Now I see why slings are free...

[Inlaa]

You can do TWF slings with a double sling.

EDIT: Also, I suppose humans, half-elves and half-orcs could still get Slipslinger via Racial Heritage, but at that point we're just being silly.

[Squiggit]

Racial heritage doesn't work because you still can't pick up warslinger.

[Bluenose]

swoosh wrote:

Kind of odd that the sling, which took significant training to even be able to fire properly, is a simple weapon and the firearm, which you can learn to use with reasonable proficiency in half an hour, is exotic.

Do you know how to reload a matchlock arquebus? It's a complicated process with a lot of steps and getting some of them wrong isn't going to have good results. That's a perfectly good explanation for making it an exotic weapon - shooting is the easy part.

I do think there are other weapons which should qualify as exotic too, based on the amount of training required to become really competent. Though to be honest I suspect there's very few pre-modern-firearm weapons where half an hours training is sufficient to make the user safe to be around, and I'm not convinced that's not true for modern ones as well.

[Chengar Qordath]

Bluenose wrote:

swoosh wrote:

Kind of odd that the sling, which took significant training to even be able to fire properly, is a simple weapon and the firearm, which you can learn to use with reasonable proficiency in half an hour, is exotic.

Do you know how to reload a matchlock arquebus? It's a complicated process with a lot of steps and getting some of them wrong isn't going to have good results. That's a perfectly good explanation for making it an exotic weapon - shooting is the easy part.

I do think there are other weapons which should qualify as exotic too, based on the amount of training required to become really competent. Though to be honest I suspect there's very few pre-modern-firearm weapons where half an hours training is sufficient to make the user safe to be around, and I'm not convinced that's not true for modern ones as well.

Well, with firearms the basic principles are all pretty simple, the tricky part is getting all of that right on a consistent basis in high-stress situations. Knowing how to reload an arquebus is one thing—doing it quickly and efficiently on the battlefield is a whole other level of challenge. I do recall hearing about how soldiers would return their rifles with a dozen rounds shoved down the barrel because they forgot to actually shoot, and just kept reloading.

Of course, the same would be said for plenty of other weapons. A lot of the archery practice for English longbowmen wasn't so much a matter of proficiency as ensuring that they could keep up a steady rate of fire for extended periods of time in adverse conditions.

As far as modern gun safety goes, half an hour is more than enough time to tell someone how to be safe around guns. The tricky part is getting them to actually listen to and remember those rules. Even a lot of people who really should know better will occasionally get a bit careless.

[Saldiven]

Chengar Qordath wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

swoosh wrote:

Kind of odd that the sling, which took significant training to even be able to fire properly, is a simple weapon and the firearm, which you can learn to use with reasonable proficiency in half an hour, is exotic.

Do you know how to reload a matchlock arquebus? It's a complicated process with a lot of steps and getting some of them wrong isn't going to have good results. That's a perfectly good explanation for making it an exotic weapon - shooting is the easy part.

I do think there are other weapons which should qualify as exotic too, based on the amount of training required to become really competent. Though to be honest I suspect there's very few pre-modern-firearm weapons where half an hours training is sufficient to make the user safe to be around, and I'm not convinced that's not true for modern ones as well.

Well, with firearms the basic principles are all pretty simple, the tricky part is getting all of that right on a consistent basis in high-stress situations. Knowing how to reload an arquebus is one thing—doing it quickly and efficiently on the battlefield is a whole other level of challenge. I do recall hearing about how soldiers would return their rifles with a dozen rounds shoved down the barrel because they forgot to actually shoot, and just kept reloading.

Of course, the same would be said for plenty of other weapons. A lot of the archery practice for English longbowmen wasn't so much a matter of proficiency as ensuring that they could keep up a steady rate of fire for extended periods of time in adverse conditions.

As far as modern gun safety goes, half an hour is more than enough time to tell someone how to be safe around guns. The tricky part is getting them to actually listen to and remember those rules. Even a lot of people who really should know better will occasionally get a bit careless.

I have to agree with the bolded part of the quote. I have done some hunting with muzzle-loading rifles, and the steps aren't complicated at all. There are just multiple of them (most are revolving around being safe with the weapon). I'm far from expert, but given a minute or so, I can load one pretty easily. Supposedly, the super experts 200+ years ago could load and fire once every 15 seconds or so.

[swoosh]

Bluenose wrote:

Do you know how to reload a matchlock arquebus? It's a complicated process with a lot of steps and getting some of them wrong isn't going to have good results. That's a perfectly good explanation for making it an exotic weapon - shooting is the easy part.

Beyond what the above posts have said, the trouble with this argument is that nonproficiency applies penalties to attack rolls and doesn't have any effect on whether or not you can reload the weapon.

Also revolvers are on that list too and they're certainly not very hard to reload.

[Kirth Gersen]

swoosh wrote:

Beyond what the above posts have said, the trouble with this argument is that non-proficiency applies penalties to attack rolls and doesn't have any effect on whether or not you can reload the weapon.

Heh. In my houserules the opposite is often true.

[Dustin Heaton]

swoosh wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

Do you know how to reload a matchlock arquebus? It's a complicated process with a lot of steps and getting some of them wrong isn't going to have good results. That's a perfectly good explanation for making it an exotic weapon - shooting is the easy part.

Beyond what the above posts have said, the trouble with this argument is that nonproficiency applies penalties to attack rolls and doesn't have any effect on whether or not you can reload the weapon.

Also revolvers are on that list too and they're certainly not very hard to reload.

The revolver bit is a non-starter. They're advanced firearms, so if you're dealing with them firearms should be martial weapons.

And the penalty to hit is easy to explain too. The entire point of volley fire had to do with the inaccuracy of the early guns in the hands of an average soldier, but specially trained skirmishers would used aimed fire to target high value targets And then by the time cartridge based firearms come around and aimed fire becomes the standard, firearms are martial weapons so the standard soldier is proficient.

[Nitro~Nina]

Ravingdork wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

You'd use the sword hilt, probably, grasping the blade and using it as a hammer of sorts. A not very good hammer, at that. There's a reason people with perfectly good swords carried other things to use against heavily armoured targets.

Slamming someone with the heavy blade of a sword would probably work just as well.

The reason people carried other weapons of wielded the sword as you described (typically with gauntlets or similar hand protection) was because they didn't want to totally destroy their swords in the process.

I'm really really sorry. I intended to read the whole thread before responding, but as a Sword Nerd I really must interject because this is a misconception that really grinds my gander. Sword blades are not heavy. They're not and they weren't. If you try to club metal armour with any part of the blade, you will have a bad time and will die.

Additionally, no gauntlet worth its salt had any metal anywhere near the palm. You'd ruin your edge alignment through inability to feel the hilt, the sword would slip all the time, and it would be hell to articulate with plate. You held the blade with leather, which would do nothing against a slash. It didn't hurt you because you were damn good at gripping the weapon, not because your hand was protected.

Now to the point I was going to make anyway: this video tells me that the sling relies on a skilled process to create and should cost at least a couple of coppers for this guy's time. Also he's not aiming right; you use an overarm throw with none of the spinning nonsense if you want to hit anything accurately at that range (and also avoid bludgeoning your fellows). Common misconception, however, and his handiwork is so fantastic that it doesn't really matter.

Equally well, arrows were AMAZING against armour of most types due to the infamous bodkin point; they just sucked against shields and well-made full plate armour, which was basically an incredibly expensive wearable shield shaped for arrow/blade deflection that made you invulnerable against most things, and pretty damn resilient against everything else. Hammers, longsword quillons (crossguardy bits) and polearms were okay against plate, but not truly fantastic. The only thing that plate sucked against? Hot lead travelling at close to the speed of sound. That's why firearms took over, eventually.

Bows may be easier trained for accuracy than a sling, but longbows are another beast ENTIRELY. To cut a long story short, you shouldn't need 10 Str to wield a basic longbow effectively... you should need 16 Str to draw the dashed thing, and 18 Con to not injure yourself by doing that so many times over the course of a battle. Dex was less important (not unimportant, however) to a longbowman; your job is to darken the sky, not to hit specific targets. Composite bows were significantly easier irl, and as such were used by quicker, more accurate, but fundamentally weaker folks.

[The Sideromancer]

what PF needs is compound bows.

[Nitro~Nina]

Inlaa wrote:

(Swords don't get sheathed on your back; it's stupid, don't do it.)

*Tears of happiness.*

Thank you, kind one, thank you.

(They COULD however be carried on your back for the purposes of travel, and there is, I believe, historical evidence for this. In real life, you didn't get random encounters every five seconds, so you didn't need to be able to access your longsword/greatsword/whatever while travelling. You could just take it off your back and affix it to your hip if there was trouble ahead.)

Really, we should just be slinging pommels and end this argument rightly altogether.

[Nitro~Nina]

Relevant: LINDYBEIGE

EDIT: I'm also really sorry if I've come across as overly critical or condescending! I get passionate about historical warfare.

P.S. I make no apologies for Lindybeige sounding condescending; it's his thing.

[Nitro~Nina]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Nitro~Nina wrote:

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=covH4voKukw

Did you mean LINDYBEIGE?

I did indeed, thank you! Edited now.

[Dustin Heaton]

The Sideromancer wrote:

what PF needs is compound bows.

Maybe in Starfinder. Way too modern for Pathfinder using WW1 weaponry as the basis for "modern".

[Inlaa]

Quote:

Really, we should just be slinging pommels and end this argument rightly altogether.

Skallagrim! ;D

[Nitro~Nina]

Inlaa wrote:

Quote:

Really, we should just be slinging pommels and end this argument rightly altogether.

Skallagrim! ;D

Eeyup!