Konrad Knox

I think we made a full circle back to the bayonet rifle.

Unless I pull a fast one on you and say that since machetes are classified as a sword, then machetes are a subset of swords. Thus the number of swords in the world (machetes+other swords) is greater than the number of just the machetes. *WINNING*

Well. Sorry, but I'm gonna have to call bs on that one in turn. If a kitchen knife, a pencil, a scissors, or a baseball bat can be considered a zombie-slaying weapon, so can a decorative sword. It is not good for cutting, and may not take cutting impact well, but at least their tips tend to be sharp. Least you could do is use it as a stabbing weapon. Get some tape or glue around it to not let the flimsy hilt fall apart (not that you will need the hilt guard anyway, zombies aren't fencers exactly). While I agree with (and have seen) the fact that a replica sword gets near immediately destroyed in combat against a real sword in the hands of a human opponent, even the cheapest crappiest replica is a formidable anti-zombie weapon. It's a sharp rod of metal with a handle. Counts for me. You may have me on the population thing though. I really don't have any facts to back up the claim, so I am inclined to concede the point, though unconvinced. Because if China uses a variant of machete, it counts as a different weapon, still classified as a sword.

Don't nerf the hammer. It works fine as a hammer should. If anything, buff the crowbar.

It's actually pretty logical. Considering machete itself rides the edge between knife and sword, just the numerous variants of machete already tip the scales, the kukri, kopesh, falchion, cutlass, sabre, short sword, all kinds of hand and a halves, langmesser, were all considered to be "knives" when they were invented, but really, by today's standard of what a knife is, they're really swords. That's not even counting the thousands of cheap factory made chinese katana/ninja-to/kodachi replicas, the fencing foil/epee variants, and the actual european medieval twohanders. I've seen more households with at least one at least decorative sword in it, than I've seen households with machetes. If we play the game of population, the big game players are Africa and China. African population: approx. 1.1 billion China population: approx. 1.3 billion While unprovable exactly, logically the estimate makes sense. Dang it! Now I want to count all machetes and swords in the world. Imagine that project. Lining them up one to one along the equator. While Rathlord and Konrad walk on each side of the line up, counting.

I can't tell you how hard it would be for me to accept that, what with the machete's popularity in China, the African continent, and sporting goods stores in the west. Yeah, but think of all the chinese swords. Decorative or not, sharpened, it'll take a zombie head. Yeees... yeeess!! Breathe hope into my fantasy!

There are more swords in the world than machetes.

I couldn't give you an exact count across the US without making up a number off the wall, but I am going to guess, hundreds. I've been in 8 of them across the States. Granted, USA does not have nearly even a fraction of those found in Europe, but the thing about America is that it has a lot of people with money who buy this stuff from Europe, or build their own. As for KY specifically, not the slightest clue. But an important point to be made is that you don't have to be a museum to specialize in crafting armour. All you need is historical book with designs, and a garage you can turn into a smithing workshop. These kinds of craftsmen are far and few in between, but the technology of making battle ready swords is NOT dead. These are my favorite vendors of combat ready swords. Note where these vendors are located around the US. http://www.albion-swords.com/ http://www.darkwoodarmory.com/ http://www.paulchenhanweiswords.com/medieval-swords.aspx http://ensifer.carbonmade.com/ http://www.hroarr.com/regenyei-fechtschwert/ http://armor.com/ By the way, I know the idea is doomed already. I'm in this thread at this point to express my love for the never-gonna-happen fantasy

But if you take Prone to Illness on a construction worker, you will catch a cold in the rain all the time. And hypochondriac is just too much of a bother, when you can take claustrophobic for +4 points instead. If there is a "at your own peril" clause, then we're definitely not talking "free points", lol. I assume by "reliant" you mean "resilient". If yes, resilient itself does not defend you from getting infected, it only slows down the progression of infection. What you want for construction worker is Lucky. Lucky is actually combating your chance of infection. I find Resilient to be useless, because even without it, and even with prone to illness - you can still survive eating rotten/burnt/raw food, as long as you keep yourself fed with good food. By "safe eating" we mean the player choice to not eat dangerous products. I think the only use for Resilient is to survive drinking bleach, but who cares to do that, where there are plenty of water barrels for water.

Lamenuit, i ask, how are you gonna find a full suit of armor + medieval weapons in an american town..? Like he just described. In a museum, or in a household of a martial arts enthusiast. One house at random could be that guy who buys or makes his own medieval gear

Well. Because Light Eater is worth it. When all the crops rot, and when you are out of fishing line, the game will become about who needs to eat less frequently. The difference between being out of potato chips and not - may be the difference between winning that survival contest and dying of hunger.

Strong vs. Stout Here are the reasons why Strong fits my playing style better than Stout. 1. I am a pack rat. More carry capacity not only lets you loot more and have more productive supply runs, but it incrementally optimizes pretty much every single thing in the game. You can carry more wood, which means you can build faster, you need fewer supply runs, you can stay in combat for longer, you can carry more water, which means you can wander further into the wild, you can catch more fish, which means you can cook more food. It's quite literally an optimizer for a lot of gameplay. 2. Related to carry capacity. A Strong character will not break their back when at Extreme Encumbrance. Every other character, Stout included, will get back injury if trying to run and climb with an Extemely Heavy Load. I happen to run when overloaded a lot, and a Strong character has never suffered injury. 3. Knockback in combat. I need it. It lets me clear mini-hordes of 10-12 zeds with a melee weapon by simply standing my ground. 4. Strong decreases the time you need to open windows significantly, and makes not just most, but EVERY window easy to open. And that's important to me. Sometimes I don't have time to try all the windows around the house, sometimes I just need to get in or get out. 5. Breaking down doors. God, what would I do without strong! Any door in just a few hits. Hard of Hearing Hard of hearing still lets you hear most things around your safehouse's walls. I am assuming that a normal hearing character lets you hear quite a bit. Too much. A character with normal hearing can hear a zombie knocking on a door of the neighbor's house. I don't care about that. It's a filter that limits my danger perception to just the immediate surroundings, so I don't have to jump when I hear a knock that is actually a house away from me. Also, I often play without sound, just by visual clues, so hearing is wasted on me.

It could be a shoot em up for short periods of time if zombies continuously respawn. Then how fast you're tossing your rounds doesn't matter. Ammo is still limited, but coolness factor increases. An assault carbine will go ratatatat, and you're gone through 25 rounds in 15 seconds. So, if ammo is scarce, you won't have to worry about it becoming too shooter-like all the time. And ammo for automatics should indeed be scarce. And of course, zombies will have to respawn. Which they will, in B28. So, no problem really. I want an M4! Gimme, dang it!

Thread, string, twine. Need a fishing rod repair ingredient as a salvageable.

I strongly agree.

Well, I wish the rest of the military was as pure as Serrate and some selective others. If all soldiers had a sense of morality, nobody would agree to go into the pointless bloodbath sandbox they call Iraq. The government would simply trick the soldiers into thinking of their own citizens as infected terrorists, conspirators, or freaks trying to hurt the good old god-blessed 'merica and the families and our healthy children. All the government needs to do is to define the enemy in some form acceptable to a soldier's mind. They'll brief them and make them believe in their cause. I mean, look, look. 9/11, right? Discussion of conspiracy theories is taboo, all average americans believe in these totally invisible terrorists, and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor and anti-patriot. The same thing will happen with zombies. Suddenly they'll be linked to al-qaeda somehow or some other new fear. It's how politics work. Nobody argues with values that have been made holy and sacred by the ruling top. Some soldier will die to a zombified survivor, and suddenly they will all be labelled enemies. And if you don't hate the potentially infected, then you must not be feeling grief for the dead soldier! How dare you, he was a good man! Yes, yes! We all hate the infected! Also, when you have your commanding officer's orders on one hand, and the safety and security of your own wife and children on the other, are you really going to quit and risk bad things happening to them? I mean literally, if soldiers really truly cared, would we have any business going to war within the last 30 years? We can only HOPE that those who protect us will use their heads and their hearts and will execute conscious choice to not go against their citizens. But hey, if that was always true, there would never be civil wars, right?

I play Multiplayer as main focus. Security guard and police officer are useless. Fireman - meh. Construction worker and ranger are pretty much the win, getting you the most points. I'm of firm belief in superiority of Park Ranger, due to the amount of points you can rack up for free. The OP summarized it very well, and I only disagree on a few things. My build: Park Ranger Strong - see OP. Lucky - see OP. Athletic - see OP. Light Eater - see OP. Short Tempered Brooding Cowardly - in my opinion Brave is useless, since in single zombie combat accuracy doesn't matter, and in a horde, you panic anyway. Claustrophobic Prone to Illness - free points for Park Ranger. Just avoid bites (lucky helps) and don't eat junk. (still can survive btw) Hard of Hearing - an awesome trait. This only helps me. It narrows your sound range, so that you don't get sound spam from a block away. I only care to hear my immediate surroundings. Light Drinker - free points. I think this is the most optimal offensive build. --- The tankiest build is to stack Lucky on top of Construction worker, to get double protection from bites. Also, construction worker pretty much NEEDS Resilient, so you can't milk Prone to Illness free points. Which usually means construction workers don't take either athletic or strong or lucky. Too much to sacrifice. --- I tried the opposite build. Made all the good mental health choices. Patient, brave, resilient, but sacrificed strength, luck, and speed. It totally failed.

Doing well so far. Video up soon.

The Ultimate Ranger accepted the challenge. I have cleared the parking lot around the theater. Got 150 GB worth of footage I will be uploading to YouTube. This will take some time.

If PZ was set in Alaska, you would have a different story. Our rights to carry are loose to the extreme, and more people I know have swords than baseball bats. I do not own a baseball bat, for one. Okay, this is unfair, because I hang out with people who fight with swords and not play baseball, so I am sure baseball bats are still more common. However, my fencing school does a demo at the renaissance fair, so by extension I know a lot of people who own battle ready swords, and blacksmiths who work on them. And I must say, there are about 1000 people I know in town who own numerous swords and medieval gear of some form, and of them maybe 50 who own fully legitimate combat ready equipment. My household has 4 swords and a sword-cane, and more daggers than I can count, and a full suit of armor. If a town has a renaissance fair, the chances of looting swords in household increase. But again, Anchorage has about 500 000 people now. Muldraugh has what like 3000? Yeah, sword is doomed. Burying myself deeper and deeper. Time for the mod: Project Zomboid: Operation Anchorage! LOL

And thus, once again, logic and reality force me to cry sadly in the corner for an unrealized fantasy of cuttin' through them undead hordes in true Lichtenhauer style. Modders, gimme some sugar, baby.

My players are experiencing the same issue.

2. It's not as difficult as it looks. The tool is elegant and versatile. If someone can use a fire axe to cut accurately, a sword is no issue. 1. You got me there. Damn. There is one fencing school in Louisville, KY. I thought the Patton war museum in Fort Knox would have some, but nope.

There are tons of nails everywhere already. Just look around in a hardware store and clothes store.

This is me. I am a practitioner of the historic medieval European martial arts. My melee weapon of choice in the face of a Zombie Apocalypse is a German Longsword. Please represent it! Thank you.