What's the deal with Thinblades?

[SpiderMonkey]

Greetings,

A player in my group (I'm a player, not the DM in this instance), is playing an Elf and claims he can use a thinblade from the complete book of elves, which is basically like a rapier only with a d8 for damage. He claims that because he's an elf he has Weapon Familiarity with it and thus needs no Feat. This seems...unbalanced. Is he reading it right?

Thanks!

SM

 

[Corbert]

I would think that just because you are familiar with something doesn't mean you can use it properly. I'm familiar with airplanes, I see them practically every day, but I wouldn't want to try piloting one without lots of training .

 

[Caliban]

There is no "Complete Book of Elves" in 3e as far as I'm aware. The Elven Thinblade first appeared in Dragon magazine, then in in Complete Warrior, and most recently in Races of Destiny.

That being said, Elves don't get weapon familiarity as a racial trait. Dwarves and Gnomes (for example) do.

His character would need to either take the Exotic weapon proficiency feat for the weapon, or take the Improved Weapon Familiarity feat from the Complete Warrior.

 

[Tetsubo]

From the SRD:

"Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats."

So the question is, does the thinblade fall under the category of "rapier"?

 

[Caliban]

From the SRD:

"Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats."

So the question is, does the thinblade fall under the category of "rapier"?

They get Martial Weapon Proficiency. The Elven Thinblade is an Exotic Weapon.

It's similar to a rapier, in that many of the weapon feats you use for a rapier (weapon focus, specialization, improved crit, etc.) will also work with the thinblade once you are proficient with it, but it's not classified as a rapier.

 

[Cabral]

Complete Warrior pg 157, under Lightblade, elven "Some elf nobles carry a lightblade-often decorated with intricate filigree and tiny gemstones-as a sign of their station, even if they aren't profcient in its use"

If they got proficiency for being an elf, why would an elf noble ever not be proficient in its use?

You can treat all the exotic weapons associated with your race as martial weapons rather than as exotic weapons. A weapon is treated as being associated with a race if the race's name appears as part of the weapon's name, such as the elven thinblade (see Chapter 4 of this book) or the dwarven urgrosh.

If the character takes the above feat, he is still only proficient in the weapon if he is proficient in all martial weapons. Otherwise, it's better to take the exotic weapon proficiency feat.

As Tetsubo quoted from the SRD, elves are innately proficient with rapiers, longswords, longbows, composite longbows, shortbows, and composite shortbows.

If the weapon requires a seperate feat (other than proficiency in one of the above weapons) for another race to wield, it requires a seperate feat for elves.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

If the character takes the above feat, he is still only proficient in the weapon if he is proficient in all martial weapons. Otherwise, it's better to take the exotic weapon proficiency feat.

OTOH, taking that feat gets you proficiency in Lightblade, Thinblade, and Courtblade (which does both slashing and piercing damage, which is quite nice!), all of which have the word "Elven" in their name. So, it's pretty much worth it if you expect to use any of those more than a couple of times.

Of course, finding one of those as a random drop is rather unlikely, unless you're fighting other elves.

Brad

 

[Parlan]

Of course, finding one of those as a random drop is rather unlikely, unless you're fighting other elves.

As if anyone needed *more* of a reason to fight elves!

 

[Cabral]

Well, the Improved Weapon Familiarity feat wouldn't grant you proficiency with those weapons unless you already had proficiency with all martial weapons. For anybody else, the exotic weapon proficiency feat is better unless you have difficulty meeting the +1 base attack bonus prereq.

By the way, where's a Courtblade from?

 

[Testament]

Well, the Improved Weapon Familiarity feat wouldn't grant you proficiency with those weapons unless you already had proficiency with all martial weapons. For anybody else, the exotic weapon proficiency feat is better unless you have difficulty meeting the +1 base attack bonus prereq.

By the way, where's a Courtblade from?

The Courtblade is from Races of the Wild, its a Finessable two handed weapon (!) which marks the next step up from Thinblade.