D&D 5E Should the Flail be a Simple Melee Weapon?

[Tonguez]

Flails arent simple weapons, theyre too difficult to control at speed for ‘most people’ to use them in combat. Which is why I’m happy to accept that using a combat flail takes martial training

 

[Quartz]

theyre too difficult to control at speed for ‘most people’ to use them in combat.

But your typical medieval peasant would have years of experience using them, though not necessarily in a martial context.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But your typical medieval peasant would have years of experience using them, though not necessarily in a martial context.

And in a battle against a field of wheat, that might be relevant.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Do you think it might have been a duelling weapon? They did like the weird and wonderful for duelling weapons.

I think the exact opposite in fact. - As long as the opponent has a shield or equally large weapon and freedom to move, the footman's flail is at a disadvantage in a one-on-one situation.

Where I think it would shine is in the second rank of a battlefield engagement. The swing of the head would mean that your front line does not obstruct your attacks as much as with a weapon that needs to be lined up with the opponent, most of your targets' shields are aligned to defend against your front rank so they are less at liberty to deflect your swings, and your opponent can't close on you.

So I'd regard it as more of a military weapon for battles rather than an adventuring or duelling weapon.

 

[MarkB]

Do you think it might have been a duelling weapon? They did like the weird and wonderful for duelling weapons.

That'd make for some comedic duels. Five seconds of fighting followed by thirty seconds of disentangling the chains from each other.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The swing of the head would mean that your front line does not obstruct your attacks

Err... where does the chain go when you are swinging at an enemy when you have a line of allies directly in front of you? It can't just stop, it has to carry on swinging. Then when you pull it back for another attack the chain swings back and killies the allies standing behind you too.

About the only time this weapon would be any use is when you are on your own against a large number of enemies. See: Warhammer goblins.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Err... where does the chain go when you are swinging at an enemy when you have a line of allies directly in front of you? It can't just stop, it has to carry on swinging. Then when you pull it back for another attack the chain swings back and killies the allies standing behind you too.

About the only time this weapon would be any use is when you are on your own against a large number of enemies. See: Warhammer goblins.

The Footman's flail has a long shaft and the flail portion is only as long as the final 3rd or so. It is quite possible to swing it over the heads of your allies to hit the front line of the people that you are facing, and it can be swung back to vertical to prepare another strike without endangering your allies behind you.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Footman's flail has a long shaft and the flail portion is only as long as the final 3rd or so. It is quite possible to swing it over the heads of your allies to hit the front line of the people that you are facing, and it can be swung back to vertical to prepare another strike without endangering your allies behind you.

You are forgetting conservation of angular momentum.

You swing down the wooden shaft, hitting the guys in front of you with the wooden shaft. The chain hit's the enemies, caries on going, and hit's your front row allies in the balls. You then pull it back to vertical, the chain carries on swinging, causing the wooden shaft to jerk backwards, hitting the guy behind you in the face.

What these weapons where actually used for (when they were used at all, which was rarely) was to whack knights off horses.

 

[Steampunkette]

PHRASING, PEOPLE. PHRASING!

Anyway, yeah. Flails were never particularly effective weapons, really. In a given fight and the right circumstances they probably carried the day where another weapon would've done the job about as well, but I doubt there was ever a circumstance where someone bleeding and dying would've been saved if only they'd used a flail.

That said:

THEY'RE DRAMATIC! They're cool! They've got a lot of theme and cultural momentum behind them as weapons of wickedness and villains! Use 'em in your games. Make 'em cool, good, fun, strong weapons! Give your players access to the War Flail as a simple weapon and a cavalry flail as a martial weapon and then make the "Giant's Flail" which is the one with the big ball on a chain rather than a tiny one, and let it rip.

No shame in that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And in a battle against a field of wheat, that might be relevant.

Hey now! Daniel-san learned martial arts by painting fences and washing cars... so who's to say you can't learn proper fighting technique out in the garden?