D&D General The rapier in D&D

[pawsplay]

Oof.

I’m good. We don’t need to continue interacting. Have a good one.

(They also had cavalry using rapiers, and the musketeers didn’t have bayonets because they were trained to use their rapiers in close quarters. So ya know, rapiers used in battle. )

Your example is very modern, and I'm confident they did not often use their rapiers against enemy horse. This isn't some test or dare, by the way. If you can come up with a second example feel free. But if it's not example of soldiers going up against contemporaneous longsword users or the like, it doesn't do much to advance your argument. Rapiers were relevant in that situation because, first, they were already popular by the Modern era, and second, their opponents had plenty of unarmored targets, because muskets and pikes had substantially changed infantry doctrine by that time. They weren't fighting armored knights, much less dragons.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

TBH I don't know why Rapier is a different weapon than Longsword.

Possibly the visuals. - While most of the weapons covered by D&D longswords could deal piercing damage like a rapier, there is a big conceptual distinction between the smallsword-like weapons popularised by Errol Flynn and Mandy Patinkin, and the broader knightly sword in people's minds.

Mechanically, there was a need for a different weapon as part of the D&D's obsequious fawning over the Dexterity statistic. There are conceptual issues over the D&D longswords not requiring any degree of physical power to wield, so a new entry in the weapons chart was created and named after what the popular image of it would be.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

TBH I don't know why Rapier is a different weapon than Longsword.

Probably because they are very different. Latter is larger, much heavier, can be used with both hands.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would suggest that the rapier became more popular in 16th-17th century Europe due to increasing urbanisation. The lighter blade made it easier to manoeuvre through crowded city streets, and to fight in enclosed spaces. At the same time the rise of the wealthy middle class made it more important than ever for a nobleman to openly display a weapon.

 

[Minigiant]

TBH I don't know why Rapier is a different weapon than Longsword.

Really wished that there were a weapon properly that let you switch from slashing and piercing.

Because slightly more damage and damage versatility is the longswords thing over rapiers and scimitars.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Your example is very modern, and I'm confident they did not often use their rapiers against enemy horse. This isn't some test or dare, by the way. If you can come up with a second example feel free. But if it's not example of soldiers going up against contemporaneous longsword users or the like, it doesn't do much to advance your argument. Rapiers were relevant in that situation because, first, they were already popular by the Modern era, and second, their opponents had plenty of unarmored targets, because muskets and pikes had substantially changed infantry doctrine by that time. They weren't fighting armored knights, much less dragons.

I don’t chase goalposts.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really wished that there were a weapon properly that let you switch from slashing and piercing.

Because slightly more damage and damage versatility is the longswords thing over rapiers and scimitars.

That's an idea. I can see several weapons having that kind of versatility. I'll look into it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's an idea. I can see several weapons having that kind of versatility. I'll look into it.

Used to be in 3rd edition.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Used to be in 3rd edition.

I always appreciated 3e's attention to granularity and simulation, even if I didn't care for every expression.

 

[loverdrive]

I just headcanon them to estocs

Hell yeah! Me too! I mean, D&D rapier can only thrust, while our world rapiers very much can cut, so it must be an estoc with beefed up hand protection

Although for what it's worth, our modern taxonomy of swords is mostly anachronistic, and people would totally call a long thrusting sword with an elaborate handguard "rapier", even if it had an estoc-style rigid triangular blade with no edge