D&D General The rapier in D&D

[pawsplay]

And rapiers literally were used in warfare. You’re conflating it being an officer’s or specialized unit weapon with the idea that it just wasn’t suitable for warfare, which is innacurate.

Anything is suitable for warfare, if you're desperate. Can you give me a single example of a rapier being used as the standard sidearm for any officer or "specialized unit?"

The fact that they were never a rank and file weapon is a matter of expense and required time to train, and the fact that any one-handed sword was steadily losing relevance as a regular soldier’s weapon by the height of the rapier’s popularity.

The US Marines stopped drilling with the saber about two decades ago. The modern tactical knife is functionally similar to a wakizashi or a gladius. It isn't pikes that have diminished the sidesword, it's helicopters and drones.

 

[pawsplay]

Neither is a dagger, a wooden stick, or your fists.

I'm not advocating you go up against a large creature with any of those things. I might prefer "a wooden stick" of sufficient size over a rapier, though.

 

[kermit4karate]

I don’t understand why folks want dragons to be in this place in between “can’t be killed without this special thing” and “it’s a big flying lizard it bleeds when ya stab it.”

To me, either go all the way to damage immunity unless some workaround is found (and no, spells aren’t necessarily a workaround), or let the village full of farmers stab it to death if they manage to keep it grounded long enough to do so.

Idk. Just a thing I find odd.

Starting from the premise that there's an ancient fire-breathing lizard with wings, none of it makes any kind of logical sense.

For me, full-on immune to damage is different than saying it's mostly immune to damage. Mostly immune lines up better with the standard depiction of dragons from fantasy fiction, where they're incredibly tough but nowhere near invulnerable.

But I see the argument. An M1 Abrams tank isn't just mostly immume to small arms fire. It's effectively immune to it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not advocating you go up against a large creature with any of those things. I might prefer "a wooden stick" of sufficient size over a rapier, though.

“Realistically” nothing short of a rocket launcher would harm a dragon. But D&D is not a dragons vs rocket launchers game. Rapier is no more unrealistic than anything else on the D&D weapon list. A wooden stick wouldn’t damage a tank, it sure wouldn’t touch a dragon.

You want “realistic” fights against dragons and other giant monsters? Then you need to play a different game, because D&D don’t do that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Anything is suitable for warfare, if you're desperate. Can you give me a single example of a rapier being used as the standard sidearm for any officer or "specialized unit?"

Carolean Army circa 1700-1720’s, but if you’re now going to pretend that rapiers weren’t a common officer’s sword for literally a couple centuries then I don’t have much else to say here lol

The US Marines stopped drilling with the saber about two decades ago. The modern tactical knife is functionally similar to a wakizashi or a gladius. It isn't pikes that have diminished the sidesword, it's helicopters and drones.

Anything is suitable for warfare, if you're desperate. Can you give me a single example of a rapier being used as the standard sidearm for any officer or "specialized unit?"



The US Marines stopped drilling with the saber about two decades ago. The modern tactical knife is functionally similar to a wakizashi or a gladius. It isn't pikes that have diminished the sidesword, it's helicopters and drones.

As any of the Marines I know could tell you, they drilled with sabers as a matter of tradition and only as a matter of tradition. My family has marines in every generation going back to WWI.

The bayonet replaced the saber in all practical sense outside cavalry before the first airplane existed.

 

[kermit4karate]

“Realistically” nothing short of a rocket launcher would harm a dragon. But D&D is not a dragons vs rocket launchers game. Rapier is no more unrealistic than anything else on the D&D weapon list. A wooden stick wouldn’t damage a tank, it sure wouldn’t touch a dragon.

You want “realistic” fights against dragons and other giant monsters? Then you need to play a different game, because D&D don’t do that.

Or, house rule a change or roleplay it differently. People have been tweaking how combat works against dragons and other monsters in D&D for ages. It isn't a challenge or a problem.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Or, house rule a change

Houserule your weapons don't work, and rocket launchers haven't been invented, so you die?

Either unrealistic weapons work against dragons, or the players have nothing. There is no "tweaking" that combines realism with an enjoyable game that uses D&D weapons.

 

[GrimCo]

Rapier, in context of warfare, was never main weapon. But then again, neither was katana for samurai, or longsword for knight. It's more or less on par with pistol in modern military. It's personal self defense weapon in case your main weapon fails and mostly carried by officers (who were also usually aristocrats) as mark of rank and position (plus they already owned it and knew how to use it). In rapier's hayday, main weapons were pikes, halberds, zweizanders and arquebus for infantry, cavalry used lances as primary and pistol/sabre as secondary.

 

[kermit4karate]

Houserule your weapons don't work, and rocket launchers haven't been invented, so you die?

Either unrealistic weapons work against dragons, or the players have nothing. There is no "tweaking" that combines realism with an enjoyable game that uses D&D weapons.

Oh, stop. Realism? In the first place, no such thing. Second, DMs have been tweaking the combat experience to create whatever kind of reality or degree of pseudo realism they want. You act like it's hard.

 

[Chaltab]

Or handwave an explanation. Dragons are made up.