One of the main things people talk about when saying how bad The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the extreme generalisation of skills, which is a point I can agree with. However, they usually follow this with an argument about how the generalised skills we have at the moment make no sense i.e axes in the Blunt skill despite being bladed weapons. This irritates me no end, because to me it has always been pretty clear why it is a Blunt weapon:

1) While axes are technically bladed weapons, which causes people to think they belong in the Blade skill, more accurately they are hafted weapons, which means that the way you hold, attack and block with them is the same as with similarly sized blunt weapons (maces, warhammers etc.) Think about the way you would hold an axe or mace, the crushing motion etc. Now think of the way you would hold a longsword, and you will notice they are completely different. You can't stab with an axe, and it wouldn't make any sense that you would get better at using a longsword by using an axe.

2) Roleplaying reasons. Some people may pick major skills based on roleplaying, and for a Barbarian type character, they are more suited to a Battle Axe or Warhammer than say, a Claymore. As such, someone playing a Barbarian class, who might want to switch between a mace and a war axe would only have to train the one skill.

3) Balancing issues. If the skills were still split up into Blade and Blunt, but axes were part of the Blade skill, there would be far more blades than blunts available. In fact it would be a little like this:
Blade: Dagger, Shortsword, Longsword, Claymore, War Axe, Battle Axe
Blunt: Mace, Warhammer

This coupled with the fact that there are already more unique Blades than Blunts, and there would be no reason to pick Blunt at all, as it is clearly the far inferior skill.

Well, I want a halberd or a glaive. :wink_smile:

Don't we all...

i dont know about inferior. i had an ridiculously stupid orc who couldnt cast a flame to light his way in a cave but he was devastating with the two handed warhammer. almost every time i hit someone they fell to the ground. if anything the knockdown was a bit overpowered.

i agree about the style of fighting but even there i think they should have kept all of them seperate. you can do things with an axe that you cant do with a mace such as pulling a shield which is one thing i would love to see put in the next game. i can live with long blade and short blade being combined though. some games actually seperated weapons based on one handed versus two handed.

By inferior, I mean Blunt WOULD be inferior were axes to be in the Blade skill, due to having no equal ground with Blade.

Okie, scrap everything you said and know that people wanted axes to be their own skill. Axes don't fit in blades just as much as they don't fit in blunt.

And given the lack of unique animations per weapon types, your point on how you would wield an axe vs a sword is irrelevant. All the weapons are used the same within the perview of the game.

Obviously each weapon type having it's own skill would be the perfect scenario, but if it had to be Blade or Blunt it makes much more sense for it to be Blunt. Also the whole wielding an axe vs a sword is not irrelevant due to the lore of the game, it even says in one of the books (Manual of Arms) that the reason axes are considered blunt weapons is the way you wield it.

Off question, but where could I see a video about how those giant hammers were actually used in real battles? Youtube fails.

OP wins a cookie. :cookie:


The fighting style has nothing to do with animations. If you were to grab an Axe in Real Life, you would use a more 'crushing' motion, as the OP said. Now grab a sword, and you would use a more 'slicing' motion, which would be more swift and fluid.

For balance reason, yes. That is the most logical option aside from, make more weapons.


Cite your source or there is no weight to this claim.

Excerpt from Manual of Arms:



It is the fourth or fifth sentence of the book.

PWNed

Wanting someone to provide where they get their information is not an accusation of falsehoods. Therefore, it is impossible to get "pwned".

Still wish a small blades skill was implemented for daggers and short swords. Putting strength in as an assassin feels so wrong, agility should cover the damage at least daggers

Duh, I for one is happy with the way it is. I agree that concerning logic all the different types of weapons should be a different class considering the amount of training it would require to handle such a weapon i combat.
But when I comes to game play I think it would be horrible not being able to switch between short sword and claymore when I feel like it. Having to stick to one particular type would be very booing for me.

Personally I have this "rule of thumbs", blade weapon requires more training that blunt and I normally restrict those to worrior types and a dagger for a assassin. For my mages or "general purpose" characters I go for blunt as my clumsy mage will be able to inflict a good deal of damage with a mace regarding of skill.

You came in as an "authority" — a little hostile toward the OP and stating your side of the discussion as dogmatic fact:



You got hit with a knowledge/research combo, and now you're leaving as an initiate vis-à-vis axes in OB.

Your avi is cool-looking, and the Creeper quote in your sig was one of my LOL moments in MW, but the word from the peanut gallery is "PWNed."

Now, whether Manual of Arms can be dismissed as a retcon for weapon skills — like The Many-Headed Talos was for OB's landscape — is another story. In any case, I can buy the "rhythm, drill, and physical strength" similarities they're pushing between axes and cudgels, so it works for me as a player.

Then again, my only real experience with axes comes from the splitting maul I befriended in high school. (My family had a wood stove back then. Odin be praised for natural gas!) Can't say as I've ever used one in combat to know how it's different from, say, the business half of a pool cue.

Maybe a grizzled veteran of many renaissance faires will come along and definitively learn us all the difference, or the lack thereof.

Just because something is sharp, that doesn't make it a blade... does it?

I agree with you and think that axes belong in the blunt category, regardless of how it helps with your other points.
^_^

OP thanks for the well reasoned post to put this issue to rest. Have another cookie :cookie:



You could get the OOO mod. That adds glaives, and scythe's etc.

I was actually about to enter this topic with the quote from the manual of arms, but someone beat me to it.

The key thing to remember about this is that we're talking about the separation of skills, not weapon types. And because axes and blunts are used in very similar ways, they can be put in the same skill category. It's an entirely different discussion that axes have the same damage type and effect as a blunt weapon. I hope in future games that blunts and axes are still in the same skill category, but that they have different effects on enemies. Then against unarmoured creatures you'd be better off using axes, and against heavy armoured opponents and skeletons you'd be better off using blunts.

I can't give you a video, but I can tell you that those giant hammers were never actually used in real battles. I once calculated that an iron warhammer of the size that we have in the game would weigh about 28 kg or roughly 56 pounds, which is actually more than the weight of a suit of steel plate armour.

The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer has some images that illustrate the realistic size of a warhammer.

Thanks for all the cookies, providing the quote from Manual of Arms etc while I was asleep! And I agree, if they added special 'bonuses' for each of the weapon types in Skyrim (blunts better against armored, axes better against unarmored) I just might die of happiness. :thumbsup:

A 5 pound sledgehammer would work for smacking stuff around..... an Oblivion warhammer is overkill except for taking out heavily armored targets.

You're calculations might be off, planet Nirn could have totally different gravity and physics than Earth. Which to me would explain why just about every character can start off carrying 200 pounds around all the time like it's nothing. hehe
Also there is alteration magic so a thousand pound war hammer could weight like 10 pounds to the wielder.

But yeah war hammers would most likely be much smaller if your hammer had a larger hitting surface on it the surface area of the thing you're hitting would disperse the force better so you'd want a smaller mallet part the war hammers I've seen would have some type of prongish things coming out of them like 4 protruding type rectangles, and most war hammers had a pike/spike end on one side to puncture armor think of taking a pick axe to a car hood, the knight would be the car.

Thats what I imagina a warhammer would be equivalent to.


I think you're right about different measurements, I think I read in a book somewhere that described foreign measurements.
I'll try find it

I've always thought that, while axes are more "blunty" than "bladey", they are not blunt weapons, nor blades, and thus deserve their own categories. But I'd rather see spears be added back in before the reseperation of axes and blunts.