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Non-Gigantic Sword Range downgrades

ShadowWhoWalks

ShadowWhoWalks

2,321
1,355
Once upon a time, the Range classification had the "Standard melee range" defined to be a range between 1 to 3 meters, and Extended melee range was defined to be a range between 3 to 10 meters. But this was changed.

The current standard for Standard melee range and Extended melee range reads as such:

Standard Melee Range: 50 cm - 1 m

  • Applies to fighters using mostly their arms and legs as weapons.
  • This includes most standard melee weapons, such as daggers, swords, axes, maces, etcetera.
Extended melee range: 1 - 2 m

  • Applies to fighters who utilize long melee weaponry or have otherwise short-ranged attacks that extend beyond normal human reach.
  • Applies to weapons such as spears, halberds, and whips.
  • This also applies to characters who possess abnormally long weapons such as Cloud Strife's Buster Sword and Guts' Dragonslayer.
However, a confusion has happened at some point, where a character using a weapon was taken to mean that they have an extended attack range; regardless if the weapon was an average-sized sword, a knife, or a hand-hatchet. This CRT is aimed at making the range of sword-using heroes and villains have the appropriate classification and be complaint with the wiki standards.

Due to the number of characters this might seem daunting at first, but most of the issue can be smoothly fixed by addressing sword/knife using characters in prominent verses with this error or verses with a high count of this error. I happen to have made a list of these verses by browsing the Sword Users category:

Individual cases I found:

This should not include characters with large swords that have a blade over a meter (such as a claymore), nor characters who can slash further than a meter with a shorter sword for whatever reason.
 
Thank you for helping out.

The content moderators might be the best suited for this.
 
Well, the content moderators and other experienced members could start with the profiles listed above, and then let it be an organic gradual change.
 
The main objective is the most prominent profiles; I believe the error became widespread because people used them as a reference.

And if an editor systematically address each verse individually, the straight-forwardness would allow for a lot of progress to be made in a short time.
 
As a sword nerd, I completely agree with this "downgrade". The only one that I think should keep extended melee range despite being a "regular-sized sword" would be the rapier, for the length of the weapon and the reach you can get when you perform a lunging thrust can rival the reach of a two-handed spear.
 
Has anybody asked the content moderators to comment here yet?
 
We are already tasked with the removal of the inactive blocked members of our Knowledgeable Members List. I feel like a revision this large, that affects the vast majority of the profiles, might take a while.

However, I guess we could start out with the individual profiles mentioned above.
 
Yes, that is what I think as well. This is not remotely important enough to make a massive wiki prpject out of by checking through thousands of pages to find the ones that need to be adjusted, but we could start small and then let the change grow gradually.
 
On the other hand, this might be the wrong time to do this, as you say. Perhaps we should wait at least 3-4 months?
 
Knives? Yeah, those should be Standard Melee Range...but I believe most swords should be under Extended Melee Range at least.

I find the Range of a sword by simply adding the length of the arm to the length of the blade, as swords are often described to be "an extension of your arm", and the blade begins to extend right after your arm.

1 inch = 2.54 cm
(Arm Length in inches+ Blade Length in inches) x 2.54 / 100 = Range in meters
Arm Length is, on average, 25 inches for an average human.

The blade of a longsword varies from 35 to 43 inches.
So a longsword is about 1.524m 1.727m (Extended Melee Range)

The blade of a katana varies from 23.62 to 31.5 inches.
So a katana is about 1.235m to 1.435m (Still Extended Melee Range)

How about a sword with a much shorter blade...such as a wakizashi?
The blade of a wakizashi varies from 12 to 24 inches.
So a wakizashi is about 0.94m to 1.245m...so even the shortest of these swords is still borderline Extended Melee Range with the longer blades being within the scale.
 
Last edited:
Imo the way you fight against a dude wielding a short weapon like a knife or none at all is completely different from how you fight a dude with a long-ranged weapon. And while of course there's many differences, if I had to pick the field fighting against a sword is closest to, I'd deifnitely choose the latter.

I think it would be both incredibly easier and probably more accurate to include swords in EMR
 
Armorchompy said:
Imo the way you fight against a dude wielding a short weapon like a knife or none at all is completely different from how you fight a dude with a long-ranged weapon. And while of course there's many differences, if I had to pick the field fighting against a sword is closest to, I'd deifnitely choose the latter.

I think it would be both incredibly easier and probably more accurate to include swords in EMR
Click to expand...
I agree. I have done the calculation in how far you can actually reach with different types of swords, most of which falling in the EMR scale, including very short swords like the wakizashi, although the low end is still SMR, the "average" would still fall under EMR.
 
Furudo_Erika said:
I agree. I have done the calculation in how far you can actually reach with different types of swords, most of which falling in the EMR scale.
Click to expand...
To counter the argument that most swords aren't quite used like that, handguns aren't meant to be used to snipe at target hundreds of meters away, yet we treat them as hundreds of meters because... well, they reach that range
 
IMO, knives and daggers should remain at SMR, and swords should be upgraded to EMR.
Technically, the blades of daggers can reach up to 18 inches, which would put the longest daggers at EMR, but at that point they're more akin to a shortsword, so daggers should remain at SMR in my opinion.
 
By that logic though, spears and large swords would fall into the "Several meters" category, alongside non-melee throwing weapons. So the proposed alternative will probably require more than merely changing descriptions, such as increasing the range of EMR.
 
I can agree with that- not throwing weapons, though. it'd still just be changing descriptions tho, unless a spear is several meters in length it's already classified as EMR
 
Large swords would still fall under EMR. Such as the claymore, which has a blade length of 39 to 47 inches.
Putting the Range of a claymore at around 1.626m to 1.829m
Spears, naturally have a longer range that swords. Typical spears used by infantry in medieval warfare were around 6 to 8 feet in length (Around 1.8 to 2.4 meters, putting the average already past the 2 meter mark)
 
Armorchompy said:
I don't think any throwing weapon doesn't reach more than 3/4 meters
Click to expand...
I don't think so either. In fact, polearms made for throwing, such as javelins, were actually shorter than spears to move the center of gravity forward to make them more accurate throwing weapons.
 
The extra-large swords made as an example of EMR (Gut's Dragonslayer and Cloud's Buster Sword) are almost two meters in length, and would therefore fall into the Several meters category if we take arm length into account.
 
Perhaps so. Also, Dragon Slayer is actually already "Several meters", as it is longer than Guts's height, who stands 6'8" (204cm) in height. It is his "Pre-Dragon Slayer greatsword" that has EMR.
 
With the blade length alone the Dragonslayer falls short of 2 meters and is within EMR as per the current standard.
 
Then yes, that would be EMR. I see the range of a melee weapon as "the distance from the tip to the axis of rotation", the axis of rotation being the shoulder in this case.
So range is from the tip of the sword to the shoulder; arm length + blade length.
 
Can somebody summarise the discussion and arguments here so far please?
 
My argument (and @Furudo_Erika's) is that swords not only reach EMS by counting the sword's length plus the arm's length, but the way they are used in combat is way more similar to longer weapons like spears and really long swords than small daggers or knives, so they should be included in Extended Melee Range, as that would also make the edit way easier- simply change the Range page to include them in it.

The counterargument of @ShadowWhoWalks is that calculating spear range the same way would have them end up in several meters... I'm not sure if I disagree with that, depends on how the spear is used though, obviously unlike a sword you won't hold it by the very end of it.
 
Not just spears; Cloud's Buster Sword and Gut's Dragonslayer (and similar oversized swords) would also end up in the Several meters category if we take arm length/swing into account, while they are currently in the upper range of Extended melee range.

A compromise I am fine with is to make EMR between 1 meter and 3 meters.
 
I do think that is the best solution, yeah. Basically, all melee weapons that aren't basically equivalent to fists in range (like knives or short daggers) or enormous (like the Sarissa) should indeed be in the same category for me.

Is there any chance of real people without gigantism reaching one meter of punching range?
 
If you ask me, I would qualify every real melee weapon as melee range, that they vary from 0.6 m to 1.8 m or so its negligible. Alternatively, extended melee range would be for weapons that are use at certain range, but less practical at blank point (such pole weapons).
 
Antoniofer seems to make sense. Thank you for helping out.
 
I don't really understand how a longsword's combat range is in any way comparable to bare hands. By your logic, handguns are Standard Melee Range, since you can easily use them at point blank.
 
That would also require us to do even more edits, of course.
 
I am in agreement with Armorchompy's suggestions of adding swords and the like into Extended Melee range and increasing its borders to 1m to 3m, as you do indeed have to take arm length into account, daggers and other short weapons, not so much.
 
Either way I'd honestly even prefer ShadowWhoWalks' original proposition to Antoniofer, I... I just cannot see the logic in that at all honestly.
 
Okay. I may have made a mistake due to juggling too many threads at once then.

Should I call some sysops/administrators to help out here?
 
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