41 KiB
What would the optimal weapon look like in a world with different physical limits?
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Author: u/None *
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Score: 29
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Created: 2018-09-27T23:41:16
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u/best_cat [+47] (34 minutes later)
If we're fencing, my goal is to either react a little faster than you, or move my sword so I get better leverage.
If you scale all of our abilities up evenly, the fight doesn't change much, it just plays out a bit quicker. If we were evenly matched before, we're still evenly matched. We're just pressing twice as hard.
But, things change when you scale one ability more than another. UFC fights are a good example. Putting on a lot of muscle will make you punch harder. But it doesn't make your skull any thicker. The result is that ultra-heavy-weight fights tend to be over in just a couple exchanges. There's not a lot of grappling. Instead, the first guy to get a clean hit wins. The light guys can go a lot longer, and tend to have prolonged exchanges where they each get punched tens of times.
Following that example, if I'm ultra-strong, I'd probably go for a spear. My logic is that the first guy to land a blow -- even a glancing blow -- will damage their opponent. So, I'd want range.
u/narfanator [+23] (39 minutes later)
This tended to be the case with WH40k. Because of the ability to hit at range, and the gameplay mechanic where one side got to swing first, as you scaled up the size of the battle it became that much more important to hit first. If I wasn't going to the be the one to hit first, I'd go to great lengths to make sure I couldn't be hit at all.
u/Law_Student [+9] (3 hours later)
Someone who's ultra strong in a fantasy setting could also wear much heavier/thicker armor for protection, and so other ultra-strong people might take to carrying around much heavier weapons for piercing armor in turn.
u/Flashbunny [+3] (21 hours later)
If they aren't proportionally more durable, then blunt force trauma will still have a major impact.
u/Law_Student [+2] (a day later)
To some extent, yes, although good armor can spread the impact out over much of the body, which helps.
u/Kaiern9 [+6] (37 minutes later)
But, things change when you scale one ability more than another
Yeah, this is also important. If durability somehow scales at about the same level as strength, speed and other offensive statistics, it probably wouldn't change as much as a more unbalanced growth would.
I agree with the strength-> range point, but what about speed? Or speed of reaction?
u/wren42 [+17] (4 hours later)
You really need some specific parameters for the abilities re strength, speed, durability, accuracy, perception, reaction time. you get a totally different answer depending on which you maximize.
If you've got super strength and accuracy but not durability or evasion speed then just throwing rocks or darts will be extremely deadly.
If durability is high then its all about high penetration weapons and setting up the big blow.
If speed is high but perception isn't then guerilla tactics and stealth ambushes will be best.
If speed, reaction, and perception are all high but durability is low then it's a frenzied Kung Fu battle where everyone is zipping around jockeying for position, and the light long reach or zone control weapons are best.
So you really need to think about what powers populate this world and what tactics would evolve based on them.
u/None [+7] (6 hours later)
This post makes a lot of sense, especially the low durability example. It brings to mind the Protectors and war-specced Moties - two of Larry Niven's nonhuman races: Creatures that were superhumanly strong, fast, and perceptive/reactive/accurate meant fights were generally over instants after they started: whichever side held the slight starting advantage - be it by luck, ambush, positioning, etc. - carried the fight as the initial attackers took out most of the other side with their opening salvo.
Enhanced intelligence (on all sides) also played a big role, as the tools and tactics employed rapidly outstripped the (super)natural advantages floating around. If the actors are smart enough to keep pushing the arms race tech envelope forward then I'd imagine the end result to be like the scenario humanity 'enjoys' today, just on a bigger/more violent scale.
For example, Niven's stories detailed how everyone using largely undodgeable laser weaponry and "unblockable" disintegration/gamma/whatever rays made the enhanced attributes of strength and toughness pretty superfluous.
u/Tommy2255 [+26] (an hour later)
I think one of the biggest factors is not just the strength and speed of the warriors, but the strength of the materials available.
Realistic strength, realistic materials: realistic weapons.
Super strength, realistic materials: honestly I think you'd see a lot of hand to hand combat. If magically enhanced bodies are stronger than any inorganic material available, then melee weapons just aren't very useful. On the other hand, that might have more grotesque implications. If the strongest available material is magically enhanced bodies, then it may be tempting to make your weapons out of bone.
Realistic strength, super materials: Probably doesn't make a huge difference to the actual design of weapons, but assuming relatively primitive tech levels, which I think is implied by the prompt, one possible result of this situation is increased political and economic inequality. Armor made from effectively invincible materials is an easy enough concept to come up with, and even if your sword is made of the same thing, penetrating that defense gets harder the better the materials are. If you can afford a suit of armor, you're invincible, if you can't, you aren't. There's a reason why the image of knights in armor is so tightly tied to feudalism.
Super strength, super materials: I think big dumb anime swords might actually be viable in some cases. If you're strong enough to wield it comfortably without being slowed down too much, and if the material is strong enough not to bend under its own weight, then you might as well scale it up a bit. Another thing I think people overlook when talking about super strength is that it isn't usually packaged with increased mass. So in a fight between supersoldiers, creating space is easy. You can jump away easier or push away your enemy easier than a normal person, so having a weapon with more reach is an advantage. If someone tries to get inside your guard, just jump away with your super strong legs, or push them back (ideally up and back so that they can't get leverage to fight you no matter how strong they are).
u/Kuiper [+7] (9 hours later)
If magically enhanced bodies are stronger than any inorganic material available, then melee weapons just aren't very useful.
Even if fists are "stronger" than melee weapons, there's no getting around the fact that a fist holding a roll of quarters is going to have more mass than an empty clenched fist.
There's also the other function of brass knuckles: in addition to providing mass, they also concentrate force on a smaller contact area. If you want to apply pressure, decreasing surface area by a large factor is usually easier than increasing force by the same factor (a sharp knife requires a lot less force to cut than a dull one). Even if someone has a body that is materially "stronger" than inorganic material, laws of physics still apply, and weapons allow you to achieve non-strength properties like mass and shape that are going to affect how much damage your blows do.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+8] Dai-Gurren Brigade (13 hours later)
they also concentrate force on a smaller contact area. If you want to apply pressure, decreasing surface area by a large factor is usually easier than increasing force by the same factor
That only works if the material on the receiving end isn't hard enough to squash the brass knuckles. Otherwise you've simply provided them with a dampener that softens the blow, if anything. Imagine using brass knuckles made of Play Doh. That's what metal would be to a sufficiently (magically) stronger human body.
u/eroticas [+3] (15 hours later)
You can hold the lead play doh on the inside of the fist
Although really, if you're both that superpowered yet still have the limitation where weight helps you transfer energy to your fist better, wacking each other with giant tubs of play doh really hard might still be effective.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+7] Dai-Gurren Brigade (15 hours later)
Yeah, the mass increase thing works. I was arguing only about the "concentrating force" part.
u/None [+3] (15 hours later)
but that wouldn't work as well either. Held inside your fist, or wrapped around the inside, play-doh is play-doh. In your example, the weapon just goes squish inside your hand, rather than against your opponent's body.
u/eroticas [+5] (15 hours later)
It should go a little less squish, but you're not wrong...hmm...wrap it around your wrist?
u/None [+3] (a day later)
I feel like anything heavy enough to make a superhuman's punches hit significantly harder, would also be heavy enough to make their punches significantly slower as well. That's just a feeling though, as I actually don't know. Boxers wear heavy gloves after all, and still hit pretty damn hard.
u/eroticas [+2] (a day later)
In general there's a speed / weight tradeoff if momentum is held constant, but I think ordinary humans basically get more total momentum with heavier objects. Ultimately for us the max speed our muscles can move is ultimately more a limiting factor for gaining momentum than the actual power behind our movements. So a weighted punch essentially harnesses more muscle than an unweighted one.
u/best_cat [+18] (44 minutes later)
Next: Normal opponents vs Super People. I'd approach this by iterating. Ask if a side needs to change, and if so, what they could do to counter their opponent.
Round 1: The super people discover they have super powers. And they're buff enough to take on a group of normal people using normal tactics. The super people don't really have an incentive to change. They're winning, so they can do whatever.
Round 2: The normal people are getting crushed, so they want to change. I'd guess that the problem is that the normal people can't get meaningful hits in.
To make a D&D comparison: The first 5 Kobolds won't kill a party of experienced PCs. So, a Kobold 'win' isn't killing. It's setting things up so that the PCs have to spend scarce resources. If they can do that, eventually the PCs lose. Otherwise, the PCs can kill Kobolds forever.
To apply this to soldiers, your Hero is going to murder his way through the first couple spearmen he sees. There's nothing the spearmen can do about that. Instead, their job is to hamper the heros so that the next line has a shot.
If I were a general, I'd do this by handing out polearms and armor with scary looking hooks on it. Sure, the PCs will punch through. But, the 1st round of polearms guys are there to try and hamper the PC's weapons, or catch their shields, so the 2nd line can stab.
u/Kaiern9 [+16] (50 minutes later)
To apply this to soldiers, your Hero is going to murder his way through the first couple spearmen he sees. There's nothing the spearmen can do about that. Instead, their job is to hamper the heros so that the next line has a shot.
If you've read Stormlight Archive this is basically what shardbearers do. They just cleave right through normal troops until exhausted, or met with an opposing shardbearer.
But, if we totally embrace the idea of "common soldier = fodder" are polearms still the way to go? Nets, chains, or anything that blinds combined with thick shields would probably delay longer, right?
u/best_cat [+8] (an hour later)
I think you'd need a bunch of space to swing a chain around. And nets move kind of slowly.
Polearms are nice in that they'll do more damage to a fast moving opponent.
Thinking about it a bit more, I'd add some barbs to the middle of the shaft and try to rig some kind of harness so that the polearms stay attached to the soldiers.
Then, even if the hero smashes through my front line, the polearms will catch on each other and make a thicket of interlocking oak poles, with 200lbs of dead weight at the end of each
Hopefully that would slow the hero enough that the remaining forces could just shoot him with arrows.
If the hero is so strong that even that stops working then there's not much of a reason to keep fielding infantry. Just retreat or surrender.
u/best_cat [+16] (an hour later)
Though, my absolute last tactic against literal goku would be to have the latrine pits dug unusually shallow and wide. Then put some decking on top.
Super hero jumps leave craters in normal earth and would definitely punch straight though a deck.
This wouldn't win the battle. But mundane forces won't beat literal goku anyway. At least we'll have ruined his day.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+3] Dai-Gurren Brigade (13 hours later)
But, if we totally embrace the idea of "common soldier = fodder"
Also, I feel like that's bad for morale. Even in the worst situations, in human vs. human battles, front line soldiers did have some hope that they'd get out of it alive. If they're just sure to die for the sake of merely scratching or slowing down the opponent the whole army might just crumble.
u/Allian42 [+14] (48 minutes later)
The problem with super human like battles is that almost every attack is a potential kill. Your muscles can continue to grow considering this scenario, but you can't train your skin to harden. So you are forced to either dodge or parry almost everything.
With that in mind, I would argue the best weapon would be either a Maul style hammer or a very unpredictable weapon.
If you can swing a Maul like a stick, you have a very fast weapon, with a decent reach. You can smash or deform the enemy weapon and/or shield with it. If your opponent decides to parry, their arms will start hurting within a few hits. It ignores most armors, as the plate will just cave inwards and crush the target's torso. You just have to concentrate on not being hit while raining blows on your opponent.
An unpredictable weapon on the other hand (say a three sectional staff or a kuma with chain combo) could impose an unfamiliar rhythm to the fight and confuse the opponent enough to make him take a blow and score a quick victory.
This is assuming melee weapons, of course. A simple gun can cover over a thousand meters in a second. Unless you're dealing with the flash, you can just aim and shoot the other guy down. Yes, there are bullet proof vests, but you're a super human. Just get a desert eagle.
u/Kaiern9 [+6] (53 minutes later)
a very unpredictable weapon.
One of my first thoughts as well. If super-fights are first-hit-kill scenario, supers won't have time to get used enemy tactics. I could see some super unconventional weapons working if the goal is to only get a single decent hit in.
u/fassina2 [+3] Progressive Overload (2 hours later)
Maces and blunt weapons handle differently / slower than swords because of their weight distribution not because they are heavy.
They are not much heavier than swords, it's just their point of balance is different.
u/Allian42 [+4] (12 hours later)
I was actually thinking on an even bigger variant.
But as far as I know, the reason the weight distribution slows down any weapon is because you need to force it to stop or reverse it's momentum after every attack. A sword is aerodynamic enough to do it without fighting it's own weight, but not a hammer.
There is also the reach to consider. Real life weapons assumed you had a maximum weight you could swing, so a hammer and a sword of that same weight will give the longer reach to the sword.
Another reason hammers weren't used much compared to swords was the stamina that took to use that. The bigger the mace, the more you would tire after just a few blows. There is a reason hammers are often made as power tools or even whole machines.
Now, back to our scenario:
Super strength means you could swing a normal war hammer like a kid's toy hammer as you have enough power to kill it's momentum. There is still a ceiling with the weight, as you would need equal or more weight yourself to counterbalance the thing, at the very least.
Super strength also means you could have a hammer with a handle as long as needed. Although you may want a counter weight on the other tip if it's too long. Maybe a quarterstaff with Maul tips on both ends? something to consider.
Finally, I believe our scenario accounts for super stamina, solving the third point.
u/fassina2 [+5] Progressive Overload (13 hours later)
The problem with heavier weapons is that if they go over a certain percentage of your weight, as you swing them they pull you together.. You'd be sort of flinging yourself around.
Longer weapons are unwieldy, it takes longer to make them change direction because their weight get's farther from your hands.
the reason the weight distribution slows down any weapon is because you need to force it to stop or reverse it's momentum after every attack. A sword is aerodynamic enough to do it without fighting it's own weight, but not a hammer.
The first part is correct, but aerodynamics have little influence on this swords are quick because their center of mass is close to your hand, in maces and axes they are on the tip.
A spear can get away with it because of the way it's used, if you tried to use it like a hammer it would be very slow.
If you are interested in this search Schola gladiatoria on youtube..
u/Sparkwitch [+13] (an hour later)
In an extremely general sense, sharpness is what's important: the combination of speed and cross-section. At hurricane velocity, a broken wooden board or a chunk of plastic is sharp. At the speed gunpowder propels it from the barrel, even a completely round musket ball is. The smaller the surface area striking a surface, and the more energy it has behind it, the sharper it is.
We have layers of tissue around our relatively delicate interiors in order to protect them. If those can be pierced, doing catastrophic damage to the rest is scary easy.
So, how hard are our superhumans and how fast are they? Strength, flexibility, dexterity, along with weapon and armor choice are all just ways to modify that basic frame. Blades (if they're hard and sharp enough) decrease surface area. Handles (if they're hard enough) provide leverage. Maximize the second, minimize the first.
On the other hand, if somebody is bulletproof then they're not just able to handle the piercing force of a bullet (great speed, tiny cross section at its point) they're also able to deal with whatever denting it causes kinetically that might bruise their organs or tear their skin.
If they can take a bullet like that, they can likely sustain whatever any basic blade might bring to bear. There's some possibility of focusing force on particular joints or bones that might cause them pain, aiming to bludgeon them with a large object in the hopes of bruising something, or just trying to sever something with a large and heavy blade like a big piece of sheet metal.
As a general rule, it's easier to destroy than to defend so somebody ultimately loses, but when and how is quite particular to where each combatants strengths and weaknesses lie.
It's a hard question to answer specifically, or even creatively, without a lot more information.
u/Kaiern9 [+7] (an hour later)
It's a hard question to answer specifically, or even creatively, without a lot more information.
I'm not really up for creating a super detailed and consistent scenario. But if you want a little bit more detail, how about these two scenarios
Offensive and defensive abilities grow proportionally to what they are on a normal human. A level 10 super would have to exert the same % amount of pressure in a hit to the temple as a normal human would to kill. Durability is just a hidden stat that somehow grows at the same pace as your "real" stats. DBZ esque, sort of.
People just don't have the "limiter" on strength anymore. Power, coordination, and reaction no longer hit diminishing returns the more you practice them, instead growing somewhat linearly.
For the record, I'm not really sure how scenario 2 would play out. Would the supers tear the acl jumping and break bones punching? For the sake of our situation, let's say no. We'll just say that for some reason it is much harder to cause self inflicted injury.
u/Sparkwitch [+5] (3 hours later)
Leverage.
In scenario one, you have to keep in mind that absolutely enormous stresses are put on joints under even normal human activity. When you swing something at the end of your hand that weight is multiplied at your elbow and (possibly) multiplied again at your shoulder. Strength increases these stresses at a higher ratio than an even rise in durability would sustain regardless of whether scenario 2 applies.
And without careful technique, normal humans break their own bones punching and kicking normal people already. Logically, any degree to which they are reinforced to prevent this, will be a degree to which anybody else's ability to damage them decreases as well.
It's pretty easy to create a situation in which a level 10 super can't really hurt a level 10 super anymore, so the battle becomes one of exhaustion and attrition or...
How about pain? Do electric shocks hurt them the way they hurt us? What about extreme heat or cold? Do they have the same nerve sensitivity in, for example, their eyes, teeth, nailbeds, genitals, or (again) joints. If yes, focusing on those weaknesses will by the primary way to make them less interested or even capable of fighting. What about airborne toxins? Ones that can pass through skin? Does asphyxiation work if you can pinch or obstruct their windpipe?
In whatever way they are the most mortal, focus there, even if their only vulnerabilities are psychological.
Additional problem for scenario 2: It gets progressively more challenging to train. The masses involved and the equipment required get prohibitive pretty fast. The degree to which force delivered in a human handprint or pressure applied by a human footprint, grow to levels that outstrip most materials technology. Sharpness again.
Weapons have this same problem, as steel becomes as strong as cheap plastic. Past a certain point there is nothing more powerful than the strong, fast, durable supers' own fingertips and teeth and essentially they can only train with one another.
I don't have good stats for where that is.
u/SnowGN [+6] (15 minutes later)
My first thought is the use of chains, or string, or nets - some sort of binding weapon to hamper and control enemy movement. This video from the anime Iron Blooded Orphans showcases some of that; one gundam is using thick wires, or cables, to incapacitate, subdue, and prepare to destroy a technically superior mobile suit. This is the link to the specific place in the video showcasing the climax of the technique, though bits and pieces of it are seen throughout the rather excellent battle sequence.
(The Alaya-Vijnana systen mentioned at that point in the video is a biomechanical interface system designed to drastically increase human data processing speed, sensory input, and reaction time. The video shows a normal human defeating such an opponent by using these chain-weapons).
My second thought involves Naruto-style Genjutsu, which I don't have a better word for. Illusions meant to confuse and interfere with the enemy's senses.
My third thought involves space/time techniques. Offensive teleportation, teleporting enemies VERY high into the air so they get killed from the fall, or deep into the ocean, or into any other arbitrarily fatal set of circumstances. Then there's time-traps - literally phasing someone out of time at a fixed set of spatial coordinates, so, say, if you freeze someone in time for five minutes, they'll reappear later somewhere in outer space, somewhere further behind along in the planet's orbit.
Finally, there's portal abuse - phasing half of someone's body into a portal and then shutting it, instantly severing their body.
Finally, there are the tried and true real-world techniques of chemical and biological weapons, snipers, IEDs, drone strikes, etc.
u/Kaiern9 [+3] (43 minutes later)
I should have specified that i was talking about physical, human scale weapons. Things like swords and spears, but in a different shape/materials etc.
The chain is interesting though. The amount of energy you can put into a chain increases exponentially with level of strength, i could definitely see that being a super dangerous weapon in the hands of a super-human.
u/Sparkwitch [+3] (an hour later)
I especially like the first bit of this, though it's just good fighting technique rather than specific to superhumans: Limit your opponent's range of movement. It's very hard to punch somebody, or stab them, or slice them, if you can't reach them. It's also hard to do any of those if you haven't got room to swing or aim. Dodge, incapacitate, subdue, and restrict to gain advantage against a stronger opponent.
u/feanor__ [+5] (an hour later)
one thing to consider is that even if you are super strong, the durability of your weapons stays the same. let's say you are a master swordsman with super strength and you face another master swordsman with super strength; neither of you can simply parry or block an attack since it would break your weapon.
that being said, a naginata can give an edge in range over swords and other melee weapons, and area-of-effect bombs or gases could restrict the movement of someone with quick reflexes
u/fassina2 [+5] Progressive Overload (3 hours later)
Those weapons are effective and similar things will continue to be effective. Because of physics, small area of impact with a high force just concentrates that force in one place making it better at causing damage.
Another thing is that weapon speed is mainly handled by how the weapons weight is distributed and it's balance, not necessarily by it's weight. Weight is important don't get me wrong, but the way it's balanced has a larger effect overhaul.
So a super human with a mace would be faster than a normal human with a mace, but slower than a super human with a sword.
In general weapons were always 1 hit win tools. Because RL is not a game and instead of losing hp you get wounded, which makes you worst at fighting or flat out incapacitates you depending on the wound. Unless armor is involved then it can turn into grappling.
What you'd see would be similar to HEMA, fights are quick and deadly.
The problem with increased strength is that if you don't increase mass both fighters would fling each other around as they parry each others weapons.
But to answer your question more directly.
It would depend on how much more powerful you were than the weaker enemies. In general I'd say a proper historical greatsword, it's got some reach and good crowd control, regardless of how much more powerful you were than the weaker enemies.
Fighting equals I'd say spears if it's a fight you are prepared for, and a sword if it's an ambush or an unexpected fight.
Spears are great at 1v1 they are very fast and have a big reach advantage, but you can't really conveniently carry them with you all the time.
Swords are in general great self defense weapons for several reasons like being quick, large blade, murder strokes, having hand protection and irl people will aim for your hand, and they can be worn, i.e they are side arms so you can always have them on hand.
If you know are going to fight, you'd want to take a proper battlefield weapon with you if you could. i.e spears, halberds, greatswords and the like.
And you'd bring a sidearm like a sword in case your weapon broke or you lost it, or you got into a closed space like a corridor. If it got really close quarter you'd want to have a dagger.
u/panchoadrenalina [+3] (an hour later)
i think the weapons would stay mostly the same because the limiting factors of the weapons are rarely the strenght of the user, but the shape of the human body, (you cant make a weapon much bigger before it gets troublesome to move in crouded places or fight a battle without fighting in formation) the choice of weapons might change though, depends of the material available in the setting, if you can make an armor good enough to resist blows from an edged weapon from one super. and also depends on the context, inside a battle or outside of it.
I think if you are outside the battle and so long the superhuman is still fragile enough to be poked by weapons the best civilian weapon must be a rapier or something like it, if you make it much bigger it starts to bump into stuff and drag on the floor if you have it on the hip, and wearing it on the back is a bit unrealistic, they get really hard to unsheath and people/guards reacts badly to people waving around giant weapons around.
in battle, if you can make and afford superplate armor strong enough to defend against the blows of other superdudes you would have cores of juggernauts fighting with extralong halberds/polehammers, think medievals knights of foor but more hardcore, they are strong enough to wear armor so thick to make them impervious to anything but another superdude with a really big hammer like the ones they themselves wear.
in battle if you cant afford, or cant make, or the super dudes are strong enough that no amount of armor can stop their strikes you would wear armor strong enough to repel normal dudes, because you can be distracted or surrounded or simply have bad luck and have to tank a blow or two. as for the weapons i think that battles would gravitate towards the style of alexander the great with looong spears in formationas the core of the armies and more mobile elite forces armed with more normal sized spears/sword to fight in tighter quarters when the megaspears are not practical.
in unarmored duels, here you can go wild with the weapons because you dont have to wear it around everyday, it depends once again in the materials, if you can make spears strong enough not to be cut by a sword wielded by a superdude, then spears trumps all other weapons in unarmored duels they have reach to kill the other dude before he kills you, they cant be the ultra long spears because if the opponent enters your close proximity you are screwed, so something like a two meter + longspear, maybe with some kind of hand protection in the handle. if you cant make spears strong enough not to be cut by a sword, then swords, giant swords like a nodachi or a montante to have reach and they have the balance closer to the hand so they can be moved more easily than axes and poleweapons.
u/ShiranaiWakaranai [+3] (2 hours later)
Offensive Zorbing.
Normal humans have weight limits. They can't carry large weapons and wearing heavy armor bogs them down. Not so for superhumans. Superhumans can encase themselves in ultra-thick armors while maintaining mobility. If it also comes with required secondary powers like superior reflexes, sense of balance, perception, etc., then an offensive Zorbing technique can be used: Encase yourself in a ball of solid [insert superior material here] and roll yourself towards your enemies to crush them flat.
u/jtolmar [+2] (8 hours later)
They'd probably use sticks with knives on the end. Humans used spears before agriculture, after agriculture, after horses, on horses, against horses, well after guns were invented (in fact this made spears more popular), used guns as sticks to put knives on, and at least one military still trains on bayonet use. Spears have been the right choice in a lot of contexts, so I'd expect them to be the best choice for most (but by no means all) permutations of worlds with different physical limits.
u/Norseman2 [+2] (9 hours later)
With super strength, you'll probably want weapons which can leverage your strength into speed, so something like a halberd, greatsword, or heavy repeating crossbow would be a good way to take advantage of the strength bonus.
With super speed (but not strength), you'll probably want lightweight weapons which do a good job of rapidly delivering low-energy penetrating injuries, like a spear or rapier. Throwing weapons could also be far more effective with higher 'muzzle velocity' for lack of a better word, so darts and javelins might become a particularly good choice.
With faster reaction you'll want weapons which are lightweight and well-suited for parrying and piercing, such as a daggers and short swords.
u/vimefer [+2] (10 hours later)
For handled weapons wielded by humans, given strong enough tensile materials and quick / strong people, I'd say a hybrid of flail and very fine whip would be ideal, with an extreme reach, while being hard to see (=hard to dodge or conserving a maximum of surprise factor with stealth) and multiple strands covering a wider zone than a single strand.
u/ShiranaiWakaranai [+2] (11 hours later)
Upon further thought, I agree that the traditional melee weapons like swords/axes/hammers don't make much sense in a typical superhuman world, since human strength increases several times, but human weight does not. If the superhumans make use of their superior strength to use much heavier versions of traditional weapons, they will find themselves flung about by their much heavier weapons.
On the other hand, ranged weaponry may become much more common: after all, increased strength means increased weight limit means more ammunition can be carried. Bows and arrows may not be that useful since there's limits on bow strength, so throwing knives/axes may be more common since they rely on human strength.
u/eroticas [+2] (15 hours later)
It depend on how much more powerful they are. I'm assuming you're ruling out guns and bombs and such.
At first, the armor and weapons just get heavier. Honestly, this will probably be all that happens so long as things stay within biologically feasible ranges.
But eventually, when jumping becomes high enough that combat enters three dimensions, I bet you're going to start favoring range weapons (especially thrown weapons) as well as any tools that allow you to glide and change direction in mid air - especially if your dexterity improves along with your strength. Dexterity improvements in general change a lot about optimal weaponry. For instance, if your dexterity is higher you will ditch the bow and carry a simply sling, since bows are bulky and their only advantage is being easier to aim. (And if you've got two very accurate super-human people with slings going against each other, it's probably best not to jump unless you can dodge or block in mid-air). Once your throw is strong enough for air resistance to make additional initial velocity unhelpful, you'll ditch the sling too.
As we get even more powerful, maybe you'll eventually start being able to fly on your own power (with tools) by vibrating your limbs. For this to happen, the muscle, skin, and bones must become harder to deal with the incredible forces involved, and a lot will depend on the particulars of how this is accomplished. Armor and shields will become equivalent to cloth and cardboard. The weapons may start becoming too soft to really penetrate the skin, and air resistance will preclude the effectiveness of thrown weapons. At this point the limiting factor will become calories, so it pays to become fat (don't forget to bring super-speed metabolism) or carry a sack of sugar around. I think at this point if you don't use post-medieval technology you might as well just go hand to hand.
The importance of non-physical methods of killing will become way more important - poison, gas, radiation, etc.
u/Terkala [+2] (17 hours later)
If you have someone who is outscale strong, but not much more durable or fast, they would likely use a large shield and a smaller weapon/shield. Just focus on bashing into their enemies and deflecting the attacks that get around the shield. There is no point using a huge weapon to give you even harder hits when you already kill people in one hit with anything else.
Alternatively, strong characters may use large sweeping attacks, such as a glaive that would be basically impossible to dodge. And give you so much more reach that you always get the first attack.
If someone is much faster, rapiers and needle like weapons become vastly more viable.
If everything scales up evenly (everyone is fast and strong and durable), then you won't see much difference in weapons. Maybe more ranged weapons as that sort of ability set would make thrown weapons have a huge range and still benefit from high strength.
u/dinoseen [+1] (a day later)
There is no point using a huge weapon to give you even harder hits when you already kill people in one hit with anything else.
Yep. Even just swords are already deadly enough that speed trumps weight. If you're strong enough to swing an anime sword around like it's a normal one, think of how much speed and power you could put into a normal sword!
u/turtleswamp [+2] (17 hours later)
The question is open ended enough that that answer is probably "thrown tungsten projectiles".
If people are sufficiently difficult to damage and sufficiently capable of throwing things at high velocity this approaches a "railgun vs tank" scenario, and anything that has any chance of improving on or protecting against a pure kinetic impactor will be prohibitively expensive compared to a dude chucking a slug to the point that more slug-throwers throwing in volleys is probably better than one armored HEAT-javaliner form a supply-line point of view.
At a less insane scale, it'll largely depend on a few tipping points IMO:
- Are there structural materials stronger than people? If there are chances are whatever conventional weapons and armor can be made out of those materials will determine what's effective (maces if the material can't hold an edge, for example) .
- Are guns capable of defeating those materials man-portable? (if so the range of guns beats hand to hand)
- Are the materials that can be useful as weapons and armor rare or common? (a sword has to be composed almost entirely of the wonder-material, an ax can have a hybrid wonder-material/lesser-material head and a haft made of something else entirely. Plate armor takes a lot of material, shields can be sized based on what you have, etc.)
History has examples of a lot of those in practice as availability of metals has played a significant role in the balance of armor vs weapons and such.
Another thought is that in the case where there aren't any structural materials stronger than people there can still be weapons made form the stronger parts of people (the bones of a warrior). Though ability to work those materials might be limited as anything you'd use to carve the thigh bone of a legendary fighter would presumably also be usable to kill a legendary fighter, so you'd likely get things more along the lines of clubs, and spear tips made from jagged bone fragments.
u/generalamitt [+1] (a day later)
just a thought- super strength without the same increase in mass would mean that punching anything would make you fly backwards out of control
u/PM_ME_OS_DESIGN [+1] (3 days later)
A gun? As long as it's strong enough to puncture skin and kill people, it's a good choice even against strong people.
Unless they're fast. In which case, you want a faster-firing gun that can hit anything. Or just has an AoE effect, so maybe a grenade launcher with a gun at the bottom for close-range?
Medieval weapons are outdated. Superheroes only use medieval weapons because
they're magical, and because (for whatever dumb reason) there aren't magical gunsthe writer says so.