Those among you familiar with swords in real life might know that longswords and bastard swords are kind of the same thing. Comprising the so called hand-and-a-half swords that have historically been used primarily in two hands, but can at least hypothetically be wielded in one hand.
So I've heard people say that what we call a longsword in Pathfinder would rather be an arming sword (or knights sword), a sword which actually is designed for one-handed use. But remember that a longsword can still be used two-handed in Pathfinder to get an extra .5 STR bonus to damage. An arming sword would have to short a handle to really make use of a second hand on the weapon.
So I looked up the descriptions of both weapons in the game and compared them simply to what's on Wikipedia (because I'm lazy, and I thought that'd enough research for classifying fantasy weapons).
The Longsword's says description says it is about 3.5 feet long and according to the weapon profile it weighs 4 lb.
The bastard sword's description puts it at 4 feet long and 6 lb. weight.
According to wikipedia a longsword is between 39" (3.25') and 51' (4.25') long, and weighs 2.4 to 4 lbs.
Then I looked at another sword that is very popular to have in Fantasy RPGs but at least by name is conspicuously absent from Pathfinder, the scottish Claymore. Which in reality is calssified as a longsword but is known to be on average larger than a longsword to the point where most RPGs treat it as a type of greatsword, which in reality is much larger than a claymore. Claymores according to wikipedia are 47" (~4') to 55" (~4.5") long and weigh 4 to 6 lb.
So I put it to you, should you even care, that the longsword is actually meant to be what we historically know as a typical longsword, while the bastard sword is meant to be a larger version of the longsword, such as the claymore. They just wanted a broader term for it than "claymore" (which incidentally is also the name of a broad-bladed, basket hilt sword from a later era in history).
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A claymore is going to be a greatsword in game terms. It's too large and not balanced for one handed use.
But so what? Pathfinder is not anywhere near accurate on weapon descriptions or mechanics. Crossbows are far more deadly in RL than they are in game. Properly fitted and strapped Heavy armor does not slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics.
Don't look to the weapon tables for historical accuracy.
Yes I realize that weapon naming is not to be taken for historical accuracy, but what I'm trying to say is that you can liken the longsword to its historical counterpart and the bastard sword to the claymore and other similarly sized swords. The same goes for 3rd edition.
A claymore is going to be a greatsword in game terms. It's too large and not balanced for one handed use.
But so what? Pathfinder is not anywhere near accurate on weapon descriptions or mechanics. Crossbows are far more deadly in RL than they are in game. Properly fitted and strapped Heavy armor does not slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics.
Yes but at the same time you can say a fantasy hero can wield a claymore in one hand with the exotic weapon proficiency feat. I mean that feat lallows you to wield nonsense like spiked chains and two-bladed swords, so why not a claymore in one hand?
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I've even seen 'longsword' refer to ... well, greatswords, effectively. Just kind'a long ones. (And my first D&D cleric run had an issue when I thought a 'morningstar' was the thingy with the chain and a spiky ball at the end, which is how I use it in normal everyday conversation.)
Of course, someone wrote this little gem on Wikipedia's article, 'Classification of Swords'
The English language terminology used in the classification of swords is imprecise, and has varied widely over time. Historical terms without a universal consensus of definition (such as "broadsword", "long sword", "short-sword", "bastard sword", "great sword", "full-bladed sword", "side-sword", "dual-bladed sword" and "two-handed sword") were used to label weapons of similar appearance but of different historical periods and fabrication technology, often by describing their size or shape relative to other unrelated weapons, without regard to their intended use and fighting style. In modern times, many of these terms have been given specific, often arbitrary meanings that are unrelated to any of their historical meanings.
So ... yeah, we're hosed. Keep it internally consistent and we're about as well off as we can get.
5e seems to agree with you (the OP).
There is no Bastard Sword in 5e.
The Longsword can be wielded 1-handed for 1d8 damage or 2-handed for 1d10 damage (they call these types of weapons Versatile.
3.5/Pathfinder has metric crapton of weapons that essentially do the same thing. Is there really that much of a difference between a club and a tonfa? Just how many different kinds of maces do you need?
I'm not saying get rid of them, but really you can just use (or re-use) the same stats for them.
But this is Pathfinder, where 1,234 feats are at your disposal...
I think the problem is the usage of the term "longsword".
In common fantasy literature it means "straight, one handed sword", while in reality there are different "longswords" depending on the region you are in.
In 16. century french a "longsword" is also used as name for a bladed rapier (rapier with a broader blade) while in 12. century in germany the "german longsword" was more the bastard sword (wielded in 1-1/2 Hands).
So for a "multinational" system you can't be accurate (or you have a lot of different weapons). Especially in DnD/PF where the weapon is only defined by its damage (with a relative small possible diversity).
So they use "longsword" for all "straight, one handed, swords", greatsowrt for "straight two handed swords" and bastart sword for all between. :)
I also ould like to see some more weapon diversity in PF (there are not that many possible "good" weapons) but unfortunately this isn't possible in the d20 system. :(
It's possible to have balanced weapons on a d20 system, if we can develop a good point-buy rule for them. Lemmy is making a good job with it.
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A claymore is going to be a greatsword in game terms. It's too large and not balanced for one handed use.
But so what? Pathfinder is not anywhere near accurate on weapon descriptions or mechanics. Crossbows are far more deadly in RL than they are in game. Properly fitted and strapped Heavy armor does not slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics.
Don't look to the weapon tables for historical accuracy.
I'm writing a book for pathfinder on renaissance polearms.
Weep for me.
Larger than a claymore? What's larger than a claymore? The only thing I can think of are zweihanders and video-game/anime swords.
I think your being overly literal at this point in the games life.
The longsword is there to represent 'primarily one handed swords' and to be differentiated from the 'short sword' which is meant as a light weapon.
While the name can be applied to many different models of historical weapon I think for game purposes it works to fill the role intended.
If it really bothers you that much, rename it a broadsword.
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Properly fitted and strapped Heavy armor does not slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics.
This is crazy. It may not prevent movement or the ability to do acrobatics, but there is a reason that if you watch Olympic Sprinting or Gymnastics you won't see the competitors wearing metal outfits.
It most certainly does hinder those two activities.
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Properly fitted and strapped Heavy armor does not slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics.
This is crazy. It may not prevent movement or the ability to do acrobatics, but there is a reason that if you watch Olympic Sprinting or Gymnastics you won't see the competitors wearing metal outfits.
It most certainly does hinder those two activities.
Those are peak of human ability athletes performing in non-battle conditions. Yes, armor will cause slower race times. If it's properly fitted, it will not impact range of motion or flexibility.
It also will not cause meaningful slowness in running or fighting in a combat situation.Armor that is hard to move in defeats the purpose of armor. If you can't attack and block attacks with your weapon, and if you aren't able to run, climb, or roll in a battle, then armor has made you easier to kill.
I am fully aware of those videos. They do not show what you seem to think they do.
For example, climbing a ladder in armor is possible. It is not even particularly difficult. That isn't the same thing as it being as easy to do while not wearing armor.
The difference is, in game terms, and armor check penalty. One could argue whether a particular number is correct or not for a particular suit of armor (and certainly it is obvious that not all variables can be accounted for in the game) but the idea that heavy armor doesn't slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics is nonsense.
Not to be contrary, but it certainly looks in that video like the full plate has restricted both their ranges of motion and speed in some very meaningful ways. Either that or they're really slow and inflexible to start.
I think it's a matter of degrees. Someone certainly won't be as fast and flexible in full plate as they would be unarmored, but the degree to which armor slows and restricts someone used to wearing it (AKA Armor Proficiency) is nowhere close to the penalties Pathfinder imposes. Someone wearing full plate might be slower, but their land speed isn't cut by a third.
Honestly, in my very limited experience people aren't really slower in plate so much as it is that they get tired much quicker. Granted, being used to the weight and in good shape undoubtedly helps with that.
Larger than a claymore? What's larger than a claymore? The only thing I can think of are zweihanders and video-game/anime swords.
Yes a Zweihänder is what I think of when somebody says greatsword. Perhaps only because that's how it was translated in the german versions of DnD and PF, but the weight and size also would match there. Just as it would with Longswords vs Real life longswords and Bastard Swords vs real life claymores.
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Properly fitted and strapped Heavy armor does not slow your movement or impact your ability to do acrobatics.
This is crazy. It may not prevent movement or the ability to do acrobatics, but there is a reason that if you watch Olympic Sprinting or Gymnastics you won't see the competitors wearing metal outfits.
It most certainly does hinder those two activities.
Those are peak of human ability athletes performing in non-battle conditions. Yes, armor will cause slower race times. If it's properly fitted, it will not impact range of motion or flexibility.
It also will not cause meaningful slowness in running or fighting in a combat situation.Armor that is hard to move in defeats the purpose of armor. If you can't attack and block attacks with your weapon, and if you aren't able to run, climb, or roll in a battle, then armor has made you easier to kill.
That guy at 1:34 was clearly fat rolling, so if not Pathfinder, then at least Dark Souls had it right with how much plate armor slows you down. :p
Most arming swords or side-swords would be shortsword type weapons in Pathfinder... except that the Pathfinder shortsword is a piercing weapon, like a late-era gladius or baselard. It's odd that the dagger is P or S, as is the longsword, but no intermediate weapon of this type is given.
Longsword and bastard sword basically cover the full range of longsword lengths. There isn't a clear demarcation, historically or in use, between longswords, and particularly long longswords.
Most Pathfinder weapons are about 50% heavier than real world equivalents.
What Pathfinder calls a falchion is really a large-ish tulwar. An actual falchion would just be a longsword or scimitar, depending on the severity of the blade curve.
Mot historical katanas would be just be scimitars, as would most sabers. Longer katanas and tachi-style blades would be "bastard scimitars," more or less like the Pathfinder katana.
What Pathfinder calls a rapier is often illustrated as an epee or smallsword. An actual rapier has a martial blade, for what should be obvious reasons. Sorry, Errol.
So, anyway, back to the OP. Just use a longsword for most one-handed martial blades. It's what AD&D did. If that messes with a specific concept that requires a light weapon, use a shortsword or one of it's variants. Bastard swords cover long-ish longswords and small-ish claymores. A grand claymore is, in Pathfinder terms, a greatsword.
If you want a basket-hilted broadsword, just use a longsword and some option from some sourcebook that puts a basket hilt on it. Otherwise, it's a good candidate for a slashing variant of the shortsword, like a cutlass.
You can put one hand on the blade and effectively poke armored people with a long sword. Hand and a half is not just two hands on a pommel. I don't see an issue.
The bigger issue is why pathfinder has a short sword and a long sword, but no sword.
If I were going to make two additions to the basic table for basic completeness, it would be a broadsword that does 1d8 but can't be two-handed, and a sidesword that is like a shortsword but does slashing and piercing and costs a few gp more.
It's actually kind of strange neither of those weapons appear, but we do have an EWP specified for a weapon that happens to be exactly long enough it's questionable whether it can be one-handed, which describes a fair number of historical weapons but isn't thematically different enough, IMO, to warrant an entry in the core rulebook.
You can sort of blame Basic D&D for the bastard sword (only fighters and some demi-humans were proficient), but not for the lack of a sword-sword, since it had a "normal sword" as a thing you could buy, and not a longsword. You can't really blame Gary, as the longsword martial art revival had not yet quite taken hold in the 70s and 80s, and there was still a lot of nonsense floating around about swords, even in academic circles.
A few other things that are missing:
Weapons
Spatha: The Roman (one-handed) longsword and its Viking and Norman descendents.
Spetum: This seems to have combat performance characteristics (good Critical range combined with Trip) more suitable to what Pathfinder calls the Fauchard, but the Earth historical Fauchard seems rather underwhelming. AD&D 1.0 had a Spetum, but Pathfinder does not.
Armor/Shields
Linothorax: Here is a video and a project page about ancient Greek linothorax armor and a project at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay to reverse-engineer it, and it looks like it (or at least the reverse-engineered version) does its job pretty well. The closest armor I can find in Pathfinder is Quilted Cloth, which: ". . . has internal layers specifically designed to trap arrows, bolts, darts, shuriken, thrown daggers, and other small ranged piercing weapons. When these kinds of weapons strike you, they tend to become snagged in these layers and fail to harm you. You gain DR 3/— against attacks of this kind. The special layers of the armor have no effect on other kinds of weapons." But as pointed out in the original thread where I posted this, Quilted Cloth isn't a very good match for Linothorax, and it only gives you +1 AC, although at least it is light and doesn't limit your Dex much or give you an ACP. From the video it looks like Linothorax also provides decent protection against more than just small piercing projectiles, whereas Rules as Written Quilted Cloth is good only if you expect to be shot at a lot by hand crossbows and thrown daggers (which oddly enough makes it potentially good for Second Darkness, but not much good anywhere else).
Scutum (Roman Tower Shield): This was made for bashing (which Rules As Written, you can't do with any Tower Shield except by using it as an Improvised Weapon, which is terrible). It had the disadvantage of being susceptible to sundering by the Kopis/Falcata and the Falx, due to the light construction needed to make a Tower Shield that one could bash with. Unfortunately, Pathfinder doesn't have a Scutum at all.
Thoughts? Pathfinder does have a Bronze Age weapons section (which, however, does not have the Spatha), but doesn't seem to have a Bronze Age armor and shields section. Although Bronze armor is mentioned as being Bronze Age, it is mentioned simply as if it was no more than an inferior version of Medieval armor -- although it was technologically behind, it was also different qualitatively, with certain advantages for the environment for which it was developed: Breathability for Linothorax, and Shield Bash capability for the Scutum.
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Reflavoring weapons is fairly easy.
Honestly, the snobbish "historical weapon expert" guy/gal usually just pisses everyone off at the table. Don't be that guy/gal.
A thing to remember, is that Pathfinder is not set in the real world, and does not share the same history. It shouldn't be too hard to realize that weapon and armor advancement, and naming conventions likely developed differently.
By the way, the Weapon Master’s Handbook has a weapon building system, so one can build any weapon throughout history they want to emulate.
I am not concerned with historical accuracy so much as just noting there are some odd oversights. I think a lot of players, history buffs or no, might be wondering where the arming sword is, whether you call it a Spatha or a Viking sword or what-have-you.
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I am not concerned with historical accuracy so much as just noting there are some odd oversights. I think a lot of players, history buffs or no, might be wondering where the arming sword is, whether you call it a Spatha or a Viking sword or what-have-you.
It's a longsword. They just didn't give it piercing damage because, uh...
The thing that gets me is that you can't use a 'rapier' without people visualizing a tiny little sport-fencing foil. There's nothing really to represent something more like a "side-sword", which is a shame considering that it could fill a niche like Exotic 1d8 18-20x2 PorS.
I am not concerned with historical accuracy so much as just noting there are some odd oversights. I think a lot of players, history buffs or no, might be wondering where the arming sword is, whether you call it a Spatha or a Viking sword or what-have-you.
I for one had never heard of an "arming sword" before coming to this thread, and I hang out with professional fencers and history buffs and clueless roleplayers alike.
Arming swords are a group of blades.
The Eppe, rapier, Estoc, and foil are examples of light slashing and piercing blades that became popular after the crossbow rendered the use of heavy armors moot.
I am not concerned with historical accuracy so much as just noting there are some odd oversights. I think a lot of players, history buffs or no, might be wondering where the arming sword is, whether you call it a Spatha or a Viking sword or what-have-you.I for one had never heard of an "arming sword" before coming to this thread, and I hang out with professional fencers and history buffs and clueless roleplayers alike.
That's because you probably called it "a sword." Or as Basic D&D said, a normal sword. Something you wield in one hand, that is definitely not piercing only, and that you would not normally consider two-handing.
Maybe something like
or
The Estoc is an Arming Sword.
Well, depending on the definition of 'arming sword' that... god, never mind.
Estocs are not even considered swords by some fencing experts, contemporary as well as modern.
Here's a sword that's hard to categorize according to what's in the Pathfinder rules now:
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after the crossbow rendered the use of heavy armors moot.
Sorry - but plate armor wasn't even around when crossbows were invented... back in the 4th or 5th century BC. If you're thinking of the arbalest - what we'd consider a heavy crossbow with a bow of steel - that was invented in the 12th century.
People wore plate pretty consistently up through the 15th or 16th century.
The crossbow did virtually nothing to dissuade people from wearing heavy armor. (Not that the arbalest wasn't reasonably effective against them. It was. Just not enough to make plate obsolete.)
The Estoc is an Arming Sword.
The more you know.
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Estocs are not even considered swords by some fencing experts, contemporary as well as modern.
Here's a sword that's hard to categorize according to what's in the Pathfinder rules now:
Looks like a longsword to me.
AD&D 1st Edition had Gary Gygax trying to make an honest (if flawed) effort to catalog Earth historical weapons, especially polearms. It also had the concept of weapons usually being made in one size, but a weapon that was the equivalent of one-handed for Medium characters would be the equivalent of two-handed for Small characters, etc. The Pathfinder idea of matrix of weapon classes for each size of character isn't bad, but it entirely denies the idea that a weapon could be made versatile for both one-handed use by Medium characters and two-handed use by Small characters (without the use of Magic). Yes, this would have some issues with grip size, but these should be possible to design around.
Chainsword has rules thanks to Iron Gods. Ive also seen 3pp and homebrew for a duckfoot
Yup, that's a chainsaw, not a chain sword, but I'd imagine the rules for a chainsword wouldn't be very different. Probably have d8 or d10 damage and the same special rule.
A true chain sword would likely just be statistically identical to a urumi. This is what I use when my players/characters have need of a chain sword.
A true chain sword would likely just be statistically identical to a urumi. This is what I use when my players/characters have need of a chain sword.
I think you're thinking of something like this.
We were talking about this.