D&D 5E I hate rapiers. Do you?

[rollingForInit]

I've currently playing a bard using a khopesh using the rapier's stats.

I'd rather there were more options in the PHB for rapier variants, but that's how we've solved it. Just reflavour the weapon.

 

[Hastati]

The real problem is that the weapon choice names in 5e are mostly nonsense and then colour people's perceptions of what that weapon is. It doesn't help that only one damage type is used per weapon (effectively whitewashing all common one and two handed cut and thrust weapons from existence, and let's not even bring up the pole axe). I prefer to ignore the 5e names and focus on the effect, letting players give the weapon a name. A character using a scimitar can call call it a sabre, cutlass, seax, kopis, falcata, wakizashi, falchion, or whatever. In game terms, it does 1d6 slashing and is light and has the finesse property. Don't like the rapier? Call it a spatha, estoc, tuck, or arming sword. We're not simulating Oakeshott's typology here.

In the end, the current weapon list is an abstraction of real world weapons/effects made to be as simple as possible. I don't really have a problem with that, it's an in game choice the designers made and is easily house ruled by any DM for their own games. Making a new weapon table for one's own game isn't difficult.

 

[S'mon]

I guess I'd prefer it if they just called it "sword", rather than use a term for a specialist 16th-17th century duelling weapon optimised for killing single unarmoured opponents.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I guess I'd prefer it if they just called it "sword", rather than use a term for a specialist 16th-17th century duelling weapon optimised for killing single unarmoured opponents.

Yeah, I never really had any complaints about the BECMI weapons table with it's sword, two-handed sword, and short sword entries - but with most other versions of D&D, I find myself constantly thinking "I'm gonna re-do all these with actual names... no, wait, none of my players care so that's not a good thing to spend effort on."

 

[Warpiglet]

Me too! But I also hate the thought of DnD without D'artagnon, Robin Hood, and Inigo Montoya.

And heck, since there are so few weapons in 5e, and we're meant to use existing weapons to model missing weapons, rapier is what I use for any one handed, not too blade heavy, longer than a sidesword or classic shortsword, sword. As long as it can stab, and isn't *made for* two-handing, and isn't blade heavy (ie, it doesn't balance toward the end for extra swinging momentum, but instead balances closer to your hand, for fast movement from the wrist), it's a rapier or shortsword, depending on length of blade.

But that is just for me, and I do that because the weapons in 5e don't make sense, in general.
Viking swords, "leaf-blade" elf swords,

I like things that are well represented in swords and sorcery by default. Note there is no katana but we can "make" it by renaming something we find on the weapons list. Likewise, monk weapons.

What is a bit odd to me is someone going with a rapier but being decked out to fight knights otherwise. It seems anachronistic to the point of distraction for me. Firearms leave me cold as well.

This is merely personal taste. I want heads to roll, mead to quaff and so forth. I am not against someone playing a swashbuckler in their campaign, or a Samurai or whatever. Variety keeps the game alive.

I just don't want your chocolate in my peanut butter. Well, maybe it would actually taste good. Hell, I don't know. I merely dislike the weapon (rapier) being taken due to its advantages despite incongruent/anachronistic imagery with most characters in setting I am familiar with.

Its just taste. But if we pull at the thread to hard I might see my beloved greatsword stripped from the game. What time frame are we pretending to be in anyway?

In my magic tea party with fairies and talking bears, we use big tough weapons or daggers. We throw our bones on the floor for the dogs running around the hall while we are eating. We crush helmets with maces. We don't do a lot of fencing.

But I respect other people's fundamental right to do so!

But I still say blech

 

[Salamandyr]

I like things that are well represented in swords and sorcery by default. Note there is no katana but we can "make" it by renaming something we find on the weapons list. Likewise, monk weapons.

What is a bit odd to me is someone going with a rapier but being decked out to fight knights otherwise. It seems anachronistic to the point of distraction for me. Firearms leave me cold as well.

This is merely personal taste. I want heads to roll, mead to quaff and so forth. I am not against someone playing a swashbuckler in their campaign, or a Samurai or whatever. Variety keeps the game alive.

I just don't want your chocolate in my peanut butter. Well, maybe it would actually taste good. Hell, I don't know. I merely dislike the weapon (rapier) being taken due to its advantages despite incongruent/anachronistic imagery with most characters in setting I am familiar with.

Its just taste. But if we pull at the thread to hard I might see my beloved greatsword stripped from the game. What time frame are we pretending to be in anyway?

In my magic tea party with fairies and talking bears, we use big tough weapons or daggers. We throw our bones on the floor for the dogs running around the hall while we are eating. We crush helmets with maces. We don't do a lot of fencing.

But I respect other people's fundamental right to do so!

But I still say blech

If it helps, bronze age thrusting swords are referred to as rapiers by historians/archaalogists, and they have about as much to do with Renaissance rapier as the arquebus has with an M-16.

And the rapier does show up in the hands of the occasional foppish nobleman in Conan stories. Likewise, the swordplay of the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories is told in very latter day fencing terms (Fritz Leiber was himself a fencer), so despite its early iron/bronze age tech, it has a very picaresque, swashbuckling feel.

So it's not really out of line for a rapier to show up in muscular, savage, bare chest, bare breast fantasy (otherwise known as "the best kind"). But like you, when the entire party becomes default dex fighters, it's tedious and stretches what I want from my fantasy tea party all out of shape.

 

[Ahrimon]

For me... it's mainly magic weapon stocking where not needing to split between longswords and rapiers would make me happy.

So don't. If the rapier is a more modern weapon then you wouldn't find any in any of the crypts and ancient treasures that dot the landscape. Longswords and shortswords have been the mainstay for countless generations so it would only make sense that most of the magic weapons are those. Perhaps a rare slightly magical rapier pops up every now and then, but if they rarely find them your players will start to re-think their options. It's can also be consistent with your campaign so no worries about looking like you are singling it out.

 

[Maxperson]

If it helps, bronze age thrusting swords are referred to as rapiers by historians/archaalogists, and they have about as much to do with Renaissance rapier as the arquebus has with an M-16.

And the rapier does show up in the hands of the occasional foppish nobleman in Conan stories. Likewise, the swordplay of the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories is told in very latter day fencing terms (Fritz Leiber was himself a fencer), so despite its early iron/bronze age tech, it has a very picaresque, swashbuckling feel.

So it's not really out of line for a rapier to show up in muscular, savage, bare chest, bare breast fantasy (otherwise known as "the best kind"). But like you, when the entire party becomes default dex fighters, it's tedious and stretches what I want from my fantasy tea party all out of shape.

Yes, but unless my character is a foppish nobleman, pirate or some other class that makes sense, I'm not going to pick up a rapier. My fighter in his full plate armor is going to pick up a weapon to match.

 

[Ahrimon]

Ah, you will hurt drizzles feelings.

How? He's a high level fighter with plenty of feats to get dual wielding.

 

[Satyrn]

Yes, but unless my character is a foppish nobleman, pirate or some other class that makes sense, I'm not going to pick up a rapier. My fighter in his full plate armor is going to pick up a weapon to match.