D&D 5E Katana in 5th edition - finesse?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I am just going to jump in here and point out....

Historically, on the actual battlefield... swords SUCKED. Using a sword of any sort was an undesirable situation. So what is with this drive to make all swords into GOD weapons?!!

The fact that they are even functional in D&D is due to the clumsy hit point system. In proper combat, a single arrow is pretty certain to maim, if not kill, anyone it hits and remove them from combat. So obviously the ideal way to deal with your opponent would be a bow or a crossbow. And the invention of firearms just made it so that much less skilled people could fire them and they would get through armor better. Especially if you could fire it from behind some spiked barricades or from horseback, you would easily defeat any person with any sort of sword. Granted, ranged weapons take some time before you can make your attack, but if they need to run at you to use their weapon, you likely have time to load up and shoot them dead. The issue is when you are facing waves of enemies-- you can only shoot down the front line.

And if they got closer, then the next weapon you would want to use is a polearm. One good stab to their chest or slash across their belly or to their legs and your swordsman is just finished. The polearm just guarantees you at least the first attack, if not every subsequent attack until the last if you are generally skilled enough to keep them at bay with the pole. Its not something they can "get by". There is a reason 300 spearmen could kill 10,000 swordsman in a mountain pass, it wasn't just the warriors were so good-- having a polearm and shield is just that much better than relying on a sword.

The only good things about swords is that they don't take up much room, so you can carry them around on your person with ease. There is no good, easy, comfortable way to transport a halberd while going about your normal daily business. But a sword at your side doesn't impede you much. This means you can have them handy if you run into a fight on the city street or inside a castle or such.

But no successful military tradition has ever relied primarily on spears as their sole weapon of choice. They are not some all powerful weapon that is so vastly superior to all others in every imaginable situation that it is unthinkable that anyone would ever choose to use anything else like the lot of you want to stat them up to be. They are a bottom tier weapon-- even axes and maces/hammers are more effective if you are facing armored opponents as swords. The only situation I can think of where a sword would be the ideal weapon is if you were running around cutting down unarmored people who weren't fighting back and instead were running away from you so you would have to run to catch up and attack quickly in order to cut down as many as possible.

In any situation where you are facing a reasonably skilled person with a sword, it is because you have both made a gentlemanly agreement to use the worst of all weapons in your battle to somewhat minimize the impact of luck and chance and make it more about skill.

But unless you are a marauder slicing up a village of fleeing peasants, the sword just isn't the weapon of choice or you are specifically dueling someone in some sort of organized contest with rules, swords are the worst of all weapons.

As such-- I suggest all swords should have their die size reduced 1 size from their current stats to more accurately reflect their general worthlessness as proper weapons of war and proper status as easily transported weapons of last resort.

D&D is a horrific emulator of authentic late medieval combat. Sure by the time armor was at full plate swords were nearly useless against it, shield were no longer needed, and things like maces and pole axes/hammers were the melee battlefield weapons of choice for teh knights and men at arms, but that just isn't as much fun. Full plate was ridiculously effective at preventing injury from weapons but if you go that route then it becomes kind of lame. Personally I like the WHFB hand-weapon idea, call it an ax, katana, mace, a sword, or whatever, but its a single handed weapon and does the same damage and effect.

 

[Charlaquin1]

I know I’m (very) late to the party here, but I thought I’d throw in my 2cp anyway.

I hate to start an entire thread on such a small question, but I don't know a way around it. I'm just thinking that katana should be a finesse weapon considering that scimitar is.

My guess is that katana is d8 slashing, 3 lbs, finesse and versatile (d10). Of course that makes it "better" than the longsword because of finesse, which may be problematic, but I guess it should also be more expensive. I wish there was a way to reflect that the longsword has superior piercing capacity, which is the one advantage I've read that it has over the katana.

Honestly, I don’t think 5e’s weapon rules have enough granularity to create a meaningful distinction between a katana and a European longsword. I’d just recommend building your Samurai as a Strength Fighter and describe your longsword as a katana. That said, I do think there is room in the game for a versatile finesse weapon, which one could call a katana if they were so inclined. Whatever name you give it, you want to make sure it’s not strictly better or strictly worse than a longsword, shortsword, or rapier. So I’d say a 1d6, finesse, versatile (2d4) would fit the bill nicely.

 

[GreenTengu]

D&D is a horrific emulator of authentic late medieval combat. Sure by the time armor was at full plate swords were nearly useless against it, shield were no longer needed, and things like maces and pole axes/hammers were the melee battlefield weapons of choice for teh knights and men at arms, but that just isn't as much fun. Full plate was ridiculously effective at preventing injury from weapons but if you go that route then it becomes kind of lame. Personally I like the WHFB hand-weapon idea, call it an ax, katana, mace, a sword, or whatever, but its a single handed weapon and does the same damage and effect.

Well, I would make it about that simple.

Simple Weapon Proficiency
Light One Handed - d4
One Handed - d6
Two Handed - d8
Two Handed (Heavy) - d10

Ranged/Thrown Normal - d6
Ranged Loading - d8

Martial Weapon Proficiency
Light One Handed - d6
One Handed - d8
Two Handed - d10
Two Handed (Reach, Heavy) - d10
Two Handed (Heavy) - d12

Ranged/Thrown Normal - d8
Ranged Loading - d10


No "finesse" breaking the game, but you can always use for to-hit and to-damage on light weapons.

And the person with the martial weapon proficiency does that damage with a one-handed weapon even if the game as is would describe their chosen weapon as a "simple weapon" and penalize them for it. And that alone ought to just really open the door to possibilities.

It totally fixes all the issues weapons in the game entirely. The only trouble is deciding how much to charge for them. But... well... classes pretty much hand you the weapons you need from the beginning and past level 3 you are probably so awash in gold the difference between a 15 gold weapon and a 25 gold weapon is nothing to sweat over. The only real thing troubling you is if you are a poor sod who decided to actually try to be a Strength Fighter and now you are looking at coming up with 2000 gold to buy the armor necessary just to match the AC the Dexterity fighter has in his studded leather.

 

[Iry]

You might want to check the date on a thread before replying to it, and starting a new thread rather than bumping a very old one.

To be fair, keeping information in a single thread is usually better than having that information spread out across multiple threads. It makes things much easier for people trying to find information with search engines. I wish more people would Necro relevant threads instead of starting new ones.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

To be fair, keeping information in a single thread is usually better than having that information spread out across multiple threads. It makes things much easier for people trying to find information with search engines. I wish more people would Necro relevant threads instead of starting new ones.

In general, I agree, but I thought that this site preferred starting of a new topic thread rather than necroing an old one. My personal preferences take second place to the site guidelines when giving guidance to a new poster.

Hmmm. I can't actually find anything about necroing threads in the rules of this site: - Is it possible that its fine for here, and I'm thinking of a different forum that frowns on necroing threads?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

So does a Katana require less Strength to use than a longsword? Does it require more Dexterity? They were both made in comparable ranges of weight and length. They both need to deal with armor. They can both be wielded with 1 or 2 hands.

Other than a perspective that 'Eastern' combat arts might be Dex-based, why would there be a differentiation between them?

 

[Charlaquin]

So does a Katana require less Strength to use than a longsword? Does it require more Dexterity? They were both made in comparable ranges of weight and length. They both need to deal with armor. They can both be wielded with 1 or 2 hands.

Other than a perspective that 'Eastern' combat arts might be Dex-based, why would there be a differentiation between them?

There really wouldn’t, at least not within D&D 5e’s weapon systems. A more granular system might be able to account for the subtle differences between one edge vs. two and a straight blade vs. a shallow curve. A game with more nuanced rules for weapon degradation might account for the differences between the higher quality iron of the European longsword and the more durable construction of the katana. But there’s no lotgical reason if a longsword is strength-based that a katana should be finesse-based. People just want their Samurai characters to use katanas while wearing light or no armor.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There really wouldn’t, at least not within D&D 5e’s weapon systems. A more granular system might be able to account for the subtle differences between one edge vs. two and a straight blade vs. a shallow curve. A game with more nuanced rules for weapon degradation might account for the differences between the higher quality iron of the European longsword and the more durable construction of the katana. But there’s no lotgical reason if a longsword is strength-based that a katana should be finesse-based. People just want their Samurai characters to use katanas while wearing light or no armor.

Or, to be more precise, people just want their Samurai characters to use katanas while wearing light or no armor and still have their character be perfectly optimized with no trade-offs or sacrifices.

But that gives me a great idea. My gnome Paladin named Loki XIII is going to dual-wield katanas instead of rapiers.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

... People just want their Samurai characters to use katanas while wearing light or no armor.

That's strange, because Samurai planning on a fight wore LOTS of armor.

 

[Charlaquin]

Or, to be more precise, people just want their Samurai characters to use katanas while wearing light or no armor and still have their character be perfectly optimized with no trade-offs or sacrifices.

Yes. Obviously you can use a longsword while wearing no armor, just like you can use a greataxe on your rogue. That doesn’t mean it’s a viable build. What I’m getting at is that the mysterious robe-clad, katana-wielding wanderer from distant Kara-Tur, for better or worse, is a popular trope. People like popular tropes to be viable builds. That’s why we got the Kensai in XGTE.