D&D 5E What’s So Great About Medieval Europe?

[Minigiant]

5e doesn't really go in for heavy mechanical differentiation of weapons, so you might need to look to 3PP products for this. It would be cool though.

Oh I wouldn't want it for the base game. It would be an optional rule. I wouldn't expect mechanical differentiation for every Asian, African, Australian, and American, weapon.

Mostly swords. D&D is sword-biased.
Like an optional rule for all kinds of swords in the DMG or a XGTE like book. Katanas, macuahuitls, shotels, patas, jians, swordstaffs, etc

 

[Krachek]

After a small search I found out that the medieval era spam over a thousand years, from 500 to 1400-1500. If you’re not to precise with history you can also add the Greek, the spartan and the Roman, and maybe some pirates in the Caribbean Sea. We are now at 2000 years of history to feed up setting and tropes for DnD.

 

[Voadam]

I mean if OD&D had Kitsune, Genasi, and Anansis as PC races and staple monsters were Oni and Mayan Batmen, D&D would look a lot different .

Just as a note, Oni in the form of Ogre Magi/Japanese Ogres were a staple OD&D monster starting with 0D&D Supplement I Greyhawk.

I agree that Tolkein stuff as common PC races and monsters from the beginning had a big effect on D&D.

 

[Bohandas]

No, it’s pretty rare that outsiders have a solid grasp on a culture without becoming part of it. They often think they understand it, though, and are laughably off-base

Wouldn't you think that being part of a group, like really part of it, would necessarily result in a tremendous bias in one's thinking about that group. Your best bet would be someone who has lived in that group for a significant amount of time but has never really been part of it (but who of course hasn't made an enemy of it either or made it their enemy)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wouldn't you think that being part of a group, like really part of it, would necessarily result in a tremendous bias in one's thinking about that group. Your best bet would be someone who has lived in that group for a significant amount of time but has never really been part of it (but who of course hasn't made an enemy of it either or made it their enemy)

A person prone to genuine introspection and practiced in objective study (ie scientific thinking and analysis) who is part of the group will have a more robust, honest, accurate, insight into the group, including things which are founded in a shared experience, which someone who is ultimately outside the group cannot share.

I can talk to another white person about what it's like to be a white hispanic man, but if they are not hispanic, and did not grow up in a partly hispanic home, they can't fully understand it like another person from a similar background can. No amount of study can replace growing up hearing spanish but only learning english because your grandma grew up getting in trouble in school for speaking spanish, and because your cousins don't consider you hispanic because you look whiter than them.

I can explain these things, and you can gain an acedemic understanding, but you will not understand them emotionally. People, including people groups, are more emotional than logical. Trying to understand other people only via a logical lense will always, unavoidably, lead to an incomplete understanding.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Also, reliable birth control. But that'd be less a problem in a fantasy world with advanced alchemy.

And circling back around to dnd, I would love a dnd setting that, if it must look medieval, also doens't play to ridiculously false ideas about the middle ages. Like, for instance, the idea that everyone was dirty, used makeup and perfume to hide how long since they'd bathed, etc.
Washer women were part of even poor farming communities, and we there paid in food and supplies.
Baths weren't the super private thing they are now, and your meeting with the local lord could very well happen there.
People traveled. As is the case even now, most people didn't travel to distant lands, but plenty of people did, and so you might see a moor or a saracen ride through your village in the middle of nowhere, and you'd likely see some foreigners if you go to whatever city is the trade hub of your region.
Take that world, and then ask, where is a cool place for satyrs to live in this world? Gnomes? Dragonmen?

Anyone wants Exotic Weapons Proficiency back?

Not "strictly better" weapons but just additional weapons still in sync with martial weapons of either racial creation or of other places outside of Medieval/Renaissance European/MiddleEastern are of Earth.

I'd be all for this. Probably just using the training downtime rules for proficiency.

Oh I wouldn't want it for the base game. It would be an optional rule. I wouldn't expect mechanical differentiation for every Asian, African, Australian, and American, weapon.

Mostly swords. D&D is sword-biased.
Like an optional rule for all kinds of swords in the DMG or a XGTE like book. Katanas, macuahuitls, shotels, patas, jians, swordstaffs, etc

I'd love new weapons and replacement rules for existing weapons to make dnd less sword-biased. Much as i love a sword.

I wish spears were better. Also, longswords...are finesse I'm sorry don't derail the thread please! If literally any sword can be called finesse, the longsword is. It isn't heavy, and it's made to be used dexterously and with great finesse and precision. Movie swordfighting with longswords is absurd nonsense.

 

[Minigiant]

I'd love new weapons and replacement rules for existing weapons to make dnd less sword-biased. Much as i love a sword.

I wish spears were better. Also, longswords...are finesse I'm sorry don't derail the thread please! If literally any sword can be called finesse, the longsword is. It isn't heavy, and it's made to be used dexterously and with great finesse and precision. Movie swordfighting with longswords is absurd nonsense.

Ideally, I would want an exotic swords optional rule and an exotic spear/polearm optional rule.

As for longswords. I think finesse is more absacting the ability to forgo strength absolutely with the weapon.

I don't think the longsword that can be used versatile is finesse.

If anything, that is calling for a new 1d8 slashing finesse weapon. And I'm all for that.
That is the jian at my table currently.

 

[Oofta]

Also, longswords...are finesse I'm sorry don't derail the thread please! If literally any sword can be called finesse, the longsword is. It isn't heavy, and it's made to be used dexterously and with great finesse and precision. Movie swordfighting with longswords is absurd nonsense.

There was no single "longsword". A longsword was just a sword that was longer than other swords, and that varied by timeframe and region. If you're talking about a larger sword that is used exclusively one-handed that would probably be considered an arming sword, which in D&D I'd consider a rapier.

But swords are funky in D&D. A longsword for example could be used for slashing, piercing or depending on the fighting style bludgeoning. It's why they had that pointy bit on the end unlike a katana which were primarily slashing.

In any case any time people start talking about making things "more realistic" I just have to chuckle. Even historians can't agree on a lot of things, how does anyone expect a bunch of arm-chair RPG gamers to know what more realistic even is?

 

[Fenris-77]

Yup, you can wield a long sword with great finesse, for about 30 seconds unless you have the strength to swing it as well. The arbitrary decoupling of STR and DEX leads to some wacky arguments. That said, no, the longsword is not a finesse weapon in the 5e sense. D&D doesn't model sword forms that rely on a combinations of STR and DEX, sadly.

As for the arming sword, I'd call it a short sword if we had to pick an existing weapon from the list. I'd rather bump the actual longsword to d10 though, and then the Arming Sword can fill the d8 bracket one-handed STR sword spot.

 

[Garthanos]

But swords are funky in D&D. A longsword for example could be used for slashing, piercing or depending on the fighting style bludgeoning. It's why they had that pointy bit on the end unlike a katana which were primarily slashing.

Your not wrong saying "primarily" but the tip of the weapon is definitely used in the katana as well a throat lunge is definitely on the table.