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[MaximumZero]

That's what swords are for, man. Failing that, Battle Axes should work pretty well.

To get the best of both worlds, mod yourself in a Great Sword. Some of them had small axe heads near the base of the blade for chopping up spear hafts and shields the like. Also, any sword with a yelman would work. ^_^ I like swords.

[Solace]

Yeah, those wedge-mauls seem pretty dependable if you want to break something and don't know what. Stone, wood, flesh, plate mail...

[Double A]

Maybe a Bronze Colossus...

[einstein9073]

To bring this to a more fruitful discussion, let's talk about dwarven vanity.
What if I was a Dwarf king, and I decided I must have a functional war hammer?

Can GOLD be improved via fairly simple smithing to be weapon-grade? I really don't know anything about metallurgy, but I found an interesting PDF [link]
...
Is that feasible?

Fairly simple smithing? No.

Theoretically possible? Probably. Presumably dwarves could find boron, and 950C is easy for a magma furnace to achieve.

While the hardening did achieve a hardness value of over 1500 (for the gold/7%chromium alloy) that testing was only with a 25g load. Steel has a hardness of around 150 at 30kg.

They said themselves in the study that more testing is needed. Is the hard layer thick enough to protect the gold? How does it wear? Will your warhammer crack and splinter the first time it gets a hard parry?

LOLMATHS. *expects no response*

[CognitiveDissonance]

To bring this to a more fruitful discussion, let's talk about dwarven vanity.
What if I was a Dwarf king, and I decided I must have a functional war hammer?

Can GOLD be improved via fairly simple smithing to be weapon-grade? I really don't know anything about metallurgy, but I found an interesting PDF [link]
...
Is that feasible?

Fairly simple smithing? No.

Theoretically possible? Probably. Presumably dwarves could find boron, and 950C is easy for a magma furnace to achieve.

While the hardening did achieve a hardness value of over 1500 (for the gold/7%chromium alloy) that testing was only with a 25g load. Steel has a hardness of around 150 at 30kg.

They said themselves in the study that more testing is needed. Is the hard layer thick enough to protect the gold? How does it wear? Will your warhammer crack and splinter the first time it gets a hard parry?

LOLMATHS. *expects no response*

Gold hardening is not really feasible; which is why I'm talking about vanity. I wouldn't want a gold hammer because it's a GOOD hammer, but instead I'd want a gold hammer because it's gold - and I'd want it good.

The real design would be left to someone who knows the math, as I don't, but it is not very difficult to design a frame to carry the impact, as people have been doing similar things with engineering and architecture for about a thousand years.

And by splintering... do you mean the gold core shattering, or do you mean the handle shattering? Because the core should not sustain enough damage given a good frame, and the handle could easily be made from a hollow steel tube, or even a hollow aluminum tube with a steel rod inside to prevent bending on impact.

I should sketch this!

[G-Flex]

A splitting wedge would make an extremely atrocious weapon. As has been mentioned before, they work well because you can get it stuck in whatever you're splitting, them drop it back down again. It would not work well at all for something that doesn't really "split" very cleanly or easily, like, say, a human, and it would be completely unnecessary and silly to penetrate armor with. The wedge is very wide-angle so penetration would suck, and to do much of anything at all you'd need to hit very square to the target. Plus, it would be heavy as hell.



There's one thing a lot of people don't consider when suggesting things like this: If it would work well, people almost certainly would have done it.

[Double A]

A splitting wedge would make an extremely atrocious weapon. As has been mentioned before, they work well because you can get it stuck in whatever you're splitting, them drop it back down again. It would not work well at all for something that doesn't really "split" very cleanly or easily, like, say, a human, and it would be completely unnecessary and silly to penetrate armor with. The wedge is very wide-angle so penetration would suck, and to do much of anything at all you'd need to hit very square to the target. Plus, it would be heavy as hell.



There's one thing a lot of people don't consider when suggesting things like this: If it would work well, people almost certainly would have done it.

What about elves, though? They must split real easy, or else they would've taken over the world by now, seeing that they're immortal and all.

[CognitiveDissonance]

A splitting wedge would make an extremely atrocious weapon. As has been mentioned before, they work well because you can get it stuck in whatever you're splitting, them drop it back down again. It would not work well at all for something that doesn't really "split" very cleanly or easily, like, say, a human, and it would be completely unnecessary and silly to penetrate armor with. The wedge is very wide-angle so penetration would suck, and to do much of anything at all you'd need to hit very square to the target. Plus, it would be heavy as hell.



There's one thing a lot of people don't consider when suggesting things like this: If it would work well, people almost certainly would have done it.

I'm afraid you're missing the point! It's not about a practical weapon, but rather being creative with what to do with a golden hammer!

Oh it's an absolutely atrocious weapon a'right; Instead of saying that it's "The Best Idea Ever, Why Didn't Middle Age Think Of This" it's simply the best thing I could come up with for a golden hammer

And the "heavy" aspect is rather irrelevant, when talking about our dear dwarves.

It would make a very messy impact if it split, though!

On a related topic, my girlfriend suggested a golden morning star or flail, with golden balls and steel spikes! The logic behind this is that the denser/heavier gold would increase the impact of the spikes, while the gold will not deform as much. ....man, now she wants to do this in D&D.

...This is starting to sound like something from Austin Powers

[MaximumZero]

It's gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooold!!!

...Hey, baby, wanna see my golden balls? They menace with spikes of steel.

[Rkui]

Gold hardening is not really feasible; which is why I'm talking about vanity.

Sure its vanity, thats the point, they are really a lot of gold weapons, from all age, its a kind of myth that last since forever, go check the web and see how much gold guns are around for exemple.

[G-Flex]

Oh it's an absolutely atrocious weapon a'right; Instead of saying that it's "The Best Idea Ever, Why Didn't Middle Age Think Of This" it's simply the best thing I could come up with for a golden hammer

A more simple golden sledge would be better, considering how difficult and pointless a splitting wedge would be to use, and how gold wouldn't maintain whatever edge/shape it has to begin with.

And the "heavy" aspect is rather irrelevant, when talking about our dear dwarves.

No, it's not.

It would make a very messy impact if it split, though!

No, it wouldn't, because bodies don't split like that. People are not made out of grainy solid material like wood.

On a related topic, my girlfriend suggested a golden morning star or flail, with golden balls and steel spikes! The logic behind this is that the denser/heavier gold would increase the impact of the spikes, while the gold will not deform as much. ....man, now she wants to do this in D&D.

Still not a great idea, but better than the others, really, since the gold isn't directly impacting anything. Might lead to odd deformation problems regardless.

[Solace]

No, it wouldn't, because bodies don't split like that. People are not made out of grainy solid material like wood.

You don't need to split your enemies in half, if you embed the six-inch wedge through armor, chances are you've hit something lethal. And since dwarves can cut straight through mountains, they can probably pull it back out with a few wiggles.

[G-Flex]

But if the purpose is to penetrate armor into someone's squishy body, the last thing you want (aside from something that isn't pointed at all) is a wide-angle wedge. You want something with more concentrated force, and a wedge like that would be too wide to pass through the armor much anyway. It's basically pointless (hurr).

[einstein9073]

Spoiler: context (click to show/hide)

To bring this to a more fruitful discussion, let's talk about dwarven vanity.
What if I was a Dwarf king, and I decided I must have a functional war hammer?

Can GOLD be improved via fairly simple smithing to be weapon-grade? I really don't know anything about metallurgy, but I found an interesting PDF [link]
...
Is that feasible?

Fairly simple smithing? No.

Theoretically possible? Probably. Presumably dwarves could find boron, and 950C is easy for a magma furnace to achieve.

While the hardening did achieve a hardness value of over 1500 (for the gold/7%chromium alloy) that testing was only with a 25g load. Steel has a hardness of around 150 at 30kg.

They said themselves in the study that more testing is needed. Is the hard layer thick enough to protect the gold? How does it wear? Will your warhammer crack and splinter the first time it gets a hard parry?

LOLMATHS. *expects no response*

Gold hardening is not really feasible; which is why I'm talking about vanity. I wouldn't want a gold hammer because it's a GOOD hammer, but instead I'd want a gold hammer because it's gold - and I'd want it good.

The real design would be left to someone who knows the math, as I don't, but it is not very difficult to design a frame to carry the impact, as people have been doing similar things with engineering and architecture for about a thousand years.

And by splintering... do you mean the gold core shattering, or do you mean the handle shattering? Because the core should not sustain enough damage given a good frame, and the handle could easily be made from a hollow steel tube, or even a hollow aluminum tube with a steel rod inside to prevent bending on impact.

I should sketch this!

By "crack and splinter" - I envisioned the hardened boron/gold exterior as being like the chocolate coating on a Butterfinger®. Oh, better analogy - like the crunchy candy shell on an M&M® on a 90°F summer day.

Sure, without a lot of stress on it, it seems reasonably solid. But give it a good thwack and SPLAT, chocolate everywhere. In the case of the weapon, I'd envision a particularly luck blow cracking the shell, and subsequent blows deforming the core of the striking surface, ruining the weapon in short order.

Best to stay with $preciousmetal-plated steel, I'd imagine.

[edit: fuggin' tab key, i didn't mean to hit Post yet]

[Solace]

But if the purpose is to penetrate armor into someone's squishy body, the last thing you want (aside from something that isn't pointed at all) is a wide-angle wedge. You want something with more concentrated force, and a wedge like that would be too wide to pass through the armor much anyway. It's basically pointless (hurr).

But dwarves don't just fight goblins in armor, they also have to be able to deal with creatures twisted into this shape or that, and made of wood, stone, metal, or whatever. The 'natural' armor of magical enemies would also be, um, unexpected, I'll say. At least hypothetically, since we've given up on talking about any part of the existing game.