Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"Remember, child, this is not the iron dance of Westeros we are learning, the knight's dance, hacking and hammering, no. This is the bravo's dance, the water dance, swift and sudden."
—Syrio Forel, A Song of Ice and Fire


Put a sword in the hands of an RPG hero and he will use it to hack and slash at his enemies even if he is given a thrusting weapon.

This is not limited to swords either. Spears, daggers, stilettos, etc. will be used to slash at opponents even though these weapons were specifically designed to thrust.

Occasionally justified in Real Life. While rapiers (and later smallswords) were specifically thrusting weapons, slashing to draw blood or distract was a valid harrying tactic. Spear wielders, with the right training, the right spear and outside of formation fighting, could use their weapons to swing as well as stab. Part of the appeal of the spear was that a proper thrust could pierce thicker armor than a sword made for slashing, and had more range than a sword made for thrusting.

A subtrope of Improbable Use of a Weapon.

Examples of Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship include:


Film

  • In Musa The Warrior, a spear-wielding Korean warrior is frequently seen swinging his long-bladed spear in wide arcs, especially while facing multiple opponents, and hacks off more than a few limbs and heads in the process.

Live Action TV

  • One episode of Highlander the Series featured Duncan lopping off a head while using a spear. It was, however, a heavy-bladed spear with a leaf-shaped blade, and the decapitation required a full 360-degree spin for momentum, with the spear being held near the base of the shaft.
    • Another had him do the decapitation with a rapier, with almost no room to build up momentum, just a quick shift of the blade, which couldn't have moved it more than six inches. One gets the impression that not only is the neck an Immortal's only truly vulnerable spot, but that their necks are also Made of Plasticine.

Professional Wrestling

Tabletop RPG

  • GURPS tried to reflect this in its weapons lists—broadswords, bastard swords, and greatswords all were listed as typically having a blunt tip, although thrusting versions were also available at a slight markup in price.
  • Averted in Dungeons & Dragons - from AD&D2 on, Damage Typing (bludgeoning/piercing/slashing) is included in weapon statistics - there's a rule for armor efficiency varying from nominal value against different types - leather armor has penalty vs. stabs, so basic version is useless, studded is only at 1/3 efficiency and thick hide at 2/4, while chain mail is good against slicing and bad against crushing. Some monsters are more or less vulnerable to certain attacks - e.g. stabbing or shooting arrows at a skeleton doesn't harm it much, but blunt weapons shatter it easily. Some weapons have two types (e.g. knife and halberd are P/S).
  • Fiercely averted in Role Master (and, to a smaller extent, Middle-Earth RPG, which is based on a simplified version of the RM rules), where not only does every single weapon type have its own damage table, but the tables are cross-referenced with the target's armour (20 types, from naked skin to full gothic plate). Critical hits also varied from weapon to weapon AND armour to armour. E.g. an axe striking naked flesh would likely do Slashing crits, but use it on a very heavy hauberk and it becomes a crushing weapon - unless you strike really, really hard :).

Video Games

  • Characters in Neverwinter Nights 2 will happily slash away with rapiers.
    • As will they if they use the monkey grip feat to wield a spear one handed
  • Soma in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow averts this. Rapiers thrust, short swords slash, etc and both are considered different kind of damage (others including bludgeon and light). The same went for the earlier Aria of Sorrow, prequel to Dawn.
  • Charlotte from the Samurai Shodown games would often stab with her rapier, but her heavy slashes featured her swinging it..sort of. It's generally shown as slashing in a very distinct triangle pattern which is still a lethal hit if the enemy walks into the bit she drew.
  • Ryu Hayabusa in the Xbox remake of Ninja Gaiden both stabs and slashes with katanas, broadsword-styled BFSes and a staff-that-gains-pointy-bits.
  • Inverted by Fire Emblem. Any sword, in the hands of a character like Roy or Eirika, is wielded like a rapier.
    • However, once Eliwood gains his mount he begins to start slashing, despite his sprite still carrying a thin rapier.
    • Also inverted in Monshou No Nazo (FE3: Mystery of the Emblem). Marth will stab enemies when wielding his rapier, but will slash normally if given any other sword. Same with his trademark Falchion.
    • Played Straight in FE5 Thracia 776 though, sword users will eagerly slash opponents with rapiers. Even Leaf.
    • In Radiant Dawn, Halberdiers will wield their lances much like myrmidons wield swords, which makes for some strange looking critical hits. In addition, horse-mounted lance users will deliver a "whack" of their spear if doubling an opponent.
  • An egregious example is Raphael from Soul Calibur 2 and 3. Whilst his rapier is clearly fully edged, he usually swings his as if the bit on the end weren't quite as important.
    • Nevertheless he does possess a number of heinously vicious thrusting and impaling attacks in his moveset.
    • Raphael also uses his 'rapier' very much like a 'sabre' which is a primarily cutting weapon even though it can also be used for thrusts.
    • They make up for it in Soul Calibur 3, where the generic 'Lance' users are fond of swinging their oversized spears.
      • Amy, Raphael's adoptive daughter, gets a unique move set in Soul Calibur 4 to replace her generic style in the prequel. Many of her attacks actually do focus on thrusting and stabbing, though she too has quite a few "slash attacks". Her swords are fully edged though.
  • Scorpion seems to use his spear to slice a victim in one of his Mortal Kombat 2 fatalities.
  • The Tales (series) has been averting this for years: Tales of Phantasia introduced a system of giving each weapon a separate "slash" and "thrust" statistic. Normally, this applies only to the main lead, even if other characters use similar weapons. Tales of Destiny gave the slash and thrust stats to anyone who could use a sword, which was most of the cast. Tales of Eternia went further, giving main character Rid separate experience for slashing and thrusting as well, which partly determined when he would learn his techs. Farah in the same game had separate stats and experience for her fists and her feet, but no one else in Eternia used swords.
    • However, despite being technically averted, the attack patterns don't change, meaning that your hero will usually still be slashing about with his rapier anyway—it just won't do as much damaage as stabbing.
    • Tales of Hearts and Tales of Destiny remake use slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning as "elements", so enemies can be strong or weak against them. Basic attacks naturally have at least one of these attached, as well.
  • Persona 3 has three physical damage types: slashing, piercing, and strike damage. Mitsuru uses rapiers but the rapiers deal slash damage, not piercing damage. Somewhat subverted, though, in that most of Mitsuru's attack animations are thrusts. However, the nameless protagonist can use her weapons too, and he tends to play the trope straight.
    • the one handed sword class of weapon does include some slashing type swords, but the animations never change. Two handed swords (Dai-katanas) always slash, though.
  • The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind averts this by giving the weapons a Thrust, Hack and Slash damage. Halberds, for example, have almost no slash damage but a lot of thrust damage (which makes little sense, shouldn't they be equal?), while claymores have a lot of slash damage, some hack damage, and almost no thrust damage. Also, you can choose between manually pressing a certain key to select the attack type, or letting the computer do the job for you.
    • Halbreds were given poor slash damage since all polearms in the game were classified as "spears".
    • Oblivion, on the other hand, only allows hacking and slashing, even with daggers. Stabbing is a power attack only available at higher skill levels, and can be done with all blade weapons regardless of type.
    • In The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall thrust (upward mouse movement) is accurate but weak while hacks and chops are more powerful/less accurate the closer they get to down mouse movments. This is the same for all weapons (so you can thrust with a axe).
  • Homard the air pirate from La Pucelle: Tactics fights with two rapiers. These are primarily thrusting weapons, but more often than not he uses them to slash.
    • Most other Nippon Ichi games like to play this one straight. Makai Kingdom subverts this somewhat by having swords and rapiers as separate weapon classes. Swords and katanas are used for slashing, while rapiers stick primarily with thrusting attacks.
      • Though in Disgaea, ridiculous special attacks aside, weapons were actually used properly.
  • In Shadow Hearts, Keith merrily wields a rapier, without ever stabbing anyone with it. At least his Infinity+1 Sword is an actual sword, rather than a rapier, thus justifying his attack-type somewhat...
  • Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere wields a spear, and while she DOES stab on occasion, she's mostly slashing with it.
  • This happens with the Rapiers in The Last Remnant, even if they appear to be useless as a slashing weapon.
  • Justified with Lancer in Fate/stay night. The game goes out of its way to point out that swinging a spear actually is a perfectly valid and effective technique.
  • Did you notice Marth's Shield Breaker attack changed from a Slash to a Thrust between Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl? That's because his weapon is primarily a thrusting weapon. His moveset still has plenty of slashes to it, though.
  • In Avalon Code rapier is one of your weapon. You use it to slash enemies, just like any other sword.
  • Soulbringer averts this hard. The game uses "piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning" damage types like D&D above, with certain types doing better against certain kinds of armor; bashing works against non-human creatures like skeletons or rock beasts, slashing against unarmored enemies, piercing against humans wearing metal armor. Unlike D&D, attack positioning can overcome type weaknesses. Greatswords, for example, do slashing damage...but attacking the legs or bringing it down hard on the head of a helmed foe still hurts like hell (your weapon, too).
  • Ragnarok Online Plays this rather straight in a few ways. Rapiers are available as a one-handed sword, yet it carries the same slashing animation that every sword uses in the game. Knights are also able to use an AoE skill called Brandish Spear, which involves swinging a spear to knock away nearby enemies (although the attack animation doesn't change).
  • Each game in the Quest for Glory series avert this trope either partially or completely. Most often, daggers are used exclusively as thrusting weapons, while swords are either used to thrust only or a mix of thrusting and slashing.
  • The earliest Final Fantasy games show all melee weapons as making over-the-shoulder slashes, rather like axes. This gets somewhat comical when Kain does it in the fourth game with spears that were clearly designed to pierce rather than cut. By the sixth game, however, spears get a special thrusting animation, and later games give each weapon and/or character a different attack animation (though they all do the same damage.)
    • In Final Fantasy XII, the characters attack with spears with a variety of stab and slash movements.
    • Averted in Final Fantasy Tactics. Rapiers (which are a different class then swords) have a unique animation, as do spears. There's no 'damage type' though.
    • Khimari in Final Fantasy X only ever uses his spear to stab when using a jump overderive. The rest of the time he swings it pointy end first.
  • Averted in Mitsumete Knight, the resident rapier user, Salishuan the Spy of Valpha-Valaharian's Eight Generals, battles with thrusting animations only.
  • City of Heroes' sword sets (Katana, Broadsword, Dual Blades) let the player customize what kind of weapon(s) their character uses. The animation stays the same no matter what weapon is chosen (katana, rapier, sai...).
  • Dwarf Fortress uses only "edge" and "blunt" attacks, handling stab and slash generally the same way. But specific attacks given to each specific weapon have different parameters (aside of the attack's text name) - slashing have much higher contact area, while stabbing have greater penetration. Swinging attacks of all types also are given "velocity multiplier" (greater for weapons like pick or war hammer than for swords) making the impact stronger. So you cannot slash with a spear, nor thrust with a ax - though they have secondary blunt attacks, so you can do a shaft bash or a flat slap respectively. And even when a weapon (e.g. short sword) does have both "stab" and "slash", these are very distinct in performance.
  • Completely averted with Demon's Souls. While the normal short sword-type weapons can both slash and thrust (and indeed, the unique Awesome but Impractical Penetrator Sword has bonus damage on thrusting and has a very wide slash range due to its long blade), slash weapons like Falchion, Kilij and Uchigatana can only slash while straight swords like Rapier and Estoc can only thrust. Same goes with thrust-only spears, while weapons like Halberd primarily slash. The thrusting weapons are very efficient against armor (as it pierces) and can be used while blocking; slash weapons inflict Bleeding status effect, which is basically a weapon-induced Poison effect, with reduced healing capability thrown in.
    • Also averted with its Spiritual Successor Dark Souls. Curiously played straight with the Estoc's strong attack that makes a wide slashing motion despite Estocs being only sharp at the end. The Balder Side Sword also averts this trope, due to the fact that the weapon it is based on, the side sword/arming sword is sharpened along its edges, allowing for slashing attacks as well as a piercing attack (like the in-game strong attack portrays).
  • Flatly averted again by Mount & Blade, where melee weapons can have a thrust or swing attack style. Some weapons are exclusively one or the other. Sabers, for instance, are limited to swings (slashes), and long spears are limited to simply thrusting. Some weapons, such as shorter spears or larger straight swords, may have both thrust and swing options, but these will usually be inferior to a dedicated swing/thrust weapon in damage or range. Notable due to the fact that the game is set in a Low Fantasy world full of factions designed to mirror real medieval powers.
  • Can be played straight in RuneScape. Each weapon has several attack styles, and for a given weapon most will be either stabbing, slashing, or crushing-type attacks, each of which has a separate defense bonus provided by the target's armour that it has to penetrate. However, most weapons offer an attack style that allows the player to deal a secondary damage type (for example, crushing damage with a battleaxe instead of the usual slashing damage) in order to exploit the weaknesses of the target's defenses, at the cost of the weapon having a lower accuracy bonus with its secondary attack type. However, the trope is usually averted as people often ignore attack styles altogether in favour of simply choosing to use magic attacks against melee armour, melee attacks against ranged armour and ranged (or melee) attacks against magic "armour" for maximum armour bypass.
  • In Betrayal at Krondor, all swords can be used to slash or stab—normally, a stab is accurate, while a slash sacrifices accuracy for more power. However, one of the swords is a rapier, where the slash is appropriately less accurate and less damaging.
  • Subverted, inverted and played stright in Arx Fatalis, where type of melee attack depends upon your movement at the moment you start charging the attack (if you are backpedaling, you will prepare to a thrust, if strafing - a side swing, and if running forward - an overhead slam; if standing still, you make a hacking move). This, however, doesn't save you neither from slashing with the rapier-like sword nor from much more interesting things like stabbing a full-plated foe with a hammer. Or with HUGE one-handed machete thing with long side-pointed spike on its already blunt tip.
  • Because of sprite limits in the Baldur's Gate series, all characters have one stabbing motion and two-three slashing motions for one-handed weapons and an equal amount for two-handed weapons. They mix these attack animations freely without regards to weapon type, leading to such gems like doing overhead swings with spears and stilettos and stabbing motions with greatswords and quarterstaffs. There exist unofficial Game Mods that correct this.
  • Lampshaded in Epic Battle Fantasy: Matt yells at a sword using enemy using Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship that he's holding a thrusting weapon.

Real Life

  • Some forms of unarmored fencing are based on cutting more than thrusting:
    • Kenjutsu
    • Sabre fencing
      • Though the footwork is unrealistic because of the cramped playing area. If you watch sabre fights you will notice they adjust "measure"(distance)as with a rapier fight rather then sidestepping to get around to the opponent's flank as with a true cutting sword fight.
    • European Longsword
      • Note that Medieval and Renaissance swordsmanship was nowhere near as clunky and slow as is usually depicted. There was a wealth of techniques that were both well-considered and well-tested, directly comparable to their Eastern equivalents.
      • Conversely, ARMOURED longsword fencing inverts the trope.
    • English and Scottish Backsword
  • Several Chinese martial arts teach sweeps and overhead slashes for spears. Many of these are carried over from staff routines and the shaft of a spear can bludgeon opponents as well as a staff.
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