D&D 5E Fighter Weapon Choice

[Staccat0]

Characters know way more about how their world works than the players do. In-game, characters know about the real world details which are merely modeled by the stats we see in the book. It is a truth of their world that the rapier is more likely to cause a lethal injury than a shortsword, though it is much easier to dual wield shortswords rather than rapiers. It is a truth of their world that, given the choice between the two, the fighter who chooses a single shortsword over a single rapier is less likely to disable an opponent in the first strike, and more likely to die.

Yeah, but in-game a player character is exceptional. Your fighter who uses a short-sword is "good" with a short sword and can easily dispatch 90% of the people he's ever met at 1st level. I don't think it makes a lot of sense for characters in game to ask him to use a weapon that he is less comfortable with or mock them off of the team in exchange for... who? One less set of hands?

It's fantasy. A game. I say let their people have their fantasy and enjoy the game. The alternative is exhange them for what? One less friend?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yeah, but in-game a player character is exceptional. Your fighter who uses a short-sword is "good" with a short sword and can easily dispatch 90% of the people he's ever met at 1st level. I don't think it makes a lot of sense for characters in game to ask him to use a weapon that he is less comfortable with or mock them off of the team in exchange for... who? One less set of hands?

The relative exceptionality of player characters is going to vary from edition to edition and table to table. In any case, it's not something that has any in-game meaning, so it has no effect on how someone reacts to that character. I don't know if there's ever been an edition where a level 1 fighter with short sword can easily dispatch 90% of opponents, unless you're counting old editions and level-zero NPCs, which will still vary from table to table. In the world of D&D 5E, a fighter who is more comfortable with a short sword than with a rapier is a superstitious fool, and will be treated as such by any professional who knows better (mercenaries, guards, etc).

In reality, I don't think it's going to come up much. There is no sane reason why a proficient character would prefer a single short sword over a rapier, and most players don't want to play that kind of character. Most players want to play characters who are at least marginally competent, rather than ones who are too stupid to use the obviously superior weapon and too stubborn to take well-meaning advice on the off chance that they do make the objectively incorrect choice.

 

[Staccat0]

The relative exceptionality of player characters is going to vary from edition to edition and table to table. In any case, it's not something that has any in-game meaning, so it has no effect on how someone reacts to that character. I don't know if there's ever been an edition where a level 1 fighter with short sword can easily dispatch 90% of opponents, unless you're counting old editions and level-zero NPCs, which will still vary from table to table. In the world of D&D 5E, a fighter who is more comfortable with a short sword than with a rapier is a superstitious fool, and will be treated as such by any professional who knows better (mercenaries, guards, etc).

In reality, I don't think it's going to come up much. There is no sane reason why a proficient character would prefer a single short sword over a rapier, and most players don't want to play that kind of character. Most players want to play characters who are at least marginally competent, rather than ones who are too stupid to use the obviously superior weapon and too stubborn to take well-meaning advice on the off chance that they do make the objectively incorrect choice.

Sorry, I meant opponent as in "potential opponents" as in people the PC meets. Reffering to the people that a PC is drawn or drafted from when recruiting people willing to go on an adventure. I can see how my wording was confusing.

I sincerely doubt that a foolhardy gang of murder-hobos l would turn YOU away just because you didn't have a machine gun and were using a "sub optimal pistol" or whatever. Also, I'll take a ride to work even if your car is sub-optimal, and I doubt either of us are as skilled as a fighter or driver or whatever, ya know?

Historically militias and vigilantes use whatever is around. Really, really major battles were fought and won with people wearing crappy armor and using crappy weapons. It turns out people aren't that picky about who can lay their lives on the line for them.
(Heck, the US Military has done it multiple times in recent history. I doubt other countries soldiers crack jokes)

Perhaps a well trained soldier or guard might be rude, but a villager might also be afriad of a half-orc! An elf might say something rude to a dwarf! A burly guard might also mock a puny bard or mage! It shouldn't dissuade a player from playing one, or worse somehow encourage a DM to take their fun away and have people refuse to work with them in game.

And honestly, it's kind of a moot point, because the 5e DMG openly encourages you to adjust things for flavor by simply swapping them. If I were somehow bothered by the credulity of a player using a sub optimal weapon I would just say "Hey friend, go ahead and take the stats for a rapier and we'll just call it a short-sword on your character sheet. Thanks for coming over."

The rules for HP and damage in D&D are so hysterically abstract and goofy it seems weird to get hung up on the realism of it as seen through the eyes of an NPC. How does that guard treat a monk who signs up for a quest? Does he know my stat block and class BEFORE he makes jokes about my weapon? Does he check to see if I am a multi-class or a sorcerer or something first or what? Wouldn't every guy and gal with nice armor be someone you at least ASSUME has the POTENTIAL to have a weird magic short sword that turns everything it hits into a toad before he says anything too snarky?

I don't really care what my players use, I'm not gonna shame them over math. That's like inviting someone over to your house and yelling at them for not liking asparagus. I just can't see the POINT in caring, but your group and mileage may vary.

 

[n00b f00]

But even in the real world, when comparing guns, stopping power is a real thing that can be measured and discussed and taken into consideration. If you're going out to hunt grizzly bears, or hippos, then the guy with the PPK is a liability who is going to get everyone else killed, and the professional hunters who are organizing this expedition aren't going to invite that guy along.

I think my biggest point of contention is the bolded part. In real life I've spent hours reading and listening to people argue whether or not 9mm vs .45 was superior, or whether 5.56 versus 7.62 was superior. Whether bullet quality was more important, whether bullet placement was the only factor. Whether it was possible at all to quantify stopping power except in the sense that getting shot in the chest by a .50 cal was definitely worse than getting shot in the chest by a .22. In the same way that I would assume that characters would for sure know that greatswords are better than daggers.

To me with all of our anecdotal evidence, ballistic tests, studies, and reports from health physicians. We still can't tell you conclusively what's better when it comes to similar cartridges. I absolutely believe there are characters in DND who will tell you that rapiers are obviously better, because they are bigger. And I will tell you that they will have no hard proof for this statement, and that this statement is not considered true by the world at large.

I don't believe that PCs understand their weapons, better than we understand our own weapons. I also don't believe that PCs would in universe never consider non mechanical factors in their decision making. Because they are not a slab of numbers, they are presumably people who exist in all the spectrum we do not otherwise mention, such as how comfortable they find a particular weapon to use. If every PC knew for a fact the damage values of close(1 damage on average) weapons, then you are meta gaming. Which is okay.

If all fighting characters know as a matter of fact they'd be better off getting hacked at with a scimitar than a rapier. That a trident and a spear might as well be the same weapon. That daggers, clubs, whips, and sickles were all just as deadly as each other. Then you are metagaming. Which is not a bad thing, I metagame on the regular when it comes to certain things that may drive people insane. Of course my character knows that a rapier is better! Mostly to smooth out my gaming experience, in the same way I will share knowledge with another player out of universe before they take an action. You can justify it and say, my character noticed over the years that X weapon was better, or that I as a player was just telling another player something his character should already know. But still that's metagaming, and where you fall on that line is up to you. We may as well argue whether or not OOC conversations are metagaming, or a corrective measure to replace all the offscreen time these characters spend together getting on the same wavelength.

 

[S'mon]

If a character uses a weapon which is mechanically inferior - like a short sword instead of a rapier, when the character isn't trying to dual wield or anything - then that character is suicidally incompetent and a liability to the team. Other, competent characters will ridicule this character in-game, and refuse to work with such a moron.

Stay classy.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Historically militias and vigilantes use whatever is around.

Both price and availability are good reasons to choose a short sword over a rapier. The difference between 10gp and 25gp may be trivial for a single fighter, but multiplied across a thousand soldiers, it might be an issue.

And honestly, it's kind of a moot point, because the 5e DMG openly encourages you to adjust things for flavor by simply swapping them.

You're thinking of 4E, actually. The 5E books will tell you to find a closest equivalent for weapons that don't otherwise exist (e.g. treat a nunchaku as a club), but doesn't give carte blanche to just swap stats whenever you feel like it. A short sword deals 1d6, and a rapier deals 1d8, and that's just the fact of the matter in this edition. (Of course, the rules do suggest that the DM is free to ignore any rules, to taste, but that's somewhat tangential to the topic at hand.)

 

[Mishihari Lord]

If a character uses a weapon which is mechanically inferior - like a short sword instead of a rapier, when the character isn't trying to dual wield or anything - then that character is suicidally incompetent and a liability to the team. Other, competent characters will ridicule this character in-game, and refuse to work with such a moron.

I saw the laugh points and thought that yeah, this is pretty funny, but your follow-on posts indicate that you're actually serious, so I'm going to respond to this as a serious post.

I absolutely reject the idea that the rules are the physics of the setting, of which the PCs are aware. I much prefer the approach where genre, real world, or fictional conventions form the physics of the setting that the PCs are aware of, and the rules are considered to be admittedly-imperfect models for that physics. Going with the rules=physics approach means that odd things come up, like rapiers being always superior to short swords, or PCs jumping off 100 ft cliffs to save time because they know it can't really hurt them. These conflict with expected behavior based on genre, real world, or fictional conventions in a way that I find very jarring. I want to be immersed in the fiction, not the rules, and rules=physics makes this very difficult. I also want to make my choices based on setting information rather than rules information. Frex, if I recall correctly, rapiers only became widespread once guns had made armor obsolete because they're not very effective against armor, so I wouldn't want to pick a rapier for my character if I expect to be facing armor, no matter what the rules say.

 

[Psikerlord#]

My current rogue uses two daggers, or dagger and whip, or two whips. Yeah, twin rapiers or short swords would be better, but not by much, as most of her damage is sneak attack. I choose daggers/whips for flavour/cool factor. Wielding twin rapiers feels "unrealistic" to me, so I wont choose it.

Always choosing the most "optimal" weapon is, well, boring. Plus, with something odd like a whip, it opens up houseruled feats like Whip Master, something like shield master or martial adept, but more tailored to whips (I'm imagining a pull attack, and a rudimentary grab). Which could open up a whole bunch of "suboptimal" fun!

 

[Bupp]

My current rogue uses two daggers, or dagger and whip, or two whips. Yeah, twin rapiers or short swords would be better, but not by much, as most of her damage is sneak attack. I choose daggers/whips for flavour/cool factor. Wielding twin rapiers feels "unrealistic" to me, so I wont choose it.

Always choosing the most "optimal" weapon is, well, boring. Plus, with something odd like a whip, it opens up houseruled feats like Whip Master, something like shield master or martial adept, but more tailored to whips (I'm imagining a pull attack, and a rudimentary grab). Which could open up a whole bunch of "suboptimal" fun!

A rogue in my group dual wields daggers for much the same reason. She likes the image of 2 daggers and most damage is sneak attack. Like others have pointed out, the max damage from a d4 and d6 is only 2, while the average is much closer.

I've also house ruled that fighters, rangers, paladins and barbarians do d10 with all one handed weapons (except when dual wielding), and d12 with two handed after they hit level 3. They are pretty deadly with whatever weapon they use, and it avoids the whole min/max metagaming thing. They use what weapon fits their image instead of which has the best damage die.

 

[redrick]

My latest fighter started with a fishing knife and a hunting spear, because he's dirt poor and those seemed like weapons that would be on hand in his village.

More broadly speaking, I tend to go for whichever style I want, and then I'll probably go for the biggest die, because it's easy to do and doesn't really change how my character plays. Also, when playing fighters, part of the point for me is a fairly agnostic approach towards individual weapons. I'd see my character as looking at pretty much anything, giving it a few swings and saying, "it'll do."

Now, that being said, since the rapier is such a specific item in history, if I wanted to buy one, I might ask my DM if I could re-skin it as something a little less specific and just call it a sword.

In the game I'm DM'ing, our ranger wields daggers when she gets into melee. Because she wants to. I'm cool with that.

I think it's silly to give another player a hard time about spell and weapon selection, so long as they aren't actively screwing over the rest of the group in an overt way. The sorcerer who always drops fireballs on melees? Probably not cool. But the fighter using a greataxe instead of a greatsword? Who cares? I'd rather let that player learn for themselves and play the character that they want to play.

There is also a huge amount of experience between "perfectly optimized" and "suicidally incompetent." Suicidally incompetent is playing a fighter who regularly wades into combat without armor or weapons. Or throws burning oil at his own feet.