Weapon Types, or Why Exhaustive Weapons Charts Are Unnecessary

A comment by JDJarvis brought to mind that I've never talked about why I use the weapons I use on my charts and examples. There are two main reasons.

Firstly, I'm most interested in the 14th century and early 15th century. Call it 1325-1425. The weapons I list are the most common weapons of that era - the dagger, the arming sword, the longsword, the mace, the axe, the spear, and the poleaxe.

Secondly, I intended this list to be broadly applicable, despite its brevity. I believe the user of the system should be able to easily extrapolate new weapons, as with these few weapons, I've covered all the archetypes of melee weapons:

• small (dagger)
• less than 18" or so in size
• balanced one-handed (arming sword)
• balance point within 4" of hand
• nimble, defensive
• unbalanced one-handed (mace, axe)
• balance point around middle of weapon or further from grip
• good against armour
• less nimble, less defensive
• balanced two-handed (longsword, spear)
• balance point near the hands at one end OR
• balance point near middle of weapon
• strong offense and defense
• unbalanced two-handed (poleaxe)
• balance point closer to "head" of weapon
• good against armour
• strong offense and defense

As far as I know, all melee weapons can be slotted into one of these categories. JDJarvis asked about shortswords (presumably of the Roman variety), warhammers, and cutlasses.

I would put the Roman shortsword into the "small" category (some might argue for it being in the "balanced one-handed" category, but that category implies more defensiveness than a shortsword provides), the warhammer clearly is unbalanced one-handed, and the cutlass clearly balanced one-handed.

Halberd? Unbalanced two-handed. Tomahawk? Unbalanced one-handed. Club? Unbalanced one-handed. Rapier? Balanced one-handed. Scimitar? Balanced one-handed. Falchion? Balanced one-handed.

When I see the weapons lists in many RPGs, lists that often take up whole pages, I shake my head. Do we really need to mechanically differentiate between a cutlass, a scimitar, a falchion, and an arming sword? Aren't they all pretty much bladed weapons, about 3' long, with a balance point about 4" from the grip? Isn't just one example sufficient? I feel the huge charts of weapons clutter up the book, and confuse new players.

Perhaps a compromise in a finished product would be to list the few weapons I have, briefly explain the rationale behind the categories, and provide a simple (but fairly exhaustive) list in an appendix of how all other medieval(ish) weapons fit into the system.