Really, what good are daggers?

[BSF]

If you want to compare a dagger against another weapon in pure combat terms, they are a poor choice. But, there are many places in my campaign world where a "pure" weapon would not be allowed. Daggers, however, have non-combat utility. As a general tool, I would expect several people in a DnD world carry them.

Certainly, my 9th level NPC Rogue that took weapon finesse, quick draw and flick of the wrist prefers his daggers. Sure, a shortsword would do an average of 1 point more per hit, but there are places where that shortsword would be checked at the door and the dagger(s) would not.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Halfling rogues with a bunch of throwing daggers, quick draw, two-weapon fighting and rapid shot get really nasty.

 

[Wombat]

On top of everything else there is the notion of the Real World vs. D&D

I mean, every knight, every merchant, every peasant carried a knife, the Universal Tool, good for everything from basic defence to carving, serving, and eating to whittling to merely looking natty.

 

[Jeph]

Why would anyone want to carry a 9mm when you could carry a tactical thermonuclear device?

...CAN you carry a taknuke? How big are they, really?

 

[Oni]

I can think of at least two occasions where over the course of 3 levels the fact that the fighter I am currently playing was carrying a dagger saved lives.

In the first case someone slipped a drug into the party's breakfast. Being guest at a house of a man who was supposed to be an employee of our own trading company carrying one's greatsword to the breakfast table might be frowned upon. But as so many people have mentioned before a dagger is a common tool and my character of course was carrying his at the time, and was able to defend himself as the only one who hadn't succumb to the drugs effect as well as his fellow party members. And while it was a hard fought fight that nearly killed him, and surely would have been over much easier and sooner if he had had his weapon of choice handy, if he hadn't been carrying a dagger he and everyone else would have been dead.

Later on a ship we had a encounter with some aquatic menaces and we had a man overboard. My character was able to jump in and save him, of course again in the situation a great sword wouldn't have been very good, (heavy for one on that swim check), but once again the trusty dagger saved the day.

The fact is I consider a dagger standard adventuring equipment, and I certainly equip characters I might never even plan on getting into combat with (at least if it can be helped) with a dagger simply because it is a useful tool, cutting, digging, prying. Daggers are great.

 

[Wraith Form]

Alright. That does it. I'm setting out to make my next PC the BEST damn dagger weilder you've ever seen. A reall bad-as$, a knife fetishist and razor lover.

You'll see. Just you wait, Mr. "I'm hating on daggers" person.

 

[Oni]

Alright. That does it. I'm setting out to make my next PC the BEST damn dagger weilder you've ever seen. A reall bad-as$, a knife fetishist and razor lover.

You'll see. Just you wait, Mr. "I'm hating on daggers" person.

hurm...actually i've been wanting to make a knife fighter for a while now. Think a fighter rogue would be good.

 

[Wraith Form]

hurm...actually i've been wanting to make a knife fighter for a while now. Think a fighter rogue would be good.

Yeah! Aaarrrggghhh! Take that! IN! YOUR! FACE!

HA! Punk!


Umm....

...I mean.....

Whoa. Time to lay off the coffee.

 

[Wraith Form]

[ edited for duplicate post, gramble grumble ]

 

[Spatula]

* purple worm belly. Those 4 points of damage might really help you escape right?
* Thrown: OK, you just threw away your weapon. So, you 've got three more. The fighter just did 88 points of damage. You did one point. Pathetic.

Your damage is going to be pathetic with ANY weapon if you don't have some way to boost it - Strength, magic, sneak attack, whatever. Yes, Joe Average with a 10 STR and a non-magical dagger is screwed if he's swallowed by a purple worm. He'd be equally screwed if he had a non-magical shortsword instead.

d4 vs d6 or even d8 becomes more and more meaningless as you progress beyond the early levels. For the physical damage-dealers, your bonus damage overtakes and then outstrips your base weapon damage.