"Big fantasy weapons" Topic

I'll admit that I'm not a huge fan of the surfboard sword that you see in a lot of anime and video game inspired fantasy figures.

However oversized weapons, to a limit, don't bother me much. I think the above is somewhat annoying more because it is over done than because it is unrealistic. After all if it is fantasy, who is to say it is unrealistic.

As far as I remember Stormbringer was basically a two handed sword. Elric was a puny elf-like weakling who needed to take drugs to even stand up most of the time. Yet he was able to wield Stormbringer easily and often with one hand, if the art is to be believed.

He could do this because in that fantasy world his sword was *gasp* magical!

Why aren't we assuming that other oversized weapons are equally, or more, magical. Who is to say what the +1 means on a +1 sword. Is it magically sharp? Is it magically poisoned slightly? Maybe it is magically big by 10% or something like that. So it has the weight of a heavier sword but off sets that for the wielder.

For me, yeah, I get it's fantasy/magic/whatever and that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that they simply look ridiculous and a majority of the time make an otherwise very nice sculpt look bad overall.

It can be as magical as you want it to be but, to me, they still look stupid.

At one time even GW had an art department that knew something about form and proportion so could make interesting looking figures though with a fantasy bent.

Now everything including armor is grossly out of scale and proportion.

I sentence them to six weeks staring at scuplture of David or at least remedial art class.

TomT

I hate em

I do not like oversized fantasy weapons and armour!

Oh come on guys! Size does matter! The bigger the better. More skulls, too, please.

Seriously, they are ridiculous. Very cartoonish, but that was probably the intent.

Why do they look stupid? What looks stupid about them? If they are magical they could be realistic. How would they be stupid then?

I confess that if I was face to face with, oh, say Smaug in his Peter Jackson incarnation, I'd want the biggest sword I could carry…

Or better yet, some form of anti tank missile…

;)

So no, 'oversized fantasy swords' don't worry me, as they sorta make sense as a weapon of choice to deal with oversized trolls, ogres, dragons, whatever…

If memory serves me, Stormbringer itself gave Elric the strength to wield it.

Based on this line of reasoning, my ironing board may be a magical weapon. Clearly I have been misusing it.

You should try wielding your ironing board. I guess you'll find out if it is magical or not.

I don't think that is the conclusion of this line of reasoning at all. That would be the conclusion had I said that any item that is big is a magical weapon.

One possible reason that these "oversized" weapons look too big to us is that we don't have magic in the world so the idea that someone could wield a sword that is bigger than their arms seems absurd.

I would imagine that people would think of a recoiless rifle as an absurdly large weapon:

And if we didn't have modern technology to make it light enough it probably would be too big to carry about.

If we needed to, I would imagine that we could make a fairly decent sized sword that would still be able to be wielded in terms of weight. We just don't really have a lot of call for that sort of thing these days.

There is a reason why a recoilless rifle comes with a mount.

You get better accuracy with it.

Video of the guy actually firing that weapon.

YouTube link

2:35 mark is where is shoots it.

How does he get it through the door?
How does he not slice the heads off of his comrades whenever he turns around?
Where does he put it when he eats his lunch or relieves himself?
I'm assuming he doesn't ride a mount with it.
I'm also assuming he can't use it in confined spaces because of the space he would need to swing it.

Magically light as a feather or not, it's still just silly.