items might have over items from other parts of the world comes purely from the quality of the product (and of course, a lot of items made by American brands were actually manufactured in other places, like China.) not anything mystical in nature.



In the original game, one character had a full set of Daedric armor except for the helmet (of which there were several distinct ones.) but he was important to the main quest so it wouldn't be advisable to kill him to obtain them until you had no further use for him, so you could obtain all pieces in the original game.

And the missing item I believe was not a gauntlet but a pauldron, in fact, both gauntlets could be found in a dungeon which you would visit in the main quest.

Morrowind generated a nice feeling of rarity for Daedric items, making them very rare. However, this backfired in the sense that once you knew were they are, it was a simple matter at a low level to grab a bunch of such items and teleport away, ending up with high-leveled gear at a low level. Of course, weight did restrict you to some degree, but even at 100 strength, ebony and daedric armors significantly restricted how much stuff you could carry. In addition, regarding TES IV, it would be kind of silly to make daedric items rare during a daedric invasion.

True, but so common that every bandit has a full set?

Not that common, it should be somewhere in between, probably where it's only found in boss chests and on Maurader Warlords and Dremora Valkyn.

The mith of the skull-bashing crowbars and armors so heavy you needed a crane to get on your horse are well, myths (thought the latter had a basis in that some of the heaviest jousting armor were so heavy and poorly articulated that you really needed serious help to get up your horse - but combat armors weren't). They weren't razor-sharp, as a thin edge wouldn't live long hitting metal, but neither were they blunt. When hitting heavy armor the edge wouldn't come much into play, but when fighting average grunts, you'd rather have an decent edge to cut through leather and such without too much effort. And you can't afford to have too heavy a blade if you want to be able to last though a battle.