D&D 5E rapier+dagger and/or longsword+dagger?

[Josh Jasper]

Actually it takes a greater amount of strength to effectively use a historical Rapier than Longsword. The Longsword blade isn't much longer but the increased moment that two hands upon the long hilt can exert means that it requires much less strength to control than the rapier of basket-hilted broadsword

Y'know, I've actually used all 3 of these weapons (longsword, basket hit broadsword (sometimes called "claymore" confusingly enough, and a rapier) with real live combat weight, so I know about about the strength and atamina needed for fighting with each. Also you're mixing up your terminology. A rapier is not a basket hit broadsword. But that's been pointed out below.

For a somewhat realistic representation of basket hilt vs. rapier (discounting the "catch the blade" trick), check the fight scene at the end of the movie Rob Roy. Reach, speed, and deflection are all in the favor of a rapier in that fight.

Now, I count D&D as cinematic, but still, the idea of using a rapier against someone in armor is silly. Against full plate with gauntlets, you could literally tuck the blade of a rapier between your arm and chest and not get scratched, but you have the same hit chance as a greatsword! Back in 1'st edition AD&D, Gygax actually had a "weapon vs. armor" table in the Player's Handboook!

As for a saber being a finesse weapon, that's debatable, not in the least because "saber" is such a broad term. There's cutlases, military sabers, and "saber" from modern day fencing, which is just a heavier form of foil, which is no where near a weapon.

While you're right about the longsword getting the benefit of two hands, it's still an exhausting thing, and a rapier is much lighter and easier to maintain because of how you attack and defend with it.

There are some great videos on youtube of various weapons being used by people faithfully reenacting how real combat might have gone based on books and recorded techniques. It's quite fascinating, and could spice up a game pretty well if the videos were used to inform how fights were described.

Here's a good one for saber vs longsword in which you can really see why calling the blade in the video a finesse weapon makes sense - parrying from the wrist and cuts involving quick arm extensions backed by legs - are important, as well as limiting body-as-target. The longsword is best for making powerful cuts, but is forced into rapier like counters, which do not have the advantage of being able to make the quick, economical parries a saber is best at.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Because there is no non-roleplaying reason to use longsword/rapier & dagger. If you take the feat, you're better off using 2 Longswords or 2 Rapiers. Since there are several traditional fighting styles that use 1 non-light and 1 light weapon, it's disappointing that 5E doesn't have a good mechanical option for that.

OK, but even without the feat there is no reason to wield a shortsword and a dagger. If you're only concerned about maximum damage potential, then the two shortsword option is better.

In the rapier and dagger style (sometimes substituting a buckler or cloak for the dagger), the dagger was primarily used for parrying and not attacking, although it could still be used to attack if desired. You could create two feats, one for fighting with two non-light weapons, and one that increases your AC when using a dagger, cloak or buckler in the off-hand and still allowing some additional options (punch with the buckler, attack with the dagger). But to streamline things it appears they lumped the main benefits into a single feat.

I've mentioned it in other threads, but this is only an issue if the players are more concerned with optimization, fairness, balance, or some other variation of these concepts. Stepping down from 1d8 to 1d6 reduces your average damage by 1 hp, and really a non-issue in my book.

So the suggestion by Paul L. Ming to make a 'short' rapier that allows this is probably the best solution.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Grimgold]

Seems there is two mechanical (ie metagame) styles of dual wielding being discussed interchangably,

First is a Rogue (swashbuckler or otherwise) who is using his bonus action for a second chance to deal sneak attack damage.

Second is a fighter who is using his bonus action to get a chance to deal his attribute damage plus some on a bonus action.

With the current rule set, only the first is really viable (as in not paying a damage tax to look cool), even with house rules to give the ability to wield non-light weapons for free. So here is why the swashbuckler is cool, first it's the only rogue that can win a 1 on 1 fight, Toujours l'Audace means sneak attack damage all the time in melee, ally or no. Second fancy footwork means that you don't have to use your bonus action to disengage, you can use it to attack with an off hand weapon, or use cunning action for something else, like dashing or hiding. In fact most of the time if you hit with your primary attack, it's probably not even worth it to use your bonus action to attack.

Just using Raw without feats, swashbuckler is already pretty fearsome. An incredibly mobile fighter darting in and out of the enemies reach, hitting with one weapon and dashing away, or using both to get past multiple opponents or land a clutch hit. Wearing light armor and wielding a small sword (épée) with a dagger or a brace of small swords, the swashbuckler seems the a solid tribute to the Dumas inspired swishy pokey of cinema. Feats and a fighter splash are really just icing.

As for rapier/long sword and dagger, just add a rider to the two weapon fighting style that your main hand weapon can be any one handed weapon as long as your off hand weapon is a dagger, otherwise you have to use two light weapons as normal for TWF. That way feat is still useful (well as useful as it ever was), and you will see ASI focused characters (or those unwilling to get the feat) using that very fighting style.

 

[Hriston]

Sorry. I should have specified historical longsword, not the D&D one.

I think of the D&D longsword as encompassing the medieval longsword (when it is feasible to wield it with one hand), and the bastard sword/hand and a half sword. Are you saying that, historically, the longsword was never wielded with one hand? If so, I was unaware of this fact. It certainly isn't represented that way in medieval fantasy fiction. If so, then what you are referring to is a D&D greatsword, in which case I wonder even more why you say the rapier requires more strength to wield. Could it be that strength and dexterity are physiologically not as separate as the rules make them out to be?

I generally think of the D&D rapiers as being similar to the long whippy foils used in many older film fencing scenes, and I'm aware of why finesse exists as a game mechanic.

Actually, my initial reaction to the inclusion of rapiers on the 5e weapons list was to ban them entirely from my games. I like to keep things medieval, and the rapier is too distinctively early modern for my taste. I then compared the 5e weapons to the 1e weapons, however, and I noticed the broadsword was missing, so I substituted it back in in place of the rapier. It's about as modern, I know, but the sanctioning from 1e makes it more palatable. Besides, I have a rogue player in my group, and I felt bad about taking away his 1d8 finesse weapon. He doesn't use one now anyway (he dual-wields shortsword and dagger), but I've told him broadsword is an option, and use it in place of rapier whenever it comes up. My rationale for the substitution is that both swords were developed from the medieval arming sword/knightly sword, which I take to be the basic form of the D&D shortsword, and that in the process both swords would have lost their light property as they gained an increase in potential damage. The basic idea, however, is that the shortsword, and its decendants are finessable.

Its just the actual sabres and the basket-hilted broadswords that you mentioned earlier as finesse weapons that make me a little twitchy.

The swords themselves, or my attribution of the finesse property to them? If it's the former, perhaps you share my dislike for modern weapons in D&D. If it's the latter, I think I've explained why I've included the basket-hilted broadsword, and would just like to clarify that I put the basket-hilted backsword in a separate category. Sabres and other backswords, I would classify as D&D scimitars. This category includes the cutlass, which was mentioned up thread, and also has both the light and finesse properties, but again, I generally don't have such modern weapons in my games, so it's usually represented by the scimitar itself, or maybe the falchion.

Yep. As long as the character is proficient in shields, using a reinforced cloak or similar should give the the AC benefit. I was just disagreeing with the need to use a different, subclass-specific mechanic rather than the existing + to AC as per a shield. I don't thing 5th ed is granular enough to make it worth trying to model their performance compared to actual shields.

I agree that level of granularity doesn't exist, but I take the opposite approach in representing the effect of companion weapons on AC. I don't think it generally warrants an increase of even one point, especially if I consider a dagger's effectiveness in blocking missile fire. Companion weapons don't come close to the effectiveness of a shield in this case, not even bucklers.

 

[Kabouter Games]

Rather than worry about it, create a new Fighting Style to support this instead!

Swashbuckle: You have +2 AC while wielding a light weapon in your off-hand. You lose this bonus if you use a Bonus Action to attack with this weapon. When an attack misses you by 2 or less, you may use your reaction to make an attack with your off-hand weapon, adding your dexterity bonus to any attack.

The reason I don't feel this would be overpowered is:
A) It costs you your reaction to make the off-hand attack, and only if they miss you by 2 or less (to signify the off-hand deflects the blow before riposting, similar but not exactly like Battle Master's Maneuver).
B) Normally you would just take the +2 damage with 1h weapon style, so I feel the +2 on every main hand attack is easily more damage than the odd 1d4+dex.
C) The loss of the AC when attacking with your off-hand is to ensure someone doesn't take this style and use a Short sword/Dagger combo.

Hopefully this Fighting Style will satisfy the player's desire for a Musketeer.

This is sooooo close to perfect for me. The only thing I'd add is a restriction to armor types. I'd restrict it to light armor maximum.

Is there something like this in the SCAG? I don't know, as I don't have it.

 

[dmnqwk]

The sCAG has a listing for Rogue Archetype - Swashbuckler but it doesn't approach this utility.

As for the restricting to Light Armour, that sounds fine. Someone pointed out earlier that adding 2 makes it worse than a shield, so instead let's follow 5th editions love of 1d4 modifiers (thanks Bless and Bane!):

Swashbuckle: As a Bonus action you may begin parrying with your off-hand weapon. Until the start of your next round you may add 1d4 to your armour class. If this causes the attack to miss, you may use your reaction to make one melee attack against the foe. You must be wearing light armour and using a finesse weapon in your off-hand.

It's hard coming up with wording sometimes to "beat the lawyers" because what I wouldn't like to see is:
a) someone claiming they use a shield in their main hand and stacking these together. Those people should not be playing 5th edition!
b) someone hoping to let this bypass critical hits (I would rather it was 1d4 deducted per attack, but that Crawford guy already said cutting words reduces crits, and this doing the same is too powerful.)

If you want to use this, but not as a fighting style, you could turn it into a feat with the following:
Swashbuckle - Req Dex 13+
You were trained in the art of active protection, allowing yourself to wield an off-hand weapon for protection, instead of offense.
When you take the attack or dodge action, you begin wielding your off-hand weapon in a defensive manner, parrying any incoming blows. When an attack hits you, you may add 1d4 to your armour class. If this causes it to miss instead, you may use your reaction to perform an attack of opportunity with your main hand.
If you use your off-hand weapon to attack you lose the effect of this feat until the start of your next turn.

The key difference is the fighting style costs a bonus action, while the feat merely lets you use it for free and saves a bonus action, so Rogues who take the feat can be like "I'm going to stab you with my Rapier, then wield my Dagger awesomely in defense until you fail to hit me and I get to stab you a second time. oh yeah!"

 

[Kabouter Games]

That's a very, very good thing. I'd have that at my table. Hell, I'd like to play a version of that!

 

[Hriston]

Not really. Something they've tried hard to do for 5E is take away system mastery, where there are trap options. Because there is no option for this tradition/historical fighting style, you must choose to deal 1-2 less damage per round (or have 2 less AC) for "roleplaying" reasons. This is counter to the previously stated goal, so several of us of have come up with optional rules to fix the problem.

There's nothing wrong with making a choice that's less than optimal. The rules aren't forcing you to take the most optimal of alternatives. It's more important to do what's fun. The feat doesn't turn longsword/rapier+dagger into a "trap option". It actually makes the choice more optimal by letting you use the off-hand attack. The fact that you could use the feat to wield two longswords is actually irrelevant, because that isn't the choice the player wants to make, so there actually is an option for wielding longsword/rapier+dagger. It's the feat.

The feat doesn't make your choice less optimal. If you use the feat to support wielding longsword/rapier+dagger it lets you do an extra 1d4+ability modifier damage per round. It doesn't lower your AC. It gives you a +1 bonus, and you don't even need to be proficient with shields. Just because you could do more with the feat, it doesn't follow that by using the feat to do what you want you're actually doing less. The idea is to use the rules to support the choices you want to make, not to constrain yourself only to what the rules make most optimal.

The OP was asking for mechanical reasons why allowing this optional rule would be a bad idea, not why the player should not take the feat (which could be because they're only level 1).

Since the DM seems to support the player's desire to play the character she wants to play, I would assume the DM is both including feats and variant humans. Being level one isn't an obstacle.

 

[leonardoraele]

Allow without the feat, using dual wielding rules, this is ok. Longsword/rarpier + dagger are virtually equal to two shortswords. The player's average damage will increase by 1 per extra attack, so +3 on 20th level, but IMO, +3 damage on 20th level is not much significant.

For more clear rules, you can rule that any character can use dual-wielding with a non-light martial weapon + a light simple weapon, instead of two light martial weapons.

 

[Shiroiken]

There's nothing wrong with making a choice that's less than optimal. The rules aren't forcing you to take the most optimal of alternatives. It's more important to do what's fun. The feat doesn't turn longsword/rapier+dagger into a "trap option". It actually makes the choice more optimal by letting you use the off-hand attack. The fact that you could use the feat to wield two longswords is actually irrelevant, because that isn't the choice the player wants to make, so there actually is an option for wielding longsword/rapier+dagger. It's the feat.

The feat doesn't make your choice less optimal. If you use the feat to support wielding longsword/rapier+dagger it lets you do an extra 1d4+ability modifier damage per round. It doesn't lower your AC. It gives you a +1 bonus, and you don't even need to be proficient with shields. Just because you could do more with the feat, it doesn't follow that by using the feat to do what you want you're actually doing less. The idea is to use the rules to support the choices you want to make, not to constrain yourself only to what the rules make most optimal.

You've misunderstood what I mean by "trap option;" everything has an opportunity cost. If you hold a dagger in your off hand and explain it as your parrying dagger (because you don't have the Feat), you are giving up the use of a shield (assuming you are proficient). If you take the feat and use a dagger, you gain +1 AC and about +2 damage per round, as opposed to +1 to hit and damage on ALL attacks (from an ability score increase), and +1 AC if you are a Dex based character. THAT is a trap option, because you've given up more than you would have otherwise gained. That's not to say that there aren't edge cases where you don't lose so much, but for most character's it's going to be a bad choice.

I do not feel that you should always take the optimal choice. I do, however, detest that 5E discourages (mechanically) a historically accurate fighting style. Having done stage combat, I know that it's easier to use 1 sword than sword and dagger, but I also know that 2 swords is MUCH harder. This is why in my games, I allow a 1d8 weapon to be used with a light 1d4 weapon with TWF. You are of course welcome to do whatever you want in your games.

Since the DM seems to support the player's desire to play the character she wants to play, I would assume the DM is both including feats and variant humans. Being level one isn't an obstacle.

Unless you want to play an elf