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What, exactly, is a 5e "scimitar"?
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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8778532" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>For a nonmagical weapons table to be meaningful, I prefer to have a reallife analogue in mind, better yet a historical one. But there seems to be none for the "scimitar" the 5e Weapons Table describes.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Compare the "falchion". Most falchions come from the Renaissance Period. The artwork from illuminated manuscripts can sometimes be highly stylistic thus the shapes and lengths of the blades might not exist in reallife. That said, here are some examples of weapons called "falchions" in Renaissance artwork from the latter 1400s. (The image is unsourced but is in a <a href="http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.14511.html" target="_blank">credible context</a> in a forum discussion.)</p><p></p><p><img src="http://pics.myarmoury.com/falchion_forms1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Three of the six appear to be normal sabers. One looks like a stylized saber. One looks like it might be a reuse of a damaged saber. The one at the right seems realistic and its blade looks unusually broad.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>"Falchions" are rare during the Medieval Period. But a few survive, such as the <a href="https://sword-site.com/thread/277/thorpe-falchion" target="_blank">Thorpe falchion</a> found in England and dating to the 1300s.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]262126[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>This medieval falchion might only weigh about 2 pounds, but corrosion causes uncertainty.</p><p></p><p>Even so, its bladelength is roughly 32 inches, thus compares to a "normal" viking/knightly "sword". Importantly, the blade is designed to be heavier near the tip in order to "chop" like axe.</p><p></p><p>For the same reason that no D&D axes have the "finesse" property (namely, to easily wield by small precise hand motions), this reallife falchion seems to lack the finesse property. It also seems to lack the "light" property (namely, to be normally used in the offhand as a second weapon). The 5e "scimitar" disresembles this reallife blade.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Elmslie has the following typology for medieval single-edged curved swords. He calls these swords a "messer", the German word for a "knife". They start off like meat cleavers for chopping but soon look more like Mongol and Turkic cavalry sabers.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]262129[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>All of these messer/falchion blades have a length from 24 to 33 inches. They are the lengths of normal swords. All of them are for wide arcs of arm swings. None are for agile "finesse" movements. None seem suitable for the offhand.</p><p></p><p>In sum, I am not finding any reallife examples that compare to the 5e version of a "scimitar".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 8778532, member: 58172"] For a nonmagical weapons table to be meaningful, I prefer to have a reallife analogue in mind, better yet a historical one. But there seems to be none for the "scimitar" the 5e Weapons Table describes. Compare the "falchion". Most falchions come from the Renaissance Period. The artwork from illuminated manuscripts can sometimes be highly stylistic thus the shapes and lengths of the blades might not exist in reallife. That said, here are some examples of weapons called "falchions" in Renaissance artwork from the latter 1400s. (The image is unsourced but is in a [URL='http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.14511.html']credible context[/URL] in a forum discussion.) [IMG]http://pics.myarmoury.com/falchion_forms1.jpg[/IMG] Three of the six appear to be normal sabers. One looks like a stylized saber. One looks like it might be a reuse of a damaged saber. The one at the right seems realistic and its blade looks unusually broad. "Falchions" are rare during the Medieval Period. But a few survive, such as the [URL='https://sword-site.com/thread/277/thorpe-falchion']Thorpe falchion[/URL] found in England and dating to the 1300s. [ATTACH=full]262126[/ATTACH] This medieval falchion might only weigh about 2 pounds, but corrosion causes uncertainty. Even so, its bladelength is roughly 32 inches, thus compares to a "normal" viking/knightly "sword". Importantly, the blade is designed to be heavier near the tip in order to "chop" like axe. For the same reason that no D&D axes have the "finesse" property (namely, to easily wield by small precise hand motions), this reallife falchion seems to lack the finesse property. It also seems to lack the "light" property (namely, to be normally used in the offhand as a second weapon). The 5e "scimitar" disresembles this reallife blade. Elmslie has the following typology for medieval single-edged curved swords. He calls these swords a "messer", the German word for a "knife". They start off like meat cleavers for chopping but soon look more like Mongol and Turkic cavalry sabers. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Falchion - Messer - Elslie typology of medieval blades.jpg"]262129[/ATTACH] All of these messer/falchion blades have a length from 24 to 33 inches. They are the lengths of normal swords. All of them are for wide arcs of arm swings. None are for agile "finesse" movements. None seem suitable for the offhand. In sum, I am not finding any reallife examples that compare to the 5e version of a "scimitar". [/QUOTE]
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