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[Flying Dice]

Highly unlikely. Zweihanders averaged between 2-3.2kg, or a maximum of just over 7lbs. The bottom line is that real swords aren't fat. The weight they do have comes from the fact that, even being fairly thin, they're longer than 1.5 meters--often closer to two. And that's the big two-handed swords; one-handed slashing and stabbing swords are much lighter. Thick blades are impractical.

On the warhammer note, they aren't mallets because they weren't supposed to knock people around. They were armor-crackers, and almost universally were pointed. Typically what they would be would be one-handed weapons not entirely unlike a carpenter's hammer, except that the claw was a nasty spike and the "flat" head was closer to a meat tenderizer. The whole notion of the big two-handed sledgehammer style weapon is largely derived from popular media; a flat head is inefficient because it distributes force across a larger surface area, and a large head is too damned heavy to carry around for days on end.

[WillowLuman]

(ninja'd by exactly my point.)

The ONLY issue I have with that idea is well... People in Skyrim clearly have super strength.

How so?  From what I recall, armor and weapons doesn't weigh as much in-game as it does in reality.

Nords in general are stronger than average, much like Redguards; their heroes often tend to be ridiculously strong, with people like Ysgramor being depicted as holding Wuuthrad (a two-handed axe) in one hand and Volendrung (a dwemer-made hammer turned daedric artifact) in the other. Even their more buffoonish characters are strong as shit; Herkel Shield-Fed, who was such an oaf as to talk long enough to kill his fellow Nords and even Ysgramor himself, managed to grab Volendrung from Ysgramor's frozen body and smack Mehrunes Dagon over the head with it so hard that Dagon fell unconscious.

Mass isn't as important as velocity, though, and even considering super strength, faster, realistic design is probably better than oversized barrel-headed hammer. Simply adding more strength doesn't cancel out the effects on leverage and balance that a giant hammer head would have, too. You'd need a much larger person to deal with that.

And in general, TES has stayed away from mallets calling themselves warhammers.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

And in general, TES has stayed away from mallets calling themselves warhammers.

Outside Volendrung, at least.

[WillowLuman]

It's not as bad as in most places. And in Morrowind and Oblivion, Volendrung had those spikes on the ends of the hammerhead.

[Putnam]

(ninja'd by exactly my point.)

The ONLY issue I have with that idea is well... People in Skyrim clearly have super strength.

How so?  From what I recall, armor and weapons doesn't weigh as much in-game as it does in reality.

Nords in general are stronger than average, much like Redguards; their heroes often tend to be ridiculously strong, with people like Ysgramor being depicted as holding Wuuthrad (a two-handed axe) in one hand and Volendrung (a dwemer-made hammer turned daedric artifact) in the other. Even their more buffoonish characters are strong as shit; Herkel Shield-Fed, who was such an oaf as to talk long enough to kill his fellow Nords and even Ysgramor himself, managed to grab Volendrung from Ysgramor's frozen body and smack Mehrunes Dagon over the head with it so hard that Dagon fell unconscious.

Mass isn't as important as velocity, though, and even considering super strength, faster, realistic design is probably better than oversized barrel-headed hammer. Simply adding more strength doesn't cancel out the effects on leverage and balance that a giant hammer head would have, too. You'd need a much larger person to deal with that.

And in general, TES has stayed away from mallets calling themselves warhammers.

You also forget: dwemer, tonal architecture, daedra, magic, nords, thu'um. Lots of handwaves for that spikey-ass mallet with the oversized handle.

[WillowLuman]

And again, it's not as if Volendrung is even as bad as examples from other things.

[NullForceOmega]

I'm just going to be painfully clear on a point about weapons here, there is an absolute maximum speed at which you can possibly swing any weapon, ergo, to increase the destructive power of said weapon past that point, it must become heavier.

[WillowLuman]

More strength = able to swing any given weapon faster. Unless your talking about terminal velocity, in which case hitting someone with 7+ pounds of anything would most likely destroy them.

[NullForceOmega]

I'm talking about angular momentum and the maximum arc your arm can travel in, modified by grip configuration and one or two handed use.  More strength only lets you reach the maximum speed faster, you still aren't going to swing your arm with sufficient force to reach n+1 without causing yourself irreparable damage to the socket.

[WillowLuman]

But velocity is still more important than mass, since mass is (.5) but velocity is squared. Adding more mass for mass sake (especially if it's also adding a lot of size) slows down the swing considerably. You'd be better off with a more dense hammer head than a larger one.

[Flying Dice]

I'm just going to be painfully clear on a point about weapons here, there is an absolute maximum speed at which you can possibly swing any weapon, ergo, to increase the destructive power of said weapon past that point, it must become heavier.

Yes, but simply concluding that more mass = better only works when you're in a reality where you don't have to account for exhaustion in battle or from marching. A game character can carry around a 20lb mallet indefinitely as long as it's under their weight limit and swing it for as long as the game allows (in the case of Skyrim, forever, or with power attacks until the stamina bar drains, at which point you need to wait a few seconds). In real life marching around with a 20lb lump of metal strapped to your back -- ignoring the spinal problems that would cause -- would be completely impractical for a soldier who also has to march around in armor, carrying secondary weapons and personal supplies, &c. Likewise, using a weapon like that in a real battle would both be a death wish (when you swing a 20lb lump of metal attacked to a stick, you leave yourself badly open), and you wear yourself out incredibly quickly.

You're also wrong about mass being the only way to increase the kinetic energy behind a strike, and the answer is patently evident if you take five minutes to do the research. Leverage. You know what two-handed warhammers looked like in real life? Exactly like one-handed warhammers, except with a longer shaft. If you've ever done any sort of construction work, you know how effective increased leverage is as a force-multiplier. It's used as a colloquial expression for a reason.

[Neonivek]

Well what I am talking about is sort of...

Look at Sephiroth's sword from Final Fantasy.

COMPLETELY impractical in real life terms... The blade is too thin for its length, it is actually quite heavy for a weapon made to be able to be used one and two handed, and honestly it is just terrible overall.

Add in materials that can handle the weight and general super strength and armor piercing ability and the weapon is quite a bit more practical.

When you are dealing with super strong materials, super sharp materials, Super light or super heavy materials, and strength beyond human... the weapon designs can go outside convention.

So for Super Sharp weapons, for example, you might want thicker blades if you want to chop. Or if they are also super strong, you might want a VERY thin almost rapier like blade.

Or if the weapon is incredibly light, you might want it to be thicker just to add more weight.

[WillowLuman]

But then there's the actual size of the weapon affecting leverage (which isn't easily handwaved by unusual materials) and other considerations, like oversized blades getting stuck or being more easily intercepted.

[Neonivek]

But then there's the actual size of the weapon affecting leverage (which isn't easily handwaved by unusual materials) and other considerations, like oversized blades getting stuck or being more easily intercepted.

Intercepted by what?

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

But then there's the actual size of the weapon affecting leverage (which isn't easily handwaved by unusual materials) and other considerations, like oversized blades getting stuck or being more easily intercepted.

Intercepted by what?

Anything that gets in the way of the extremely large blade.