Wither the cutlass?

[Mark Plemmons]

Interesting that this comes up, because this design philosophy is what I disliked about the weapons in the Kalamar Player's Guide, as well. ................ In short, if you make flavorful choices mechanically unattractive, you're not going to get more people choosing them, but less. And I don't think that's what you want, any more than I do.

I completely understand your argument - the problem is that your thoughts are one edge of a two-edged sword. I'll explain this below...

Naturally, there are some things about the KPG I probably shouldn't discuss, since WotC had a hand in determining/approving how powerful the weapons and armor listed there could be.

Of course, even when WotC is not involved (or tangentially involved - i.e. Goods and Gear once having been the official KoK Arms and Equipment Guide draft), their influence is heavily felt.

For example, the PHB being the standard by which all D&D weapons are judged. (Here's that two-edged sword.) If all the Goods and Gear weapons were more powerful than the PHB versions, we'd get accused of pandering to munchkins and powergamers. If they were all less powerful, we'd be accused of making pointless weapons.

Hence, we decided that Goods and Gear should present hundreds of weapons, armor, items and much more that are culturally and regionally sound. Yes, some are weaker than their PHB counterparts, and some are more powerful, while others have nearly identical statistics, and others are completely different. Whether that's a bad thing or not depends on your point of view, but there's no question that it really expands both player and DM knowledge of the campaign world, and makes their characters seem that much more real. And that's never a bad thing.

 

[Cam Banks]

Sovereign Stone's Dragonlance: Age of Mortals sourcebook, which introduces the mariner core class, also has stats for cutlasses. They're Small 1d4/Medium 1d6 18-20/x2 Slashing/Piercing weapons which give a +2 bonus to checks to resist being disarmed.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[ivocaliban]

Sovereign Stone's Dragonlance: Age of Mortals sourcebook, which introduces the mariner core class, also has stats for cutlasses. They're Small 1d4/Medium 1d6 18-20/x2 Slashing/Piercing weapons which give a +2 bonus to checks to resist being disarmed.

Cheers,
Cam

This is close to the version I'm most familiar with, but from another source. Possibly, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (though it was 3.0e, obviously, and didn't contain information about Small or Medium versions). The only major difference is the Critical Threat which is only 19-20/x2. Essentially, it's a short sword with Piercing and a +2 bonus to checks to resist being disarmed. It's a bit more expensive than a short sword, as well. This is the version I use in my pirate-heavy campaign.