D&D General The rapier in D&D

[Reynard]

Cars actually aren't for fighting duels or killing ruffians.

Someone did not grow up in the post apocalyptic outback and it shows.

 

[Steampunkette]

The rapier actually wasn't invented until about 1540, and didn't see widespread adoption for another century. Plate armor, pollaxes, and the arquebus (gun) all predate the rapier by more than a century.

Sidearms like the sword, rapier, katana and so forth were primarily used in close quarters, or for duels; they became a symbol of the warrior aristocracy precisely because they were a specialized, expensive tool that most commoners wouldn't have. The metal-tipped spear dominated combat for more than three millennia, and for centuries the main weapons of warfare were the spear, bow, axe, mace and so forth. Medieval samurai considered the bow their primarily weapon, and used more spears and axes than sword-type weapons during their feudal era.

As we get closer to the rapier era, we see the claymore, zwiehander, and espandon type weapons dominate in actual battlefield use over lighter swords. And those are serious weapons I would consider appropriate for fighting bandits, zombies, and large monsters. A rapier, initially, wasn't that distinct from a variety of transitional weapons, but by the time you have the recognizable basket hilt, the elongated blade, and so forth, there was a strong demarcation between the rapier and martial swords. Many early fencing schools continued to teach the broadsword, longsword, and other heavy weapons well into the 16th century, because they were more typical martial weapons.

The term rapier comes from the Spanish ropera, literally a sword for dressing. It was a semi-insulting term but also referred to the fact it was a sword suitable for a gentlemen to wear when about, in case defense or honor were at stake.

The term "Rapier" first appears in the Coplas de la Panedera, a poem describing the first battle of Olmedo in 1445. It criticized the nobility and their cowardice in the fight, where only 22 people died. The poem, itself, was written somewhere between May of 1445 and 1450, certainly earlier than your statement, there. Which means the rapier, itself, was invented at some point around or prior to 1445 to be used in that battle.

And, of course, the Coplas de la Panedera is the REASON it was used as an insult. Not that pointing to the witty poem would protect you from a rapier if you insulted a man to his face for wearing it.

I also wasn't going for "This is when the Rapier was used on the battlefield" or "this is when it got the famous swoopy loops basket hilt" but when it was invented. It shouldn't be that surprising that it didn't see heavy military use until after plate armor was largely discarded, as a thrusting weapon is generally a poor tool against someone decked out in steel. However, long before then it saw use in the populace as a weapon of self defense within the well to do and wealthy of Spain. In the 1540s you'd be talking about the War Rapier which, y'know, I don't care.

Also worth noting: THE RAPIER WAS USED TO FIGHT OFF AND KILL BANDITS. Like that was a massive part of it's appeal as a weapon of self defense of the Spanish. A D&D zombie, likewise, has minimal or no armor and would be precisely as well defended from the HP damage as your average anesthetized dog. As for "Large Monsters" the Lucerne Hammer would be just as useless as the Rapier or the Longsword. If it wouldn't be used to effectively kill a hippopotamus in 1v1 combat, it wouldn't stop a dragon. (Yes, I know D&D combat against a dragon is 4 or more versus 1, but I'm referring to how long any member of the party would survive in a real fight against a large, violent, powerful animal before it turned and killed someone else. And dragons are smarter than hippopotami and also breathe fire that kills you before you get close enough to use whatever comically inept weapon your like). And no. A lucerne hammer would not protect you from a hippo.

Assuming a charging hippo, and you set your hammer to take the charge and push that 16 and a half inch long spike deep enough to wound the hippo in a serious way, you're still dead before you can do anything else. That 2,000kg animal is coming at you at 19mph or 8.4m/s. Let's say the spike MIRACULOUSLY doesn't bend under the force of this beast running at you. When it hits the hammerhead portion of your weapon, we're looking at...

347kN Each kN is 224lbs of impact. 77,728 pounds of 'weight' suddenly pressing on the haft of your lucerne hammer. 35 tons of pressure. It snaps -well- before peaking. And the rest of that force goes into you as the hippo keeps moving on it's current trajectory past the now splintered haft to where you are in less than 0.4 seconds.

And that's the BEST case scenario for you.

No weapon forged by man stands a chance against a dragon.

The point I'm trying to make, here, is that it's a poor argument to say the Rapier would be useless against a Dragon. Because EVERY D&D weapon would be useless against a dragon. And complaints about it being "Too Modern" are likewise pointless because EVERYTHING in D&D's weapon listings is too modern or too ancient to be reasonably viewed as contemporaneous. Similarly, their effectiveness is flattened so dramatically as to be practically meaningless.

The Sling was completely out of military use before Plate Armor was a thing, but you can still ping a Paladin for 1d4+Dex through full plate and a helmet because sense and reason left the building when the game mechanics landed. Grab a feat and discard your Windlass and pull back that heavy crossbow 4 times in 6 seconds. Did tridents even see military use or were they just arena weapons? Light Hammers that you could throw similarly weren't a thing. Sickles weren't employed on battlefields, either, unless you wanna try to argue a k'pinga was a sickle, but they threw those wild looking weapons often enough. Whips are just -comical- as a weapon of war... unless you're fighting with a rapier in your other hand and then it was a serious fighting style in Mexico much later on.

Anyway. Yeah. No D&D weapon makes sense against anything hippo sized or larger, but -especially- dragons.

As a former 11H, I recommend a TOW missile mounted on a Bradley.

Oh, for sure. Or a nice anti-tank rifle if you're aimed at the skull and the dragon isn't dreaming any bad dreams when you pull the trigger. But D&D's list of weapons would be useless.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Mechanically, they needed a d8 finesse weapon.

Did they? Because I think including one was a mistake. It allows dex to completely supplant strength for many builds, without any significant drawbacks.

It also bugs me a lot that fighting with two rapiers is an optimal build, as that just seems silly.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did tridents even see military use or were they just arena weapons

A lot of gladiator weapons were designed to draw lots of blood without causing deep tissue injury, because gladiators are, like, expensive. So they had things like multiple short prongs that would distribute the pressure.

The rapier, likewise was often intended to draw blood, rather than inflict a deadly wound. In Hamlet’s climactic duel the rapier is poisoned, because it’s unlikely to kill otherwise.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You see, I own a real rapier. It is modeled on a 17th century Spanish design, and is forged from high carbon steel.

When I first received my rapier I was so excited I decided to test it out. My friend who was with me that day I got it suggested I stab my couch cushion to try it out. In my excitement I put the full weight behind the thrust. The blade not on pierced the cushion, but passed all the way through the couch and far into the drywall behind it, with the tip slightly emerging from the second piece of drywall on the far side of the wall in my bedroom. My friend laughed so hard he had to sit down.

To be fair, this might tell more about the quality of construction rather than the power of the weapon. This was an American house, right? I've seen people punch holes into walls of those with bare hands.

 

[TiQuinn]

The term "Rapier" first appears in the Coplas de la Panedera, a poem describing the first battle of Olmedo in 1445. It criticized the nobility and their cowardice in the fight, where only 22 people died. The poem, itself, was written somewhere between May of 1445 and 1450, certainly earlier than your statement, there. Which means the rapier, itself, was invented at some point around or prior to 1445 to be used in that battle.

And, of course, the Coplas de la Panedera is the REASON it was used as an insult. Not that pointing to the witty poem would protect you from a rapier if you insulted a man to his face for wearing it.

I also wasn't going for "This is when the Rapier was used on the battlefield" or "this is when it got the famous swoopy loops basket hilt" but when it was invented. It shouldn't be that surprising that it didn't see heavy military use until after plate armor was largely discarded, as a thrusting weapon is generally a poor tool against someone decked out in steel. However, long before then it saw use in the populace as a weapon of self defense within the well to do and wealthy of Spain. In the 1540s you'd be talking about the War Rapier which, y'know, I don't care.

Also worth noting: THE RAPIER WAS USED TO FIGHT OFF AND KILL BANDITS. Like that was a massive part of it's appeal as a weapon of self defense of the Spanish. A D&D zombie, likewise, has minimal or no armor and would be precisely as well defended from the HP damage as your average anesthetized dog. As for "Large Monsters" the Lucerne Hammer would be just as useless as the Rapier or the Longsword. If it wouldn't be used to effectively kill a hippopotamus in 1v1 combat, it wouldn't stop a dragon. (Yes, I know D&D combat against a dragon is 4 or more versus 1, but I'm referring to how long any member of the party would survive in a real fight against a large, violent, powerful animal before it turned and killed someone else. And dragons are smarter than hippopotami and also breathe fire that kills you before you get close enough to use whatever comically inept weapon your like). And no. A lucerne hammer would not protect you from a hippo.

Assuming a charging hippo, and you set your hammer to take the charge and push that 16 and a half inch long spike deep enough to wound the hippo in a serious way, you're still dead before you can do anything else. That 2,000kg animal is coming at you at 19mph or 8.4m/s. Let's say the spike MIRACULOUSLY doesn't bend under the force of this beast running at you. When it hits the hammerhead portion of your weapon, we're looking at...

View attachment 417385

347kN Each kN is 224lbs of impact. 77,728 pounds of 'weight' suddenly pressing on the haft of your lucerne hammer. 35 tons of pressure. It snaps -well- before peaking. And the rest of that force goes into you as the hippo keeps moving on it's current trajectory past the now splintered haft to where you are in less than 0.4 seconds.

And that's the BEST case scenario for you.

No weapon forged by man stands a chance against a dragon.

The point I'm trying to make, here, is that it's a poor argument to say the Rapier would be useless against a Dragon. Because EVERY D&D weapon would be useless against a dragon. And complaints about it being "Too Modern" are likewise pointless because EVERYTHING in D&D's weapon listings is too modern or too ancient to be reasonably viewed as contemporaneous. Similarly, their effectiveness is flattened so dramatically as to be practically meaningless.

The Sling was completely out of military use before Plate Armor was a thing, but you can still ping a Paladin for 1d4+Dex through full plate and a helmet because sense and reason left the building when the game mechanics landed. Grab a feat and discard your Windlass and pull back that heavy crossbow 4 times in 6 seconds. Did tridents even see military use or were they just arena weapons? Light Hammers that you could throw similarly weren't a thing. Sickles weren't employed on battlefields, either, unless you wanna try to argue a k'pinga was a sickle, but they threw those wild looking weapons often enough. Whips are just -comical- as a weapon of war... unless you're fighting with a rapier in your other hand and then it was a serious fighting style in Mexico much later on.

Anyway. Yeah. No D&D weapon makes sense against anything hippo sized or larger, but -especially- dragons.

Oh, for sure. Or a nice anti-tank rifle if you're aimed at the skull and the dragon isn't dreaming any bad dreams when you pull the trigger. But D&D's list of weapons would be useless.

Yep. It’s a game where I can kill King Kong with a dagger if I get enough hits on him.

 

[Steampunkette]

A lot of gladiator weapons were designed to draw lots of blood without causing deep tissue injury, because gladiators are, like, expensive. So they had things like multiple short prongs that would distribute the pressure.

The rapier, likewise was often intended to draw blood, rather than inflict a deadly wound. In Hamlet’s climactic duel the rapier is poisoned, because it’s unlikely to kill otherwise.

The rapier was a deadly weapon, not 'intended to draw blood'. It was a self-defense tool used to kill unarmored or lightly armored opponents.

It was poisoned in Hamlet for dramatic purposes. Shakespeare -loved- his poisons and the drama of a nick being a deadly blow is strong.

The rapier also -evolved- over time. In the 14 and 1500s it was a shorter side-arm with a cutting edge and a hardened point. ESPECIALLY the rapiers coming out of Schoningen in Germany.

It wouldn't be until the late 1600s and early 1700s that it became an almost exclusively thrusting weapon that kept growing longer and weightier in the pursuit of sports-use.

Also of note: Rapiers killed INCREDIBLY well as primarily thrusting weapons. Why? Because thrusting weapons, by their very nature, are more deadly than cutting weapons. You didn't need to hack through muscle and bone with a rapier to nick vital organs or arteries which resulted in either a swift death to internal bleeding or sepsis, or a -SLOW- death through deep-seated infections that happened in your vital organs.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yes. In a duel. But historically they saw little action in mass combat.

Historically they were at least worn in mass combat as the sidearm a lot more often than commonly depicted. They were serious weapons, and are deadly. They are not smallswords or modern fencing equipment.

Note also that the common spear (decidedly a weapon of war) and falchions (not generally weapons of war, but serious strength-based martial swords) have worse armor penetration qualities than a rapier. Some weapons are meant to find the soft spots.

Part of it's that it's such a modern weapon, it begs for an explanation why it's needed in the first place.

Again, so people can imagine their characters as Inigo Montoya or D'Artagnan or the Grey Mouser. But also, if we're suddenly being sticklers about historical time period gatekeeping, the game has included iron rations since oD&D, and those were introduced in 1907. Also weapons like sickles and jo staffs (not weapons of war) since AD&D; and khopeshs and bone/stone weapons since 2nd edition (stretching the 'current era' depicted in the game much farther than however far rapiers came after plate mail). I think we just had a thread where we talked about the Hobbit including barometers and the dragon-shaped firework going overhead like am express train.

 

[Micah Sweet]

“Longsword” type weapons didn’t see much use as a weapon of war during any historical period. Neither did rapiers. In both cases they are more flashy toys for rich people to show off with.

For fighting dragons, I would choose firearms. But legend has it the much-maligned spiked armour is effective.

I once killed a dragon with a rocket launcher. In a game, of course. I could never source a rocket launcher in real life.

 

[Micah Sweet]

it was never decided it was a weapon for fighting dragons, it was decided as a weapon for 'humans' to fight each other and then they just extended those damage values to cover fighting every other creature they could think of without considering if anything ought to be altered in the process.

Makes you miss the different damage values of 1e depending on size of opponent, at least in concept.

Don't tell me D&D doesn't try to be sim.