9:29 "thick thighs save lives" is the conclusion i choose to take here

@anthonydevito1298

2 ай бұрын

STRONG BUTT!

@ewanhamilton1012

2 ай бұрын

Don't forget the core!

@Omniseed

2 ай бұрын

@@ewanhamilton1012 two hand it if it helps, just make sure you don't let her go unaddressed, only undressed

@hraefn1821

2 ай бұрын

Also when creating a rapier fencer RPG character, give them a rock hard buttocks

@Freeze151

2 ай бұрын

Thick backs take racks Old derry hunting archery saying

In terms of build, Skal actually brought this up that knights were often portrayed to be rather slender, but they certainly weren't weak. I think there has been a lot of confusing strength for endurance, all around, however.

@Riceball01

2 ай бұрын

If you look at most special operations troops around the world, they're seldom built like Arnold or Stallone. These people tend to be built more like Chris Pratt as Starlord, very git looking, with great muscle tone but not bulging with muscles like a body builder.

@pppwtpyw9409

2 ай бұрын

​@@Riceball01to be fair only bodybuilders look like bodybuilders

@MisterCynic18

2 ай бұрын

​​@@Riceball01​ most muscle training is about building explosive strength because it makes your muscles big. But most jobs that require "strength" usually lean towards endurance, and that kind of training just doesn't make you all that big. Even the starlord look is more hypertrophy than what a soldier would need. A lot of practically strong people wouldn't even look very ripped by modern media standards, they just wouldn't look unfit. Strength and how muscles work is just complicated and the way we commonly understand it is kinda wrong, which is probably how we ended up in a place where dex vs str arguments are even a thing.

@The_Gallowglass

2 ай бұрын

It takes a lot of food and a lot of exercise to be a hulk. Something you don't want to deal with when on campaign is having to eat so much food in order to not only fight but live.

@benjaminodonnell258

2 ай бұрын

​@@Riceball01The counter example would be the ex-Navy Seal Jocko Willing, but he is an exception...

The real dexterity weapon in ancient times would be the David and Goliath style sling. You don't need to be very strong to use them well but you do need to be able to judge the release to hit the target.

@Blaisem

2 ай бұрын

Aiming a sling is a single motion, though. It's a skill that you train, like shooting a gun but somewhat more involved. The only attribute to increase its damage is strength to revolve it faster. Dexterity in all of fantasy has always been a nonsensical stat. It gets tied to bows or daggers, except both use strength. If you want to argue about precision of your blows/ranged attacks, or the finesse in your swings, these arguments all apply equally as much to wielding a 2 handed axe. This is what skill is. Your precision, accuracy, and finesse are just skill. And skill applies to literally everything, which is why it's not an attribute. Before the world of fantasy, dexterity just meant having nimble fingers and hand articulations. It's arguably an attribute for performers or artists. None of it's relevant to aiming a bow. Strength is worlds more important in combat.

@silverjohn6037

2 ай бұрын

I'm hardly a Baeleric skill level when it comes to slings but I've found there's next to no strength involved. It's about being loose and quick to get a good spin. A staff sling might be different as you can chuck some good sized rocks with those but shepherd style slung stones are rarely more than a couple of ounces. I'd also say you're underestimating the difficulty of aiming with a sling. Because you have to release when the arc of the sling is 2-3 feet to the side or below your point of aim you have to have a good eye for estimating the distance to the target and when to release so the stone flight path will intersect with your line or sight.

@liambrooks2330

2 ай бұрын

The sling and stone an acquired skill But as a weapon is very much better for the smaller weaker person than a useful hunting or war bow

@Kinetic.44

2 ай бұрын

You need to to be able to accelerate mass quickly, that had more to do with power than strength if you look at the definition of the words.

@Kinetic.44

2 ай бұрын

​@liambrooks2330 darts, javelins, and throwing spears are a lot easier to use accurately the weight behind a sharp point makes it much more effective on target without relying on such high velocity being generated by the user. Plumbata, Atlatl, things like this.

The point about kinds of strength is a really great one. I've done a lot of armored combat and an am amateur blacksmith, but never spent any time lifting in a gym until very recently. When I started the personal trainer was doing all sorts of test stuff, and her diagnosis was "You have a lot of really weird strength. In some ways you are about what I would expect from a 40 year old office worker, and then you just do other things like it is nothing." Bench presses in particular were weird for me.

@TheScathed

2 ай бұрын

If you don't mind my asking, would you remember what sort of excises weren't difficult for you? I'm curious which muscle groups you wound up strengthening from your hobbies. Also what do you normally wield during armored combat?

@erichammer5502

2 ай бұрын

@@TheScathed The exercises I was good at were sort of in the "pick up heavy thing and move it around". So squats, whether straight up or kind of moving left to right, leg press. Then triceps and forearms (especially in the sword and hammer hand) but less biceps, a different proportion than most people. My shoulders were pretty strong (although my left has issues with impingement) and I was good at doing standing rows, but pull ups are harder for me. The pectorals were a lot weaker, and the abs were so so. I suspect it tended to be odd because a lot of guys go to the gym and do bench presses and curls while skipping leg day, and probably not over and over again, whereas I was kind of doing the opposite, my legs being more used to moving around a lot with an extra 100 odd pounds of kit on top, and rarely needing to do a push up in armor. I usually fight with a gladius and scutum (strapped to my arm instead of center grip) or a pollax. Nothing too freaky, but definitely smithing works the hell out of the forearms. Or at least the right one... I sometimes try and switch hands so I don't start looking like I stole one of Popeye's limbs :D

@TheScathed

2 ай бұрын

@@erichammer5502 Thank you for answering. That's really interesting and just about matches my expectations. I was trying to figure out what kind of modern exercises would have lent themselves well to medieval combat and this gives me a pretty good idea.

@erichammer5502

2 ай бұрын

@@TheScathed Sure thing! I recall reading in Vegetius that the Romans trained with heavier kit (heavier swords and shields) to make the real thing easier. I wonder if that continued, since at least it would hit the right muscles.

@TheScathed

2 ай бұрын

@@erichammer5502 I vaguely remember reading about that, actually. Also doing drills while wearing armor to help build endurance. It's fascinating how fitness has evolved over the centuries.

Fighting always needs strength, in an armored duel I would say that you need more strength with a dagger than with a Zweihänder to kill another fighter in full plate armor. Mayby we should make a video about that. 😅

@zsDUGGZ

2 ай бұрын

Makes sense. The leverage, weight, and reach from using a zweihander means you don't have to rely as heavily on strength for good damage. When it comes to a dagger, you don't have much of any of the three so strength plays more of a factor there. Love your armored dueling videos btw, especially the one with the hussite flail.

@reybladen3068

2 ай бұрын

Makes sense, you also need to grapple when using a dagger against an armored opponent

I see High Elf Archer in Matt's thumbnail....so I MUST watch.

@andrewli6606

2 ай бұрын

High Elf Archer is goated. She is the best girl of Goblin Slayer.

@nevisysbryd7450

2 ай бұрын

@@andrewli6606 -High Elf Archer- Priestess is goated. She is the best girl of Goblin Slayer. FTFY.

@angryeliteultragree6329

2 ай бұрын

Flat is Justice, medium is premium, oppai is truth, but all men know that our wood rises no matter the size.

@As-tray

2 ай бұрын

@@nevisysbryd7450 I can agree with both statements

@VacuousCat

2 ай бұрын

Absolute territory ftw.

An impeccably cultured choice of thumbnail

One of my greatest gripes about D&D is how some close combat builds can dump strength and suffer no disadvantage.

@borjaslamic

2 ай бұрын

Well, yeah, as a hexblade warlock you can charm your sword into cutting your opponents jugular

@Itsjustavy

2 ай бұрын

agreed

@JustIn-mu3nl

2 ай бұрын

There was an old TTRPG called role master (not around any more), it used more than one stat quite often with skills, so str/agi, str/str/agi etc and took the average.

@purplelibraryguy8729

2 ай бұрын

Now in GURPS, damage is based on strength, but skill (which is quite influenced by dexterity) lets you do things like aim for vulnerable spots where you need less damage to cause your enemy problems, or use various ways of bypassing the opponent's defence. So they're both useful, and how useful they both are depends on context and opponent, and you get strength builds who just clobber the opponent and cleave them in half and dexterity builds that nail them in the eye.

@BrochTyr

2 ай бұрын

The Dark Eye has been the one system I like for medieval combat. A weapon skill uses 3 stats, and not all melee weapons use the same 3 stats. Finesse weapons may use dex, agl, str, and heavy weapon may use str, con, dex or str again.

I feel like the top ends of bows beat swords for strength being useful.

@TekWolfie

2 ай бұрын

Bow definitely uses more raw power. You don't need to train for a long time to use a sword without hurting yourself by pulling a muscle. A warbow used without proper training or even just because of not warming up can easily result in injuries to your back/arm muscles or your shoulder tendons.

@roofdogblues7400

2 ай бұрын

Gough's Greatbow requires 27 STR and 20 DEX in Dark Souls.

@Intranetusa

2 ай бұрын

You don't need top ends of bows to need more strength for it than swords. Even modern day heavier game-hunting bows of 50-60 lb draw weights need way more strength to draw than swinging around a sword. Historical warbows ranged from ~70s to around 200s lb draw weights. Historians like Jamers Chambers say the Mongols were using bows of around 100-160 lbs in draw weight. Ottoman warbows in the Topkapi museum have an average draw weight of 120lbs, and it is estimated Turkish bows often ranged from 90 to 160 lbs in draw weight. In East Asia, the Tang Dynasty (7th-10th cent. AD) archery exams involved using bows of at least 168 lbs for infantry archers and at least 93 lbs in draw weight for cavalry archers. The Song Dynasty (10th to 13th cent. AD) archery exams involved draw weights of 160lbs for infantry archers and 120lbs for cavalry archers to become first class archers. To become second class archers, they had to shoot bows of 148 lbs for infantry, and 104 lbs for cavalry. The Ruzhen Jin Dynasty in the early 13th century had a cavalry and infantry archery exam where the infantry archery required firing a bow of 67 kg (147.7 lbs). The Qing Dynasty had bows that were 80-170 lbs, and went up to the 200s lbs (240 lb was a standard weight for strength training, and a few of the strongest people actually used 200s lb bow in archery competitions). Over in Europe, English longbowmen likely used bows ranging from 80s to 200s lbs, with many of the bows found in the wreckage of the Mary Rose ship being estimated to be around 100-170 lbs.

@gorbalsboy

2 ай бұрын

The top ends give mechanical advantage

@Myomer104

2 ай бұрын

@@roofdogblues7400 And the Zweihänder needs 16/10, respectively.

As I understand it, remains of English longbowmen can be identified by skeletal adaptations to support the obscene draw weight involved. I've never heard the same about doppelsoldners. Re: Legolas, Tolkein's Elves are canonically stronger than Men. Certainly the Noldor, but I believe that applies to the Sylvan elves like Legolas as well. Regardless, Legolas isn't the only one using a bow! Aragorn and I believe even Boromir use bows at various points. Legolas *does* make some very iconic long shots, but I believe that's more due to his superior elven sight than anything.

@taistelusammakko5088

2 ай бұрын

Doppelsoldners didnt exclusively fight with zweihänders

@raics101

2 ай бұрын

Dunno about stronger, what I got from silmarilion was that humans were on par with elves on average in terms of muscle strength, but an elf would tire less easily and recover faster from injuries. Dwarves were mentioned to be the strongest warriors of all races at the time, and in lotr gimli says that a dwarf can carry twice their weight on the road, much more than a human could.

I think Blumineck is a great example of what “archer strength” looks like, combined with high body agility.

@Primalintent

2 ай бұрын

Well in general post-steroid bodybuilding has caused basically society-wide body dysmorphia and misunderstanding over what a strong person looks like. There were Ancient bodybuilders who were big too, but through almost all of history strong people looked like a variety of body types BECAUSE THAT'S HOW HUMAN ANATOMY WORKS. Cultivating strength is good and all, and big muscles will be stronger, but strong does not mean big, and big does not mean useful. For thousands of years a toned and slimmer physique or a heavier set but toned physique were the workhorses of warfare and manual labour, not bodybuilders. But yet people will look at a stunningly powerful gymnast and say "bro you're scrawny, you need mass". Everyone has become delusional once the bodybuilders.started juicing.

Some old Japanese teachers of swordmanship used to indicate that basic blade cut motions from above the head downwards (so called Kiri-otoshi) are quite similar to drawing a Japanese bow, which is to be raised and then lowered to the chin level while pulling back with the right hand and pushing front with the left one

One thing in this regard that I like in 3.5 edition D&D is that you have standard bows which require dexterity to hit but a negative to your strength would negatively affect the damage you dealt with them; There were also composite bows which allowed you to add your strength to the damage, though they still required dexterity to hit.

@Itsjustavy

2 ай бұрын

Dexterity to his and strength to damage makes sense.

Thank you, finally, i get so peeved when people think bows are all about dexterity. I have a 50lb Long bow and after a day of practice i get my back all sore.

When I was a kid, a cousin of mine told me that the movie trope of an army commander holding out their sword for minutes before finally giving the command to attack was unrealistic, because after a short time your arm would tire out. He proceeded to hand me a saber and told me to hold it out to prove his point, but after a while he conceded that apparently it wasn't as hard as he thought. That was the day I learned some valuable lessons. 1. Try stuff for yourself - sometimes, people really don't know what they're talking about. 2. Strength and endurance are worth training, if just to impress your peers with random actions. 3. My cousin was pretty weak and couldn't hold his own saber for more than half a minute, although he was a good bit older than me.

Some italian masters actually recommend the spadone not only for self defense but also strenght and agility training. Alfieri for example, reasons being that the spadone makes the arms and body strong and nimble. Quite a few Schlachtschwerter(greatswords) tend to be on average 3.5 kg and heavier up to 6kg in rare cases. Imo they far surpass most polearms in this regard. But overall agree its like with strongmen vs bodybuilders, both have different goals.

@A_Medieval_Shadow

2 ай бұрын

Hello again😁 I would say everything beyond 4kg is a bearing sword but overall: yes

@superrobotmonkeyhyperteamf3194

2 ай бұрын

@@A_Medieval_Shadow Hi so we meet again xd Somewhat agree depending on the time period but there some that show battle damage are very curdely made but balanced and according to armouries were bought for war. I assume they were just the cheapest ones that are enough for defending a wall or something. And they are rare like 3 out of 200 or something iirc.

I think the idea is something like once you reach a certain level of proficiency and fitness with blade, ie you don't fatigue too quickly and you are well practiced with your sword, while extra strength is always good (the stronger person will always have an advantage in hand to hand, especially when armour is involved), but it only takes so much pressure for a sharp edge (or point) to pierce soft flesh. So that "excess" strength is less of a factor than it is with bows, where it directly translates how much power you can project over distance (heavier bows can deliver a heavier arrow to a greater range for more kinetic energy imparted to the target). Or something. I don't know how true that winds up being in practice, but I can see how that'd make intuitive sense to people.

I think the trope of the slim archers came from Tolkien, it was based on the idea that elves were skinny, not Tolkien's idea but his fans. Later on in the 70s and 80s dungeons and dragons ran with it and crystallised the cliche. The first time I can across the idea that archers needed to be strong was in The Dragon and the George, a great fantasy story by Gordon R Dickson, a 1992 update of a story written in 1976. The Archer in his fantasy story was very muscular but twisted from over development in certain areas. That was ahead of its time in fantasy fiction.

Omg his face on the thumbnail lol 😊😊😊😊😊

Sword: more toward quickness, coordination and endurance ( lower str req for effective use, one handers req more endurance) Bow: more strength and endurance ( higher str req for effective use, end req for longer holding and more shots) Verdict: level vigor..or you get vigor checked.

So what you are saying is...Quality Build Best Build!

@megalonoobiacinc4863

2 ай бұрын

well this is the truth for the zweihander too isn't it? Its a few years since i played but isn't its STR req. the same as its DEX ?

I did a bit of sidesword versus longsword this past weekend and after about 7 minutes of fighting I was definitely wayyy more tired than my opponent lol Trying to keep up with the speed that my opponent's longsword changed direction with murdered my shoulder

As someone who does bodybuilding and is quite big myself (over 105kg), big muscles aren't a huge advantage when fighting with weapons. Big muscles need a lot of oxygen. The balance between endurance and strength is crucial. I think once wrestling becomes a part of combat (armor) strength becomes more important

@PalleRasmussen

2 ай бұрын

When I was a carpenter, and we still did most things by hand, I often experienced big, pumped guys not being able to work as hard and carry as much (especially up ladders or on a roof) as me. And as you can see on my picture, I am far from being buff (20 years also does not help). They could of course bench much more than I,so. I am not sure you are correct about fighting in armour though, from the military, I know that the big guys cannot endure the hard PT, running, etc in full gear. You guys can lift stuff, drag stuff, tat sort of thing, skinny guys like me can run and endure. To each their own.

@Wodan85

2 ай бұрын

@@PalleRasmussen Yes, even in the military (I was a soldier for over 10 years), strength is useless without endurance. But you have to be strong enough to lift 60kg. I also did judo for a long time, fought against many people who were technically much better fighters, but were so much weaker than me that I always won relatively easily. I also worked as an electrician and I agree with you there too. In real life, it is better to be able to lift 50 kg 100 times than to be able to lift 200 kg once

@PalleRasmussen

2 ай бұрын

@@Wodan85 I would say the closest to an ideal body that can do everything is a gymnast or swimmer, or perhaps boxer/kickboxer.

@Wodan85

2 ай бұрын

@@PalleRasmussen ideal for what? These are all extremely specialized top athletes. A gymnast and a boxer often have rather weak legs. As good all-rounders, maybe rugby players or Olympic wrestlers or climbers.

@johnflais3776

2 ай бұрын

As a competitive wrestler: wrestling is an interesting point to bring into the discussion, especially since armed fighting between ca. 1300 and ca. 1600 (or all sources after I:33 up to and including Meyer) are to a large degree based on wrestling with a weapon. Now, I have had many discussions with various people (mostly non-wrestlers including HEMAists and BJJ players who have at least in some cases have faced some wrestlers in competition) regarding the strength requirements of wrestling. I always argue that the answer is relatively complex. First and foremost, wrestlers tend to be very good in terms of general athleticism, meaning they are typically stronger, faster, more enduring and more coordinated than average, and these are factors in the selection process, which is less pronounced in some sports that have a larger recreational audience (such as HEMA or also BJJ in general). BUT they are usually far off from what a specialist in any of these disciplines can do, and these qualities are not uniformly found across weightclasses, apart from being somewhat tricky to measure and compare. For example, from the top of my head I don't know a single wrestler who could compete with a 50 kg female weightlifter in the snatch or the C&J (and most guys I've trained with are national or international level), and if we look at powerlifting, you may find some people in the lower weightclasses who can move weights which would rank them somewhere in the national top 20 in a single lift, but rarely across the board, and seeing something like that at heavyweight is a total oddity. So neither powerlifting nor Olympic lifting are ideal tests for wrestling strength, which is measured in one's ability to move and manipulate an opponent's body. Where wrestlers are usually hard to beat though are the medium to high reps, e.g. 20-40 reps in the squat, pull-up etc. Some national teams have set strength endurance standards like requiring you to do 40 full squats with a partner of your own weight class on your shoulders, while not caring at all how much or how little you can squat for 1RM. So we could say that high strength endurance and high work capacity are most prized in wrestling, also for another reason: in order to become a good technician, you have to drill with a partner - A LOT. Meaning, the idea is that you have to move a person of your own weight for up to 3 hours straight in training, and you can't do that without good strength endurance and good work capacity. On the other hand, not all wrestlers have the genetics and bone structure to be heavyweights or light-heavyweights, the latter probably being the most advantageous weight category for armed fighting (almost as strong as a real heavy, but quicker and with more endurance). We have to look elsewhere for potential comparisons here, like Kushti, Sumo or Bökh (none of which have weight classes), some of which are remarkably close to the rulesets we have in medieval wrestling competitions. Depending on the ruleset, we see a larger focus on endurance (Kushti) or speed (Sumo). However, the one thing they still have in common is a huge volume in training, even in Sumo (where the un-initiated might expect a training program closer to American football). So the ability to tolerate that is one of the biggest factors in the selection process in all wrestling styles. We can also generally see that the heavier the competitors get, the more the technique arsenal gets limited, because as a rule, superheavyweights have less relative strength (strength in relation to their own bodyweight) than lightweights, and they are usually significantly slower - but then again, they produce more momentum than a lightweight or middleweight can handle straight on. Long story short: strength IS a factor in wrestling, and so is body mass, but also speed, endurance, technique etc. I would say that if your opponent is skilled to any degree, you don't want him to outclass you significantly in any of these categories, UNLESS you also clearly outclass everyone in at least one of them. For example, it doesn't matter if you squat 400 lbs and I squat 350, but it will likely matter if I can only squat 200. If you are reasonably close, you stand a good chance to play your strengths (whichever they are) to your advantage.

Well in Souls terms the zweihander is more so a “quality” weapon or DEX/STR so he nailed it there. A very heavy pull bow in Souls terms the closest comparison is the great bows which require both again!

One thing to keep in mind is that all historical military archers of decent quality would also be able to fight up close with swords, staff weapons, daggers, & so on. English archers had such success in part because they readily resorted to hand strokes. Across much of Eurasia, elite cavalry wore extensive armor, shot powerful bows, used light lances, wielded swords, & sometimes also employed impact weapons likes maces. So, while some historical soldiers didn't use bows & might be unable to draw warbows for lack of training, any good military archer would have at least some experience fighting with swords & other close weapons.

Haha I'm in that group and I saw that post!

Great discussion. Thank you.

One of the numerous factors of combat that fiction rarely addresses is conditioning and cardio.

Mat is a man of culture he chose high elf archer from goblin slayer as the archer for the thumbnail

TLDR, both require strength but each uses different muscle groups and require different styles of stamina

4:20 I'm going to stop you there Matt. Tolkien was aware of the trope, and against it. He described Legolas as..."He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl,..."

It's the same as something such as biking, I've been mountain biking for over 8 years, and I'm very strong when it comes to moving a bike, however I can barely run 2 miles, its different muscle groups, I specialize my strength, and it doesn't mean I'm magically good or strong at anything that requires legs.

As a person who has trained with greatswords AND practiced traditional archery and bow hunting for years, I can say decisively and conclusively: they both require a ton of strength and dexterity, but it's entirely different muscle groups and complex/compound movements. Effectively using a greatsword also requires tremendous agility/dexterity, and - because archery general involves pausing between shots, while greatsword sparring/combat often involves near-perpetual motion - greatsword fencing also requires ludicrous levels of muscular and cardio endurance. Really, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Which requires more strength, a 150-pound person bench pressing 300 pounds, or a 150-pound person deadlifting 300 pounds? They both require strength, just different kinds of strength. Same applies to greatsword and bows. I know Matt essentially echoes these sentiments in the video, but thought I'd chime in anyway because I love and regularly train with both these weapons. Anyway, cheers!

@ClintInDaHouse

2 ай бұрын

Point taken. But I am more impressed with a 150 pound guy doing 300 raw pound presses than 300 pound deadlifts raw.

This weird old game idea of bows being for weaklings that can somehow also kill a knight via pulling their own bodyweight vs musclebound swordsmen somehow needing huge power to use pretty lightweight quick fencing weapons needs to be ground down and dealt with. Being quick wont help you pull a bigger bow if youre not strong, being strong wont help you swing a sword if you're not coordinated

@zenhydra

2 ай бұрын

I blame Tolkien. The elves of Mirkwood favor bows, and they certainly aren't described as broad-backed men from Brussels.

@Rynewulf

2 ай бұрын

@@zenhydra I have such got to the bit of Silmarillion where the Noldor elves killed their sailor allies, who were described with knives and bows compared to Noldor armoured swordsmen. You might be right

You can learn a great deal about how strength and endurance affects fighting ability by watching MMA. Some guys can wrestle for half an hour and not get tired but if they can't get a takedown and are forced to punch and kick for 3-5 rounds they get tired really fast and vice versa with guys who primarily strike and are forced to grapple for 3-5 rounds. Personal biology matters a great deal, as does style/weapon choice and what your opponent does. You see some guys who are massive but punch with pillow fists and some guys who are lean and hit like they're trying to punch a hole in a battleship. Some guys can ragdoll another man but can't hit hard, some guys hit really hard but couldn't pick a resiting opponent up to save their life.

@ClintInDaHouse

2 ай бұрын

100%

Skeletons of medieval war archers show asymmetrical development of the upper body due to the high draw weights.

It's almost like you can't boil down "strength" to a single number. Is the guy that trains only his upper body and neglects leg day strong? If asked to do a bench press, probably, but if asked to do squats, probably not.

This makes so much sense. Funny that in Chivalry 2 the archers can be quite slim figured but they can also just wield a big Zweihander picked off the battlefield. Must have really strong muscles everywhere haha.

Never expected to see my waifu, Yousei Yunde, on one of Matt's thumbnails. I suppose stranger things happen.

Mount and blade warband handled dexterity (agility) and strength pretty well. Both improved how you handled the weapon. You needed a minimum strength for both the bow and sword, but improved agility improved how you used both. Improved strength increased damage on the sword, and helped with bow damage to a limit (3 power draw above requirement). Improved agility with a bow helped your accuracy, and with a weapon helped your attack speed (and weapon handling through the skill weapon mastery).

Finally some publicity to this! On the topic of different kinds of strength, there's a certain 'big posture' brit that has been doing side quests ever since he retired from Worlds Strongest Man. Get Eddie Hall to spar you in Armor, and endurance shooting 'first one to tap out' vs Joe on a say, 120lbs bow. And also on the Bow vs Crossbow, you can perfectly see that in the 'speed' shooting side-by-side of Joe vs Tod, a strong yet relatively small Crossbowman vs a very specific backmuscle hulk that is Joe.

Like many fantasy tropes, this one originates in DnD but it had a justification when it was introduced because all ranged attacks used Dex except for very specific weapons and this stat also is responsible for overall hand to eye coordination. It just stuck. It doesn't go back to Tolkien because his elves were magical beings superior to humans in every aspect. Presumably stronger as well.

That's part of why Pathfinder is still first in my heart. There's different mechanics for bonus damage, anyone can shoot the short bow or long bow but it does flat 1dice damage. To get bonus damage on each arrow there's a strength requirement on the so-called composite bows. If you think of them as simple self backed bows rather than the laminated English longbow or a mongul recurve bow it kind of sets the two apart into a more typical civilian or hunting bow from a full power warbow designed to go up against armor.

I feel like a zweihander really calls for more of a Quality build, but any bow worth shooting at someone is definitely in the unga-bunga territory.

What you are referring to here, in gaming terms is more indicative of stamina or constitution and strength as two separate stats. Also, back in the day, in AD&D, we had such things as minimum requirements for weapon and armor use, and the most powerful composite bows had STR requirement of 18, which is max that a normal character can get without special training or magic. So, purely from game mechanics, the best approach in simulation would be to bound the 2H Sword to both STR and CON (strength and constitution), as in having a min requirement of STR (insert some arbitrary value here) to properly use, and then scale the damage you do with it with your CON, following the logic of more stamina means longer chaining of attacks and fancier "combos". On the other hand, powerful bows should also have a min requirement of STR (again some value here) but the damage scaling (not base damage) should be DEX (dexterity) based as to reflect more accurate shots. So say, a basic common bow has min STR requirement of 8, long bow of 14 and war bow of 18, and their base damage would be 1d4, 1d6 and 1d8 accordingly, however they would each scale by +1 for each 2 points of DEX above 10. I am throwing numbers here for purely academic purposes, it's up for each developer of a gaming system to come up with internally consistent numbers.

@scholagladiatoria your comment about drawing a long bow was interesting, I found it hard to draw a 110lb Longbow, however I found I could draw 55kg (122lb-ish )Yumi. I was reminded of a poem in the Kyudo manual 射法訓 (Shahō-Kun) , the first line "The way is not with the bow, but with the bone, which is of the greatest importance in shooting." I found that I was holding most of the weight of the heavy Yumi on my bone allowing my muscle to draw a heavy bow. Given this to draw a heavy bow you need strong bones. Also technic is more important than strength, However Strength and stamina also you to hit hard and for longer.

I went to the visit Sizergh National Trust property in Kendall at the weekend and there was a zweihander hanging on the wall. The accompanying card said it was made in the 1500s and was a copy of another sword from 1350. It had a plain solid wooden cylindrical grip that looked a bit out of place. It was hard to examine as it was high up. I don't remember seeing a fuller. I wish I'd taken a picture but it was a bit gloomy and I only had my phone.

In D&D 3.5e they actually have separate rules for high draw weight bows. If your character has high strength you can get an upgraded bow keyed to your strength score, which will do bonus damage at the cost of attack penalties if your strength gets lowered. They're not very realistic on the costs unfortunately (the bow itself and each individual damage increase costs more than a packhorse), but that's a game balancing artifact.

I think the in-game reason bows should scale with Dex is that the damage done by an arrow is dictated by shot placement, which is a rough analog for Dex If you meet the strength requirement, you can draw the bow, but you won’t do more damage because you’re stronger. Arguably, you can shoot faster follow up shots if you are both stronger and more dexterous, so the fire rate should scale with both stats

Thanks for the call out to AD&D. :-)

There are clearly some advantages to certain attributes that you can't increase, namely height and build (breadth of shoulders, chest, and back).

We see different types of strength for different applications with modern athletes playing different sports.

Hey Matt! The video was insightful, as usual. I have a question unrelated to the content of the video, though. First, some context: A while back I was having a discussion about the effectiveness of medieval weapons with an acquaintance, and I got to talking about how the pollaxe is the premier weapon to fight with in plate armor and against plate armor. He said that he believed a bec de corbin would be the more effective weapon. I explained that bec de corbin wasn’t an in period term and that what we think of as a crow’s beak today is just one of the variations of a pollaxe. Then he said something I hadn’t really considered before: isn’t bec de corbin a more useful designation for the weapon because it’s more specific? It refers to a very distinct and specific set of weapon features, does that not make it a separate weapon? My questions are these: Is there any value in considering a bec de corbin as a separate weapon to the pollaxe? Despite being an out-of-period designation, does the value of the added specificity of the term outweigh the need to consider it underneath the umbrella of pollaxes? And lastly, is there any value in NOT considering them to be different weapons? If anyone reads all of this, thanks for your time 😂

Yeah, this is why "to hit" and damage bonuses were separated in the older editions of D&D and only really showed up for extraordinarily high attribute scores or expertise/specialization in a weapon (you could only train and be proficient in a limited number based on level, but fighters were better at using unfamiliar weapon types and could choose to train in fewer types in order to get bonuses). I don't think dexterity even gave any sort of damage bonus, and I'm pretty sure that strength only gave a "to-hit" bonus when you could crush armor like Hercules, but I'd have to check to be certain. Also, AD&D had a rate of fire score for different missile weapon types, so that your archers could crank off 3 shots a round and the crossbowmen would take a couple rounds dealing with their windlass. The only thing that Gygax really screwed up as far as weapon history was getting all the weapons' weights wrong. (And *possibly* the longsword/shortsword debacle where he was referring to relative blade length of different one-handed swords and a "bastard sword" in that game would be a lot closer to what HEMA calls a longsword.)

This is why I like the approach some of the newer DnD editions/rules and plenty of video games take, where Strength is important for melee weapons and bows alike, but you also need skill or proficiency with the weapon/weapon class as well (As a DnD example, Longbows are considered Martial Weapons meaning only some classes are proficient with them, so just having a strong character doesn't mean you can by default use them effectively; ditto with long and/or greatswords. Of course, this also means that having proficiency with Martial Weapons gives you access to *all* of them, which "undoes" this to a degree).

@Sibula

2 ай бұрын

By "newer editions" which of the older ones do you mean? Because in 5e any dex build will want to dump str as it's quite useless, and from what I can find strength is also practically useless for 4e archers, although I haven't played that edition.

@MacCoalieCoalson

2 ай бұрын

@@Sibula Don't most martial weapons use STR for hit and damage chances? I don't have a ton of experience with DnD so I could be wrong, but I thought this was the case (outside of a few cases such as finesse weapons)

@Sibula

2 ай бұрын

@@MacCoalieCoalson Only melee weapons. Ranged weapons use dexterity, and with finesse weapons you can choose. None of the weapons benefit from having both. Same with armor, basically. With heavy armor you don't benefit from dex, and with light armor you don't benefit from str. There's also medium armor, which benefits from dex up to 14 and doesn't benefit from strength, but that's mainly for barbarians (can't use heavy armor) and some caster builds. So you either pick dex and completely dump str as it's a rare save, only has one quite niche skill (athletics), and apart from that only affects carrying capacity, or you pick strength and probably dump dex, maybe keeping a 10 or something so you don't completely tank your initiative, dex save, and the skills related to it like stealth (although with heavy armor you'll have disadvantage on stealth anyway).

@MacCoalieCoalson

2 ай бұрын

@@Sibula Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying.

AD&D! Woo-Hoo! :) As someone who enjoys dabbling with game mechanics and has done a fair bit of armored combat, this sword/strength vs bow/dexterity thing has always bugged the crap out of me.

Basically what he's saying is that you should definitely multi class.

Some ttrpg provide skills instead of ability scores to determine how much competent you are in swordmanship such as "Cold weapon use" or/and "coordination"

house rule that ive used for decades, the to hit bonux for dexterity adds to strength to hit bonus, so you can use both added, or in some cases whichever is highest

Amusingly given the context of the video, arguably the main Zweihander build for Dark Souls PvP (certainly the most well-known build at least) hit the minimum strength requirement for the weapon and then focussed on endurance and health - the sword itself did enough damage without massive strength backing it up, the limiting factor was stamina. Looking to previous editions of D&D: In 3.5e at least (and Pathfinder by extension, which is where my knowledge of this comes from), bows dealt flat damage regardless of the wielder's stats. Dexterity solely determined the character's ability to hit with a bow, not the damage it dealt. Higher damage came from composite bows, which had a strength requirement. All of this makes sense, a bow's damage-dealing is purely mechanical, assuming the wielder is strong enough to operate it their physical traits have no bearing on its function - an arrow from a 90lb. bow will be the same no matter if you can draw 100lbs.or 1,000lbs., but if you can only draw 70lbs. it's not going to function at all.

Great to point out the compound recurve bows were as powerful as longbow can be, they were high tech weapons.

In my game: STR(resisted force and endurance)= so, PULLING = pulling bow string = character weight = so heavy impaling thrusts and lunges. DEX(hand precision) = edge alignment = cut damage bonus = any trigger weapon like guns and xbows and cutting weapons that require edge alignment. AGI(produced force and speed) = general swings and thrusts

always interesting and always educational

Just an idea for a future video: which combination of weapon/source would be a good fit for e.g. a very slim, small person? Or a very big one?

Well said! In my biased opinion archer strength is best Strength….but like I said…overtly biased 😂

@Parzival516

2 ай бұрын

Was thinking of your videos while watching this Dash!

@dashrendar5320

2 ай бұрын

@@Parzival516haha that’s awesome

@scholagladiatoria

2 ай бұрын

Hey man, nice to see you here!

@dashrendar5320

2 ай бұрын

Of course! It always makes my day, when one of your new videos comes out! I love your tempered, thoughtful and knowledgeable discussions

So basically you're saying in Darksouls Terminology, those weapons scale with both dex and str, so you need a quality build to get the best results (being both dexterous and strong)

@taistelusammakko5088

2 ай бұрын

As is with everything really

Just a thought on different strengths with different sports. In college I got into a challenge with a weight lifter on how many one armed push ups we could do. Surprisingly I more then doubled his total.

I just got a greatsword and I have to say- that thing threatens to pull my arm out of its socket if I’m not careful. greatswords require a lot more conditioning to wield than longswords, which even the most unathletic person could handle (relatively speaking). one-handed swords are similarly usable but without the other hand to provide structure it gets tiring faster.

One surprising thing you notice when you start shooting heavier bows, 60 # and up, is how much the shoulder and triceps of your bow arm have to work to keep the bow stable and out in front of you. Historical military archers would have one *hell* of a left punch 😄

I'd blame fantasy and hollywood for archers being weak in the modern perspective. In hollywood movies they often give women bows to have them participate in the battle without being in direct harms way. In modern fantasy Elves are quite skinny while being the archer people.

They both require strength, they both require finesse and technique. They both require different strength and different finesse. There is no upper bound on either. There may be a higher MINIMUM strength to "use" a war bow, but as for a "good" user of either, they're both going to be strong and have finesse. This is a silly argument, but I'm glad you chose to cover it anyway.

Forget steal swords that supposed to be "DEX only build". I am skinny nerd that sometimes does some exercises, but not fit by any stretch of imagination. And when I piked up 0.5 kg bokken it was quite a revelation (thou point of balance is relatively far from the grip). I tried to swing it with some semblance of form and control for a few minutes. I was not out of breath, but definitely with heavier breath and muscles have started to feel sore. With light 1 and some change pound stick! I have no idea how much work one need to put in to get comfortable with training weapons or real weapons. But for me it became obvious that there is real need to put in some work into getting more fit and more used to the weapon.

Don't forget to work your back muscles - especially the upper back, like your upper traps, rear delts and rotator cuff muscles. I believe these are just as necessary for holding a heavy thing out in front of you as forearm and front delt strength are.

The films maintain the idea that great swords are heavy because this allows for more interesting sequences, where the action is more dramatic, more readable, and the heroes better highlighted. It is only "recently" that we have seen the development of the fashion for nervous and rapid fights on screen. In the meantime, games used this misconception for gameplay and character development reasons So in the collective unconscious, battles are slow, and therefore weapons must be heavy.

Finally someone addresses this question! I would like add that using bow (when it comes to personal combat, at least) requires far more precision than using a great sword, so it makes sense to say bows are primarily ‘dex’ weapon despite that some bows also require a lot of strength to use. And the strength required for heavy bow is not really the same strength you need for melee, so ‘some archers are very strong physically’ doesn’t really mean that ‘archers are great melee fighters too’. I think many people today go too far when trying correct old myths and then create a new set of myths altogether.

@ClintInDaHouse

2 ай бұрын

Yeah but no. With a bow, you draw it back. That is one simple movement. With a great sword, man that is back cuts, thrusts, deflects, swings, etc etc etc, that is a LOT more dex, no?

@lunacorvus3585

2 ай бұрын

@@ClintInDaHouse Great sword definitely benefits from dexterity (like any hand weapon really) but I would say doing archery with precision is harder than hitting people with a great sword. The former is a big professional sport in self and the latter is just something any reasonably health adult man can do. The hard part in sword fighting is not hitting your opponent but bypassing your opponent’s defense, which yes dexterity helps too.

Dexterity for the bow is not only for drawing the string, it is also for pulling an arrow from the quiver and stringing the arrow. So to use a bow quickly and efficiently requires more dexterity of the hand than using a sword(Unless you're a performer who is tossing and flipping your sword about in flashy ways), but I do agree that strength is also very important. And fyi Dark Souls requires both STR and DEX for most of these weapons, most bows require more DEX(5 need more) than STR(1 needs more) and most swords require more STR(26 need more) than DEX(15 need more).

I'm inclined to go with the traditional str for melee and dex for ranged. A fighter that lacks finesse can still fight at the highest competitive levels by improving their strength and applying it to grappling or simply overpowering their opponent's defense. Similarly, an archer that lacks strength can still excel through excellent shot placement. Even a low poundage bow can kill a person if the arrow is aimed well. An arrow that misses can't kill anyone no matter how powerful. Strength and dexterity are both useful no matter what physical activity you do. It's more about which gives you the most benefits and which disadvantage your more with its absence.

I think people overthink the game stats when in reality they're set up for game balance purposes. Ideally both DEX and STR would determine your effectiveness with swords and bows, but that'd mean spellcasters, who tend to only use one stat to cast spells, would become more powerful by comparison, and spellcasters are already overpowered enough in most games.

One thing that wasn't mentioned was that it's great to have bulk as a melee fighter, you're harder to throw off balance, either by the opponent or by swinging own weapon, and you have a big advantage in wrestling. A bowman on the other hand doesn't need bulk at all, as long as they have enough strength to draw a bow one could stay pretty slender.

@konstantin3374

2 ай бұрын

Being bulky melee figher when weapons and armor are involved has disadvantages. First you have a lot of extra mass for your heart and lungs to support and then you have even more mass because your armor has to be bigger to fit. Next thing is heat management, we all have about the same comfortable body temperature, but bigger person with more muscle mass will produce more heat and cool slower than someone thin. With armor (just a gambeson is enough for effect) you have almost no heat dissipation, sweating as main human evolutionary cooling feature doesn't work anymore. So such person would probably run out of steam way faster than trained fighter of average proportions.

My HEMA experience made me realize I'd need to be at least as strong as a competitive, Olympic wrestler.

I feel like games will just try and simplify things as much as possible, regardless of which attack stat is used. Would be interesting if they simulated where both were required, where dexterity determines your chance to hit, then strength will determine your stamina and damage potential.

HEH this was on facebook TODAY, how fast can you pump these out?

Matt: “I attack the goblin with my sword.” DM: “Roll d20 + your Strength modifier.” Matt: “Is that my zweihander Str, my rapier Str, my longsword Str, my sabre Str, my katana Str, my falchion Str, my broadsword Str, my scimitar Str, my dao Str, my épée Str, my gladius Str, my bastard sword Str, my urumi Str, my flamberge Str, my khopesh Str, my claymore Str, my cutlass Str, my jian Str, or my kopis Str?” DM: “Just roll the f**king die, Matt.” Nice video (as ever) - thnx 😊

@Itsjustavy

2 ай бұрын

This is how Matt gets kicked out of his D&D group 😏

This is why I think Pathfinder 2nd Edition has handled the debate well: Dexterity is necessary to land shots with a bow, but the damage of a good composite bow will scale off of your Strength. And unless you're wearing heavy armor like plate, a strong swordsman will need Dexterity to have decent defenses, as it applies to their armor class. Being able to parry and dodge is important with a 2-handed weapon, since you don't have a shield. Pathfinder also tries to balance dexterity-based builds by having none of them gain damage from higher dex. You only gain accuracy with finesse weapons. You still need strength after the hit lands to really follow through and hurt something, so even someone with a rapier should probably have good strength. And unless you're a thief rogue, who can use their dex modifiers for damage calculations, or rogues in general who get bonus damage with such weapons under the right conditions (sneak attack, or precision damage), even a dagger requires strength to really hurt someone with it.

I think a big part of the misconception comes from the visual language creators use when designing a fantasy character and giving them a weapon. Bows demand patience and precision, so a writer giving a character a bow often signals to the audience that this person is both of those things, traits we certainly don't associate with big beefy warriors.

I think to me a better question is: "For a given bow or sword, does being 'stronger' matter more for one or the other past a certain point?" Because obviously both require at least some amount of strength in a general sense, but I would wager that without changing which exact weapon is in use, a given sword can benefit somewhat more (even if marginally benefitting at all) than a given bow would.

Wasn't there discoveries of ancient longbowmen skeletons that showed signs of deformation?

I'm a big, strong guy with huge shoulders. I've used a greatsword in armor before. I have also tried to draw a war bow. I say "tried," because I was not strong enough to pull it.

I've always felt that, in games, strength should be about damage, dexterity should be about precision (with melee weapon) and speed (with bow). Some overlap with those. Dex should be about attack speed, crit, accuracy. If a game has things like "glancing blows", dex is for that. Because if we reworked games to be more like that, people might get a more accurate view of what these weapons are like. A pickpocket vs a blacksmith with a bow, the blacksmith has an enormous advantage, and video games (and PnP) have taught people the exact opposite. And the same is true of a spear, a mace unless it is one of those crazy Chinese two-handed mauls essentially, and the Japanese versions they adopted. Those would require a lot more strength than most weapons. But most melee weapons, you get muscles to a point where you don't tire quickly, and from that point on it becomes about technique and craft, precision and fluidity vs rigidity. Games have done people a great disservice in understanding weapons. And war. And physics. And history. And so much else.

In Elden Ring, the Zweihander has the lowest strength requirement of all the colossal swords, at 19. While more than the normal bows, it's less than all the great bows, which range from 20 to 24.

I would argue that kind of "fencing strength" is what most RPGs mean by agility or dexterity. You might not be able to bend bars and lift gates, but you can leap and lunge with the best.

I was getting a bit worried seeing how close the cross gard was coming to your head wile you swinging the great sword

I would be more of a danger to injure someone with a greatsword compared to a high poundage bow. With no strength or training. Still not much of a danger ofc.

I always thought of bows in diffrent types. Like a small bow is less strength intensive than a long bow.

@vaenii5056

2 ай бұрын

It depends on the draw weight. If anything smaller bows have less leverage than taller bows.

@NikozBG

2 ай бұрын

No true though, some short recurve bows are way over 100 ponds still.

One of your very best videos. I played AD&D in the days, and the definition of strength was how much weight one could lift over one's head. A ridiculous definition, since olympic weightlifting does require strength but firstly is a thing of technique. A very strong powerlifter won't necessarily do good at olympic lifting, while every weightlifter also can lift some heavy weights, although not as much as a powerlifter. We're all distracted by all those movies ans comics, where there are massive fighters/monsters wielding absurd weapons... in reality, endurance strength is what is paramount for fighting. Of course, if that massive axe or whatever would hit, you'd be dead on the spot... but practically, it wouldn't. Because it's much too slow and the experienced fighter avoids it and hits the super-heavy opponent deadly three times before or after. Yes, and on the bow side, people have these slender elves like Legolas in mind, but their bows didn't hav that much draw weight. English longbowmen had to be really strong... Very good work, Matt!

@ClintInDaHouse

2 ай бұрын

Power VS Strength.

I'm a pretty strong guy used to play Rugby and did mma worked as a logger, heaviest bow i've ever used for hunting moose is a 200lbs recurve bows though i don't use it very much i find it quite taxing to use often main draw weight is a 80lbs bow, but i will say my strength is better applied with a large sword or polleaxe simply do to being better suited to swinging or crashing into things

Honestly, I think part of the problem with "strength versus dexterity" is that people perceive strength and dexterity as different things. In reality, "strength" and "dexterity" are best viewed as different kinds of physical conditioning to build particular types of muscles.

Matt, I studied those diagrams. Can you confirm if the length of the ween is important in rapier duelling?

I've always been disappointed that the sling has never caught on more as a weapon for halflings. Right in the beginning of Fellowship (possibly in Concerning Hobbits, my memory is fuzzy) it's flat out stated that Hobbits are stone throwers of unusual skill. Give them some slings or a fustibalus, and they could be the Balearic Slingers of Fantasyland.

One movie to get the draw weight of a war bow correct is actually "The Scorpion King." When the Rock's character is captured, one of the thugs jokingly picks up his bow and tries to draw it and literally can't because it's WAY too fricken powerful of a bow. The other thugs laugh at him.