Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jeebus2010 02-25-08, 04:37 PM	i was just thinking about how samurai swords are still made of steel but like 100 times stronger then your standard issue European sword (i could be wrong) but i was thinking if u increase the dc and the time on a Craft:weaponsmith check to make a weapon you can increase the hardness? maybe +1 dmg too? could also apply to myrthal and adamantine with WAY higher DC's (basically any metal)
Edymnion 02-25-08, 07:17 PM	i was just thinking about how samurai swords are still made of steel but like 100 times stronger then your standard issue European sword (i could be wrong)Oh Lordy, here we go again... you sure you aren't trolling? Yes, you are wrong. Japan has very low grade native iron deposits. Folding did not make the swords super strong, it made them acceptable. All that masterwork folding brought an inferior metal sword up to the equivolant of a european forged sword.Japan's iron is very low grade. What this means is that the steel produced from it is full of microscopic cracks. If you just make a normal sword out of it, and strike the blade on one of those cracks, the sword breaks like a twig. What folding did was layer the steel so that the cracks would not line up, and hence the sword would not break as easily. Europe has high grade iron deposits, which when refined into steel do not have anywhere near the number of microscopic defects of Japanese steel. Their metal was about as solid and crack free as it was ever going to get right out of the initial forging. All folding would do for european steel is make it take longer to produce, nothing else. Folding metal was an ingenious way to get around a flaw. If the flaw is not there in the first place, then the work-around isn't needed.Basically, in game terms, it would let you avoid taking a -1 to the sword's hardness and hitpoints due to inferior quality metal.
JulesCARV 02-25-08, 07:43 PM	I think that middle easterners were probably the best swordsmiths back in the day. Damascene steel and all that -- probably better than Japanese/Europeans/Chinese/etc, even if it doesn't split anvils or whatever the legends say. On a more serious note, a weapon forged competently but without any special tricks of the trade might be a mundane weapon. A sword forged with a more special technique might be a masterwork weapon -- masterwork weapons might have cool patterned blades, differential carbon steel grades, and all that other nifty stuff. (Although really, given the reality of mundane and masterwork weapons in D&D, I'm sometimes tempted to say that mundane weapons are really poorly crafted apprentice stuff a step above wallhangers, masterwork is actually normal, and "real" masterwork is represented by special materials like adamantine.) So saying that a masterwork weapon was forged using [insert your favorite metallurgic technique here] would definitely add a bit of cool flavor to a weapon.
LunarWolfPrime 02-25-08, 07:51 PM	No offence but you are a little off on that what made the japanes swords stonger was the fact that the folding methoid did help remove the impurities, but what made it stonger was the fact that if you take a look at a diffrent properties of the metals that the select is the fact that the metal on the back side of the blade is softer givieng the blade the flexabiltiy it needs to take the blows and hold part of it's strength; but the blade is a made of a harder metal to keep it's edge, but their is one other thing that makes them better. The polish, the better the polish is the less friction you impart on the blade. Meaning a cleaner cut with out losing much of the kinetic energy imparted by the blade, that is why the polish is one of the most important parts of makeing katana, it takes aroud a week to polish them. Not to mention the curve of the blade had some help. Oh back to the comment about the bad iron ore, you are half right they do not have realy big iron ore ops their but they do have a black sand their that is made of iron that is smelted into what is called "Tomahogane" which is only smelted once a year and to get any you have to be a member of some very exclusive circles in the world of Japanes sword smith's. If you are wondering how they could tell back in the samurai time weither the metal was soft or hard was to see how it would break or bend, the harder metal youd break cleany, where as for the softer metal would bend. If you want more info on the subject look it up on wiki I think they have it or watch Weapon Master on Discovery if it come on again, they had a episode on the katana, or maybe a episode of Conquest on History International.
Edymnion 02-25-08, 08:26 PM	No offence but you are a little off on that what made the japanes swords stonger was the fact that the folding methoid did help remove the impurities, but what made it stonger was the fact that if you take a look at a diffrent properties of the metals that the select is the fact that the metal on the back side of the blade is softer givieng the blade the flexabiltiy it needs to take the blows and hold part of it's strength; but the blade is a made of a harder metal to keep it's edge, but their is one other thing that makes them better. The polish, the better the polish is the less friction you impart on the blade. Meaning a cleaner cut with out losing much of the kinetic energy imparted by the blade, that is why the polish is one of the most important parts of makeing katana, it takes aroud a week to polish them. Not to mention the curve of the blade had some help.And none of that has anything to do with folding the metal. The hardness/softness of the blade is the result of tempering, not folding. And obviously polish has absolutely nothing to do with folding the metal, considering it would be fairly suicidal to try to polish a blade thats hot enough to fold.Oh back to the comment about the bad iron ore, you are half right they do not have realy big iron ore ops their but they do have a black sand Yes, and iron sand is generally considered the lowest grade of iron you can get. Its iron that has eroded out of it's load and washed up on the beach/river bank. If you want high quality iron, you need to mine it, not pick up the corroded scraps that wash up.If you want more info on the subject look it up on wiki I think they have it or watch Weapon Master on Discovery if it come on again, they had a episode on the katana, or maybe a episode of Conquest on History International.And again, this thread has nothing to do with the katana, or how it was made. Its about metal folding. The idea is that it makes a stronger blade. It does not. It brings a sword made from inferior metal up to acceptable quality. No more, no less. So lets not drag this into the age old "Is the katana a super sword?" debate. Lets try to stick to the topic at hand. :)
Cloud Divider 02-25-08, 10:23 PM	As others have mentioned - the best way to handle the more complicated steelworking techniques (damascening, folded steels, etc) is by just using the masterwork quality. I don't think you really want to get into granting damage bonuses, nor really fiddling around with hardness/hp. Even as relatively granular as d20 is, I think it's probably not worth the trouble. Now, if I can weigh in on the steelmaking (hey, I'm an actual, degreed materials scientist, with an interest in the subject matter). You're both partially right. Edymnion is right, though his specifics are a bit off - the folding was largely done to improve the quality of the steel - essentially, folding is a decent low-tech way to homogenize the carbon (and whatever else) content of the steel billet. The problem with steel, is that if you get large inclusions of impurities (big carbon flakes, or lumps of slags/oxides), those inclusions act as stress concentrators, making it susceptible to fracture. But it's not quite the same as cracks. Hardness IS a function of carbon content, just as much as it is a function of tempering; so mixing some higher-carbon steel with lower-carbon iron by folding is a pretty decent way to get at a medium carbon steel. As I'll go into a bit on the next paragraph - they'd figured out using high- and low-carbon steels in swordmaking. Similarly, LunarWolfPrime is also correct, in that the composite construction of the Japanese sword WAS a significant technological improvement (I'm not immediately sure what other cultures used macro-composite construction like that; damascus certainly wasn't). That said, he's also off on the fine details. The edge was indeed manufactured of a harder steel (with a higher carbon content), as that kept a much better edge. The body/core/back (depending on which tradition/style of blade) was made of a milder (=softer, lower carbon) steel, but not for flexibility - but for toughness (= resistance to damage). The high-carbon martensitic steel is REALLY hard, but it's also very susceptible to fracture (= brittle). By combining both, you get the best of both worlds - a much better edge than a mild steel sword, and if you do happen to take a sword strike to the blade, a crack that propagates through the high-carbon outer layer is less likely to continue through the mild-carbon core. I'm not sold on the polishing technique being a big force-multiplier... That said, the GEOMETRY of the Japanese sword is also unusual. I attended a lecture by one of my old uni's mathematics professors (who also collected antique blades), and it turns out the katana's shape is mathematically interesting - it takes the form of the so-called "witches curve," which (if I remember the term correctly) involves the normal to the surface at any point being perpendicular to any object in tangential contact with the surface. This basically means that the geometry is ideal - the maximum impact force is along the normal to the point of contact. But that said - I attended that lecture something on the over decade ago (199..5? has it really been that long??) They also did some pretty nifty differential tempering, which I think was also fairly unusual - I'm not immediately aware of anyone else using similar techniques. Now...to bring the discussion back to something more on-topic. It may be a matter of philosophy to materials scientists, but I've always considered damascus (and similar processes) to essentially be metallic composites. And it's a truth that (done right) a composite can provide a substantial multiplication in ultimate mechanical properties over the base materials -- look at seashells. They're made of chalk and mucus (= snail snot). But they're meso- to nano-scale composites, and a seashell is something like 30 times stronger than it's constituents. Bake out the mucus, and the whole thing turns to chalk dust (I ran that experiment for my undergrads back in my grad student days). Apply that principle to metals, and you really could get MUCH improved metallic properties, if you're clever about what you do and how you orient it. I don't doubt that with modern high-purity materials and fancy processing tricks, I bet you could produce some very, very impressive modern damascus analogues. How about a high-hardness titanium-aluminum alloy/aluminum damascus? That'd probably turn out to be pretty neat (if perhaps too light for a functional weapon). Before anyone asks "why don't we do this in aerospace/whatever" - the simple answer is cost (and to a lesser extent, reliability). Figure it takes hours upon hours to damascen steel. It's just not cost-efficient. Anyway - there's an entire field of modern metallurgy looking at nanoscale composites (including metal-matrix composites). Combine nano-composite steel stock with some meso- or macro-composite structure (a high-tech analogue of the high-carbon edge and low-carbon core), and you'd get a pretty impressive blade. In terms of Eberron, replace "modern materials and processing techniques" with "magical arcanotech metallurgy and processing techniques" and you could get all kinds of nifty stuff. Adamantine items could very easily fall into that category... So...uh....yeah. Hopefully that was educational to someone...somewhere.
Masakado 02-25-08, 11:27 PM	And obviously polish has absolutely nothing to do with folding the metal, considering it would be fairly suicidal to try to polish a blade thats hot enough to fold. That and shiny blades suck as they represent a higher aluminum or tin quantity in your steel / iron alloy. Grey steel = good. Shiny steel = decoration.
LunarWolfPrime 02-26-08, 09:17 AM	That and shiny blades suck as they represent a higher aluminum or tin quantity in your steel / iron alloy. Grey steel = good. Shiny steel = decoration. For one thing they polish it after they are done forgeing the blade, and I hate to bring the modern in to this but the, judging the metal based by color is just wrong take a look at any metal, if you polish it up it will shine like that one ex of this is take a look at a sword made of 240 stainless steel, most of the best blades that I own are made of that including the only folded steel sword that I have oh and cloud thanks for pointing by prob on what I said earlier it has been a while since I have debated this topic, first time online though.
Masakado 02-26-08, 03:20 PM	For one thing they polish it after they are done forgeing the blade Etching and polish are always done post forge, and yes, polish is done as the final stage in removing surface impurities that may interfere with cutting ability. and I hate to bring the modern in to this but the, judging the metal based by color is just wrong take a look at any metal, if you polish it up it will shine like that one ex of this is take a look at a sword made of 240 stainless steel, most of the best blades that I own are made of that including the only folded steel sword that I have Polished steel will still retain a dull grey luster and a very shiny blade contains more tin, chromium, or aluminum than it should and is essentially worthless as a true killing blade. Even a 1060 carbon steel blade of modern manufacture tends not to be as shiny when polished as a 240 stainless steel blade, which is essentially a gigantic steak knife that holds a poor edge after repeated use and tends not to be balanced for proper technique. Paul Chen blades are nice but they don't make anyone Zatoichi. In conclusion.. (http://www.themadpigeon.com/photos/uncategorized/katana.jpg)
Cloud Divider 02-27-08, 12:05 AM	...take a look at a sword made of 240 stainless steel, most of the best blades that I own are made of that including the only folded steel sword that I have. I hate to break it to you, but a stainless steel sword (240, 440 or otherwise) is going to be inferior to a carbon steel sword; assuming equivalent construction (ie comparing a quality stainless sword to a junk carbon sword). Furthermore, a 240 stainless sword is DEFINITELY inferior to a 440 stainless sword - the 440 is martensitic (harder/sharper/better edge retention), while the 240 is austenitic (softer/tougher/less brittle). The chromium and nickel that you add to carbon steel to make it stainless unfortunately results in some tradeoffs with mechanical properties. The hardest stainless steels are substantially weaker than a high-tempered carbon steel. Basically, the additives that make it stainless inhibit the formation of martensite (which is a iron microstructure that's very very hard). You can add other stuff to reduce the inhibition; but ultimately it's still not going to be as good. What this translates to is that a carbon steel sword will have a MUCH sharper edge than a stainless steel sword. Polished steel will still retain a dull grey luster and a very shiny blade contains more tin, chromium, or aluminum than it should and is essentially worthless as a true killing blade. Gotta partially debunk you here, too. You'll not find much aluminum in steel, ditto tin. You're correct, though, that stainless does contain chromium (Cr), as well as nickel (Ni), and other elements (vanadium, manganese, etc). It's the chromium that provides the corrosion resistance; the nickel helps improve the formation of martensite (as described earlier). That said, the "dull grey luster" you're talking about does sort of relate to the presence or absence of Cr or Ni -- that dull lustre is likely due to a thin oxide film that pretty much spontaneously forms on iron surfaces. So yeah, you could probably pretty easily tell the difference between a 440 stainless blade and a carbon steel blade. Perhaps not as much immediately after polishing, but it wouldn't take too long. Buuuut - you should also note that the really high carbon steels (0.6-0.99 wt% Carbon) are commonly known as "silver steels," because of their bright finish when polished... Whether it's a "worthy killing blade," I think a meter-long chunk of sharp steel (of any grade) is plenty good at poking life-threatening holes in people. People are pretty vulnerable, ultimately... Even a 1060 carbon steel blade of modern manufacture tends not to be as shiny when polished as a 240 stainless steel blade, which is essentially a gigantic steak knife that holds a poor edge after repeated use and tends not to be balanced for proper technique. Not sure where you're pulling "not balanced for proper technique". That's going to be entirely dependent on the manner of construction of the final product rather than the kind of steel you use. The difference in the density of stainless steel versus carbon steel is pretty small - I doubt it's enough to make a noticeable difference. What you're saying about edge-keeping properties, that's correct - a quenched/tempered high carbon steel blade WILL keep it's edge far better than a stainless blade.
naturax 02-28-08, 02:10 PM	http://www.xkcd.com/386/
Jeebus2010 02-29-08, 01:48 PM	http://www.xkcd.com/386/ BEST COUNTERPOINT EVER!
Cloud Divider 02-29-08, 03:10 PM	http://www.xkcd.com/386/ <.< >.> Guilty, unfortunately. I blame that part of my subconscious that really wished I'd gone through it all to get the PhD and go on to teach. So I'm happy to take any teaching excuse I can get. :) (so I hope someone out there learned something...) But yeah, that's a pretty spot-on cartoon (I'd seen it before).
Coguelin 03-03-08, 08:50 AM	Hey, Just a quick note to say that was fascinating, thanks Cloud. R.
ChaoticGood 03-05-08, 12:42 AM	I agree. Cloud, you've helped make what would otherwise have quickly become a locked thread into something that was pretty darned educational. Thanks!
OneWinged4ngel 03-05-08, 05:52 PM	i was just thinking about how samurai swords are still made of steel but like 100 times stronger then your standard issue European sword (i could be wrong) You couldn't be more wrong. Plain and simple. Do you also believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy? Sheezus. :rolleyes:
Jeebus2010 03-05-08, 09:15 PM	You couldn't be more wrong. Plain and simple. Do you also believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy? Sheezus. :rolleyes: so the myth is debunked then folded steel is not stronger then regular steel? that was the question of the OP if it was stronger and if it would be cool
Cloud Divider 03-05-08, 11:15 PM	so the myth is debunked then folded steel is not stronger then regular steel? that was the question of the OP if it was stronger and if it would be cool Well, to summarize my often rambly overly academic posts... Folded steel could be stronger than regular steel, but in most instances, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison (basically it was making the best of a bad situation). If you were to take those techniques and apply them to good material, you probably could end up with something better. Would it really matter when it came to the game mechanics? Probably not - Masterwork's a pretty good start. If you wanted to up the Hardness by a point or so, and give it 10-20% more hp, that'd probably work. But in that instance, your games would probably be playing a whole lot differently than my experiences, because damaging equipment almost never came up in any of my campaigns. Plus, y'know, who's to say that the reason that +1 Longsword is +1 is due to it having an enchantment or some runic scribbles on it that makes it cut better...rather than lots of magical derring-do happened during the forging process to get you an arcane damascus steel, forged in alchemical fire? (You could even call it Cannith Steel, if you wanted...) And y'know, in the end, I'm always into voting on the side of "just plain cool." You want magical damascus? Great! Go for it. Who cares about Real World materials science! This is Eberron we're talking about here, where boats fly because they're pushed by extraplanar entities comprised of raw elemental fire/air/whatever.
tyr_13 03-14-08, 09:58 PM	I wouldn't give it bonuses, but it is nice fluff to have. Besides, you can bring up the effective grade of steel by folding, it is just a lot more time consuming that modern techniques. And in Eberron, who says that 'normal' steel isn't poor quality? When I first started reading this thread I thought, "Well I'm going to half to explain things," but then a scientist comes along and says everything I was going to! He even got the part about the geometry of the katana. Who knew that scientists and kendo people know a lot of the same things? Oh, on the geometry, the shape is very good at retaining an edge, being strong, and cutting through flesh. It isn't good at defeating armor (although depending on design the 'thrust' was), but also wouldn't get 'stuck' in flesh. The shape does not create a razor type, very sharp feeling edge. This led Allied troops to destroy many a beautiful sword trying to put a 'real' edge on them after WWII. The folding has nothing to do with this. In the minds of a lot of people though, the folding has become a mystic 'selling point' for the sword. There is still a lot of hype about folded steel, which makes it hard to find out the truth about the matter.
Ogiwan 03-17-08, 10:45 AM	Oh good, i was afraid this was going to devolve into another Katana thread. HURRR! DEPLETED URANIUM KATANAS FTW! That said, I've always like the idea of having superior, non-magical weapons, but in D&D this isn't possible. Evidently, though, there's something in an issue of Dragon?
Rauric 03-18-08, 08:57 AM	I always thought Masterworked weaposn were the superior nonmagic weapons. Anyway 4E may be doing something different soon. Hopefully the item isnt as importnat as the owner.
Ogiwan 03-18-08, 11:40 AM	Yeah, but its 300 gold for a +1 to attack, and that's it. No customization, no other options but +1 to attack.
JulesCARV 03-18-08, 11:52 AM	Special materials are also (usually) non-magical: adamantine, cold iron, etc.
Lord_Zeal 03-18-08, 10:49 PM	this best covered in mongoose ultimate guide X cause in which i cant remember. laminated weapons gave a increased threat by 1 number 19-20x2 to 18-20x2
Jeebus2010 03-23-08, 08:05 PM	this best covered in mongoose ultimate guide X cause in which i cant remember. laminated weapons gave a increased threat by 1 number 19-20x2 to 18-20x2 that sounds like a great idea =-] should it stack with improved crit or [I]Keen Edge/I]? ie folded steel longsword 1d8 18-20 crit w/o improved crit?
ArcTan 03-25-08, 03:00 AM	Plus, y'know, who's to say that the reason that +1 Longsword is +1 is due to it having an enchantment or some runic scribbles on it that makes it cut better...rather than lots of magical derring-do happened during the forging process to get you an arcane damascus steel, forged in alchemical fire? (You could even call it Cannith Steel, if you wanted...) Mainly that the +1 longsword's +1-ness goes away in an antimagic field, indicating that it's actively magical. And y'know, in the end, I'm always into voting on the side of "just plain cool." You want magical damascus? Great! Go for it. Who cares about Real World materials science! This is Eberron we're talking about here, where boats fly because they're pushed by extraplanar entities comprised of raw elemental fire/air/whatever. The sheer degree of misinformation and outright cultural propaganda built into the "Katana can cut through anything!!!" fanboyism is why a lot of us have a kneejerk negative reaction to it. (On a personal level, I resent anyone who repeats things from Japanese WWII propaganda materials as fact.)
The Ubbergeek 03-25-08, 09:15 AM	But then, we see the opposite reaction, like in ARMA.
ArcTan 03-26-08, 06:52 AM	I don't like fetishizing any culture and putting it on a pedestal. Weeaboos are somewhat more common in my demographic than creepy medieval Europe fetishists, but I do dislike them both. The moment I decided I wanted nothing more to do with ARMA was when they published an anniversary editorial talking about how great it was that ARMA had defended Western martial arts from all these negative comparisons with the exotified, romanticized, BS Hollywood idea of "superior" Asian martial arts -- yeah, fine, I'm down with that -- and then suddenly turned around and said that Western martial arts were awesome because they were part of OUR proud martial tradition that HAD kicked the asses of everyone else in the world, and the glorious history of conquest and power that was the European High Middle Ages, and going all the way back to the Spartans killing Persian ass at Thermopylae, and bla bla bla. Totally lost me at that point. Lost me forever.
Lord_Zeal 03-27-08, 06:35 PM	laminated stacks with keen, because it is natural created
Jeebus2010 03-27-08, 11:57 PM	laminated stacks with keen, because it is natural created the scimitar is my new fav weapon in this case ;)
EvilCouch 03-28-08, 04:24 AM	HURRR! DEPLETED URANIUM KATANAS FTW!Heh. That'd effectively be a permanently poisoned blade, given the toxic properties of uranium. The character would probably be relatively safe from radiation poisoning as uranium has an extremely long half-life, but I'd imagine that inhaling dust from using, parrying with and maintaining the blade would guarantee a shorter life span. Hell, I'd give the blade an extra circumstance bonus of +2 for using the blade, in addition to masterwork and/or magical enchantments. In return, I'd give the character gradually increasing CON damage. Man, now I want to DM a campaign long enough to pull that on a player.
ArcTan 03-28-08, 07:34 AM	Uranium is a toxic heavy metal but it's not *that* toxic. I mean, c'mon. Lead is also a toxic heavy metal, but you're not going to get poisoned by carrying a lead blade around and swinging it to hit things. Hell, I'd give the blade an extra circumstance bonus of +2 for using the blade, in addition to masterwork and/or magical enchantments. In return, I'd give the character gradually increasing CON damage. That wouldn't actually make any sense. A uranium blade would be extremely heavy and wouldn't keep an edge. It would, in fact, be about the same as making a sword out of lead, which you don't see anyone rushing to do as a great new advance in weaponry. As for gradually increasing Con damage... again, c'mon. Maybe if you got a wound where uranium dust were ground into it. But no, you're not at all likely to show any effects of poisoning just from normal use. (This is the basis of various spurious claims about DU poisoning that have been shown to be false, in real life.)
Ogiwan 03-28-08, 09:25 AM	No no no! No DU katana posts! I made that bit as a joke, referencing the trolling flamewars that were the katana/DU katana posts.
EvilCouch 03-31-08, 07:54 AM	That wouldn't actually make any sense. A uranium blade would be extremely heavy and wouldn't keep an edge. It would, in fact, be about the same as making a sword out of lead, which you don't see anyone rushing to do as a great new advance in weaponry. As for gradually increasing Con damage... again, c'mon. Maybe if you got a wound where uranium dust were ground into it. But no, you're not at all likely to show any effects of poisoning just from normal use. (This is the basis of various spurious claims about DU poisoning that have been shown to be false, in real life.)The reasoning behind the additional +2 wasn't because a depleted uranium blade would be awesome (because it wouldn't be); it was because the player was slowly dying from using it. i.e. +2 for game balance. Nothing to do with reality.
Jeebus2010 04-02-08, 09:50 AM	the OP was a question about folded metals and their special abilities at being superior quality (it`s been established that folded metal is better quality) so one poster's idea was to increase the crit threat by one (ex 19-20 becomes 18-20) so if we could leave the depleted uranium katana's for their own thread it'd be great
MarkusTay63 04-02-08, 10:52 PM	Why stop there? Grab two and call yourself a Drow. :P Anyhow, I would like to thank all of the participents in this thread - I learned quite a lot, and even walked away with a few campaign ideas. Just because the 'RW sand' was crappy quality, doesn't mean there can't be some 'special' version in a magical world. ;)