I was making a character based of the Leper from Darkest Dungeon. For those of you who don’t know what I mean, imagine a blind leper turned man at arms and adventurer, his character focused on being insanely durable, mentally and physically (tough as nails, gray shade steel, and B6 forte).
Then I went to buy ye olde superior arms, only to find out for (suprisingly) the first time that there was no Greatsword/Bastard Sword/Zweihander.
Any thoughts?
Something for the list on BW Platinum. 
For the bastard sword, you can just use the catch-all Sword: it works like a hand-and-a-half since you have the option of Great Strike.
This has apparently been discussed on the forums, here and also here, and it seems to boil down to “not within the scope of BW’s chosen timeframe, but you could houserule it”.
And with that, thank you and case closed.
Correct. Long sword is a “bastard sword.”
Never came up with rules for the zweihander. Mostly because when we were writing the game, no one really knew how they were used. But Jake and company have been doing some research and it looks like you could and did use these beasts in a street fight.
If you had a “strickly” two-handed sword (claymore) how would the stats change?
Probably higher VA and power but low speed and high add? Maybe some special rules as well to differentiate it form axes and hammers, likely to do with “pike splitting”. (Used to knock aside or cut pikes so that Calvary could maneuver better and assaults were easier) Additionally, the 2-handed sword actually was used by skirmishers so that a foot soldier could pose a threat to Calvary outside of a formation of pikes.
With further research, the Black Band (Saxon Mercenaries) had a force of 2000 men armed with Zweihanders that were charged with guarding the banners during assaults.
I would increase the length, power, and va each by one step and decrease the speed to one. I would also impose a penalty to blocking with one.
Sounds good.
that is totally OP.
You guys have probably seen this, but it’s really interesting: http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html#.VQC7HNUgiiw
Anyway, make 2-handers available with the same stat’s as a longsword, except you can’t use a shield or a second weapon obviously. Test the player’s commitment to a relatively modern and short-lived weapon that probably only did more damage or gave any identifiable advantages one in every ten times it was used and the rest of the time put the user at a disadvantage unless he was fighting someone similarly armed.
Either give the 2h weapon an advantage like a length or power increase, and probably decrease the speed to 1 or find some other way to express the alteration: I think what I might be tempted to go for is allowing a “great beat” with an extra bonus for setting the beat, or a Great Strike where you get both benefits.
The Great Beat sounds like a good way to give an extremely situational advantage, especially as the price (no shield) is pretty steep if you alter nothing else in the weapon’s stats. Total +2 or +3D Beat could swing things when push comes to shove though.
Or, give the weapon a free “weighted pommel” usage to represent half-swording.
Or, treat it like a pole arm with axe only function and give it +1D to beat.
I think the idea of “extremely situational advantage” is a sound one, yes.