D&D 5E Characters are not their statistics and abilities

[hawkeyefan]

You get some dudes, dress them up in leather armor, and then whack at them until they fall down. On average, it will take fewer whacks from a longsword than it will from a scimitar, and while you're even more likely to drop someone with the first hit from a big two-hander, the fact that you need two hands to use it is enough of a reason that someone might prefer the longsword instead.

Or equip an army, and send them out to slaughter some orcs. History is full of that sort of thing happening, and the guys with heavier swords were more effective than the guys who tried to brute force with a lighter blade, after adjusting for outside factors.

Or set up a pile of wood or straw, and whack at it with various swords to see how deep they cut. All signs point in the same direction.

Or even easier, don't do any of those things, because it's immediately obvious to everyone with the tiniest bit of common sense that the bigger weapon has more stopping power!

You would be mistaken on that matter, within the game world which the rules reflect. Longswords perform better than scimitars when using a strength-based fighting style, whether you're mounted or on foot.

If your DM thinks the mounted combat rules are insufficient, and changes them so that scimitars actually are better from horseback, then your argument might hold ground. Until then, scouts will prefer scimitars primarily because they use a finesse-based fighting style, which favors the scimitar whether mounted or not.

I feel that you're kind of citing the real world when it suits you, and then citing the game world when it suits you.

In the real world, scimitars were designed to be used from horseback. So that real world fact is the basis for how the game handles that type of weapon. The fact that the game simplifies it so much is a necessity of forcing it all into a manageable scale.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Or equip an army, and send them out to slaughter some orcs. History is full of that sort of thing happening, and the guys with heavier swords were more effective than the guys who tried to brute force with a lighter blade, after adjusting for outside factors.

No, this is not true. Not even close to being true. There are a million other factors that decide the winners of a battle other than who had the longest sword. If your argument were true, the the Romans would have lost almost every battle the had against the Europeans because the gladius was one of the shortest swords on the battlefield.

Or set up a pile of wood or straw, and whack at it with various swords to see how deep they cut. All signs point in the same direction.

Or even easier, don't do any of those things, because it's immediately obvious to everyone with the tiniest bit of common sense that the bigger weapon has more stopping power!

NO! Stop saying these things. This isn't true either. Swords are designed for different purposes. A curved sword will be much better at slashing than a straight pointed one. To make claims like yours shows a complete ignorance of historical weapons, their design, and how they were used.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

This is why I have always encouraged folks to see the game rules, such as that a longsword has a bigger damage die than a scimitar, and the reality of the world, such as that both those swords are very likely to produce lethal wounds if wielded effectively against a person - because that's how things work best; the characters can view their weapon selection just like a real-world person would view their own, and the mechanics can (if they are really good mechanics) provide a reason for a player to select either, or at least provide a reason for why there are game options of "scimitar" and "longsword" instead of just one "sword".

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No, this is not true. Not even close to being true. There are a million other factors that decide the winners of a battle other than who had the longest sword. If your argument were true, the the Romans would have lost almost every battle the had against the Europeans because the gladius was one of the shortest swords on the battlefield.

The rules in the book are not an accurate reflection of the conditions the Romans were fighting under. The game world is not that similar to our real world. Our real world is a lot more complicated, and small factors that might matter in our world are simply non-factors in the game world.

If the Romans were fighting in the game world, they would have lost, because the world doesn't work how they expect it to work. It's exactly like when the Flash goes to the Marvel universe, and he can't run very fast because the Speed Force doesn't exist there.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I feel that you're kind of citing the real world when it suits you, and then citing the game world when it suits you.

In the real world, scimitars were designed to be used from horseback. So that real world fact is the basis for how the game handles that type of weapon. The fact that the game simplifies it so much is a necessity of forcing it all into a manageable scale.

Everything I say about the game world pertains to how that world operates, as reflected in the ruleset at hand. It resembles our own world in many ways, but they aren't the same place, and you can't use an argument about how reality works to say how something should work in the game world unless it's actually supported within the rules of the game.

 

[pemerton]

If players aren't supposed to care about the difference in damage between weapons, why give them different damage dice?

Players are, but the differences are minuscule enough that it's a real non-issue, excluding massive shifts ala greatsword vs whip.

Also: For immersion.

How does having different damage dice help immersion? Particularly for those who are arguing that, ingame, a character could not tell the difference between a longsword and a scimitar, what do you think you are immersing in by having different damage dice?

EDIT: [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION] got in ahead of me.

I've always preferred people choosing weapons for thematic reasons rather than min/maxing reasons. I mean, there's a reason why there's such a diverse usage of various weapons in real life. Obviously real life wielders of weapons make their choices not based on min/maxing reasons. Why should a PC be any different?

Maybe we need to go back to OD&D and Moldvay's Basic and have the same damage die for all weapon types.

Personally I like variable weapon damage for nostalgia, "it's not D&D without polyhedral damage dice" reasons. Which means that I also expect players to choose weapons for mechanical reasons (though sometimes those reasons surprise me - I have a 4e player whose PC uses a khopesh because he likes the brutal 1 (ie reroll all 1s) and he can get a racial feat that gives a damage buff - whereas I think the 4e khopesh is fairly weak on his character).

But if I did want flavour/thematic choices to trump mechanical ones for weapons, then absolutely I would go back to uniform damage dice. (Marvel Heroic RP largely does this - War Machine's rockets and Wolverine's claws both add d10 to a dice pool. The difference between them is about flavour/theme, not about likelihood of success.)

 

[pemerton]

Agaain I think because many of you don't consider D and D's varied past and present, you keep (probably inadvertantly) pigeon-holing D and D into being just an RPG.

<snip>

In other words, perhaps you could have said "There are games that are RPG/miniatures/leveling games that don't give rise to..."

I think you're confused about the point of my post.

But anyway I wouldn't say the thing you want me to say because I don't think it's true - at least, I don't know of any game of hat sort that isn't vulnerable to issues of mechanical balance.

 

[pemerton]

So if you prefer D&D 3.Xe or D&D 4e because they lend themselves to your style of play and you still have your books, why not just play those games? That's what pemerton does by all accounts - plays D&D 4e and Burning Wheel. He'll tell you all about it.

If you want to report my posts, you're welcome to.

If you want to actually talk to me, there's the mention tag.

Otherwise - what's your point?

 

[pemerton]

What makes the scimitar weaker than a longsword? In what way is it weaker?

On the issue of being weaker, I'm following someone else's lead. But I guess it weighs the same, costs more, but does less damage (d6 vs d8; or, in AD&D d8/d8 vs d8/d12) would be the starting point.

I think the example was taking for granted that the PC was not benefiting from the fact that the scimitar is a finesse weapon.

And why would a character place importance on that factor more so than on any other factor that may play into the decision?

I guess the question is, what are those other factors and how does the game factor them in?

There is no training issue. (A fighter character is, by default, equally well-trained with both.) If there is sheer preference, what is it's basis? If there is a sentimental connection, how does the game reflect that (as I said, maybe through a flaw - "I always fight with my scimitar" - but that looks like it could be a bit overpowered as a flaw).

 

[pemerton]

Interesting question arising: to what extent do PCs know everything that is in the PHB?

<snip>

do characters know the mechanics of saving throws? The mechanics of combat? Or indeed anything about the rolling of the dice that govern their lives? Seems to me that would be going too far. When a player rolls a d20 to resolve an action, the character might perceive the result as fate or chance, or the will of the gods or whatever suits his philosophy but not in terms of statistical probability as we understand it.

I think this is a big question. It's come up before, on alignment threads.

I get the sense that a lot of D&D players seem to assume that, because it is random at the table (ie via the dice), it must be random in the gameworld. So that a character who attributes (say) a successful save or a critical hit to the will of the gods, or the workings of providence, would be metaphysically mistaken within the fiction.

This is certainly the approach a "rules as physics" person seems committed to.

It's not my own preferred approach, though.