D&D General The rapier in D&D

[CleverNickName]

It is very easy to fix. Just delete rapiers.

Mmm, yes, rapiers are very easy to delete. It's the howls of outrage, hours-long debates, and constant whining from the other side of the DM screen that prove a little harder to remove.

I've learned to just roll with it. Most recently, I renamed them as "cutlasses" and nobody batted an eye. Turns out, I was the only one hung up on the name of the weapon; they just wanted that d8+Finesse.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Mmm, yes, rapiers are very easy to delete. It's the howls of outrage, hours-long debates, and constant whining from the other side of the DM screen that prove a little harder to remove.

I did not experience such.

 

[Mannahnin]

Post 1e, certainly. In the original game I believe all weapons did the same damage.

In the original 1974 rules everything did a d6, but variable weapon damage showed up in 1975 in Supplement I: Greyhawk, and has always been popular.

1977 Holmes Basic also uses d6 damage, and technically variable weapon damage is also an optional rule in 1981 B/X.

Some OSR games do damage by class HD instead, optionally with modifiers (The Nightmares Underneath does it, with shoddy or improvised weapons reducing the die size by one, and two handed or enchanted weapons increasing it by one).

 

[Piperken]

Right. If we're going to dismiss weapon effectiveness based on physical realities of mass and strength, we similarly should be accounting for how those same physical realities alter and limit the large monsters...

...Those are still huge, of course, and as SP aptly pointed out, a hippo is enormously, terrifyingly more powerful than a human, at a "mere" 10-16 ft in length. Though dragons are at least somewhat serpentine, with long tails and necks which add to the length, and if we are assuming flight we could also reasonably assume a lighter build is part of that. A dragon 30' or even 50' in total length might be considerably less massive than a 15' hippo.

And in addition to the size, fantasy isn't always monolithic in how mythic or heroically it treats dragons and dragonslaying. In Barbara Hambly's 1985 Dragonsbane, our protagonist hero is a bookish local lord who's earned that eponym by cornering a smallish local dragon in a cave and killing it with a poisoned spear/harpoon. Inflicting a telling wound and getting TFO, as I recall.

This is all to say that while the basic premise of a much smaller animal fighting and killing a much larger animal has multiple basic ways for it to be doubtful and implausible, there are also ways of addressing and adjusting the fiction to make it MORE plausible, if we so choose.

Likely suited for a separate thread or topic; it is worth considering the vast difference in how fantastic creatures were illuminated/depicted versus now, not just their size!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but then it will basically be the same thing than the short sword anyway.

Depends on how you change it. I use a lot of weapon proficiencies and categories on my gear list.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mmm, yes, rapiers are very easy to delete. It's the howls of outrage, hours-long debates, and constant whining from the other side of the DM screen that prove a little harder to remove.

I've learned to just roll with it. Most recently, I renamed them as "cutlasses" and nobody batted an eye. Turns out, I was the only one hung up on the name of the weapon; they just wanted that d8+Finesse.

You thought their primary concern wasn't mechanical, if they're whining that much?

 

[pawsplay]

There are many D&D weapons that would be worse against a dragon.

At least the rapier is long and strong and sharp.

Ever held a real rapier?

Well, yeah. I've never held double chicken sabers, but just about anything other than that. Well, I have touched but not lifted a gada (heavy Indian mace). Weapons are kind of a thing for me.

I do acknowledge the 3e double scimitar would be worse, because the spinning beanie scimitar is worse than anything ever conceived.

 

[pawsplay]

There’s still some peoples in Africa who hunt huge game (elephants, giraffes) as a rite of passage and proof of skill. The hard part is chasing the target for a few days after you wound it so it doesn’t even get a chance to heal. Poisons are sometimes used.

Even these people don’t consider this an efficient way to acquire meat; there’s just too much. But the hides are extremely valuable and the cred for taking down an elephant is real.

Bush people still hunt them for meat, using blowguns, traps, and spears.

 

[pawsplay]

The term "Rapier" first appears in the Coplas de la Panedera, a poem describing the first battle of Olmedo in 1445. It criticized the nobility and their cowardice in the fight, where only 22 people died. The poem, itself, was written somewhere between May of 1445 and 1450, certainly earlier than your statement, there. Which means the rapier, itself, was invented at some point around or prior to 1445 to be used in that battle.

Actually it says "espada ropera" which is the linguistic root I noted above, literally means "sword for dressing," and in that era would have referred to a sidesword (spada de lato, in the Italian parlance). That was a transitional weapon that was used in early modern fencing; the rapier derived from then-current fencing techniques, not the reverse.

So, no. The rapier was not invented in the 1400s. I know more about later transitional swords, including "rapiers" with a full edge. I am confessedly not an expert on early transitional swords; I learned a lot while I was playtesting GURPS Martial Arts: The Bolognese School. But I do know that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, yeah. I've never held double chicken sabers, but just about anything other than that. Well, I have touched but not lifted a gada (heavy Indian mace). Weapons are kind of a thing for me.

I do acknowledge the 3e double scimitar would be worse, because the spinning beanie scimitar is worse than anything ever conceived.

Lol yeah double weapons with short hafts are so wild. The ultimate “only the most skilled people would survive using this thing”.

But yeah rapiers are about as practical as longswords for fighting huge thick hided beasties. Which isn’t very.

A boar spear seems much more sane.

But since the whole game isn’t about fighting dragons, and much more often you’re fighting dudes and monsters in the size range from wolf to Kodiak Bear….frankly I’m more looking askance at daggers and most other “simple” weapons, short swords, etc. I’d rather have a rapier than most of them against an owlbear, bandit, or displacer beast.

Hell, the trident is actually a solid pick if you make it to be balanced well and be nice and long, and make the outer tines sharp-edged, because then it’s a fairly versatile weapon that can be used in a wide range of fights. The whole “one point would do more damage” thing is overblown, since you’ almost never be hitting directly with all three tines in one hit, and be more often turning a blow that would be glance off with a spear into a hit with one of the out tines, or catching a weapon on a parry, etc.

But as far as swords go…rapier is one of the best for D&D adventuring.