Is a Small Longsword type=slashing?

[Sekhmet]

Oh, my. A thread I could have been helpful in that I missed entirely.
It is a common assumption that long swords and short swords (and daggers) are just different sized variations on the same weapon. Simply not true.

Daggers are between 9 and 15 inches, short swords are between 15 and 27, and long swords are between 27 and 40.

Long swords are weighted toward the tip of the blade, so they build acceleration and carry momentum better than shorter swords, however; they still pierce fantastically well, and can be used as either slashing or piercing.
A short sword (like a dagger) is not weighted toward the tip, as their over all length is inappropriate for the kind of sweeping strikes that a longer weapon allows. To use a slashing blow with a short sword, the distance between yourself and your enemy needs to be very small (about the length of the sword).
Short swords often have thinner blades than long swords, to allow for piercing between chain links or creases in sturdier armors.
As for the bludgeoning strikes with the pommel of a weapon, you have to literally be right on top of a person to make that attack with any effect (it is quite dazing). If you imagine holding a person by their collar in your left hand and pulling them in so you can bop them on the top of the head, that is how close they need to be.

The vast majority of English and German swords were mostly dull along the blade, leaving only the last six or eight inches sharpened. This would allow for "choking up" in tight quarters, or reversing of the weapon as was shown earlier in the thread.

Also, since daggers came up in there somewhere as well; a dagger is a piercing weapon. To effectively slash with a dagger, you have to be right in a person's face. Imagine trying to slash at a person with a steak knife. Very ineffective.
Stabbing is the only method of attack that makes sense with a dagger if you aren't a very well trained attacker.

The long knife (5 to 9 inches), typically stilettos and other thin daggers (as well as defensive daggers) are used for specialty purposes rather than general use.
The knife (under 5 inches) is, however, the most versatile blade smaller than a long sword. They're most often single edged and very sharp, with centered weight and very easy to conceal. This makes for a very deadly weapon that doesn't need to be in play until you can actually use it, unlike the short swords and daggers that you can see coming.

 

[Arrowhawk]

A short sword (like a dagger) is not weighted toward the tip, as their over all length is inappropriate for the kind of sweeping strikes that a longer weapon allows.

No offense, but I'll bet you your life someone can kill you by slashing you with a shortsword.

To use a slashing blow with a short sword, the distance between yourself and your enemy needs to be very small (about the length of the sword).

And it would have to be even less than that for you to be able to effectively pierce somebody with it wouldn't it?

Any weapon with a thin edge can slash. WotC, for some reason, chose not to allow Short swords to slash, it almost seems that someone swapped the types on dagger and shortsword, and no one ever discovered it.

The thing I don't see being discussed is the aspect of hacking. Short sword with a light blade can slash, but it might not be able to hack effectively e.g. a rapier. Rapiers in any movie do an awful lot of slashing, but no hacking. Somewhere along the way, D&D & WotC seem to have confused the difference between slashing and hacking and completely ignored the latter as a type. After all, a battle axe does a lot more hacking/chopping than slashing.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=6679551]Arrowhawk[/MENTION]: I did not say that you could not slash with a short sword, just that it was not designed for slashing (and would thereby take the "using a weapon how it isn't meant to be used" penalty).
You can keep your distance well enough in a melee using a piercing weapon as short as a short sword. Lunges reduce the distance between you and your opponent very quickly, and are perfect for the sort of combat style a short sword is meant for.

If you wanted to introduce "hacking", pretty much any edged weapon over about four pounds is going to fall into that category. All of your d8+ edged weapons (aside from katanas) would be hacking.
It makes sense that they would stick with the three types, as slashing and hacking are effective against the same types of defenses (unarmored, fleshy). While mechanically different, they're similar enough not to need distinction for ease of game play.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Short swords could be used for slashing though, as evidenced by the gladius.

On the whole, D&D simply didn't bother with the large variations possible. It also didn't get some of the actual weapons right, such as a kukri having use as a stabbing weapon too. In fact, it's easier to stab with a kukri than a dagger typically thanks to how the blade is bent towards the opponent.

 

[Arrowhawk]

[MENTION=6679551]Arrowhawk[/MENTION]: I did not say that you could not slash with a short sword

To wit, I did not say you said that.

You can keep your distance well enough in a melee using a piercing weapon as short as a short sword. Lunges reduce the distance between you and your opponent very quickly, and are perfect for the sort of combat style a short sword is meant for.

I've never fought anyone with martial weapons in a real fight, so I can't comment on what transpires.

It makes sense that they would stick with the three types, as slashing and hacking are effective against the same types of defenses (unarmored, fleshy). While mechanically different, they're similar enough not to need distinction for ease of game play.

I'll have to disagree with that. Slashing and hacking are tremendously different. The criteria for hacking is not so much about total weight as weight distribution. A handaxe at 3lbs is a hacking weapon. Hacking someone in Padded Armor with a Greatsword is going to do a tremendous amount of bone breakage. Even someone in chain mail will probably experience a broken arm getting whacked by a long sword...even if the blade does not lacerate the skin. A battle axe is in the same boat. So no, I don't agree that slashing and hacking are effective against the same type of armor. Hacking essentially doubles as blunt force trauma even when it doesn't penetrate. A dagger that does slashing is not tantamount to hacking.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

I'll have to disagree with that. Slashing and hacking are tremendously different. The criteria for hacking is not so much about total weight as weight distribution. A handaxe at 3lbs is a hacking weapon. Hacking someone in Padded Armor with a Greatsword is going to do a tremendous amount of bone breakage. Even someone in chain mail will probably experience a broken arm getting whacked by a long sword...even if the blade does not lacerate the skin. A battle axe is in the same boat. So no, I don't agree that slashing and hacking are effective against the same type of armor. Hacking essentially doubles as blunt force trauma even when it doesn't penetrate. A dagger that does slashing is not tantamount to hacking.

Blunt force trauma would essentially equate to bludgeoning damage. Most people would react to a bludgeoning longsword with "WTF?" which is among the reasons it's slashing, as is an axe. Within the game rules, it's good enough to have it be slashing and call it a day.

 

[Arrowhawk]

Blunt force trauma would essentially equate to bludgeoning damage. Most people would react to a bludgeoning longsword with "WTF?" which is among the reasons it's slashing, as is an axe. Within the game rules, it's good enough to have it be slashing and call it a day.

Except the SRD already has several weapons that deal dual modes of damage so your supposition could use some retooling

If WotC had published the game with dual mode damage for a greatsword, people like sekmet would be the first to tell us how justified that is. Ditto with a dual mode for a short sword.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=6678119]Jackinthegreen[/MENTION] The gladius is a stabbing weapon, but most importantly it was designed to be used from behind a large shield, which allowed the wielder to close melee distance into hand to hand distance. It should be noted that a typical gladius was between 25 and 32 inches, not exactly typical short sword length.

[MENTION=6679551]Arrowhawk[/MENTION] I enjoy all forms of combat, and back in my high school and college days, I did a lot of reenactment combat from the medieval period for visiting crowds at Ren faires.
A longsword hacking against chain mail, even with a strong arm behind it, will never break a healthy bone. A battle axe might (unlikely) if the angles are just right. Chain mail reacts in such a way that the majority of force is dissipated across several links and radiates outward rather than inward when struck at an angle.

I agree with you that they are functionally different in the real world, hacking and slashing. I disagree that we need another damage type on the table to worry about. I also disagree that armor should be given DR towards specific damage types (even though it would make perfect sense), because it is another mechanic at the table to worry about. Unless, of course, all armor is given as DR instead of AC (which would suck at higher levels).

 

[Arrowhawk]

A longsword hacking against chain mail, even with a strong arm behind it, will never break a healthy bone.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts I can break your clavicle or as well as your radius and your ulna hitting you with a longsword on an exposed arm. I'll also bet my life you can crush someone's skull cased in chain mail with a longsword. Lift up your arms and let me hack your rib cage...I'll bust a rib. And now let's put that sword in the arms of an athlete like Ray Lewis or one of the guys who participates in those Strongest Man competitions. A person you might actually encounter on the battlefield and we'll see how many knee caps or elbows or hands they obliterate with a longsword that doesn't actually cut the skin.

So with all due respect to your reenactment experience, it isn't actual battle. As such, I disagree with your suppositions and doubt you would be willing to test them in real life.

I disagree that we need another damage type on the table to worry about.

I never said we needed another type of damage to worry about, so you're not disagreeing with anything I said. My main thrust in this thread was why doesn't a shortsword get to do slashing damage, especially considering a small longsword does and a dagger does. So please don't invite arguments where none exists.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=6679551]Arrowhawk[/MENTION] Again, a small longsword is different than a shortsword. They are crafted differently, they are different weapons.
Secondly, using a padded weapon that weighs and handles the same as a longsword, reenactment is very accurate in it's ability to gauge blunt force trauma. A longsword in the hands of the average fighter of the period (5'8", 160-180 pounds) will not produce the amount of damage you're saying that it will.
Third, I would gladly allow you to attempt to break an arm (albeit covered in chain mail and not exposed), as I've taken many hits to the area in the past and only once was it broken (it was braced against an object at the time).
Similarly, I'd gladly give you a chance to break a rib (also covered in chain), and I'll even let you take pictures of the bruising that occurs afterward. Breaking just doesn't happen, however.
To counter your final argument, I gave perfectly logical explanations as to why you should not use a shortsword as a slashing weapon, and you have chosen to ignore it based on an uneducated opinion. Also, you were the first one in the thread to bring up hacking.

Ray Lewis (6'1, 250lbs) is MUCH larger than the average fighter of the period, and would have counted among the largest of any man at the time.
We assume heights and weights of period fighters based on the armor sizes we have recovered from the time frame. Although these measurements could be off by as much two or three inches, it is clear that the people in the middle, dark, and (to a lesser extent) renaissance periods were smaller than modern man, and especially smaller than a paragon of muscular fitness.

It should also be noted that the majority of fighting men at the time used calisthenics, and not any form of weight lifting or hard physical labor to increase their muscle strength and endurance. Calisthenics provides for leaner, more flexible, and often stronger muscle than weight lifting, which provides for bulky muscle that is favored by Strongman competitions. This is why every military in the world teaches their soldiers calisthenic exercises, as they have for thousands of years.