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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9064893" data-attributes="member: 7006">I guess it depends on how one looks at it.I mean, 5E does have it-- we have dual-wielding (which allows for rapier and dagger), we also even have a feat that grants you additional defense while wielding the off-hand dagger (the Dual-Wielder feat that grants the +1 AC).  So if anyone wants to emulate the real-life fencing of yore, it's there for them in a form and fashion.Now granted... from a game perspective we don't ever actually see it, because the game has determined a dagger only does 1d4 damage and shortsword does 1d6.  Thus for the game itself no one ever just uses a dagger because there's no mechanical reason to do so over using a shortsword in the off-hand instead.  But whether or not that is the game's fault for not allowing the dagger to do the same damage as a shortsword comes down to how defined "narratively" people want the game to be.The game could just tell us that when dual-wielding, your damage die with the offhand weapon is 1d6-- and allow all players to describe them themselves whatever it is they want the weapon to be.  That would be the way we would see the traditional "real world" pairing of rapier and dagger / main gauche.  Gamma World 4E did that-- the game would define a weapon that requires two hands as doing 1d12 damage (I think) and it let the player decide what type it was... whether it was a greatsword, a sledgehammer, a stop sign, a chainsaw or anything else they could think of.But is that what most people want for D&D?  Blank slates of mechanics that are not defined and rely on the participants to tell us what they represent?  Maybe not.  Which means all that's left is for individual tables to decide to allow that for this particular PC who is fighting rapier / main-gauche that THEIR main-gauche does 1d6 damage (because it's mechanically using the shortsword, even though it's being described and called a main-gauche.)  At some point... isn't that enough?  Does the game itself have to to make that call for you or can you just make that call on your own?</blockquote>

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