Swords. More swords.

[imurphy943]

But we also had to keep another reference sheet within reach for weapon speed, and a sheet for to-hit tables, and one for piercing/slashing/bludgeoning. In 1E we looked stuff up in the books all the time.

I see your point. Personally, I don't even consider weapon speed tables- I just use roll d6 for each side. I would like to try weapon vs. AC though.

In a game that doesn't track the difference between getting whacked with a club and stabbed with a spear, or between spending two weeks sleeping rough in ditches and eating old uncooked iron rations vs getting bed rest and plentiful hot food as they impact fighting ability: What is to be gained by differeantiating between a epee and a rapier? Or a medieval archers short sowrd and a roman legionairres gladius? (And are we talking about the bronze gladius or the steel gladius? And the classic leaf bladed pattern, the middle pattern or the gladius hispanica?)

I think on the whole it would be better for the weapons system to provide a few iconic types of weapons (Short sword, long sword, great sword, spear, bow, club, etc) which can then be expanded upon with a modular system of attributes. The attributes can then illustrated with specific real world examples.

EG: We take a long sword and apply a "Fencing weapon" mod to it, it now has reduced weapon speed, but is less effective vs heavy armour. We call it a Rapier. You can also apply the "No edge, sharp tip" mod and it becomes and epee and changes from a 19-20 crit range to a x3 crit. We give it a chisel tip to allow it to penetrate heavy armour and it becomes an exotic weapon for which we hold up the 'Estoc' as an example.

Personally, I'd hope that seeing all these swords listed would get people to learn the difference between them- and therefore an end to the aforementioned "ludicrous sword" art. There are other ways to do that though.

Your idea for representing these weapons works well within the current system, but it doesn't mean that anybody will know what these swords are- and that's pretty much what I do with unlisted weapons anyway. Personally, I'd like to do away with 'exotic weapons' which don't seem to make much sense.

If more swords were going to be included, it is true that most of them are too alike to justify including- the rapier and the court sword work as a good example.

However, I think that a reasonable amount of detail may be included in only 14 categories of sword:

Rapier
Rapier, Short
Chopping, Short (machete, butterfly sword)
Chopping, One-Handed (falchion, cutlass, falcata, itak, dao, kilij)
Chopping, Hand-and-a-half (falchion, dao, kampilan, dadao)
Slashing, Short (wakizashi, et all)
Slashing, One-Handed (katana, miao dao, sabre, scimitar)
Slashing, Hand-and-a-half (katana, miao dao)
Straight-edge, Piercing, Stout (Oakeshott's types XIa, XIV, XV, XVI, XXI, and XXII, Cinquedea)
Straight-edge, Hacking, One-Handed (early chinese jian, Oakeshott's X and XIII, executioner's sword)
Straight-edge, Piercing, One-Handed (jian, estoc, Oakeshott's XI, XVa, XIX, XXa)
Straight-edge, One-Handed (Oakeshott's Xa, XII, XIIIb, XVIII, jian)
Straight-edge, Piercing, Hand-and-a-half (Oakeshott's XVIa, XVII)
Straight-edge, Hand-and-a-half (Oakeshott's XIIa, XIIIa, XVIIIb, XX)

These can be easily statted as "Type A"-"Type N" (as of now, "Winesap's Typology of Swords In D&D). People who just care about getting a good weapon can just choose according to stats and have a general idea of the weapon's appearance.

 

[JonWake]

I'd put claymore in a different category because they are hollow I believe and filled with a heavy metallic fluid that radically effects thier usage and the power of the blow.

No, they were not. That's an invention from DnD 3.0, like swords weighing 25 lbs.

 

[Andor]

No, they were not. That's an invention from DnD 3.0, like swords weighing 25 lbs.

[pedant] Actually that's from Gene Wolfe "Book of the New Sun" series where the main character Sevarian the Torturer carries a blade with that design. Notably it was designed as an executioners blade and the one time he does try to fight with it, it exploded.

They then stuck in 3.x as an exercise in stupidity.[/pedant]

 

[imurphy943]

I thought for sure when he said that about claymores he was talking about the anti-personnel device- It sounded a lot more probable than someone making a sword that way.

 

[JonWake]

[pedant] Actually that's from Gene Wolfe "Book of the New Sun" series where the main character Sevarian the Torturer carries a blade with that design. Notably it was designed as an executioners blade and the one time he does try to fight with it, it exploded.

They then stuck in 3.x as an exercise in stupidity.[/pedant]

D'Oh! They're taking away my nerd credentials for missing that. Terminus Est, right?

 

[Stormonu]

Cut "masterwork" out of the name and just give (all)weapons qualities, and then having a thousand different named swords could be modeled - if you want to.

razor-sharp: increase crit range +1
heavy: increase damage one die size (d6 to d8, for ex.)
deadly: treat "1"s for damage as 2s
precise: +1 to hit
etc.

The main reason I say to drop the "masterwork" portion of the name is so that you don't have to add a ridiculous amount of money to modify the weapon.

 

[hanez]

I'd rather have weapons that are mechanically different then weapons are exactly the same with no real punch.

For me the real interesting part of D&D is rich fluff MIXED in with interesting mechanics.

Always thought weapons should do something different then eachother.

 

[imurphy943]

Maybe extensive polearm tables could be part of the "Epic Gygaxian™" modular option book(s). I'm sure it would only be a few thousand pages of material.

That actually sounds like a really good idea.