Bastard Swords

[MadocComadrin]

It's also called a bastard sword as the hands that use it are "unmarried."

 

[Alexcalibur]

Forgive me if I sound ignorant, I did some searching but couldn't find a similar topic.

But Bastard Swords... What is the appeal?  I kinda like their appearance, but gamewise they don't serve a purpose.  They are unique in that they are one-handed or two-handed swords.  However, as a two-handed they are inferior to... Every other two handed sword.  As a one-handed the penalty they incur makes them inferior to all the other one-handed swords in both speed and damage.  Lose/lose.  So why use them?

It's all about the weapon slots, and this is a place where Mount & Blade does a great job reflecting reality.

Before going into that, though, let's consider damage thresholds. What's the difference between 20 and 30 damage? Well, it's a whole hit if your opponent has 60 HP. Getting two successful hits is easier, and takes less time, than getting three successful hits. But between power strike and high weapon proficiency, there will be many cases where the weaker bastard sword will defeat an opponent in the same number of hits as a dedicated two-handed sword. This is especially true at higher levels of power strike, and with a higher quality bastard sword. Or, in  short, the theoretical damage output is irrelevant if it ultimately takes the same number of hits to defeat an opponent. And, in any case, the damage on the bastard sword is perfectly respectable in its own right.

As for those weapon slots? The bastard sword and similar weapons basically give you an additional slot as long as you're also using a shield. If you're using a bastard sword and shield, you essentially have a choice between two styles of fighting, despite only having a single weapon -- leaving whole two slots for other equipment. This can be extremely useful for missile-oriented characters that want to maximise slot efficiency, as it means that they can fight one-handed and two-handed and have a shield, with two slots available for a missile weapon and ammunition.  Alternatively, one could have an additional melee weapon and a throwing weapon, or two slots of throwing weapons, or simply kit themselves out with a more diverse array of melee tools.

So not only does the bastard sword's relative weakness not necessarily matter, it's a powerful tool for character building because of how it allows characters to diversify their armaments with maximum efficiency. This is a part of the reason that some cultures at some times favoured similar "bastard" weapons; those armed with them had more diverse options in combat.

Just curious, is there any particular reason that they are called "Bastard" swords?

It's also called a bastard sword as the hands that use it are "unmarried."

An interesting explanation, but ultimately, "bastard sword" is a fairly modern term. During the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (when such weapons were at apex popularity), there were different names for them in different languages, but they ultimately translate into English as "long sword" or "two handed sword". For instance, the English "two honde sword" mentioned in Man Yt Wol is similar in proportions (albeit shorter) than the German "langenschwert" or the Italian "espada longa". These are all the same essential kind of sword -- swords designed to be used primarily two-handed with an emphasis on speed and precision, but which were also light enough to be used one-handed with reasonable effectiveness. As such, Mount & Blade gets certain mechanical aspects dead on, such as bastard swords being quicker to use in two hands than one. That might seem like clear, obvious logic, but you wouldn't believe how many games make bastard weapons quicker to use in one hand as opposed to two.

There was, of course, the other kind of bastard sword; they were the inversion of the above design logic, being one-handed swords with just enough hilt extension to be used two-handed in a pinch. This made them better than the above kind of sword for one-handed use, but the shorter hilt meant less of a fulcrum between the hands, limiting their speed when used two-handed. So some bastard swords are one-handed swords with a bit of two-handed application, and some are two-handed swords with a bit of one-handed application.

 

[MadocComadrin]

I see your explanation, but raise you a lindybeige video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF_kxAqS_8k
Summary points:

• Period references to the name can be found in England but not really in Europe, making it most likely an English thing
• There was a Bastard Sword category in English tourney's
• They might have most likely been used without a shield

 

[Alexcalibur]

I see your explanation, but raise you a lindybeige video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF_kxAqS_8k
Summary points:

• Period references to the name can be found in England but not really in Europe, making it most likely an English thing
• There was a Bastard Sword category in English tourney's
• They might have most likely been used without a shield

Careful with lindybeige. He sometimes gets things wrong, or a bit wrong. To his credit, though, he's very open to being corrected and he keeps getting better with time and experience. It's just that his involvement in the Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) community is relatively recent compared to the amount of time he's spent making videos, and his perspective is a bit more "general", so to speak. That's not a dig at him, though. I like his videos just fine, and as an enthusiast of the aforementioned HEMA, anyone helping people to understand is doing God's work to my mind. And, to his credit, I did learn something today:

I didn't at all know that English tourneys had a bastard sword category. Pretty interesting! What remains to be seen, then, is whether there was another two-handed sword category. If there wasn't, it might be reasonable to suspect that "bastard sword" was a term for what a German or Italian might call a "longsword", at least for some time. It's also worth noting that the Italian treatises of Fiore dei Liberi contain some one-handed sword techniques used with the longsword. Lindy's hypothesis concerning the use of transitional handedness is probably not supported, in that somewhat larger swords than his bastard sword can support one-handed sword techniques -- at least temporarily. I mean that he might be right, but one doesn't require a sword quite so light in order to execute those techniques. If the English bastard sword is indeed a smaller, lighter sword than the German langenschwert or Italian espada longa, and those swords can support transitional one-handed techniques, then I would suspect that English bastard swords were built to be more user-friendly for longer term one-handed use, and therefore possibly had shields in mind when designed.

As mentioned before, the English Man Yt Wol (a fencing manual contained within a larger manuscript) refers to the swords it teaches for as "two hand swords". This could be a case of different terminology in different time periods (Lindy doesn't specify the specific period his English bastard sword is based on), or it could be that they're different kinds of sword. As someone with more experience in the Liechtenauer tradition of Germany than anything else, I can't say, as I've never taken on an in-depth study of medieval English fencing (and the resources for that are few and far between). One of the problems, in fact, of dealing with historical fencing in terms of England is the lack of primary sources clarifying their precise use. There are a couple, but they're greatly outnumbered by the German and Italian sources, which deliver a much clearer picture of their respective styles.

All that stuff being said, thanks for posting the video. Despite some of those niggles I pointed out, I have no doubt it'll be helpful for people looking for that kind of knowledge and, at the very least, lindy makes some interesting suggestions that I think are worth consideration.

 

[CreepyNoodle]

I actually totally see where you're coming from. And I will answer you what I think.

1. They are cheap in price.
2. They don't take too long to swing.
3. They do LOTS of damage.
4. Take down shields quicker.
5. They look beautiful. Lol.


Yeah, I think that's why, but honestly I'd rather be a Nord Archer with arrows and a huge two handed Axe.

 

[Scully]

They actually have this relatively unkown downside of making it more obvious when you are about to chamber block. Most people when preparing to chamber block stop feinting/blocking/attacking, at which point the character will take on hand off the sword making obvious that you are about to perform a chamber block.

Yes the same is true for players using other weaponry, but the visual trigger of one hand going off the weapon helps somewhat.