So...quick aside, for those who were around for 3.5 FR, what was the point of the Elven courtblade/thinblade/etc.
I remember the introduction of the the Elven thinblade in 2e, which seemed like something dreamed up by Ed Greenwood to justify rapiers existing in an AD&D version of FR where the technology level was intended to be about 13th Century and what we think of as rapiers hadn't evolved yet.
But then 3e had rapiers, except of course the artist illustrated them as being scimitars, and illustrated scimitars as being falchions, and falchions became something else entirely...*sigh*. And then they introduced the elven thin/court/whatever blade to 3e, and the pictures of those were of rapiers...
So let me see the score; we've got rapiers, which aren't rapiers, and thinblades, which look like rapiers, only which are exotic and do more damage. And courtblades, which IIRC look like smallswords, only once again, they're exotic and do more damage.
Why couldn't rapiers be rapiers?
What was the point of the thin/court blade?