I need a nice, heavy light blade ;)

[Zinovia]

Rapiers have an edge on them, and the blade is probably an inch or so wide, if I recall from the ones I've seen in museums. Rapiers aren't epees or foils, they were just skinny swords with a better hand guard than your typical broadsword. They were used for slashing and draw cuts as well as thrusting.

A draw cut is an extremely effective maneuver that will slice deeply into a lightly armored foe. That's when you pull the sword back, edge against the foe, applying pressure toward them. I saw a demonstration of this among a rapier group where they took a rack of ribs, covered it in several layers of fabric, and did a draw cut. It sliced right through the cloth and about 5 inches into the meat.

If you type "rapier cutting test" into YouTube, you can see a variety of tests demonstrating their ability to cut and slash. Rapiers are plenty slashy, but if you want a sabre instead, just describe the weapon as shorter, broader-bladed, and keep the rapier stats.

 

[mneme]

Rapiers have an edge on them, and the blade is probably an inch or so wide, if I recall from the ones I've seen in museums. Rapiers aren't epees or foils, they were just skinny swords with a better hand guard than your typical broadsword. They were used for slashing and draw cuts as well as thrusting.

Um, yes. (I fence, and have done a lot of historical fencing, though I quit a few years ago to avoid more knee problems). Rapiers varied a lot in length (by the size of the user and by fashion -- from around 30 inches to around 45 inches long or so), but always had a nice sharp edge.

Depending on the length, you couldn't necessarily do a circular cut (moulinette) the way you could with a dueling saber or a cut and thrust sword -- but there are plenty of effective cuts you can execute (and the "draw cut" thing, while cuts should have some draw on them, is mostly an SCA-ism; a real cut would have plenty of force behind it). Of course, you weren't doing those big sweeping cuts with a longsword either (unless you were an idiot or hacking wood, at least); the larger and heavier the weapon, the more likely you were to use it tactically and judiciously (at least in one-on-one).