Has anyone had a non-magic Katana or Ninja-To /Wakazashi break on them?

Oxford_Guy

I was wondering if anyone has had a non-magic Katana or other "eastern" weapon (i.e. Ninja-To and Wakazashi) break? If you look in NearInfinity these all have the "breakable" flag set, but others have claimed that whether a weapon breaks or not in BGEE is handled in a different way and that these "eastern" weapons do not break - is this true or has anyone experienced any of these breaking?

I've certainly experienced non-magic scimitars breaking, but none of the others yet, though I've not used Katanas much. Given that some ogre mages now drop katanas, I'm considering using them for a character concept I have...

Fardragon

Katanas certainly don't break.

Oxford_Guy

Fardragon said:

Katanas certainly don't break.

Have you personally (well, your CHARNAME) used a non-magic one extensively and not had it break on you, or is this just what you've heard?

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Fardragon

Oxford_Guy said:

Fardragon said:

Katanas certainly don't break.

Have you personally (well, your CHARNAME) used a non-magic one extensively and not had it break on you, or is this just what you've heard?

Yes, played through Black Pits twice dual wielding katanas. Normal ones until +2 where available. Never seen one break. Had lots of maces and things break.

Given as the official word is katanas don't break, I'm inclined to believe it.

Jalily

Katanas, wakizashis, and ninjatōs do not break.

Nifft

This is conclusive proof that weapons with Japanese names are better than weapons with European names.

Dee

It's a [large] part of the justification for there being so few of them in BG1. You don't need ready and unlimited access to them if there's no chance of them breaking.

Sharn

Weapons are breaking due to the poisoning of the iron, none of these weapons are crafted on the sword coast, so they have not been weakened.

Madhax

I thought the iron poisoning transferred between weapons when they touched?

ScytheKnight

Madhax said:

I thought the iron poisoning transferred between weapons when they touched?

This is true, however if you learn anything about the forging of these weapons they use very, VERY different techniques. The way and number of times the steels are folded could easily explain why they are resistant to an outside effect like the poison.

TJ_Hooker

ScytheKnight said:

Madhax said:

I thought the iron poisoning transferred between weapons when they touched?

This is true, however if you learn anything about the forging of these weapons they use very, VERY different techniques. The way and number of times the steels are folded could easily explain why they are resistant to an outside effect like the poison.

Umm, we're talking about some mysterious, (possibly magical?) chemical in a fantasy game. I'm not sure if real life metallurgy/smithing is terribly relevant.

Rajick

I agree with @scytheknight eastern weapons are far superior in creation strength density and over all durability. They also keep themselves sharper longer. They should be able to resist the taint of that vile liquid.

Djimmy

Nope even though I hit things hard.

Fafnir

TJ_Hooker said:

ScytheKnight said:

Madhax said:

I thought the iron poisoning transferred between weapons when they touched?

This is true, however if you learn anything about the forging of these weapons they use very, VERY different techniques. The way and number of times the steels are folded could easily explain why they are resistant to an outside effect like the poison.

Umm, we're talking about some mysterious, (possibly magical?) chemical in a fantasy game. I'm not sure if real life metallurgy/smithing is terribly relevant.

But fanboy-wanked katana crafting is!
Look at the BG katana descriptions and tell me if they don't have "fanboy" written all over it. Typical '90s.

ScytheKnight

OK, here's what I'm getting at... typical European blades the steel is folded a few dozen times maybe... all the katana style blades are folded hundreds of times. This means the crystalline structure of the steels in a katana is much, much denser than in a European blade, thus it would be a LOT harder for any outside substance to effect it.

@Fafnir perhaps a more useful use of your time than 'lol fanboi!' is to educate yourself about what others are talking about occasionally.

atcDave

Actually, real world Katanas, like most eastern weapons, are more dangerous when well maintained than western weapons. But they are less durable; more brittle and more prone to damage and rust. This is completely consistent with the first strike technique it was used for, but makes it less useful for a long campaign than western equivalents.
So in most cases a well maintained katana would be the better weapon, but it's a bit problematic for a long campaign far from home. The weapon would require specialized smiths, oils, polishing equipment, etc to really be useful in a setting so far removed from its home base. Magical versions might travel better and not have such problems, I could imagine a human DM ruling either way on it. Obviously, BG never really worries about such things as repairs and maintenance, so Katanas et al are assumed to be at their best, and measure quite favorably against their western counterparts. My first thought is just that as foreign made weapons they should be free of the iron blight, but of course if it really is "contagious" I see no reason to grant them any special immunity. Even if made with different techniques, the base elements are exactly the same and would likely be subject to the same forces.
For a really outstanding analysis of eastern vs western weapons design and combat philosophy read "Shattered Sword" by Jonathan Parshall, and Anthony Tully. This focuses on more modern samurai, specifically the Kido Butai of 1942, but draws numerous parallels to the warrior tradition that produced the weapon and how it worked (and failed spectacularly!) in the 20th century.

Fafnir

@ScytheKnight and you could do without the thinly veiled insults.
But since the point I was trying to make was obviously missed, I'll try to expand. Besides I realize I was being obscure.

The original reason Kara-Tur weapons didn't break in BG1 was because they didn't exist. The issue presented itself later on, when BGTutu, BGT and the like first came about. Back then, as far as I remember, they didn't break simply because they weren't flagged as breakable, and either way it mattered little since there were none available, bar further modding.
In BGEE they (apparently) don't break, ostensibly because they're imported; but as already pointed out the justification doesn't really hold if the poison is contagious, unless there is a critical difference in the crafting process. @atcDave already elaborated on this. Let's try a different approach. Let's go meta.

Fafnir said:

Typical '90s.

In the nineties, the videogame and roleplaying scenes were at the heights of japanophilia (and in general, asiaphilia); Baldur's Gate 2 comes late into this, but you can see the obvious influence in the new weapons (the katana has the highest damage dice of any one-handed weapons) and in the of the Kensai class (how many kits do we have from Maztica? Al-Qadim? That's right, none). It's especially glaring in the description of Katana +1: magical katana are rare because it's hard to enchant something that's already near-flawless. Katana are just better: BG2 is fanboying, and fanboying hard. And it's fine, because everybody was. But I digress.

Let's get back to BGEE. The portrayal of katana in BG2 can be construed as the real reason they resist the poison and don't break. Not because they are imported, but because they are near-magical. The real justification is built from the top down from outside of the game. If you want to keep with the spirit of the original games (i.e. BG2) katana can not - must not - break.

The_Shairs_Handbook

Katana , wazakashi and ninja-to don't break cuz they are imported to sword coast from Kara-Tur... thats why they don't break....

Oxford_Guy

The_Shairs_Handbook said:

Katana , wazakashi and ninja-to don't break cuz they are imported to sword coast from Kara-Tur... thats why they don't break....

It's weird how they still all have the "breakable" flag set when you look at them in NearInfinity, but I guess the game must be ignoring this for these items

Delvarian

I have learned a lot from this thread.

Pecca

I have never noticed any mention about the poison being contagious. I always assumed that they just poisoned the original iron in the nashkel mine and that weapons forged from it were breakable. Because how helpful would it be for Iron Throne to have a clean mine that would produce clean weapons when the whole region was infested with poison-contagious weapons?

Gallowglass

ScytheKnight said:

OK, here's what I'm getting at... typical European blades the steel is folded a few dozen times maybe... all the katana style blades are folded hundreds of times.

It's irrelevant to the game, but this is nonsense. Traditional European blades don't use a re-folding technique at all, and traditional Japanese blades are typically folded 8 times and sometimes up to 16 times. Contrary to popular-fiction mythology, there is actually no point at all in folding more than about 20 times at the most, because the individual layers then become so thin that they lose their separate structural characteristics and the metal is effectively homogenised (so you might as well not have bothered with the re-folding). It ruins the blade if you re-fold too much - the skill is to get it just right, folding it neither too much nor too little.

Aasimar069

Pecca said:

I have never noticed any mention about the poison being contagious. I always assumed that they just poisoned the original iron in the nashkel mine and that weapons forged from it were breakable. Because how helpful would it be for Iron Throne to have a clean mine that would produce clean weapons when the whole region was infested with poison-contagious weapons?

I also concur with this...

It seems quite clear that the "poison" only affects ore and cannot taint a weapon that is already forged.

Fafnir

Gallowglass said:

ScytheKnight said:

OK, here's what I'm getting at... typical European blades the steel is folded a few dozen times maybe... all the katana style blades are folded hundreds of times.

It's irrelevant to the game, but this is nonsense. Traditional European blades don't use a re-folding technique at all, and traditional Japanese blades are typically folded 8 times and sometimes up to 16 times. Contrary to popular-fiction mythology, there is actually no point at all in folding more than about 20 times at the most, because the individual layers then become so thin that they lose their separate structural characteristics and the metal is effectively homogenised (so you might as well not have bothered with the re-folding). It ruins the blade if you re-fold too much - the skill is to get it just right, folding it neither too much nor too little.

I think this stems from a confusion between "number of layers" and "number of times the steel is folded".
Every folding doubles the number of layers, so getting over a hundred layers only requires folding seven times (2^7=128). Folding a hundred times is of course nonsense*.



*Because I like math: let us assume a blade is 1 cm wide (a gross exaggeration), or 10^-2 m. Folding 30 times gives us 2^30=(2^10)^3=1024^3~10^9 folds, or approximately 10 fm (10^-11 m) per layer. This is absurdly thin! In fact, a single atom has a radius of about 100 fm, so it doesn't even count as a layer anymore. As @Gallowglass pointed out, past this point the metal is homogeneous and unlayered. In practice it likely becomes effectively homogeneous much earlier, probably after the layer thickness drops under the 1.0~0.1 micron level.

TJ_Hooker

Pecca said:

I have never noticed any mention about the poison being contagious. I always assumed that they just poisoned the original iron in the nashkel mine and that weapons forged from it were breakable. Because how helpful would it be for Iron Throne to have a clean mine that would produce clean weapons when the whole region was infested with poison-contagious weapons?

I can't remember any specific place where the poison is said to be contagious either (the description for the vial of mysterious liquid does describe it as "mysterious 'plague' ", but I suppose it's a bit of a stretch to assume it's contagious based on a single word). But then why are all the non magical weapons you come across breakable? Was every weapon in the Sword Coast region made in the last month (or however long the the iron crisis has been going on for)?

Jalily

@TJHooker There's a rumor you can get from several commoners in Nashkel:

I paid 35 gold for a sword from Beregost and it "rotted" in my hands! What can disease metal so? Has your gear done the same? Even if you got your blades out of some dank old dungeon, just bringing them near tainted metal makes them weak. Seems like only magic weapons don't degrade, but who has those? No one I know.

Nifft

Fafnir said:

I think this stems from a confusion between "number of layers" and "number of times the steel is folded".
Every folding doubles the number of layers, so getting over a hundred layers only requires folding seven times (2^7=128). Folding a hundred times is of course nonsense*.

*Because I like math: let us assume a blade is 1 cm wide (a gross exaggeration), or 10^-2 m. Folding 30 times gives us 2^30=(2^10)^3=1024^3~10^9 folds, or approximately 10 fm (10^-11 m) per layer. This is absurdly thin! In fact, a single atom has a radius of about 100 fm, so it doesn't even count as a layer anymore. As @Gallowglass pointed out, past this point the metal is homogeneous and unlayered. In practice it likely becomes effectively homogeneous much earlier, probably after the layer thickness drops under the 1.0~0.1 micron level.

From what I've read, it seems that folding the iron during forging was a way to reduce impurities.

The iron available in Japan was inferior to the iron available in Europe, and they had more impurities to remove -- so this practice of removing impurities got more focus over there.

The end result was similar quality of weapons, but getting there took more effort in Japan, due to local resource differences.

... then along came the bad writing of the Highlander movie, and suddenly "folded over a hundred times!" entered the sword-fetishist's vernacular ...

Cheers, -- N

Zarakinthish

Gallowglass said:

ScytheKnight said:

OK, here's what I'm getting at... typical European blades the steel is folded a few dozen times maybe... all the katana style blades are folded hundreds of times.

It's irrelevant to the game, but this is nonsense. Traditional European blades don't use a re-folding technique at all, and traditional Japanese blades are typically folded 8 times and sometimes up to 16 times. Contrary to popular-fiction mythology, there is actually no point at all in folding more than about 20 times at the most, because the individual layers then become so thin that they lose their separate structural characteristics and the metal is effectively homogenised (so you might as well not have bothered with the re-folding). It ruins the blade if you re-fold too much - the skill is to get it just right, folding it neither too much nor too little.

Regarding the making of swords, I highly suggest two episodes of the series "Nova". The first, which deals with the making of the katana, is called "Secrets of the Samurai Sword". The second, which deals with the making of a special Viking sword called an "Ulfberht", is called "Secrets of the Viking Sword". Here are links to watch them online for those interested:

Secrets of the Samurai Sword: http://video.pbs.org/video/1150578495
Secrets of the Viking Sword: http://video.pbs.org/video/2284159044

Valankir

Jalily said:

@TJHooker There's a rumor you can get from several commoners in Nashkel:

I paid 35 gold for a sword from Beregost and it "rotted" in my hands! What can disease metal so? Has your gear done the same? Even if you got your blades out of some dank old dungeon, just bringing them near tainted metal makes them weak. Seems like only magic weapons don't degrade, but who has those? No one I know.

Hmm sounds like a bit of an inconsistency in the plotline. I never noticed that rumor before, but it contradicts the plan the Iron Throne had to abuse the situation for profit. They had been planning to eventually come in as the 'saviours' providing their own supply of un-tainted ore and weapons. Either they had a gaping hole in their plan (possible stretch, depending on how much of the ore poison specifications were controlled and created by Sarevok and his disregard for long term Iron Throne plans) or the rumor above was tacked on by the writers after the fact to provide an easy explanation for the quick and wide spread of weakened metals.

And on another note - I sure am glad my non-magical full plate mail armors remained unaffected too

deltago

Here is your answer. Katanas aren't made from Iron, so the Iron poison doesn't effect it.

What are they made from? Jello for all I care, just not iron so they do not break like all the wooden weapons.