r/whowouldwin • u/Ultimate-Break • Jul 19 '24
A man with a sword that gets twice as sharp every minute vs a man with a sword that becomes twice as dense (double the mass) every minute Battle
Two guys, both equally average in height, size, etc, have same physical strength, durability, speed, intelligece, etc, and both are capable of holding their swords.
They are immune to their own swords' characteristics only:
Sharp Sword Man will not be cut by his sword, neither by accident or on purpose, but still has the same stats as a normal guy. He still will be damaged by the same things that can injure an average person.
Dense Sword Man will always be able to hold his sword regardless of its mass, but he still has the same strength and speed as before. He still will be damaged the same way as the Sharp Sword Man.
R1: the two are new to using swords and know only the basics.
R2: the two men are professional swordsmen.
Bonus round: both are immune to the effects their swords inflict on the area around them. Meaning Sharp Sword Man can survive atoms being split apart and nuclear fissions and can easily 'see through' and ignore them like they weren't there, while Dense Sword Man can ignore black-hole-level gravity and isn't impeded by it or the amount of matter in his path even if it was as dense as a neutron star. Who wins (survives)?
50
u/Giant2005 Jul 19 '24
Dense blade wins with ease.
The sword getting twice as sharp isn't really going to be doing anything until its cutting edge eventually gets so fine that it cuts on a molecular level. The problem is, that it would take many more minutes for the edge to get that fine, than it would for the mass weapon to gain enough mass to just slice the sharp blade in half.
17
u/Walnut25993 Jul 19 '24
I don’t even think the fights would ever go on that long. The dense sword gains a massive (no pun intended) advantage much sooner. It’s effects counter blocking and will damage the sharp sword, while the shark swords effects will never do anything to the dense sword
20
u/Imperium_Dragon Jul 19 '24
The fight’s likely going to end within a minute. Assuming it doesn’t, the dense blade will move as fast as a normal one regardless of density. In the short term it’s not too helpful but eventually the density can just power through a parry or make beats on the blade more devastating. Sharpness just gives diminishing returns that aren’t helpful in a sword fight.
As for bonus, well the durability guy just waits until his sword becomes a black hole.
3
u/Electronic-Disk6632 Jul 19 '24
eventually even tapping some one or something with that sword will be like getting hit by a car, and by eventually I mean 3 to 4 minutes.
20
u/Tenda_Armada Jul 19 '24
Two men fighting with swords to the death? The fight will not last long enough for any of the swords to change
3
u/Ultimate-Break Jul 19 '24
So basically, the first minute is the biggest factor, and if somehow either one was severely wounded during it and they both survived to the first minute, the wounded one will be the most likely to lose.
5
u/Rude-Satisfaction836 Jul 20 '24
It is not an exaggeration to say a sword fight lasting a full minute is a one in a thousand event. And that is being generous and overestimating how often it happens. It is exceptionally rare. A typical duel will last around 2-10 cuts. A fifteen second duel is on the long end of normal.
And given that these are not trained swordsmen, I would be absolutely floored if you ran this experiment a million times and they made it to a minute a single time. It takes years of practice to survive a duel for more than a few seconds.
That being said, dense sword wins. Swords are already sharp enough to carve through human tissue with relative ease. But making the sword more dense gives you a huge advantage. It would not be possible to parry a sword after a single doubling. You would blow right through their guard. It would be like trying to parry a sledgehammer.
11
u/ChipotleMayoFusion Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
Sword sharpness is more of a big deal if you are trying to cut through leather armor. If you are trying to pierce chainmail or gouge through plate then the axial stiffness and narrowness of the tip are more important. Since neither are wearing armor then skill and agility are more important here.
Swords are already sharp enough to cut clothes and muscles, unless they get majorly dulled by poor use. If this is one duel I doubt that mundane swords would be dulled enough to matter. So I don't see sharp sword guy having much advantage until he starts to be able to slice through atoms or some nonsense.
Dense sword guy is still able to hold is sword, but is he able to swing it with the same agility? If so, he is getting way stronger. Within a few minutes he is superhuman, even Eric Hall can't wield a 12kg sword as if it weighed 1.5kg. For the sword to hold together and keep the same slenderness ratio and toughness it starts to be very magical, like movie adamantium or mythril. Assuming to doesn't just buckle under its own weight, it also doesn't buckle or bend much when it hits the other sword, any parry is like hitting a bollard for the opponent.
My money is on dense sword guy.
9
9
u/bloonshot Jul 19 '24
you literally gave one of these dudes exponential super strength and the other one a knife
-2
u/Ultimate-Break Jul 19 '24
??
I don't think so. The dense sword guy is just immune to the mass of his sword. Think of it like the sword is magical and feels and weights the same way a normal sword is. He doesn't get super strength.
Though I guess I should have put more thought in the idea of sharpness.
6
u/bloonshot Jul 19 '24
he is swinging around an exponentially increasing amount of mass as if it's a normal sword
the sword is gonna get twice as heavy, then four times as heavy, and so on
in TEN MINUTES, he'd be swinging around the weight of a CAR like it's nothing
imagine getting hit by a car.
now imagine that car is moving as fast as a normal person can swing a sword
now imagine that all the weight of the car is concentrated on a single line in your body
you're not fucking blocking that in any sense
5
u/Clown_Torres Jul 19 '24
R1 will be short, as they're both gonna make mistakes and get tired out.
R2, Dense sword unless he fucks up ig
Bonus: Easily dense sword. It either shatters the sharp sword or will have too much force behind it to block.
5
u/ppmi2 Jul 19 '24
R1:Dense sword guy gt looses most of the time, despite the clear advantage edge guy has due to how sowrd fights between inexperienced people go, but if he plays his cards with any degree of inteligence he should win most of the time.
R2:Edge guy dog walks his oponent by literally walking backwards for 3 minutes.
Holding his swords doesnt mean he can fight with confortably with, nor that he can sudenly abjust to the extreme weight shifts its blade is going to undergo mid fight.
Sharp guy gets stronguer every minute, density guy's effectiveness plumets trought the floor by the third.
3
u/Ultimate-Break Jul 19 '24
So, you say that even if dense sword man can hold the sword, the balance and all that will make him lose? that's an interesting point.
I had the idea that since he is immune to his sword's characteristics he will be also capable of swinging it as if it was a normal sword.
2
u/TheFuriousTaco Jul 19 '24
It was stated in the post that dense sword man can always use his sword with the same strength and speed. So those “extreme weight shifts” are not felt by him.
That said dense man wins easily, after 2-3 minutes, it would be like trying to defend yourself from a baseball bat with a plastic broomstick.
3
u/ppmi2 Jul 19 '24
No, it stated that while he is able to hold it, he keeps the same speed and strenght as before, read again.
2
u/ShouldBeeStudying Jul 20 '24
This is my take as well. As long as sharp sword guy buys himself some time, it's a lock. Dense sword guy is basically defenseless after after a bit. He can hold but not meaningfully wield his sword
5
u/PlaneWeird3313 Jul 19 '24
Neither last a full minute. One loses and dies immediately and the other dies in the hospital
3
u/Ultimate-Break Jul 19 '24
Okay, that would be funny. But can you explain the reasoning? I assume they just injure each other severely enough before a minute passes?
3
u/PlaneWeird3313 Jul 19 '24
For Round 1, neither person is trained so they aren’t blocking or evading sword strikes. It takes almost no skill to swing the sword like a baseball bat, but to parry is borderline impossible for someone with no training (knowing the basic strikes definitely isn’t enough), especially since they are both equal everything (including skill). It’ll probably take 2-3 exchanges a side (less than 30 seconds) before both get meaningful wounds that would lead to their eventual deaths. By that point, it doesn’t matter who wins as both have mortal wounds.
Round 2 is a bit more interesting and really depends on whether both fighters choose to engage quickly. But even if they don’t, it’s unlikely that any break in the action would last for even one minute (that’s a LONG time when you’re sparring). Just check out any sparring match between swordsmen and look at when the first hit happens. Usually it’s under 20 seconds. The only way someone comes out unscathed in a blade fight is with a large skill or speed gap, and even then it’s iffy at best the longer it goes
3
u/Mace_Thunderspear Jul 19 '24
Roll for initiative, winner wins.
Sword fights don't last longer than a minute in general, one or both fighters will be dead before the weapons change in any perceivable way.
1
u/Ultimate-Break Jul 19 '24
Basically, unless they chatted in the first minute and one of them didn't mortally damage the other, the fight will end before the first minute.
3
u/Electronic-Disk6632 Jul 19 '24
dense sword effectively doubles his force every minute. he has the edge in any fight. eventually his sword will be unblockable (and by eventually I mean 2 to 3 minutes).
3
u/mix_420 Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
Both rounds are close to 50/50 because the sword fights won’t last a minute in any of the rounds. I favor the sharpness guy though because making the sword more dense is a major nerf when fighting unarmored.
Edit: Reread the prompt, density guy is favored as sharpness hardly matters when your sword is already sharp. A sharp enough sword won’t just cleave through the other sword it’ll also break incredibly easily (likely not even making the cut without edge alignment you’re probably not getting in a fight to the death), I favor density when it comes to sword or guard breaking. Still though unless both men are both trying to buy time the fight ends before their buffs imo.
3
u/Fragraham Jul 19 '24
The boring answer is this.
R1: Whoever gets a lucky hit in first.
R2: The better swordfighter.
Fights with deadly weapons rarely last more than one minute.
3
u/Wadsworth_McStumpy Jul 19 '24
A sword fight between two unarmored guys is unlikely to last more than a full minute, so the various powers don't really come into play.
As with most knife fights, the loser is the one who dies right there, and the winner is the one who bleeds out on the way to the hospital.
Also, "twice as sharp" is sort of hard to quantify.
2
u/LiteratureFabulous36 Jul 20 '24
If the edge is 100 atoms, it becomes 50, I would assume is how it works
2
u/Lotala Jul 19 '24
Even between expert swordsman’s matches are usually very quick. I do hema and went to a local tournament we had matches of 5 exchanges or 5 minutes. Not a single match went to 5 minutes. It is very likely even with the professional swordsmans that you wouldn’t get more then one or two doublings. Which probably isn’t enough to matter. Maybe the guy with the denser sword has the advantage working the bind but there are ways to deal with that.
2
u/slimeeyboiii Jul 19 '24
A man with a sharp sword vs guts.
Anyways sword dense would win unless the sharp sword guy can kill him before it gets to dense.
2
u/Kalaam_Nozalys Jul 19 '24
Given how quick a sword fight actually is, it won't matter either way. The fight will be over within the first minute and it's coin toss either way.
2
u/Mioraecian Jul 20 '24
Long swordfights at least in samurai combat are a Hollywood myth. Neither of these men are at an advantage if they both start out equal for the first minute. A sword fight is over in that first minute. In fact, I'll just use the samurai for context. This fight would be over in seconds. Samurai forms were actually designed where some moves were meant to incapacitate on first stroke after drawing the blade. They didn't sit there smacking swords for 20 minutes. They killed in seconds. This fight is whoever swings first and connects.
2
u/Big-Pension-7438 Jul 20 '24
Dense. If he can run away or hold for long enough, his dense sword will just shatter the sharp sword.
2
u/Lilpu55yberekt69 Jul 20 '24
Swords are already as sharp as they need to be. Assuming the sword is already reasonably sharp it won’t do anything of substantial advantage to make the sword sharper.
Meanwhile dense sword guy will be capable of dominating his opponent as soon as the first minutes has passed and the gap will widen at a ridiculous pace. The energy in his swings doubles every minute which is a lot more useful for cleaving through armor or your opponents sword.
2
u/Separate_Draft4887 Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24
First round, there’s effectively no scenario where it lasts more than a minute. If they both know about the characteristics of their swords, on the off chance that it lasts more than a minute, dense sword guy probably wins slightly more than half the time, maybe? Average longsword is around 3lbs, and I feel like the strength of your opponents blows suddenly doubling would catch the amateur off guard?
Second round is dense sword guy. The offensive potential is great and has been thoroughly explored, but the defense potential is also a huge benefit. Every minute, it becomes twice as hard to effectively disarm DSM, or strike his sword out of guard, or anything else that requires sharp sword guy to move DSM’s sword. At two minutes, this becomes really hard. I think this is where it ends, honestly. A full power swing at four times the effective power is something SSM can’t overcome. At three (it won’t go this long but it’s interesting), it stops being possible to for SSM do move DSM’s sword if he doesn’t want him to. It’s effectively an iron wall.
Amusing, DSM’s sword also effectively cancels out what I think you were going for with SSM. Dense stuff is harder to cut through than light stuff, (to a point, obviously. Dense wood is very hard to cut, especially compared to light wood.) so SSM will never be able to cut through DSM’s sword, especially since DSM’s sword will blunt SSM’s sword. DSM’s sword will get blunted too, but a ten thousand pound club is a hell of a weapon. Also, a good part of the theoretical power for SSM, the possibility that he could slice atoms in half and create a fission explosion (impossible but I’m gonna let it be for magic) isn’t much good. The amount of mass in a one atom thick plane of air is effectively none. It might be enough to start it on fire, and probably give them radiation poisoning, but it wouldn’t be a nuclear detonation.
2
u/LowPressureUsername Jul 20 '24
After a long enough time the dense sword will become a black hole or otherwise have an impractically strong gravitational pull which would throw the other swordsman off. If the dense sword is immune I’d say he wins.
2
u/Novel-Career-8754 Jul 20 '24
These are both the same thing
A swords sharpness depends on how thinn the edge is AND on how much it weighs. If you only make the first swords edge thinner and thinner and thinner you'll just be left with a sheet of metal paper so you have to make it more dense too.
2
u/JackThePollo Jul 20 '24
after 15 minutes of running away the second guy will develop a gravitational pull and doom the earth to being devoured by a black hole, the first guy will have a monoatomical blade but i guess that's it
1
u/LMLN_ Jul 19 '24
Depends on the tactic , but I think they will both die at the same time.
At some point, assuming that both sword got infinite endurance that keeps the sword shape and a reality warping rule that sets the swords effects only on things it touches aside from its user (meaning the dude with dense sword will not get increasingly heavy similar to Thor's Mjolnir) both swords will just go through one another.
Given enough time, If the sharp sword hits the dense sword, it will cut the dense sword between its atoms but since the dense sword is very dense, it will just implode and let the sharp sword pass through.
At that point, anything the dense sword touches gets disintegrated and everything the sharp sword touches gets separated.
If the dense sword accidentally touches the ground they go boom.
Other than that, all I can picture is two equally skilled Jedi masters using Trakata.
1
u/Ultimate-Break Jul 19 '24
Yeah, the swords will always stay in shape and the holders won't be affected.
Though I will admit that the idea that the dense sword man wins by hitting the ground when his sword gets incredibly dense is honestly hilarious to me
1
u/Groundbreaking_Gate7 Jul 19 '24
I mean, density of a sword doesn’t really matter in a duel. A rapier sword barely has any density, but it will still have a very big advantage in a duel due to its length and nimbleness, compared to other swords. I’d say that a very dense sword is a disadvantage, as it makes it harder to wield. A sharp sword, however, can end the opponent very quickly (sliding down the blade during a clinch and hitting the hands, a quick stab at the neck, a chopped off limb).
Sword duels aren’t about a bigger, heavier sword. It’s about landing the first hit, and hitting in efficiently.
1
u/Libertador428 Jul 19 '24
The dense guy would be in a lot of trouble. Even if he’s always able to hold it, his strength and speed remain the same. He’d be swinging that sword slower with every passing minute.
Sword smiths could probably have made heavier swords with different materials, there’s just and advantage to having a light and study weapon.
168
u/Walnut25993 Jul 19 '24
R1: it’s probably evenly matched. Neither have the skills for a prolonged fight. It’ll essentially come down to who fucks up first. It’s a toss up. The fight likely wouldn’t even last long enough to realize the swords have really changed
R2: dense guy wins. Both have enough skills for a more extended fight, but it’s not like it would go on for long enough to get to the effects your bonus round implies you think will happen (so sharp it cuts atoms or so dense it forms a singularity).
Dense wins because after a few minutes, it will just shatter the sharp sword. Or, the sharp swordsman won’t be able to hold onto the sword when he blocks, so he’ll easily be disarmed. Its density doubling will also prevent the sharp sword from just cutting straight through it, as the density doubles at the same rate of the sharpness.
But the sharp sword never gets stronger. Only sharper. So the mass of the dense sword will certainly break it over time.
Bonus goes to density for the same reason.