I've discovered in my several 5E campaigns thus far that the longsword has fallen quite a ways away in terms of popularity and use. Now the reasons to me are obvious: almost half of the melee weapon users in my games go DEX, which means rapiers become the defacto d8 weapon... and of the STR users, half of those go two-handed. Which means probably only 1/4th of my melee combatants use one-handed non-finesse weapons, and there are like a half dozen of those to choose from. So longswords are few and far between.
Now for many DMs, that's probably not an issue... especially if longswords had always been the defacto weapon they always saw, in which this new paradigm is probably a welcomed change. But for me personally... I wish I saw more of them. And what best illustrates this oddity to me is that a race that is specifically called out as a one that would use and primarily should use longswords... that being the elves, due to their free proficiency in it... almost none of them actually do because it goes directly against their main stat bonus of +2 DEX. So I have yet to see an elf player forsake DEX to go STR specifically to use the longsword. (When they do go STR, they usually end up going two-handed heavy or polearm, like most other STR combatants I've seen.) Instead, it's rapier here, rapier there, rapier everywhere.
Where am I going with this? It's really just that-- I'm seeing at least 5 times as many rapier-users as I am longsword users, and it's become kind of irritating because I like the essence of the longsword as a D&D weapon more than I do the rapier. Thus I've come to the conclusion that I don't know if I really need two of virtually the same weapon, especially when one of those sides should be iconic but now doesn't even come close. After all... what is the difference between a longsword and a rapier? They are both martial, they are both 1d8 damage, they both are used with STR... but the longsword can be used two-handed for 1d10 damage while the rapier can also be used with DEX. And thus far... the latter has been way, way, way more of a deciding usage factor than the former.
So I'm considering making a change in my game that I think won't cause any real problems... but I wanted to throw it out there for opinion just in case I'm missing something that might screw things up that I don't realize. I'm considering removing the rapier from the game and instead adding the Finesse property to the longsword-- with possibly the extra rule that states you cannot use Finesse and Versatile properties together (so no 1d10 DEX weapon). But even that extra rule might not be necessary?
Are there any mechanical stumbling blocks or issues you can see by letting the longsword be a Finesse weapon (especially if I don't allow Finesse and Versatile to work together?) Thanks!
Now for many DMs, that's probably not an issue... especially if longswords had always been the defacto weapon they always saw, in which this new paradigm is probably a welcomed change. But for me personally... I wish I saw more of them. And what best illustrates this oddity to me is that a race that is specifically called out as a one that would use and primarily should use longswords... that being the elves, due to their free proficiency in it... almost none of them actually do because it goes directly against their main stat bonus of +2 DEX. So I have yet to see an elf player forsake DEX to go STR specifically to use the longsword. (When they do go STR, they usually end up going two-handed heavy or polearm, like most other STR combatants I've seen.) Instead, it's rapier here, rapier there, rapier everywhere.
Where am I going with this? It's really just that-- I'm seeing at least 5 times as many rapier-users as I am longsword users, and it's become kind of irritating because I like the essence of the longsword as a D&D weapon more than I do the rapier. Thus I've come to the conclusion that I don't know if I really need two of virtually the same weapon, especially when one of those sides should be iconic but now doesn't even come close. After all... what is the difference between a longsword and a rapier? They are both martial, they are both 1d8 damage, they both are used with STR... but the longsword can be used two-handed for 1d10 damage while the rapier can also be used with DEX. And thus far... the latter has been way, way, way more of a deciding usage factor than the former.
So I'm considering making a change in my game that I think won't cause any real problems... but I wanted to throw it out there for opinion just in case I'm missing something that might screw things up that I don't realize. I'm considering removing the rapier from the game and instead adding the Finesse property to the longsword-- with possibly the extra rule that states you cannot use Finesse and Versatile properties together (so no 1d10 DEX weapon). But even that extra rule might not be necessary?
Are there any mechanical stumbling blocks or issues you can see by letting the longsword be a Finesse weapon (especially if I don't allow Finesse and Versatile to work together?) Thanks!
Last edited:
