The merit of indestructible melee weapons

[Thrawn4]

Hello everyone.

Let's suppose there is a way (magical or otherwise) to make swords, maces etc. indestructible. Would there be a significant advantage to similar weapons of good quality that are not indestructible?
I guess if a weapon would never loose its edge said edge could be razor-sharp, but how much of an advantage is this?
Would it be easier to parry as I don't have to worry about sparing the material? I doubt it somehow.
Braking a weapon is not as difficult afaik, so no bonus there either...

[Grod_The_Giant]

You might wind up using some different combat techniques. I can imagine trying to parry edge-on-edge with an indestructible sword to carve chunks out of your opponent's, for instance.

[VoxRationis]

Well, not having to maintain equipment would be excellent for irregulars or guerilla forces operating in the wilderness.

[Anonymouswizard]

It would be beneficial unless you want to use a technique which relies on damaging or bending your weapon in some way (yes, they exist). At the end of the day it might be a slight advantage over a long enough proof of time, but the martial arts would be ever so slightly different (I'm not concerned with a parry damaging my weapon, but I am with it damaging my arm).

[Knaight]

I could see this having bigger advantages for pole weapons, which are more likely to break in the course of pitched battles and thus force people to rely on sidearms after a while (with the obvious caveat that said breakage isn't just the shaft getting cut through in one strike with any frequency).

[zinycor]

an indestructible rope or chain would be amazing for taking prisoners.

[LibraryOgre]

It also depends heavily on how much the system emphasizes damage to items. While in the real world, it would have great utility, in gaming terms, if swords are always essentially unbreakable, then making them actually unbreakable doesn't make a huge difference... just like having a quiver of unlimited arrows doesn't matter if your GM never keeps track of ammo, or a pouch of unending food doesn't matter if you never have to keep track of rations.

[comicshorse]

Have you seen 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' ?
It seems to me that the 'Green Destiny sword is indestructible and the advantage of that is seen in the fight between Michelle Yeoh's character and Zhang Ziyi's character. Every time Michelle Yeoh starts to get the upper hand the weapon she is fighting with breaks under the relentless pounding of the unbreakable Green Destiny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhCHw0Ovqf4

[Stealth Marmot]

Have you seen 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' ?
It seems to me that the 'Green Destiny sword is indestructible and the advantage of that is seen in the fight between Michelle Yeoh's character and Zhang Ziyi's character. Every time Michelle Yeoh starts to get the upper hand the weapon she is fighting with breaks under the relentless pounding of the unbreakable Green Destiny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhCHw0Ovqf4

And yet she wins the last fight by putting the sundered sword up to the other girls neck which she could do BECAUSE it could break.

Anyway there are negligable differences in game terms if a sword is indestructible. Adamantine weapons are all but indestructible, and situations where they can break are few and far between, so making them actually indestructible instead of practically indestructible is negligable unless one of your players want to use some scientific exploit shenanigans.

[Dhuraal]

In a non combat scenario it could be very useful.

Player 1: "Oh no that 2 ton slab of stone is going to seal off the door behind us!"
Player 2: *stands up Indestructible Warhammer between slab and floor*
Player 1: "Ah... right.... well, carry on then."

[Thrawn4]

Darn, I really want my indestructible weapons to be useful in combat
The rpg system I want to employ is rules light, especially on book keeping, so I probably have to accept that indestructible weapons are not very useful unless I have a system for weapon quality.

Bonus question: Indestructible armor... it can't darn or break, but blunt weapons would still cause the same damage?

[LibraryOgre]

In a non combat scenario it could be very useful.

Player 1: "Oh no that 2 ton slab of stone is going to seal off the door behind us!"
Player 2: *stands up Indestructible Warhammer between slab and floor*
Player 1: "Ah... right.... well, carry on then."

DM: The two-ton slab of stone drives your warhammer into the ground beneath. You get the satisfaction of seeing the stone crack a bit before the massive block seals it away forever.

[Max_Killjoy]

DM: The two-ton slab of stone drives your warhammer into the ground beneath. You get the satisfaction of seeing the stone crack a bit before the massive block seals it away forever.

Even if it's stone underneath too... how are they going to get the hammer out from between two multi-ton blocks of stone?

[Dienekes]

Eh, in single combat an unbreakable weapon wouldn't have too much of a benefit other than sharpness. Because getting dull is just the edge chipping and folding in on itself with a guarantee that this won't happen you could theoretically make a thinner sharper blade. Which should give some benefit against cloth armors but that's about it.

But where the real benefits come in is army management. If this stuff is at all common you're looking at drastically decrease in personnel and steel necessary to get an effective army.

Also why isn't the stuff made into armor, that'd be way better?

[awa]

on the other hand you could make some unusual weapons like a long needle attached to a hammer, something that would not be functional normally but could work if breaking did not matter. Normally punching through armor is not an option but with the right design and an unbreakable material it could become valid.

Also obsidian weapons would be dramatically more useful if they couldn't break

[Mr Beer]

If you want a combat system where this matters, as usual GURPS is the answer. There are various rules concerning weapon breakage and an indestructible weapon is valuable enough that there are expensive enchantments for it. One of my players just ponied up for just such an enchantment.

In the real world, I agree with other people that said it would be less direct use in combat, more useful for ancillary considerations like never having to maintain the weapon or replace it from wear-and-tear and enormously more useful in things that are not weapons, like armour and crossbow springs. Or mills or clocks or any sort of advanced construction really.

[Mr Beer]

I do think it matters what kind of an edge you can put on this weapon. Is this a post-construction enchantment or is it a magical metal that you only forge once? Someone mentioned obsidian, I think an obsidian blade that doesn't/can't fracture and has some heft behind it could maybe cut through steel...I am not clear on the physics of that though.

[Lord Torath]

Bonus question: Indestructible armor... it can't dent or break, but blunt weapons would still cause the same damage?

Assume that's dent, not dang?

Armors that are weak against bludgeoning will still be just as weak against bludgeoning (leather, chainmail, etc). All non-bludgeoning attacks become bludgeoning against indestructible armor, so swords, axes, and daggers become almost worthless (even if indestructible). Stilettos retain some usefulness against chainmail, but not against leather. Plate armors will be exceptionally durable. They already spread out the damage of bludgeoning; if they are non-deformable, they will transfer the impact over the entire surface area of the plate hit. A mace blow, instead of landing on 2-3 ribs, instead gets spread out over the entire chest, reducing the energy any one part of the body has to absorb.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I do think it matters what kind of an edge you can put on this weapon. Is this a post-construction enchantment or is it a magical metal that you only forge once? Someone mentioned obsidian, I think an obsidian blade that doesn't/can't fracture and has some heft behind it could maybe cut through steel...I am not clear on the physics of that though.

"Indestructible" is so vague that it is impossible to be clear on the physics . It is clear, however, that obsidian is really, really sharp, and a non-fracturing variant would be a great material for anything meant to keep an edge. I am not sure what a swordfighter would say about a totally rigid blade, but I'm sure it's worth the 3 nm cutting edge. Especially since you can make the whole blade 3 nm wide and thick, which probably makes it almost perfectly invisible (don't cut yourself). I mean, at that point, we're talking less about a melee weapon and more about a nanometer-scale cutting wire, but it'll still work on enemies, right?

[Jay R]

An indestructible blade cannot be sharpened, because sharpening it is a process of grinding bits of metal away.

On the other hand, perhaps you can give it the perfect edge, and then make it indestructible. A person who could do this and owns a Scabbard of Keen Edges could churn out excellent swords.

The king whose smith can do this (and has the scabbard) has a huge advantage in war.

[Knaight]

Darn, I really want my indestructible weapons to be useful in combat
The rpg system I want to employ is rules light, especially on book keeping, so I probably have to accept that indestructible weapons are not very useful unless I have a system for weapon quality.

What system is it? There are some pretty rules light ways to handle this - for instance Pendragon has a system where weapons break on a particular roll, unless they are swords (I don't remember the exact details). There's no need for a broader weapon quality system, no need for book keeping, nothing.

[Cluedrew]

My first thought is if you designed a weapon from the start to be indestructible. For instance a long sword that is half the regular weight because it doesn't need to worry about the thickness of the blade to hold it together. You could probably go lighter too, but a feather light weapon would have its own problems.

[NichG]

My first thought is if you designed a weapon from the start to be indestructible. For instance a long sword that is half the regular weight because it doesn't need to worry about the thickness of the blade to hold it together. You could probably go lighter too, but a feather light weapon would have its own problems.

Yeah, if you don't want to design a system from the ground up just to make indestructibility useful without tons of painful book-keeping, it seems like the interesting feature is that things can become weapons which normally wouldn't be appropriate, mostly in the direction of things like the nanofilament whip. A bola made of indestructible silk thread connecting a pair of heavy counterweights could sever limbs rather than just tangling up an enemy, etc. I could imagine an indestructible weapon casing being used to contain something very destructive which is released at impact and would normally destroy the weapon itself (again with ranged weapons, but imagine a an automatic weapon that doesn't have to worry about heating up or the possibility of the blast rupturing the weapon or things like that). I could imagine something like a mace covered in very thin needles as a good poisoner user's weapon, etc.

Otherwise, its use is going to depend on the system in question having frequent equipment wear or damage events. This'd especially be in cases where you fight enemies who are cloaked in or made of damaging effects, and the system permits those damaging effects to extend to the weapons used to strike them. But in something like D&D, you can attack a fire elemental with a wooden cudgel and leave the cudgel no worse for wear, so weapons are practically indestructible anyhow unless someone makes a specific effort or you're fighting one of a small number of exceptions (caryatid column, etc).

[Reboot]

I could imagine an indestructible weapon casing being used to contain something very destructive which is released at impact and would normally destroy the weapon itself (again with ranged weapons, but imagine a an automatic weapon that doesn't have to worry about heating up ...

It says "indestructible", not entirely unchangeable - presumably, as it heated, it would still expand. Also, not "infinite ammunition" - you want to fire a million bullets? Great. Where're you going to get them? How're you going to feed them into the weapon? How're you going to *transport* them?

(Plus, that pesky point that indestructible weapons probably means indestructible armour. And indestructible tanks and fortifications. Depending on how that works, and exactly how much you're willing to allow the laws of physics to be taken out back, you could end up in a situation where bullets and melee weapons would be entirely useless, and you'd be relying entirely on chemical and biological weapons, with maybe a minor side of explosives)

[Incorrect]

Indestructible armor, and shields.
I think it would make combat a lot more brutal. You can no longer chink away at a shield to break it and gain an advantage. You can no longer bash through armor.
Since you have your own indestructible armor and is near invincible, your best bet might be to grapple your opponent and try to get a dagger into armpits or eye slits.

Perhaps mass combat is a line of indestructible shields, then a line of grapple guys with daggers, and then a line of "pullers" with indestructible lassos or similar, trying to pull single enemies into your own line to be grappled and killed.

Perhaps flame weapons or poison gas become widely used.

[Knaight]

Indestructible armor, and shields.
I think it would make combat a lot more brutal. You can no longer chink away at a shield to break it and gain an advantage. You can no longer bash through armor.
Since you have your own indestructible armor and is near invincible, your best bet might be to grapple your opponent and try to get a dagger into armpits or eye slits.

This is already pretty standard once you got to the sorts of armors that covered enough to force the issue.

[Thrawn4]

You are all very helpful, thank you already

on the other hand you could make some unusual weapons like a long needle attached to a hammer, something that would not be functional normally but could work if breaking did not matter. Normally punching through armor is not an option but with the right design and an unbreakable material it could become valid.

Also obsidian weapons would be dramatically more useful if they couldn't break

That's what I was thinking about. If they design a weapon with the intention of making use of its indestructibility, a lighter and sharper sword or some long needles on a hammer might make a difference.
But could a steel blade also benefit from this?
And what about an axe?

On the other hand, perhaps you can give it the perfect edge, and then make it indestructible.

I would love that.

My first thought is if you designed a weapon from the start to be indestructible. For instance a long sword that is half the regular weight because it doesn't need to worry about the thickness of the blade to hold it together.

Maybe we are on to something here?

I do think it matters what kind of an edge you can put on this weapon. Is this a post-construction enchantment or is it a magical metal that you only forge once?

The idea is to put some earth elemental essence into the weapon after construction to imbue it with stability and/or .... (what's the right word for anti-movement? immobility? density?)

"Indestructible" is so vague that it is impossible to be clear on the physics .

I can work with vague. If you have some suggestions as to how I might define it in order to make very durable weapons more useful, I would like to hear it.

Indestructible armor, and shields.

Huh, how exactly did I mss shields?
But... can anyone actually profit from an indestructible shield besides the obvious durability?

[Stealth Marmot]

But... can anyone actually profit from an indestructible shield besides the obvious durability?

[zinycor]

When Captain America throws his mighty shield!!!

[GrayDeath]

These things would greatly ire Warlocks, as their Shatter at will will tactic be ... shattered.


On a more realistic note: it depends what kind of "Indestructible" you mean. "Behaves like the normal weapon, but is never damaged" is vastly different from "does not bend, flex or lose even a molecule from its body as it was when "IndestructabilityMagic" was applied".


Generally I`d say most long term effects have already been montioned.
It also allows for very good family heirlooms, if I might add. ^^