D&D 5E I hate rapiers. Do you?

[doctorbadwolf]

I rather like that Dex builds are at least as good as strength builds.

And IRL, the rapier is a very good weapon.

IMO, the problem is the low number of differentiating weapon properties.

Balance wise, I get why it isn't light, but it annoys me nontheless, because the natural accompaniment to a rapier should be a dagger, but you can't dual wield with a rapier without the feat. but again, balance. I get it. And older rapiers were long enough that I can see it (although even then they were often used with a main gouche in the off hand).

Just be happy they don't have reach. Seriously. Have you seen how far they can lunge with a classic rapier? Not the later, small sword rapiers, but the old school early ones. Yikes!

Anyway, if you're cool with full plate in your fantasy, in terms of timeline of equipment in IRL medieval Europe, you should be fine with rapiers. Same amount of anachronism.

There really should be a one handed d10 str weapon. Maybe heavy and one handed, somehow? Pick one or be various mace or hammer weapons. But then, why ever pick a longsword?

Like I said, we need more properties, like high crit and brutal in 4e, or different crit ranges and crit damage amounts in 3.x.

Also, my phone autocorrects "crit" to "frog". What the duck?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, the idea of having a dueling weapon against heavy armored foes, mindless beast, creature as large as a barn is laughable. I did a lot of fencing once and I can tell you that the main reasoning behind the finess weapon being able to to as much damage as a heavier weapon against an armored adversary; that your PC hits between the plates, is strange. There's no way a fighter with a rapier is able to pinpoint 4 times in 6 seconds the small breach in the armor while the foe is defending himself.

Anyway, in my head canon Scimitars are Sabers and Rapiers are Broadswords, longswords are Arming sword, two-handed swords are Longsword.

The rapier in DnD represents precisely the one handed swords used during the height of heavy armor. The thing you are probably thinking of is a small sword. Your fencing experience doesn't tell you much of anything about early rapiers, I promise. I've fenced, too. the epee is equivalent to the later small sword, designed for unarmored dueling, not the rapier that was used in war before then.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Yeah, I never got to use an épée, I was most of the time fighting with a fleuret, tried on some occasion the sabre. Maybe being a fleuret guy is why I have a hard time imagining dueling a golem to death. Anyway, its alway weird to me to have dueling weapon use in mass combat against two-handed axe using monsters. That's why the broadsword makes (a little) more sense to me.

I also doest help that my players also use the rapier on the weapon table as their ''Zoro yelling En guarde!'' weapons.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

The bard uses one.

My mastermind uses a shortsword and dagger as he wishes to fight with two weapons (and have a ranged option) without spending a feat.

I have no strong feelings either way. Maybe in the next life..

 

[Horwath]

Just make any one handed non finesse martial weapon 1d10 damage(1d12) versatile and call it a day.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I have no problem with the rapier, being a fan of Dumas and all. That being said, if I were to see a dwarf wielding a rapier, that might stretch my tolerance.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I agree about the proliferation of rapiers and the resultant dearth of longswords. That was the exact reason I made a thread several months ago asking if there was some invisible potential problems to be found were I to remove the rapier from the game and make longswords finesse weapons as the replacement. That way longswords regain prominence and it makes the elf's free proficiency in longswords make some sense.

While there were a lot of posts from people about why they would or wouldn't personally make that change... no one gave me any possible problems that could occur by doing so. So it's something that I'm definitely doing in my next campaign-- dropping the rapier and making the longsword as the one d8 finesse weapon.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Savage Wombat]

I didn't care for the d8 rapier, but it didn't bother me too much until the Halfling bard in my CoS game took one. A 3' Halfling using a 3' rapier one handed for more damage than the paladin.

 

[Yunru]

You all keep using that weird word.
What is this "ray-pee-aer"?
I don't see it on my weapon list.