D&D General The rapier in D&D

Minigiant said:

Really wished that there were a weapon properly that let you switch from slashing and piercing.

Because slightly more damage and damage versatility is the longswords thing over rapiers and scimitars.

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I gave that to swords in my houseruled weapons document. It is meaningless though, as it is extremely rare that anything in the game cares about differences between weapon damage types, and S/P/B should just be streamlined to "physical damage."

Micah Sweet said:

That's an idea. I can see several weapons having that kind of versatility. I'll look into it.

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Crimson Longinus said:

I gave that to swords in my houseruled weapons document. It is meaningless though, as it is extremely rare that anything in the game cares about differences between weapon damage types, and S/P/B should just be streamlined to "physical damage."

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I kinda wish there a critical hit effect for every damage type to make damage type matter without warping difficulty.

Crimson Longinus said:

I gave that to swords in my houseruled weapons document. It is meaningless though, as it is extremely rare that anything in the game cares about differences between weapon damage types, and S/P/B should just be streamlined to "physical damage."

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Yeah, but that's easy enough to fix at your own table, where it matters.

Micah Sweet said:

Yeah, but that's easy enough to fix at your own table, where it matters.

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I don't particularly want it to matter. I'd be fine with this being streamlined.

doctorbadwolf said:

I don’t chase goalposts.

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I asked you to name an example of a rapier being used as an officer sidearm, and the one example you came up with was a modern musketeer unit. I don't move the goalposts, you never cleared the first one. Own goal.

Crimson Longinus said:

I don't particularly want it to matter. I'd be fine with this being streamlined.

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Well, I generally look at any attempt at "streamlining" with an extremely jaundiced eye, as IME it really means "move things away from my preferences". But you do you.

loverdrive said:

Hell yeah! Me too! I mean, D&D rapier can only thrust, while our world rapiers very much can cut, so it must be an estoc with beefed up hand protection

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Rapiers are generally cut-and-thrust, but they’re very thrust-centric, so them not being able to do slashing damage is probably more justified than longswords not being able to do piercing damage.

loverdrive said:

Although for what it's worth, our modern taxonomy of swords is mostly anachronistic, and people would totally call a long thrusting sword with an elaborate handguard "rapier", even if it had an estoc-style rigid triangular blade with no edge

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I mean, historically people didn’t really categorize swords all that much. Mostly they called them all “sword.” Sometimes “two-handed sword.” Occasionally “big knife.”

Crimson Longinus said:

I don't particularly want it to matter. I'd be fine with this being streamlined.

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One reason why I wanted the Mastery system to be more like Marshall cantrips is because I think that weapon damage type could have been a prerequisite to certain ones.

Like how masteries originally required to have certain properties.

There could have been a weapon Mastery for different damage types.

Or have a single weapon Mastery that did different things depending on the damage type of the weapon.

The long sword could have the ability to switch between bludgeoning and slashing, where is the ask can switch between slashing and bludgeoning


Overwhelm
If you hit a creature with this weapon with a result of 21 or greater, you gain a bonus to the damage equal to your Constitution modifier if the weapon deals Bludgeoning damage, Charisma modifier if piercing damage, or Wisdom modifier if slashing damage.

pawsplay said:

I asked you to name an example of a rapier being used as an officer sidearm, and the one example you came up with was a modern musketeer unit. I don't move the goalposts, you never cleared the first one. Own goal.

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No. You have continuously been wrong and then danced the goalpost around when shown that you’re wrong.

You claimed that rapiers were not suitable for warfare. Demonstrably false. You claimed that they didn’t exist in the 15th century. Demonstrably false.

You only go back to talking about dragons when it allows you to distract from whatever fresh claim of yours is disproven, and you have not once actually provided any support for any claim you’ve made.

doctorbadwolf said:

You claimed that rapiers were not suitable for warfare. Demonstrably false.

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Then demonstrate it. You claimed they were used in battle all the time, and then for your example gave a musket unit from near the end of the rapier's life. I didn't make you say any of that.

doctorbadwolf said:

You claimed that they didn’t exist in the 15th century. Demonstrably false.

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If by demonstrably false, you mean, definitely true. Look, we're all trying to have a good time here. If this isn't fun for you, you can always go poke around in someone else's thread. I've already put my sources on the table, and I don't particularly feel like repeating myself. I just don't find what you had to say convincing. At some point, you are going to have to accept that and move on, or bring something more persuasive to the table.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to prove, other than the (easily verifiable) incorrect claim that rapiers are a hundred year older than they were, or trying to claim rapier fencing existed to any extent in Renaissance Germany, which for practical purposes it did not. If you feel so strongly, maybe you should head over to Wikipedia, where the article on rapiers says they were invented around 1540, and try your evidence out on those guys.

So, yeah, I'm going to keep directing the conversation back to the peculiar event that, probably in D&D third edition, the rapier was added to the standard weapon list, and given fairly optimal stats for a Dexterity-based wielder, making it a standard option for certain kinds of characters. The implied use, then, being that dungeoneers would be carrying a civilian dueling weapon into the dungeon, instead of contemporaneous sideswords, cutlasses, axes, and so forth.

I'm pretty sure the rapier first appears in A Mighty Fortress, but maybe I missed a source upstream. Is anyone aware of an earlier appearance? Its presence makes sense in an Age of Sail game, but it feels incongruous next to a weapon list thoroughly culled from a 12th through 15th century armoury, plus a couple of historical odd bits like the kopesh.