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Message: <blockquote data-quote="green slime" data-source="post: 3791436" data-attributes="member: 1325">Incorrect: the inuit had been hunting whales for millenia. Also, from wikipedia's Harpoon entry:"The Greek historian Polybius (ca 203 BC-120 BC), in his Histories, describes hunting for swordfish by using a harpoon with a barbed and detachable head."But the reason for abandoning the harpoon as a DnD weapon is the rediculous mechanics they put in place: it completely swept aside the reasoning behind hit points. Suddenly you have weapon which cannot be described as a having a glancing blow, but is instead stuck in the target, and yet there are no greater consequences for pulling it out than "merely" more hit point damage. It absolutely shatters versimilitude at the table, IMO.The reason it was never seen in battle, is that it is extremely impractical outside of the purpose for what it was designed: hunting big water game, and preventing that game from escaping into the depths. What possible reason would you have to actually want to reel in a dead human foe? Perhaps if you were a cannabilistic tribe under a siege.... Sounds like a rather limited use there. What gain is there to reeling in a thrown harpoon, when compared to spears and bows?The entire idea of "heroic" PCs wandering around armed with harpoons is so st00p1d, I'd really like to... Well, its not granny friendly.If difficulty in "useing it right", were really the problem, it wouldn't be a problem: the English Longbow required years of training to attain proficiency, yet was used. The problem is, in the martial context, the harpoon has no gain compared to other, similar, conventional weapons (spear, javelin), but instead has huge drawbacks: more difficult to manufacture, more expensive, extra weight (rope), slower, and therefore can't be thrown as far.</blockquote>

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