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Message: <blockquote data-quote="n00b f00" data-source="post: 6629797" data-attributes="member: 6795700">That's a fair enough way to put it in general. Though you could also argue that what made a shortsword an effective weapon in certain conflicts doesn't really have a reflection in the RAW. By RAW it's the dual wielding weapon, not the fighting in a tight space weapon, there's no rules for that. If you take the idea of dwarven tunnel shield walls, that's an idea that makes a decent amount of sense, but according to RAW they absolutely should have used rapiers. The only story explanation in the face of RAW is expense, which I think is pretty weak considering the total GP value measured against an extra 15 GP. I personally would reskin it, or failing that I'd accept the mechanical hit if the GM said no ("I secretly hate you GM"). I'd be loathe to throw out what I felt was a cool reasonable idea because the RAW didn't support it, and the idea of orc formations being broken on rapier shield walls seemed like a silly contrivance of a sorta fast and loose combat table that doesn't designed to emulate those fights.In a meta sense I imagine most DND parties don't have a specific head limit, and would happy to have an extra body barring specific circumstance(this teleport spell is good for 4 people). Which is why I sometimes include PC minions, though I'm personally unexcited about running a ton more NPCs in a fight. I mostly just have it in the background, and have the encounter resolved by either a few command rolls, or the PCs personal combat reflecting the battle at large. All the same it's a decent way to get across certain narrative ideas, and answer certain questions I'd otherwise handwave or plot around. "Why can the villain's army be taken by 5 guys, are they still using shortswords too?"When it comes to paying the merc less I get it. The shortsword is, because of the assumed setting and RAW, a sorta shorthand for a character that has an interest in martial pursuits but is not exactly a hero among men or wealthy. In a way that carrying around simple handaxes, and clubs might also be occasionally used. Even then there are exceptions. Narratively they can be whatever, the elite praetorian palace guard uses short swords, and are the most feared martial fighters in the nation. But perhaps more saliently there is the monk, who can like all classes be rethemed and refluffed all sorts of different ways. Whether he's a wise old holy man wandering the world, a ruthless death worship ping assassin, a drunken kung fu braggart trying to prove his mettle, or a charming swashbuckler that is only mechanically a monk.If you were running a pirate game, and you have among others a monk, a barbarian, a fighter, and a rogue. They all dress thematically similar, they have a similar backstories and nations of origin. While they are not in any way copycats of each other, their class isn't obvious by looking at them. How do the other PCs in universe know how well optimized they are? If they are wearing the right armor, or using the right sword? That Bob should use a shortsword, and Sasha is being a showoff jerk.There's a few ways to justify it, but it all more or less falls down to how the table feels about when and how they metagame. When you see someone wearing leather armor drop a fireball, does you character think "Magic user! Get'em/run away," or do they think "Is he a warlock, or did he take a feat, or did he multiclass, let's see what next class feature he uses," ? They're both valid approaches to the game, but depending on how far you take it. The PCs are using information that's non obvious in universe, which while cool, is not necessarily the default logical conclusion. Like for me if I wasn't metagaming, I'd hire the merc at a reduced rate assuming he was a lowly poorly armed mook(a dirty peasant), paying the best rates to the heavily armed(they are heroic knights of course!) and obviously magical(he can destroy an army all by himself!) with everyone else falling in the middle more or less. Unless I knew for a fact that he was actually a bad ass, because I was familiar with him or had a lot of experience with his type. Otherwise I'd assume he was just poor and not a badass monk.</blockquote>

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