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Notes -
Can't hold a knife if your arm or fingers are broken.
Winning move for bat fighter: keep distance, break arms/hands, easy beat down afterwards.
Winning move for knife fighter: get in close, stab low in stomach (very painful) or thighs (lower their mobility, bleed out possible).
My thinking is that bat user is more likely to win. Range is king in unarmored melee fights. Specifically getting in the first hit is going to matter a lot for untrained fighters. Pain tolerance has to be learned. There is a youtube video somewhere where some medieval larpers who usually fight with swords are given spears and told to fight sword users. The spear users won like all the time in like every combo of shield/no shield.
Spears, critically, still have the pointy end. Range is king with pointy ends because touching = dead, a long stick doesn't win against a sword user if you have to outright pummel him to death.
Armor means yes you do have to pummel them to the ground, and then you can knife them in a weak spot of the armor. Military history bears me out. Soldiers had the option of carrying both weapons and they start the battle with the longer range weapon.
Pointy bits kill people, but bludgeoning is how you take them down and end the fight. If you end the initial fight in your favor it doesn't matter how long your weapon takes to finish the other person.
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