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Still learning 3.5, still thinking in 1stEd terms:
Whatever happened to broadswords?
Does anyone allow scimitars to be considered a light weapon?
Is there such a thing as a sabre in 3.5? Maybe with all of a rapier's stats but doing slashing damage vice piercing?
I'm fond of weapon speed factors. Any surrogates in 3.5? I'm thinking of light weapons =+2 initiative, heavy/2-handed weapons -2. Anyone tried something like this?
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Whatever happened to broadswords?
Does anyone allow scimitars to be considered a light weapon?
Is there such a thing as a sabre in 3.5? Maybe with all of a rapier's stats but doing slashing damage vice piercing?
I'm fond of weapon speed factors. Any surrogates in 3.5? I'm thinking of light weapons =+2 initiative, heavy/2-handed weapons -2. Anyone tried something like this?
Broadswords no longer exist. I would treat them the same as longswords.
Scimitars are not light weapons. There is a Prestige Class (the Dervish) that allows them to be treated as such, but that's about it.
The sabre exists in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book. It is statistically identical to a longsword except that attacks made from horseback with it gain a +1 damage bonus (I think).
Weapon speed factors are not part of the core rules. You are welcome to create your own house rules if you like. I'm sure some people here will have some input to provide on what they've done in their own campaigns.
Hope this helps!
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I, too, miss weapon speeds -- however, combat takes long enough without adding another dimension to it.
Yeah, you could probably manage it with a simple, flat initiative bonus.
Light Weapons: +2 INIT
One-handed Weapons: +0 INIT
Two-handed Weapons: -2 INIT
Reach Weapons: +4 INIT (if the weapon is a two-handed reach weapon, as most are, then the net bonus is +2)
I use the scimitar stats for the sabre (which most of the PCs use in preference to the longsword). I agree 100% with the earlier post about the lack of need for new weapons; if you want a broadsword, use the longsword or the bastard sword, depending on how heavy or unwieldy the broadsword actually is (and the 1e broadsword was so lame compared to the longsword--2d4/1d6+1 vs. 1d8/1d12) that I wasn't really sad to see it go).
In real life, a longsword attacks first against a dagger, because of its superior reach. In 3e, they both have a 5-ft. reach--and the only way to balance that was to eliminate the speed factors. Adding speed factors back in also requires you to add different reach categories, which gets into a level of complexity that my head hurts just thinking about. Shoot, the whole idea of "feats" is kind of silly from a "realism" standpoint: EVERYONE in real life "gets" Cleave if they're good enough, but you spend a feat on it in D&D. The best bet is to forget realism altogether and accept the game logic instead.
The best bet is to forget realism altogether and accept the game logic instead.
Thank you for that; truer words have hardly ever been spoken.
Saern,
the RPG Anti-Scientist
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If it's not clear from my above poor example of a problem with weapon speeds, I sadly must agree.
I'd love to add more realism to the weapon speeds and initiatives and action sequence of D&D. Weapon speed is actually one of the smaller reality holes in the comabt round sequence. But balance and playability-wise, it just isn't worth it. Trust me I've tried.
I could probably come up with a more realistic initiative system that would be just as playable and balanced, but then I'd have to rebuild the whole damn rest of the game around it, at which point I wouldn't be playing D&D. And it would take a long time.
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Something I came up with that I haven't tried yet is this.
Fast weapons: daggers, rapiers etc
Slow Weapons: heavy flails, etc
Anyone who makes a full attack with a light weapon immediately increases their initiative by 2
Anyone who makes a full attack with a slow weapon will reduce their initiative by two for their next action.
If the initiative score reaches 30+, then the player gains an extra attack at max attack bonus (like haste) in their next full attack, and reroll initiative
If the initiative reaches 0 or less, the character may not declare a full attack on their next action, and rerolls initiative.
In a small fight it won't be bad, in a big fight... um, ick
I'm fond of weapon speed factors. Any surrogates in 3.5? I'm thinking of light weapons =+2 initiative, heavy/2-handed weapons -2. Anyone tried something like this?
You probably should avoid this completely, because it will get very messy.
For example, say a Sorceror wielding a quarterstaff (two-handed weapon) and rolls initiative. He rolls a 14, and according to your house rule his initiative drops by 2, to 12.
But what if he's spellcasting on his turn? Why would holding a quarterstaff make it slower for him to cast a spell? He should cast at initiative count 14 since he's not swinging his quarterstaff around, but what if he casts a quickened spell and attacks with the quarterstaff?
If you figure the sorceror only has initiative count 12 when he attacks with the quarterstaff, what if he attacks and an enemy had readied an action to sunder the weapon when he attacks? The weapon gets destroyed and the sorceror draws a dagger, a light weapon, and his initiative count is now 16?
It's already getting messy just writing about it, you're really just better off without speed factors. You ever seen Final Fantasy Advent Children? The way Cloud wields his blade is as quick as Kadaj wielding his Katana. The game will work fine without speed factors.
at which point I wouldn't be playing D&D. And it would take a long time.
Yep. I had a "classless" fantasy RPG system that some buddies and I played for years with great success, but now I've scrapped it for 3.5e-- just so I can play Paizo modules without having to modify them.
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at which point I wouldn't be playing D&D. And it would take a long time.Yep. I had a "classless" fantasy RPG system that some buddies and I played for years with great success, but now I've scrapped it for 3.5e-- just so I can play Paizo modules without having to modify them.
Exactly. My current Ptolus campaign uses a bunch of variant rules. mostly stuff I adapted from other sources. Spell points, variant masterwork weapons a few other things. They are all good rules, and the players like them (mostly), but it's a pain because I have to redo every spellcaster and need to change equipment on half the npcs.
OTOH, something relevant that I've been doing that does work (I don't know why I didn't think of this before on this thread) is extending reaches.
Basically, I give all light weapons zero reach, and everything else gets its reach incread by 5'. So the guy with the dagger may go first, but if he closes with the guy with the longsword, he provokes an attack of opportunity.
It makes things a little tough on touch-spell mages (actually, all mages, since it's often harder for them to 5' step out of reach) and theoretically harder on monks, but let's face it, they can usually tumble with their eyes closed.
Another way of achieving this would be to assign every weapon a length, and then rule that attacking an opponent who has a longer weapon than you provokes an attack of opportunity. It's a little clunky, but I don't think it interferes with too many other rules.
YMMV.
I used to play in a homemade fantasy game where every different weapon had a different attack bonus, damage die/bonus, initiative bonus, etc... Sure it was really intricate and refined, but in the end, isn't a sword just a sword, nomatter what it looks like (or what region it comes from). And, in my opinion, that's the beauty of it... You can decide that your character has a cool looking scimitar instead of a traditional sword and it's ok cause they all have the same stat. Why bother?
Ultradan
Still learning 3.5, still thinking in 1stEd terms:
Whatever happened to broadswords?
Does anyone allow scimitars to be considered a light weapon?
Is there such a thing as a sabre in 3.5? Maybe with all of a rapier's stats but doing slashing damage vice piercing?
I'm fond of weapon speed factors. Any surrogates in 3.5? I'm thinking of light weapons =+2 initiative, heavy/2-handed weapons -2. Anyone tried something like this?
Oh my... What a can of worms to open.
When they did away with separate damage versus large creatures, there was no longer a place for a broadsword. As it was, it was usually the best choice for a "common" weapon. IIRC, it was cheaper, and it had better average damage against the typical target of a PC's attacks. Without the reduced damage versus large, it would set it even further apart from the longsword.
Scimitars should not be considered a light weapon outside of special class features. That is just asking for cookie cutter characters. Can you say ranger with two scimitars? (With or without the dark skin...)
Off hand, I don't see anything wrong with calling a rapier with slashing damage instead of piercing a sabre... I can't think of any situation that it would give the wielder any real advantage. Well, other than versus zombies.
And finally, while you may be fond of weapon speeds, they are just one more thing for everyone to try and remember... And on top of that, if you want to start making the game that much more realistic, you open the door for stuff like number of attacks per round based on weapon. Think about it, I bet a dagger wielder can get off more attacks per round than a halberd wielder.
But, I am not a fan of ever trying to make things more complicated. The smoother things run the better.
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Thanks for all the comments, folks. Some great suggestions.
My desire to use something like WSFs is that I'm trying to make the combat more plausible , not more realistic. I can obviously accept magic talking swords, so I'm not trying to make this an engineering-level model of actual melee combat. It just makes sense that the guy with the rapier gets his hits in before the guy with the claymore. (But when the big guy bats clean-up...watch out!) This also helps RP / character concept. What's the use of using a finesse weapon if it isn't any faster than a greatclub?
Thanks again,
Tom
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On the same loop, a poke from a rapier and a hack from a great axe are radically different amounts of tissue damage.
Maybe the rapier's one attack is actually 3 or four quick thrusts, compared to the axe's single KER-CHOP
viewed in a 6 second block and comparing only the begining and the end, the axe inflicts double the damage of the rapier, not necessarily double per hit
And if we're talking realism, deep puncture wounds--medically-speaking--are supposedly almost always more life-threatening than heavy slashing wounds. So a rapier should really have like a 20/x4 crit, I suppose, whereas a greataxe would have a 19-20/x2. But again, realism is no one's friend when it comes to D&D.
But again, realism is no one's friend when it comes to D&D.
No one's? Not one person in all of creation? What about the kid who recently learned so many aquatic science facts from reading the STAP threads that when his parent's ship went down in the Gulf of Mexico, he knew just what to do to survive? What about the store clerk who, during a hold-up, began to consider weapon speeds factors and rose bravely to mercilessly beat the stuffing out of the would-be assailant with a impulse buy rack? These things never actually happened, but what if they had? What then, huh?
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But again, realism is no one's friend when it comes to D&D.No one's? Not one person in all of creation? What about the kid who recently learned so many aquatic science facts from reading the STAP threads that when his parent's ship went down in the Gulf of Mexico, he knew just what to do to survive? What about the store clerk who, during a hold-up, began to consider weapon speeds factors and rose bravely to mercilessly beat the stuffing out of the would-be assailant with a impulse buy rack? These things never actually happened, but what if they had? What then, huh?
For those people, D&D was their friend when it came to realism.
THANK YOU, Ungoded. See? Man, do we have Kirth against the ropes with our inarguable hypotheticals.
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THANK YOU, Ungoded. See? Man, do we have Kirth against the ropes with our inarguable hypotheticals.
Actually, I was noting that you had not shown how realism was someone's friend when came to D&D, but how D&D was someone's friend when it came to realism.
See how I reversed the order of the words there? Isn't that clever?
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What's the use of using a finesse weapon if it isn't any faster than a greatclub?
Two-handed weapons are often faster than one-handed weapons. The advantage of a one-handed weapon is usually reach*, or the ability to use a shield with the weapon, or concealability. (The preceding doesn't include pole arms.)
*Yes, really. A rapier generally has more reach in practice than a two-handed sword, but there's more space inside the rapier's threat zone than inside the two-handed sword's threat zone.
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Doug is 100% correct.
The other real reason people carried rapiers historically, is that they could be easilly carried for everyday wear, unlike most two-handed weapons.
One more thing. Your finesse rapier uses weapon finesse in game terms. That is it's advantage; it is a weapon that a skilled user can wield with their dex bonus instead of str. Think of this as being fast and light.
THANK YOU, Ungoded. See? Man, do we have Kirth against the ropes with our inarguable hypotheticals.Actually, I was noting that you had not shown how realism was someone's friend when came to D&D, but how D&D was someone's friend when it came to realism.
See how I reversed the order of the words there? Isn't that clever?
If you guys are Larry and Curley, does that make me Moe or Shepp?
You know, if you think about it, in a "real world" coup de grace situation, it would be more likely to not kill someone with a greatsword than with a rapier. The rapier you can set right over someone's heart or jugular or whatever, and just push . . .
The greatsword still requires momentum. You could loose your balance on the swing, check your swing at the wrong point and not really cut into your helpless opponent, etc. Its not likely, but its more likely than not killing a helpless person with a rapier.
Just saying.
In general, just like hit points being an abstract concept, so is weapon damage. It may be harder to line up that perfect thrust with a rapier, but if you do, you can seriously injure someone. The lower damage kind of compensates for that need to line up the perfect strike, because it would be boring to give the rapier more actual damage, but then say, for example, that you only get to hit your opponent if he lets his guard down (such as being flat footed).
Actually, I was noting that you had not shown how realism was someone's friend when came to D&D, but how D&D was someone's friend when it came to realism.
See how I reversed the order of the words there? Isn't that clever?
Aw, crap. You're completely correct. How painful for me.
Doug is 100% correct.
The other real reason people carried rapiers historically, is that they could be easilly carried for everyday wear, unlike most two-handed weapons.
One more thing. Your finesse rapier uses weapon finesse in game terms. That is it's advantage; it is a weapon that a skilled user can wield with their dex bonus instead of str. Think of this as being fast and light.
And someone with weapon finesse is likely to have a better Initiative bonus than the guy with a greatsword/axe, and is thus likely to go first anyway. That's as precise as the game needs to be in most cases; simply model your description of the scene to fill in the rest.
If you guys are Larry and Curley, does that make me Moe or Shepp?
It's Shemp, you philistine. Also, you'd have to be Moe because Shemp, Curly, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe DeRita, never appeared with each other.
Also, you'd have to be Moe because Shemp, Curly, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe DeRita, never appeared with each other.
You're my new hero. My wife won't let me watch them, but I stuck a bunch of 'em onto my Netflix queue when she wasn't looking.
You're my new hero. My wife won't let me watch them, but I stuck a bunch of 'em onto my Netflix queue when she wasn't looking.
FIGHT THE POWER! Word up.
Also, you'd have to be Moe because Shemp, Curly, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe DeRita, never appeared with each other.You're my new hero. My wife won't let me watch them, but I stuck a bunch of 'em onto my Netflix queue when she wasn't looking.
You had better put a password on that Netflix account. For some reason "Sin City" never manages to make it to the top of my account.
Everytime I mention that to my wife she just smiles very cutely and walks away.
You had better put a password on that Netflix account. For some reason "Sin City" never manages to make it to the top of my account.
I just split off her own queue, separate from mine. Because her picks would invariably be either (a) Desperate Housewives, or (b) some foreign movie that would sit in the living room for months at a time without being watched.