#shortsword

Misconception 1: dual wielding shortswords is safe and effective.

When you dual wield, you really REALLY want different length weapons in each hand -- like a dagger in the offhand. Otherwise they cross over each other, get in each other's way, and generally slow you down and mess you up. We'll dual wield matching weapons for fun sometimes, but it strangely feels very unsafe and most of the time you have to resort to windmilling (getting stabbed in the chest as a result). Is this a skill issue? Maybe partially, but there's another reason to have a shorter weapon in your weaker hand, and it's physics. Maintaining parry structure and speed in a full size blade is really hard to do in your weaker, non dominant hand, so if you're going to hold an offhand weapon, you want it to be something that can't be easily wrenched or beaten aside, and instead something that has more leverage (like a short lil dagger!) so that you can turn aside incoming hits without the sword getting blasted aside. If you have a character that's really, truly ambidextrous they might be able to legitimately dual wield full length weapons, but most of the time this one just looks silly.

Misconception 2: since it's a one handed weapon, you shouldn't use your nondominant hand at all.

One of my favorite things about slashy one handed weapons like messer and arming sword is that your offhand still gets a job, but it has to diversify its job prospects! Most "shortsword" traditions aren't like modern fencing the way saber or rapier are, where you only use your sword arm. In messer, which is a very grappling-focused system, your offhand's job is to grab your opponent's arm, put them in joint locks, seize the opponent's blade after you've locked it in a bind, and otherwise be a nuisance. In arming sword and buckler, the offhand holds a lil shield, whose job then becomes to suppress the opponent's sword by shoving the buckler into a bind, protect your sword hand, parry afterblows, or deny entire target areas to your opponent. Most shortswords are NOT weapons designed to be used without backup from your other hand in some way. Don't just have your character hacking an arming sword around. Have them close distance, grapple hard, yank, push, armlock, trip. Shortswords don't grant the luxury of distance longswords can. You have to be up close and very personal.

Misconception 3: shortswords are faster than bigger weapons.

And in close quarters, they sure as hell ARE faster, because that's where longswordsget jammed up by proximity. But "close quarters", in this case, is "less than five feet apart". I'm talking CLOSE. Correct to: measured by speed of the hand, you can swing a shortsword more times per minute than a longer weapon. But a few things equalize that: their length, so you have to step in to score a hit, making them slower; and their relative lack of mass. This seems counterintuitive, but think of it this way: cutting a longsword around often just involves redirecting its velocity, which is already trying to continue forward due to its mass, in a different direction. Cutting a shorty around often involves restarting the whole cut: it's probably stopped against your opponent's weapon or bounced off, so you have to re-engage your swinging muscles to get it moving again. This is why when you watch sword and buckler or messer fighting, fencers will often avoid binding their blades at all costs and instead repeatedly disengage under or around each other's blades instead -- because in this situation, with good footwork, the sword actually FEELS its proper speed. A two-handed sword is going to be faster and more nimble than a one-handed sword in almost all cases UNTIL you get close enough that the longsword wielder can no longer move their sword properly -- which is well within the longsword's cutting range.

Misconception 4: shortswords are for weaker characters than longswords.

My beef with d&d 5e is that every sword SHOULD be a finesse weapon with a strength prereq to wield. Yes, shortswords ARE lighter than longswords, but only by about a pound. Add that to the fact that you can only use one hand to hold it and the fact that you're probably trying to swing it faster due to being practically in the other guy's teeth, I find short swords actually more physically taxing to wield than longswords. They burn out your dominant shoulder BAD and there's no way to relieve the weight on your arm without dropping your sword and probably taking a point to the chest. Yes, they are easier to pick up. They are harder to fence/fight with for extended lengths than longswords, at least to me.