Odd question - 'pratice' sword stats?

[Zarius]

So, I know this is a weird one. The campaign I'm playing in is undead heavy, and I'm playing a Kitsune oracle, so extremely limited weapons choices, but I can get proficiencies without dropping feats. The one thing I AM trying to work on, though, is proficiency for a custom exotic sword. I've been trying to figure out a good way to go about getting a weapon that's useful for skeletons - swords are, obviously, not - and had a random thought...

A lot of training systems that started teaching children started with wooden practice swords so that the children didn't decapitate each other (or themselves) before figuring out which end of the sword to hold. I was hoping that some kind GMs might be willing to help me in coming up with a simple conversion template for what kind of stats wooden a 'practice' sword would have compared to it's normal version.

My original thought (and reasoning) was basically the following:

~Same base damage (a thick hunk of wood is pretty painful to get hit with, no matter how tough you are)
~Bludgeoning damage, regardless of what the base has
~Normal lethal damage (you go swinging at someone's head like it's a baseball, you're concussing them, best scenario)
~Fragile (it's made of wood, it's meant to teach, not to fight with), with the Fragile property lifted for magical gear (basically, basing this off of bone, rather than the normal fragile stats).

Opinions? Modifications?

[Irontruth]

I would modify your list with...

- reduce damage die by one size
- crit range is 20/x2
- don't worry about fragile

[avr]

I'd just call it a club.

[JDLPF]

If one of my players asked this, I'd use the nonlethal weapon rules. A weapon intended to be a nonlethal training weapon would take a -4 to hit to deal lethal damage. I'd also consider the above list of changes too, reducing damage dice and shortening the crit range.

[Imbicatus]

Give it the stats of a club, but feats treat it as the normal weapon type.

[Mysterious Stranger]

A wooden practice sword would use non-lethal damage not lethal damage, and probably reduced damage as well. I can understand your trying to find something effective to use but this is pure cheese. The reason for using practice swords is to avoid killing each other, with what you propose using wooden practice swords will be just as likely to kill as the real weapon. A practice sword is not a baseball bat it is still a sword. The balance is completely different because the baseball bat is way heavier at the end to increase the impact. A baseball bat is a club and its use is completely different than a sword. If you try and use the maneuvers of a sword with a baseball bat they don’t work anywhere near as well.

Oracles have simple weapons which already includes heavy mace and morning star for decent damage. You already have access to decent weapons so if you want better spend the feat. If one of my players came to me with this I would simply say no. Take the Exotic Weapon Training alternative racial trait and pick a weapon that does blunt damage as one of your weapons.

[Zarius]

My bent schnoze wants to argue the point about non-lethal damage, but the logical part of my brain is telling me that this is actually proof. >..>

[JDLPF]

Or alternatively just wield a weapon while non-proficient and eat the -4 penalty, since it'd be the same as the penalty for dealing lethal damage with a non-lethal weapon. You even have the Bestow Weapon Proficiency spell on your spell list. Problem solved!

[Claxon]

I could have sworn I thought stats for a wooden sword or bokken had been published at some point.

[Imbicatus]

Claxon wrote:

I could have sworn I thought stats for a wooden sword or bokken had been published at some point.

There was, in Jade Regent. It was for a Bokken. It used the stats of a club, but counted as a katana for feats or abilities that specified katana.

[Claxon]

Imbicatus wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I could have sworn I thought stats for a wooden sword or bokken had been published at some point.

There was, in Jade Regent. It was for a Bokken. It used the stats of a club, but counted as a katana for feats or abilities that specified katana.

Yeah...do that. Do exactly that.

[Paul Migaj]

The simplest solution may be to treat the practice sword as an "Improvised Weapon" of the appropriate size. Probably not what you had in mind.

Otherwise, the world of Dark Sun made "wooden" versions of weapons take a -3 to hit, -3 to damage, and break on a natural 1 on the attack roll.

That's easy to remember.

[justaworm]

I have various types of "wooden practice swords" . The solid wood ones would be just as lethal as a quarterstaff or club; you can't say they would only do non-lethal damage.

The ones made from reed or bamboo, however, you could make a argument for primarily non-lethal.

[Skeld]

justaworm wrote:

I have various types of "wooden practice swords" .

He beats his players with them. I've seen it with my own eyes.

-Skeld