by Kenneth » Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:29 pm
Its hard to say the answer. From what I understand, the original rule was something like swords had to have a minimum blade length of 12 inches. Other blue weapons did not have this particular restriction, but a 12 inch from grip to tip minimum.
When swords and clubs were amalgamated in the BoW, it looks like we took the second rule. Jimmy's reading of the rule seems to be correct in a very narrow way, although it may not be the traditional interpretation of the rule.
On a more practical matter, I would look very critically at a club that was 36+ inches long, but only had a 9 inch cylindrical striking surface. At that point, I would probably require the "incidental" padding to equal the minimum striking surface padding for a good distance further down the weapon. If that is the case, you may as well just make more of the weapon striking, if not all of it.
With a cylindrical weapon, you can overpad the striking surface. If you overpad the striking surface, and then have incidental padding that is at least equivalent to striking surface padding down most of the weapon, it should be fine. I have not seen the weapon, but I don't think that is what is going on here. It seems more like the weapon is trying to shed weight and jump through a loop hole.
I don't really see the logic in allowing a 36 inch club to not have striking sufficient padding at 27 inches, but requiring a 27 inch club to have it. You're going to hit with that area, and that's still a lot of distance between your hand and the non striking tip of the weapon. It stops looking like "incidental" contact and more like, "Hey. You just hafted me."
I strongly suspect I wouldn't let that long of a club through weapons check if it attempts to exploit the non-striking surface/incidental padding rule. If the incidental padding is pretty darn hefty...fine. 40 inch club with 4 inches of striking surface and 30 inches of incidental? Not so fine.
P.S. I would like to point out that in chess, knights also go first. You should suggest to V'hil and Angmarth that they lead the charge. Weaklings. I even saw Angmarth get bashed down by Kegg. KEGG of all people. ^_~.
Last edited by
Kenneth on Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.