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Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

I really don't see the point in arguing for historically correct armors and names, if we are playing in a fantasy setting with dragons and plenty of weird races.

Or with armor, brigandine. Rather than just being metal studs and operating on the rule of cool, it was the equivalent of wearing a bulletproof Kevlar vest under civilian clothes.

Sometimes, the actual historical options are cooler than the staples of the industry.

Visby (and other) Brigandine armor is WAAAY cooler than stupid (oops-studded) leather, even if you ignore that studded leather never existed and couldnt exist.

Studded leather is the second worst fantasy armor Sacred Cow after the arm-straped buckler, because (like the buckler) it was based on a mistake, and it wouldn't work, period.

The above named Sacred Cows arent just irritating because they are misnamed, like with the reversal of Longsword and Bastard Sword (nevermind the absence of arming sword or the use of Chain in Chainmail). THey are epic/ tragic fails based on errors/ misunderstandings, and they defy the laws of physics.

All those studs would ruin the protection from leather armor. Why? 1. puncturing the leather in multiple places weakens it, reducing greatly how much hardened leather can withstand cuts & blows. 2. the studs would catch weapon points and hold them in place, as well as channeling cuts directly into the leather, in both cases preventing the leather from deflecting/ turning the blow. A bludgeoning weapon would drive the studs through the leather armor and into the wearer, basically adding piercing damage. The purpose of armor is to distribute/ disburse energy. Studs would focus cutting, piercing, AND bludgeoning attacks.

Note: for those who didnt know, Chainmail is called Maile. "Chainmail" is the incorrect name coined by museum curators and medieval revivalists in Victorian England. Confession: I still use "chainmail" even when talking about real armor- this mistake doesn't matter.

Quote:

And Bucklers strapping to the wrist is cool.

There's nothing that says they can't still strap to your wrist. I just made them an option for rapidly bashing people with like they were in history. Giving them bash damage and a feat to be raised as a reaction just makes them cooler.

I agree with almost all of your points on armor, though you are wrong about breastplates- they did exist and were used frequently by Cuirassiers as firearms became available. But I disagree completely about bucklers. We can't insist on too much reality in fantasy games, but being a real life sword and buckler fighter, the whole "it straps to your wrist" thing, and not being able to punch with a buckler, drives me nuts.

I punched a guy in the face with my buckler in Vegas in a tournament last August, and knocked him out on his feet. And he was wearing a heavy face mask. Its a darn fine weapon, but thats beside the point.

The error began with Gary Gygax. He introduced the buckler to D&D with the "spiked buckler" in the 1ed AD&D Unearthed Arcana; a spiked light shield that strapped to your wrist. One thing he got right was that you could punch with the spike. Gygax first learned of it in a badly worded, fuzzy-pictured antiquities catalog (probably with an erroneous description poorly translated from Italian or German), and he thought it strapped to your arm. It actually "buckles" to your sword belt or scabbard for ease of carry, and you grip it by a single handle in the center boss when you fight with it.

Then with D&D 3.0, the designers made the intuitive leap that you can't punch with a shield that straps to your arm (duh). They were right, but instead of changing the unrealistic, physically impossible part where it straps to your wrist, they took away the ACCURATE part where you could punch with a buckler (thats why they were spiked!).

D'OH!!!

Disallowing punching with it (what the buckler is intended to do!), and claiming that it "buckles to your wrist", are the stupidest sacred cows in fantasy gaming. Moreso because they are A. based on a mistake Gygax made, and B. are impossible according to physics.

I used to think bucklers strapping to your arm were cool too, back in my Living Greyhawk days. 8 years ago I started doing historical combat, and learned about arms and armor. I still didnt mind the wrist-strapping part, until I learned that strapping a buckler to your wrist and using it as a shield is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. It wont stay vertical, at all, ever. No contrivance of genius Gnomish engineers can make it work.

Now, the caveat is that you CAN hold items in your buckler hand while you grip a REAL buckler. That part of the rules is fine. I've fought with a buckler while holding a dagger in my buckler hand. There are historical accounts of this. If I were a wizard, I could easily use a wand or metamagic rod in my buckler hand, or hold onto my bonded staff with my buckler hand while my other hand grabs material components and does somatics.

Sure, there is magic in Pathfinder, which is also physically impossible. So why hate on bucklers? Well, bucklers arent magic. They are mundane shields that wouldn't work as written in D&D and Pathfinder. So if you care that your 8 Strength elf wizard can't carry a 300 lb treasure chest out of a 3 levels-deep dungeon and back to his horse at his full movement speed, you should also care that arm-strapping bucklers are wrong. I dare you to find one one someone has built on Youtube or anywhere else in the internet/ world, that actually works as intended.

If you don't feel that physics and reality should at all matter in our fantasy games, and things like encumbramce, armor check penalties, etc. have no place in your game, then please disregard the above.

Bucklers dont strap on the arm. Scottish Targes don't Only strap on the arm- they have a handle that is held in the hand.
There is no type of shield in existence that ONLY straps on your arm- it is physically impossible for it to remain in place, and not roll under your arm under its own weight, threby facing the ground.
I have handled both antique historical targes and bucklers, and I have fought with both reproduction bucklers and targes. THey must be held. You can in fact do lots of things with the hand holding a buckler or targe, in fact often a highlander fought with his dirk held in the hand also holding the handle of his targe. There are techniques in historical fighting manuals where you seize your opponents sword blade or handle with your buckler hand. Also it wasnt too hard to hold a dagger in your buckler hand.

Bucklers did not switch with targes in the game books, though that seems to make sense. In fact, when Gygax wrote Unearthed Arcana, he screwed up. He saw a buckler in an 80s antique auction/museum catalogue, with a typically 80s ignorant description and grainy, terrible picture, and wrote that it buckles on your arm. <insert gameshow buzzer noise here> That is incorrect, Gary (still love you, Wee Jas bless and keep you). We are actually not even sure noy why it was called a buckler- speculation is that it buckles on your belt. Usually it was shown carried by a strap that looped over the top of your sword scabbard, just under the opening where your sword goes. Some later Italian bucklers had a hook on th front, which hooked nicely over your belt, and you cound wear the buckler on your belt with the handle facing out.

But yes, bucklers are VERY nice for punching. I almost got disqualified by punching just a little too hard with one 3 weeks ago in a HEMA tournament. Bucklers are just as good for ranged attacks- they are just held out from the body and pointed at your opponent/ his weapon.
The "bucklers slap away/ turn aside" myth is one that that has been perpetuated with Renaissance Fair swordfighters, and is completely wrong. Bucklers are held out static, and moved to intercept weapons, but they are hard enough to just get in the way of attacks coming at you at FULL speed (I fight full speed and full power with them regularly), let alone time it perfectly to slap away an incoming attack. THis action actually moves the buckler exactly where you DON'T want it- you want it between you and your opponent/ your opponent's weapon; trying to slap away an incoming attack, even if you are lucky enough to hit it (you will probably miss)and not get clobbered by his weapon, throws your buckler off to either side for a second, and that second will cost your life in a swordfight. The myth is perpetuated by Ren Fair fighters who do not fight at full speed with intent to actually hit each other. Google Marozzo, MS I33, Lignitzer for proof.
Also, just for fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NFmLuRAlfA
the most fun is at 2:45.

So im a hema practitioner and occasional instructor, as well as a Pathfinder player. Ive been doing hema 5 years, and I know many of the clubs and instructors in the US HEMA community. Ive never heard of a hema club that wouldnt love hema to have fantasy authors come out and observe, or even better take a class. As far as your perceptions of what HEMA folks think about larpers, SCAdians, and the ARMA cult: Im a member of an organization called The Hema Alliance. THey are not a club or governing body, but rather a blanket organization that strives to bring hema clubs together, and also to promote HEMA and to spread (not withold) information. They were formed by a lot of former members of ARMA, becuase they didnt like the way arma was exclusionary, didnt allow its members to study other maritial arts, and kept its information private.
IF you want to see the manuals we study from (what ARMA kept private for members only), check out the Wiktenauer. It contains scans of hundreds of historical fighting manuals including German, Italian, french, Spanish, Portuguese, English. The Wiktenauer is maintained by the HEMA alliance.
HEMA clubs as a whole aren't disdainful of larpers, or SCA (many people do more than one- I also do historical reenacting), but we try to distinguish ourselves from them because we consider ourselves a serious martial art, as well as a serious academic endeavor, and strive to be recognized as such. But many of us also play RPG's. I'd even stretch that and say most of us do ;)

Artemis, you are in a good spot. Sacramento Swordplay school has some great folks- the instructor Puck is a nice guy, and a hell of a fencer. Also Kevin Murakoshi is an instructor there, and fights well with rapier, sabre, and longsword even though they are primarily a spanish rapier school (Kevin just knocked me out of the longsword elims at a HEMA tournament a few months ago).
As far as the Meyer Freifechter, make no mistake, they are a serious HEMA group as exists. I dont know anyone from the Sacramento Freifechter, but I know the guys in the Atlanta Freifechter (its all one sort of big club) and they are great guys and fighters. If you want german longsword, as well as dussack and sword & buckler, check them out. Take the Red pill, Neo...
as far as ARMA goes...trust your instincts ;)
And if you are ever in Southern California, look up Kron Martial arts. That's where I study.

Dexion, are you studying with Ken Mondschien? If so, he's a good instructor. You are in a good place.

lol i found this thread looking for a post about ninja builds, as im considering a arcane trickster build based off ninja rather than rogue (who needs evasion anyway)

So i read this whole dang monster thread, and laughed alot at the jokes, (Vuron, you are a genius) and learned alot i did not know about the various periods in japanese history.

I work in a sword store. I handle real European and Oriental swords from various makers and manufacturers all day. I could go on for days about historical facts, but I don't wanna be "that guy". But I bet I have handled more models of swords than most anyone on this thread, and I don't mean junk wall-hangers, or what we in the biz call SLO's (sword-like-objects). I study, handle, sell, sharpen, repair, customize, clean, polish, maintain, and cut with real swords. I do everything but outright forge, though i have a friend who does.

But here is what I think is relevant; my 2 cents, or however much you all deem it worth:

1. the Hollywood ninja-to are, as far as we can tell, a myth. Ninja used whatever they could get their hands on. The deceptive, long handled, short bladed sword seems logical, though, and since they mostly made their tools for themselves, there is no reason they wouldn't have taken an old found/ cheaply made blade and mounted it this way. It is super easy to handle a japanese sword- a little wood, something to wrap it in to give good grip (since the darn things got no pommels), and you pin it all together with a snapped off bamboo chopstick. Voila.

2. as others have stated, japan has crap steel. people who walk into my store talking about katanas being lightsabers, we have them hold out their hands, and we stick a piece of tamahagne in it. Its flaky, ugly, black junk. Japanese had to learn all the bells and whistled and hoodoo of forging swords that way, as one poster said, to make a sword that held an edge yet didnt shatter like dropped porcelain. Europeans didnt make swords this way because they didnt have to- europe has good steel.

3. katanas are not curved to make them cut better. they curve naturally in the forging process, after the clay is added and the final hardening of the edge is done (the step that adds the cool wavy lines on the edge, called the hamon). the front and back edges of the sword cool differently, so the blade curves. Beginning and end of story, though master smiths could control the curvature like... well, like masters. Not that the curve did not have advantages; it facilitated sweeping draw cuts from horseback, much like cavalry sabres. It also sucked against armor. royally.

4. European swords were not crude lumps of pig iron, as one learned fellow mentioned. European swordsmanship was just as well developed, codified, and taught as anything that ever came out of Japan, China, or anywhere else in the world. Google MS I.33. It is the oldest European Fechtbuch (fight book, literally) in existence, detailing sword and buckler dueling in the 12th century. And the swords were amazingly well crafted pieces of technology, from the meticulously crafted pattern-welded viking swords to the elizabethan/ italian and spanish rapiers.
The main difference between eastern and western swordsmanship is that there is a much more available living tradition of eastern martial arts, since they did not abandon the sword in Japan in favor of the gun as soon as firearm technology advanced far enough that it was advantageous to do so, which is what they did in europe.

5. I really feel for the devs. trying to walk the line between accuracy and pleasing the fantasy crowd, especially since leaning toward a historically accurate comparison highlights the glaring inaccuracies that are already existent in D&D's weapons and armor. I agree- keep it as bastard sword and short sword. true, the katana weighs much closer to a d&d longsword, but that just points the falacy of a longsword- a true european longsword is in fact a 2 handed weapon that can be used in one hand when performing certain maneuvers. It is synonymous with a bastard sword, for all intents and purposes, as it was just a but lighter and faster than a greatsword/warsword, but longer than the one handed viking sword or the crusades era/knightly arming sword, which is what we have based our completely inaccurately named longsword on (what can I say- gygax screwed up).

6. NOT getting sucked into the martial arts debate (though I stayed up until 2 reading it lol), but I will give a little history: as someone mentioned, it was coined by Europeans to define THEIR OWN fighting traditions, and when they saw they oriental fighting methods, they agreed, them eastern people had their own martial arts. Heh, who'd a thunk? Google Bartitsu, if you aint sure, as well as Achille Marrozo, Rudolpho cappoferro, Johannes Lichtenauer, and Fiore De Liberi. Okay okay, google Destreza as well; I suppose I have to mention the Spanish system too, since ive gone this far. or just go watch Reclaiming the Blade, which will give you a pretty good outline of all this.

so my conclusion: should katana and wakizashi be samurai weapons, but not ninja? absolutely not, since ninja-to swords are figments of Hollywood's creativity (but heck, I own one :). I'll go one step further: if you say that, then to remain accurate, youd also have to make early pistols and rifles available to samurai, cavaliers, and even ninja (who, again, made their own).

I hope I havent beeN too pedantic, and have managed to stay off any soap boxrs.

Cheers!

The spell burning gaze takes a standard action to cast, yet the spells description states that you may direct your burning gaze against a single creature as a standard action. Does this mean that you cannot direct your gaze during the round it is cast?

I know that when you cast a spell that allows you to make attacks as a standard action (such as chill touch), you can make the attack the round you cast it. However brining gaze is a somewhat different type of spell (fort save rather than attack).

So how would this work?