I guess so there could be a basis for making them out of other materials like Cold Iron or Silver if need be? But the weapon itself is for a specific technology level, right? Isn't it for particularly primitive characters/creatures? I just wrote it off as not really being for PCs and more for things like Lizardfolk and such.
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It looks like a battle saw? Isn't that a good reason to exist? That level of style seems worth 5 gold.
The name is a minor point, and it mostly about which source you look at. I've seen it called a macana. If you are not that familiar with the culture, it is very, VERY easy just to go with whatever google-fu tells you, even if that is actually a minor dialectic term (like calling soda 'pop').
It's more a club with metal blades imbedded in it.
The mechanics of it making it similar to longsword or bastard sword really aren't that relevant, except making it less useful mechanically.
As for being redundant because it's less useful, then lets go ahead and get rid of 90% of the weapon in the game because they're mechanical inferior options and therefore have no basis to exist.
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So your NPC villain can have a fancy magic weapon that's not an automatic "mine!" for the fighter who took WF: Longsword?
In fairness, Paizo wants new splatbooks and new NPC cultures to have new weapons, but there's only so many dice on the table. Even the CRB alone has a few "why use this over that?" weapons, so redundancy is kind of an unavoidable side effect of a game for which new material is still being printed.
I guess so there could be a basis for making them out of other materials like Cold Iron or Silver if need be? But the weapon itself is for a specific technology level, right?Kind of. The regular terbutje is a stone age weapon that's functionally a wooden longsword with fragile (and the great terbutje is a wooden bastard sword with fragile).
The steel version is, well, made out of steel so not really part of the stone/bronze age tech level.
Why does it need to not exist?Because it's literally a slightly worse longsword and nothing else. Which makes it seem... well, redundant.
It is a metal rod with razor blades and/or large razor sharp spikes.
Again- that is enough reason to exist. The fact that it is has long sword mechanics puts it right on the 'useful' scale, instead of putting it in the 'useless but a bit of flavor'.
I put long swords right above the boundary for that you aren't exactly crippling yourself if you use it. ..preferably use it if you are specifically in the market for a 1 handed weapon (magus, cestus/1handed TWF, etc. )
Major difference is it doesn't break on a 1, I thought? Unlike the standard Macauhuitl (terbutje be damned)
Major difference is it doesn't break on a 1, I thought? Unlike the standard Macauhuitl (terbutje be damned)
Yeah, on a totally unrelated note, why on earth is it called a terbutje and not a macauhuitl?
Major difference is it doesn't break on a 1, I thought? Unlike the standard Macauhuitl (terbutje be damned)Yeah, on a totally unrelated note, why on earth is it called a terbutje and not a macauhuitl?
Looking further into it, I am pretty sure terbutje is the Maori version with shark teeth, and it was released alongside a few other Maori weapons (taiaha, wahaika, mere club).
So that is probably the main reason. They picked a set of cultural weapons they wanted to use for style, and they stuck with it. Sure, the South American version with obsidian is more famous, but perhaps they didn't want to jump around cultures too much for this.
Also, they might have gone with the shark tooth version because it brings to mind the sawfish, which are well known for their rostra (saw like noses) that could form a basic weapon fairly easily.
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It's a setting based weapon that's considerably more valuable when you DON"T have access to standard weapons such as longswords. For when you're playing a Maori flavored campaign, instead of the standard quasi-European one.
I think swoosh understands the purpose of the basic terbutje. He was asking about the steel version, which implies access to more advanced metalurgy (particularly since we are talking about steel).
I will repeat- BATTLE SAW. For people that like the design of the terbutje, but they don't like it being fragile and unable to be special materials.
Seriously...do people here only see numbers? Is there no longer childlike glee when you use a saw to cut off a dragon's neck?
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Freddy the Fighter: Look what I found! ^_^
Rita the Rogue: ...What the hell is that?
Freddy: It's... it's a terbutje. Made out of steel.
Erik the Cleric: Fred, no. Just... no. That's not a terbutje. Terbutje's not even a word in a language I can speak, and I can speak ALL of them.
Evard Eddard, Evoker Extraordinaire: Same here. I'm no blacksmith, but even I can tell you got ripped off.
Amy the Alchemist: First off, the weapon's called a macuahuitl, not a tur-boot-yay. Second, the Mayincatec people of our planet make macuahuitls out of clubs that they very carefully put obsidian chunks into.
Freddy: Why would you do that? Obsidian's stone, and not steel. Real weapons are made out of steel--
Amy: And obsidian is much, much sharper than steel. Seriously, just a nick from it can really open you up. ...Hmm, I'll have to add some obsidian powder to my bombs...
Rita: What you bought is "sword, but more expensive." >_<
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Are the metal teeth sharp enough and sturdy enough that they would function as a sawback sword?
Because adding sawback to a sword adds +5 gp to the price of the sword, which makes this weapon the exact correct price.
Steel becomes the "mithral" for a Maori campaign. A Steel terbutje would a weapon made out of that "magical" material which would be obviously superior to ordinary weapons of that type.It's a setting based weapon that's considerably more valuable when you DON"T have access to standard weapons such as longswords. For when you're playing a Maori flavored campaign, instead of the standard quasi-European one.I think swoosh understands the purpose of the basic terbutje. He was asking about the steel version, which implies access to more advanced metalurgy (particularly since we are talking about steel).
I will repeat- BATTLE SAW. For people that like the design of the terbutje, but they don't like it being fragile and unable to be special materials.
Steel (and not the special materials- that is a seperate case) is even worse as a weapon than mithral (which at least acts as silver for DR, which makes it useful against devils and werewolves).
Most fragile weapons lose that property when you make them masterwork. So steel would only be useful as a cheap, durable alternative to a masterwork weapon. So not something to actually work towards. And that makes actual sense with the materials, since a lot of Maori weapons were made with VERY dense hard woods, which could likely stand up in a battle with metal weapons (metal keeps a better edge, of course, but I am more comparing durability).
Actual special materials are of course actaul special materials, of course. Cold iron, silver, and mithral are of course worth the cost when facing the right creatures. Adamatine is just always worth the cost, of course.
It exists so that players and DMs can have more options, just like everything else.
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The terbutje is a Pacific Island weapon, but it's not Maori. For one thing, there's no 'b' or 'j' in Maori.
I didn't know about the pacific island thing. Googling Terbutje primarily just brings up Pathfinder stuff and Pathfinder says it's also called a macuahuitl so I wasn't sure. Cool stuff.
I guess my main quibble is that if it's mechanically identical why not just say "Over here they use X weapon which is just a refluffed longsword".
It seems like just enabling refluffing makes more sense and is easier than making two functionally identical weapons.
Yeah, but there are only so many ways to refluff the basic statistics.
And appearently, the weapon system is based off of some point thing- a high crit range is worth a point, and all the special properties are worth a point too.
So, in the end, the only way to make it noticably different would be to add some properties...which is what they did with the Khopesh. Remember the khopesh? The one that ended up in the exotic section because it was a longsword wit trip? Remember the last time you used THAT?
Most special properties are for rather specialized builds too. If you don't use trip, there is no real justification to spend a feat to use a khopesh over a longsword, right? It is easier to write off if the items are interchangeable.
But yes, refluffing might be necessary in the system. While I understand the basic concept for the point system on current weapons, it mostly makes weapons that are weighted in ways we will never care about, and it just leads to bloat of unused options. I am always a proponent of a reduced and representational system (scimitars for all curved 1 handed swords, so we don't have cutlasses and katanas floating about)
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The Khopesh used to be a 1d8 19-20/x3 weapon that was nerfed in pathfinder because 19-20/x3 was too good. And then the Falcata was released.
In 3.5 it really wasn't too good, because half of everything you fought was immune to crits. Unlike Pathfinder - almost no one wielded a scimitar instead of a longsword, and the Keen property was generally shunned.
The Pathfinder falcata though...
Monte Cook probably drove the falcata's stats, since the 'sword axe' of his Arcana Unearthed game is basically the falcata, and that was the first time it was included in a D@D compatible format.
==Aelryinth
The terbutje is a Pacific Island weapon, but it's not Maori. For one thing, there's no 'b' or 'j' in Maori.Thank you Mr. Pedantic. I only used the name Maori to indicate something that's clearly not Western Europe, but a vastly different kind of setting which many of the standard assumptions of equipment, weapons, and armor would not apply.
Good point; I guess we can't all be from Ivy League schools like Rootgerz in Vermont.
Good point; I guess we can't all be from Ivy League schools like Rootgerz in Vermont.The terbutje is a Pacific Island weapon, but it's not Maori. For one thing, there's no 'b' or 'j' in Maori.Thank you Mr. Pedantic. I only used the name Maori to indicate something that's clearly not Western Europe, but a vastly different kind of setting which many of the standard assumptions of equipment, weapons, and armor would not apply.
Some of us had to go to Sitford in northern Cauliflornia.
Can you people NOT rejoice in being able to say at the table:
"Hey GM, I just swung my Ter-Booty with both hands and critted, confirm, and with Vital Strike and Greater Vital Strike did 75 points of damage....with my TER-BOOTY".
Srsly guise.
Ter-Booty.
Rock on.
You will probably get better damage output by playing an unarmed build. Then you could *actually* kill them with your booty.
Google only pulls up Pathfinder stuff searching terbutje and the weapon's own description points out that it's just a macuahuitl.
That's odd. Google brought up dozens of non-Pathfinder terbutje articles and pictures for me.