| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
To heck with the animals, 2e needs to fix the dang *weapons*.
* If glaives can't do piercing, then neither should naginatas.
* katanas should be "S or P" (ditto arming sword and longswords).
* nodachis are basically huge katanas and don't have the Brace property (they're too excessively curved).
* The game lacks a finessable arming sword. And it's not just Hollywood either, as the Celts used similar swords a thousand years before the Norman Conquest.
* falcions (AKA messers) are one-hand-hilted weapons; the two-handed version is the kriegsmesser.
* The longsword which has never gotten the respect it deserves from RPGs, with HEMA fans and practitioners taking a jaundiced view of that.
* These two lovelies here and here deserve a place in the game.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Who cares, apart from few people who spent too much time at Ren Faires, SCA meetings or a military history PhD?
You mean, apart from all the other people at least marginally interested in weapons? (Which I am guessing is probably everybody who's ever played a martial character in this game.)
We shouldn't still be going by all the wrong weapon notions freighted in 30-40yo D&D. Magic weapons I don't really care about...because they're magic. But it's irksome when a mundane weapon doesn't match its actual counterpart.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
* The game lacks a finessable arming sword. And it's not just Hollywood either, as the Celts used similar swords a thousand years before the Norman Conquest.
* falcions (AKA messers) are one-hand-hilted weapons; the two-handed version is the kriegsmesser.
Just use a cutlass, or a scimitar, if you want a 1 handed single edged sword. Beyond that, this is just semantics.
And the finesseable arming sword is already made- the gladius has some roots in celtic weapons. Also, this is a finesseable cut and thrust weapon.
I still don't understand why Halberds don't have reach in 1e.
You got me curious... and you made me realize how arcane the older editions are.
The nice little labeled weapon property of 'reach' was a later addition it seems. The older weapon tables specifically labeled the length of the weapons. Halberds are listed at 5' long (a quick google says that this isn't an unreasonable measure), while a lot of the familiar reach weapons (lances, ranseurs, glaives, Glaive-Guisarme, Glaive-Guisarme-glaives, Glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive, etc.) are 8' or more. Spears range from 5' to 13' (ie- it was a category that combined both the modern spear and long spear).
So my guess is that 5' is the cut off point for reach. Heck- the "two handed sword"/greatsword was listed at 6' (again, about right for size). Summary- Gary Gygax probably just worked off of a list of weapon lengths he got from a historical book, without getting in depth into the differences in weapons were actually used.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
The inaccuracy of weapons and armor in PF/D&D has come up several times before, so it's not that people don't know about it. They just don't care enough to push Paizo to make it accurate.
Most of us we think it would be nice, but we don't really have it as a high priority with regard to things that need to be changed or done correctly in PF2.
If the devs can do the research and not miss anything else I'd like it. However, it's at the bottom of my bucket list for things that need to be done correctly in order for me to switch from PF 1 to PF 2.
PS: Yes, I understand that I don't speak for everyone.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The obvious answer is "no".
Pf2 will continue the Pf1 policy of great sword or gtfo.
Just give me mechanics for building weapon stat blocks on my own and I’ll decide what it is myself. That’s pretty much what I already do by just letting players pick a stat block from the weapon table and decide what it represents.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The obvious answer is "no".
Pf2 will continue the Pf1 policy of great sword or gtfo.
The greatsword isn't even the best martial weapon in PF1...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm hoping we get accurate sword names this time around. Greatswords are enormous, longswords are two handed, bastard swords can be used one or two handed, and arming swords are one handed. This is easily accessible information, but for some reason PF and D&D have been determined to ignore it for the duration of their existence.
The obvious answer is "no".
Pf2 will continue the Pf1 policy of great sword or gtfo.
One idea I've mentally played around with was the idea of allowing players to do TWF with one handed weapons like the long sword (basically- let them work like double weapons with a x1 main hand and x0.5 off hand; only they just need a single weapon to enhance).
This would allow them to effectively fill in the niche for 'str based TWF'. This would allow them to have something to compete against the high damage of two handed weapons, and it would show that they are easier to wield than a two handed weapon.
..Well, at least rangers and slayers might like to use them...of course, the longsword would likely be overshadowed by the high crit range scimitars. So a similar situation to the magus.
I really hope not. Just use the standard names and conventions from every video game and decades of tabletop games. I love history, even just for the sake of history, but the important thing is having a shared language of what the terms mean. We know what long swords are in RPGs. I don't really care if somebody from a thousand years ago would use a different term.
I mean, video games use like every weapon name under the sun to represent whatever they feel like, so that’s not exactly citing a “standard convention,” unless the only rule is that there are no rules
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nodachi is made to cut the legs off of horses or to kill the rider in a "brace" so the brace ability is merited. The curve of the blade helps chop so brace isn't just a stabby or pokey action.
The current bastard sword is seriously the historical long sword and the current long sword is actually a bastard sword. Greatswords should have reach or the option to pierce at reach or something.
To fix historical weapons that are "s/p" they would need to give weapons that only pierce an advantage and the same for slashing only weapons. Who would use a rapier if long swords were finesseable and s/p. Things like even more increased crit range would be a start.
I'm actually just a weapons pleb but Shad from Shadiversity seems knowledgeable enough and that's where I got this information.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
* The game lacks a finessable arming sword. And it's not just Hollywood either, as the Celts used similar swords a thousand years before the Norman Conquest.Just use a cutlass, or a scimitar, if you want a 1 handed single edged sword. Beyond that, this is just semantics. And the finesseable arming sword is already made- the gladius has some roots in celtic weapons. Also, this is a finesseable cut and thrust weapon.
The main annoyance is the lack of ability to deliver realistic piercing damage while thrusting with an arming sword (or longsword or katana) in the game. Or at least with masterwork versions anyway. (Most glaive, halberd, and fauchard designs also facilitate piercing.)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nodachi is made to cut the legs off of horses or to kill the rider in a "brace" so the brace ability is merited. The curve of the blade helps chop so brace isn't just a stabby or pokey action.
No. A brace weapon is (invariably, historically) a straight-hafted weapon whose butt end can be planted in the ground while the business end is swiveled to receive a charge (typically into the horse of enemy cavalry, or attacking wild animals). A nodachi is not applicable: it is a very large and severely swept great-katana, often so long that it could not be drawn from its scabbard easily or at all by one man. It was carried by a mounted samurai's attendant (this is where the confusion of it being an infantry weapon comes from), who held up to his master to draw. The samurai would then charge into the enemy swinging the massive cleaver, relying on momentum and the mass of the weapon to do damage. Yes, it could theoretically cut the legs off a horse (or its head), but that would be incredibly unlikely if wielded afoot unless you were running downhill or something.
(The largest nodachi, like the largest European greatswords, were ceremonial weapons far too unwieldy for realistic use in combat.)
The current bastard sword is seriously the historical long sword and the current long sword is actually a bastard sword. Greatswords should have reach or the option to pierce at reach or something.
You be surprised how similar the historical weapons were to each other: a "greatsword" was typically only a few inches longer than either a bastardsword or a longsword, and those two were actually the same length. In fact, aside from differences in hilt, guard, and blade cross-section, they were probably effectively "the same" when differences in stature were taken into account (i.e., Scotsmen being typically taller than, say, Italians; thus the easy one-handed nature of the supposedly unwieldy bastardsword). Interestingly, the bastardsword was used one-handed in a TWF style, while the longsword was mainly used two-handed, even though they were of the same length and overall weight. And two-handing a longsword was not done solely to deliver greater power, but for blocking and precision maneuvering of the point (otherwise an arming sword with shield would be superior).
Note that while the person in the video linked last paragraph has a round-pommel longsword with a not-exactly tapered tip, that his accompanying depiction at the 5:20 mark (presumably from Fiore dei Liberi's "The Flower of Battle") depicts very pointed weapons.
To fix historical weapons that are "s/p" they would need to give weapons that only pierce an advantage and the same for slashing only weapons. Who would use a rapier if long swords were finesseable and s/p. Things like even more increased crit range would be a start.
Tracking the lineage of historical weaponry resolves these mysteries: It should be noted that rapiers weren't really much of a thing until the advent of gunpowder had rendered armor largely obsolete, negating the necessity for swords expressly designed with armored foes in mind. Despite the boasting of 17th Century fencing masters (or, more commonly, their students), it took a lot more training to get maximum benefits out of two-handed longsword technique than for one-handed fencing. Longswords evolved around defeating armor; rapiers evolved in its absence.
Blink, and you’ll miss the murderous spin-twists at 1:38 and 1:42. Yikes! If you were that man’s target and dressed in typical chainmail-over-gambeson, gauntlets, and helm, your weak spots are your eyes and other locations around your lower head, neck, and armpits. The tip of his sword comes around in a blinding blur and smashes right through your helm’s chin-strap and nose-guard into your face. While you’re stunned, he’ll knock you down, then jam his weapon through you in a downward stab with his full weight bearing on the crossguard. The longsword is straight by design in order to accommodate deceptive maneuvers as well as deliver that final coup de grâce. Its bearer can strike a target standing as far away from him as he is tall, without lunging.
Hollywood fight-scenes have never accurately depicted technique with a longsword; they are always shown as cumbersome bashers even though historical examples seldom weighed over 3 lbs and were frighteningly nimble. The so-called German school of fencing ("Deutsche Schule; Kunst des Fechtens") specialized in longsword and trained to defeat armored adversaries. In the Orient, the spear was considered superior to the sword on the battlefield; in the West, the longsword was superior to the spear.
No culture without longswords developed fully-enclosed, articulated plate armor, and no such culture's best lesser armor would have stopped a longsword whose point was designed to be levered into joints. But to this day, games treat it as a cheap "starter" sword that your hero almost immediately throws away upon acquiring a better weapon, when in actuality they were the top-shelf and far beyond the monetary means of the commoner. They were the apex European war sword for over 400 years.
You might think that a rapier's hand-protecting hilt cups and/or basket-work were innovations over the longsword; actually they are not, because you can't spin a sword with a round guard (or tsuba). Rapiers, and their ever more diminutive "smallsword" descendants, flourished in "polite society" because they were less deadly and therefore suitable for use in affairs-of-honor, which, despite depiction of duels in movies, were usually fought "to the blood" (or first scratch, hopefully something that would heal to leave a handsome scar on the forehead or cheek; the Prussians in particular were really into that sort of thing, and students at military academies were accounted cowards if they did not duel). Longswords were not designed for such niceties; they were made for expediently putting the enemy down permanently.
In game terms, I'd unlock longsword abilities with Weapon Focus and Weapon Training. And I'd make the good ones expensive at double or triple the normal formula.
I'm actually just a weapons pleb but Shad from Shadiversity seems knowledgeable enough and that's where I got this information.
He's entertaining and informative, but doesn't always get everything right, and he'll often stipulate so himself when he revisits a subject, as he did in a series concerning falchions last year. His series debunking the purported superiority of katanas is well-worth watching. The truth is that development of Japanese swords was largely stagnant (apart from composition of the blade), and fell behind Chinese and especially European advances in the crucible of nearly-continuous warfare up through the Renaissance.
The main annoyance is the lack of ability to deliver realistic piercing damage while thrusting with an arming sword (or longsword or katana) in the game. Or at least with masterwork versions anyway. (Most glaive, halberd, and fauchard designs also facilitate piercing.)
I doubt anyone would bother to stop you from imagining/describing it as a piercing damage.
Another weird thing I've noticed from older d&d stuff (which got grandfathered in)- piercing damage seems like some kind of nerf applied to make a weapon weaker. It often gets applied to weapons that are 'too good' (archery) or to make the weapon selection just worse (simple weapons).
So I see little reason to stop you from doing piercing damage. Unless water rules come up.
Piercing is weirdly weak in D&D, largely because nothing is weak to it. Slashing and Bludgeoning have the zombie and skeleton respectively as extremely common enemies that you'll see through much of an adventuring career; I'm not even sure if there is a monster that is weak to piercing and only piercing. The only DR/piercing monster I'm aware of in PF is the rakshasa, and they have DR/good too.
Piercing weapons might get a leg to stand on in PF2 with crit specializations.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
AFAICT most of the weapon nomenclature out there is just as arbitrary and contradictory as D&D is historically.
Piercing is weirdly weak in D&D, largely because nothing is weak to it.
My hunch is that, once upon a time, 3e's designers intended to introduce a GURPS-style DR system-versus-weapon-damage-type mechanic into armor, then thought it more detailed than what they wanted.
Slashing weapons (aside from end-weighted choppers such as axes) were notoriously worthless against even rudimentary armor. Scimitars, cutlasses, and the like evolved where the climate precluded wearing a ton of insulating protection.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Who cares, apart from few people who spent too much time at Ren Faires, SCA meetings or a military history PhD?You mean, apart from all the other people at least marginally interested in weapons? (Which I am guessing is probably everybody who's ever played a martial character in this game.)
We shouldn't still be going by all the wrong weapon notions freighted in 30-40yo D&D. Magic weapons I don't really care about...because they're magic. But it's irksome when a mundane weapon doesn't match its actual counterpart.
No really, it is unimportant to how the game plays.
Like, I know the weapons qualities are often inaccurate or completely outright wrong....it doesn't matter.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm hoping we get accurate sword names this time around. Greatswords are enormous, longswords are two handed, bastard swords can be used one or two handed, and arming swords are one handed. This is easily accessible information, but for some reason PF and D&D have been determined to ignore it for the duration of their existence.
One major problem with this is that the same name referred to very different weapons at different times and places. And more or less identical weapons were called different things at different times and places.
Piercing is weirdly weak in D&D, largely because nothing is weak to it. Slashing and Bludgeoning have the zombie and skeleton respectively as extremely common enemies that you'll see through much of an adventuring career; I'm not even sure if there is a monster that is weak to piercing and only piercing. The only DR/piercing monster I'm aware of in PF is the rakshasa, and they have DR/good too.
Piercing weapons might get a leg to stand on in PF2 with crit specializations.
Yeah. There is also a weird type of zombie (which is balloon like) and maybe some spells that give dr/piercing... but mostly, nothing has DR piercing. The GM has to go out of his way to introduce this kind of DR (in which case... it would be easier for him just to do water stuff).
That is why I assume piercing is some kind of nerf. Simple weapons have no 2 handed slashing weapons. They keep bludgeoning though... I think that is because a melee character that could not deal with the ever present skeletons would be crippled- bludgeoning is just too important.
Rogues also get the short end of the stick- their martial weapons (bows, short swords, rapiers) are all piercing. Given D&D's obsession with making a skill monkey that is only a skill monkey... that should tell you everything you need to know about the old design views on piercing...
They wanted to have people look at the fighter and think "thank god, we have someone here with a SWORD! How lucky for us!"
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Slim Jim, the longsword is actually one of the more popular one-handed weapons so I don't know where your "throw away" weapon idea came from.
This conversation and others also show that getting the weapons right isn't easy. Every time this conversation comes up several "weapon experts" disagree on weapon size, and how effective they were.
That is partly why I don't want the designers spending time on it unless everything else is taken care of. Even if they get it right people will still complain and say they got it wrong.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
We shouldn't still be going by all the wrong weapon notions freighted in 30-40yo D&D. Magic weapons I don't really care about...because they're magic. But it's irksome when a mundane weapon doesn't match its actual counterpart.No really, it is unimportant to how the game plays. Like, I know the weapons qualities are often inaccurate or completely outright wrong....it doesn't matter.
But it does matter. --It to some degree breaks immersive verisimilitude whenever an object in a fictional setting is given the same name as an object that actually exists or existed in the real world or other established setting (such as a film franchise), and the characteristics don't match.
I mean, if there were a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style autoduel game in which the iconic V8 Interceptor Pursuit Special were given the stats of a 1974 Ford Pinto, and he immediately dumps it for something better after the first scenario (rather than unlocking more abilities with a car that we know should be awesome) -- that would be annoying, because in a game about vehicle combat, you would like to assume that cars would be an aspect given more than an average amount of attention to during design.
It may be a minor breach of verisimilitude in the case of wimpy longswords and nodachis given the attributes of a bear-spear, but it's there nonetheless, and would take little effort to fix in the tenth-year re-launch. (And lets put bear-spears in the game too, if there's going to be a crapton more bears.)
We shouldn't still be going by all the wrong weapon notions freighted in 30-40yo D&D. Magic weapons I don't really care about...because they're magic. But it's irksome when a mundane weapon doesn't match its actual counterpart.No really, it is unimportant to how the game plays. Like, I know the weapons qualities are often inaccurate or completely outright wrong....it doesn't matter.But it does matter. --It to some degree breaks immersive verisimilitude whenever an object in a fictional setting is given the same name as an object that actually exists or existed in the real world or other established setting (such as a film franchise), and the characteristics don't match.
I mean, if there were a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style autoduel game in which the iconic V8 Interceptor Pursuit Special were given the stats of a 1974 Ford Pinto, and he immediately dumps it for something better after the first scenario (rather than unlocking more abilities with a car that we know should be awesome) -- that would be annoying, because in a game about vehicle combat, you would like to assume that cars would be an aspect given more than an average amount of attention to during design.
It may be a minor breach of verisimilitude in the case of wimpy longswords and nodachis given the attributes of a bear-spear, but it's there nonetheless, and would take little effort to fix in the tenth-year re-launch. (And lets put bear-spears in the game too, if there's going to be a crapton more bears.)
So I'm curious, in what way is anyone better qualified than anyone else in this thread where they disagree on what a weapon should look like? and if there is no universal agreement why should anyone change it just to suit your particular vision of what a weapon should and shouldn't be able to do?
So no, it doesn't matter. It's all just broad interpretations of vague and imprecise categories and translating them into close approximations of mechanics.
EDIT: worded more neutrally
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So I'm curious, in what way is anyone better qualified than anyone else in this thread where they disagree on what a weapon should look like? and if there is...
Have you seen the thread where people are complaining about bears? As far as I know, know of them have personally mauled and eaten. --How might we know these things?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just give me mechanics for building weapon stat blocks on my own and I’ll decide what it is myself. That’s pretty much what I already do by just letting players pick a stat block from the weapon table and decide what it represents.
There are rules for doing so in the Weapon Master's Handbook. They appear in the PFSRD near the bottom of the "Weapons" page just above the range increment chart.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think any of us weapon enthusiasts are claiming to be experts even if we are confident in our knowledge.
Now while I agree with most of what Slim Jim said I do have some niggling disagreements in the one big post of his.
I don't see these disagreements as an issue in making some much needed sensible changes to some of the weapons that I think would be obvious to even those of us with little interest or knowledge in weapons.
Such as why do so many swords with sharp points on the end not be capable of doing piercing damage? Why does a Bardiche have brace while a Ranseur does not? Why does the short pole arm have reach and the long one does not?
These are extremely simple fixes. Currently in PF2 they are adding some rather elaborate weapon rules that sound like they add a lot of options to what you can do at any given moment. This is good even though some of the things that are being added seem not to make a whole lot of sense(If memory serves.) with regard to what the weapons actually do.
So they are already putting in significant time to improve the weapons why not have them make more sense at the sametime?
I'm not asking for super complicated rules on how to half-sword vs plate armour or doing a trip attack while half-swording etc.
I'm just asking for simple stuff first: ie: does it have a point... then it should be able do piercing damage. Is this pole arm longer than that pole arm? Yes then why does the shorter one have reach and not the longer one?
Once that is done we can talk about more complex stuff which Paizo is already adding. In that case I do care less about this portion of the rules but for instance I think one of the swords has some special ability that if I remember correctly made little sense. One possible suitable rule would be for the sword(s) to have a defensive option as most swords have great defensive capabilities. ie: It's easier to deflect an incoming attack with a sword than it is with an axe.
I'm not saying it has to have that but it's an idea I'm putting out there. With any luck we get fun cool stuff that makes sense so everyone is happy.
To be clear I'm not angry or "this must be done this way!" I'd like it to be done in a way that even the non-weapon enthusiasts are like "Hey that's pretty cool. It feels like it makes sense, it's fun and gives me some great tactical options in combat." No let's not have it so complex that it's not fun to play.
I guess I'm failing to see why there is such opposition to first some simple fixes, and then if complex rules are being added let's ground them in how the weapons were actually used...if possible.
One a final note, some of the historically accurate "moves" one would use in actual combat are pretty damn fantastical and thematic. So they can for sure be fun and cool to use in game. :)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think any of us weapon enthusiasts are claiming to be experts even if we are confident in our knowledge.
Now while I agree with most of what Slim Jim said I do have some niggling disagreements in the one big post of his.
I don't see these disagreements as an issue in making some much needed sensible changes to some of the weapons that I think would be obvious to even those of us with little interest or knowledge in weapons.
Such as why do so many swords with sharp points on the end not be capable of doing piercing damage? Why does a Bardiche have brace while a Ranseur does not? Why does the short pole arm have reach and the long one does not?
These are extremely simple fixes. Currently in PF2 they are adding some rather elaborate weapon rules that sound like they add a lot of options to what you can do at any given moment. This is good even though some of the things that are being added seem not to make a whole lot of sense(If memory serves.) with regard to what the weapons actually do.
So they are already putting in significant time to improve the weapons why not have them make more sense at the sametime?
I'm not asking for super complicated rules on how to half-sword vs plate armour or doing a trip attack while half-swording etc.
I'm just asking for simple stuff first: ie: does it have a point... then it should be able do piercing damage. Is this pole arm longer than that pole arm? Yes then why does the shorter one have reach and not the longer one?
Once that is done we can talk about more complex stuff which Paizo is already adding. In that case I do care less about this portion of the rules but for instance I think one of the swords has some special ability that if I remember correctly made little sense. One possible suitable rule would be for the sword(s) to have a defensive option as most swords have great defensive capabilities. ie: It's easier to deflect an incoming attack with a sword than it is with an axe.
I'm not saying it has to have that but it's an idea I'm...
For me personally the beef is about the move to change the nomenclature rather than the abilities. If they add piercing to a longsword thats fine, but calling my longsword an arming sword is less fine.
...I don't think any of us weapon enthusiasts are claiming to be experts even if we are confident in our knowledge.
Now while I agree with most of what Slim Jim said I do have some niggling disagreements in the one big post of his.
I don't see these disagreements as an issue in making some much needed sensible changes to some of the weapons that I think would be obvious to even those of us with little interest or knowledge in weapons.
Such as why do so many swords with sharp points on the end not be capable of doing piercing damage? Why does a Bardiche have brace while a Ranseur does not? Why does the short pole arm have reach and the long one does not?
These are extremely simple fixes. Currently in PF2 they are adding some rather elaborate weapon rules that sound like they add a lot of options to what you can do at any given moment. This is good even though some of the things that are being added seem not to make a whole lot of sense(If memory serves.) with regard to what the weapons actually do.
So they are already putting in significant time to improve the weapons why not have them make more sense at the sametime?
I'm not asking for super complicated rules on how to half-sword vs plate armour or doing a trip attack while half-swording etc.
I'm just asking for simple stuff first: ie: does it have a point... then it should be able do piercing damage. Is this pole arm longer than that pole arm? Yes then why does the shorter one have reach and not the longer one?
Once that is done we can talk about more complex stuff which Paizo is already adding. In that case I do care less about this portion of the rules but for instance I think one of the swords has some special ability that if I remember correctly made little sense. One possible suitable rule would be for the sword(s) to have a defensive option as most swords have great defensive capabilities. ie: It's easier to deflect an incoming attack with a sword than it is with an axe.
I'm not saying it has to have
I'd like the correct names too. However, if I had to choose I'd take correct rules over correct names.
Curious why this is an issue to you? :)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Curious why this is an issue to you? :)
Partly inertia, but also because there is no such thing as a proper name. It is all arbitrary based on which source you favour, which era you focus on and probably a dozen other factors. It is an unholy mess. Not only is it (as mentioned above) trying to categorise a continuous spectrum, but several different spectra where the name changes based on when and where a particular style of weapon was used. And the information available is often contradictory or incomplete or biased (again with the proviso I'm not an expert). If there was a good reason to change the name, fine, but there really doesn't seem to be to me.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Who cares, apart from few people who spent too much time at Ren Faires, SCA meetings or a military history PhD?
Or those insufferable nerds who play too many pen & paper RPGs?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Who cares, apart from few people who spent too much time at Ren Faires, SCA meetings or a military history PhD?You mean, apart from all the other people at least marginally interested in weapons? (Which I am guessing is probably everybody who's ever played a martial character in this game.)
We shouldn't still be going by all the wrong weapon notions freighted in 30-40yo D&D. Magic weapons I don't really care about...because they're magic. But it's irksome when a mundane weapon doesn't match its actual counterpart.
You're over estimating the support for massive tables of weapons with lots of detailed rules.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe it's been intimated Spears will be more mechanically impressive.
I think on same note "standard" Longswords will be mechanically justified vs. other martial options.
None of that hinges on arbitrary 'realism' that OP seems fixated on, although I expect Paizo to develop
mechanics with some remotely plausible connection to means of operation of that weapon as it's described in game.
Although on that note I didn't think the Critical effects of stuff like Axes seemed strongly coherent, but like everybody else here,
that just really isn't the primary point, as it hasn't been for last 40-50 years of the hobby's existence.
So if you've stuck around that long with something you find an absolute outrage, I expect you'll keep sticking around.
Who knows, maybe these historical weapon "realists" and arbitrary-naming-convention slaves will develop their own RPG after all these years?
Maybe they can call it Verisimillitudefinder?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I still don't understand why Halberds don't have reach in 1e.
I'm thinking part of that might be a confusion between pollaxes and halberds. They look very similiar, but pollaxes tend to be shorter (intended for armored men at arms to fight others in armor) while halberds are generally longer and intended to be used by massed infantry. The current stats seem better for a pollaxe than a halberd. Although I'd give pollaxe damage type of B, P or S because one of the main configurations was a hammer on the back, axe on the front and spike up top. I don't know of any halberds with a hammer so I'd have them listed as P or S. I'd also be more generous with multiple damage types all around. Most blades really should have P or S because they can be used for both thrusts and cuts. A few are cut specific like some highly curved blades and some are thrust only like smallswords, but most can do both but with different emphasis on each.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Three disparate thoughts:
In first edition D&D, the longsword was the best one handed weapon. It did 1d12 vs. larger than mansized creatures. Two handed swords were the best two handed weapons, but their 3d6 damage vs. larger than mansized creatures didn't compete with the the longsword's 1d12 when you took into account a magic shield, or an off hand weapon. What they called a longsword in the late 1970s had nothing to do with what our current understanding of HEMA.
It would be simple enough if they called the longswords of PF1 arming swords, make 'bastard swords' martial, and call them longswords. If you have ever tried to wield an arming sword, you will become acutely aware that they are not finesse weapons. They were really swords for an earlier period, when a shield was needed to supplement one's armor. Longswords (wielded in one or two hands) became popular because armor got so good that you didn't need a shield, but wanted a heavier weapon.
I read a playtest description where a Paizo employee runs a fighter with a bastard sword that uses it as a one or two handed weapon as needed, supplementing with various feats like grappling feats with their sword attacks when wielding it one handed, and feats for greater two handed damage when weilding it two handed. It felt to me that the build was inspired by HEMA longsword. That character ended up dead, though. PH2 shields sounded like a better option in that playtest report.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
AFAICT most of the weapon nomenclature out there is just as arbitrary and contradictory as D&D is historically.
Yeah. A lot of the conflict is that D&D/Pathfinder/Gaming uses a different set of nomenclature than historians and HEMA practitioners. Most swords were just historically called 'sword.' Even a lot of the things we think of as exotic weapons from non-european cultures the commonly used name is just sword in the local language (ie Arab Saif, Turkish Kilij, Indian Tulwar etc.)
The D&D terminology has been more arbitrary and less based on anything historical than others though. There really isn't any reason to think of a one-handed medieval sword as a Long Sword. Long compared to what? A gladius? It really only seems to make sense in the roman context of Galdius vs Spatha. Historically the term longsword has been used to refer to a number of things at different times and usages from a technique of using a sword with two hands on the grip, a rapier and what Pathfinder calls a Bastard Sword (bastard sword is a historical term that meant various things such as any non-typical sword to a subset of what is called a longsword in HEMA). This is a pretty good history of the term that I've quoted in several other threads about this topic. Notably one thing it hasn't been used for historically is the one-handed medieval sword. And polearm naming is just an absolute mess historically. I also have a post on what I'd do with them. Basically reduce them to about five or six weapons based on their functionality considering there is a lot of overlap.
It would be nice to get gaming terminology more in line with that used by historians and practitioners (I think this is a trend that's already been happening as HEMA becomes more widely known about). But things are a bit trickier than there being one 'right' name and a 'wrong' one. Historical people weren't really concerned with having specific terminology. And we're also looking at things from a wide variety of cultures over a period of millennia. Even Medieval Europe is a full continent with dozens of languages and a period of about 1000 years (or about 500 if you just include the high and late medieval).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would greatly appreciate having more accurate names for PF2E. The current names and inaccurate armour really hurt my immersion and verisimilitude. I would probably buy a hard cover if more realistic names for arms and armour were used.
Oh yeah. The armor naming is just horrible. Like the use of 'mail' for things that aren't mail (mail means chainmail, not a generic term for armor). I cringe every time I hear someone say Platemail (which thankfully is no longer in Pathfinder, but people still use it because of Gygax's use of bad Victorian sources). Things like full suits of splint are also weird (splinting was used for limbs, and that's about it) and the worst offender, studded leather (a misidentification of brigandine or coat of plates, soft leather with metal studs would be pretty much useless as armor).
But there is also the problem that armor wasn't really a single thing. It was generally a collection of pieces which just doesn't fit in with the way armor and damage is handled in the game. A viking era warior might wear a mail shirt and a spangenhelm, while a 13th century knight might wear a longer mail shirt over a padded gambeson and mail chauses (leggings) with a mail coif, cervelliere (skullcap) and greathelm for his head. The later is better protected but in game terms I think they're both chainmail (or possibly the first being chain shirt while the later is chainmail). And what about a guy wearing just a brigandine vs someone wearing one over a suit of mail with a gambeson under that? It gets tricky. It might be best to stop trying to categorize things as just the individual armor pieces, and instead focus on 'sets.' Like our viking example can be a Light-Mail set while the knight is a heavy-mail. The brigandine plus mail could be Transitional Armor or something.
What about the broadsword, where would people peg that in PF?
There really don't seem to be any mechanics that fit the added hand protection of a broadsword or backsword. So mechanically I'd just lump them in with the standard straight-bladed, one-handed sword (whatever it's being called in this edition; Longsword like it currently is, Arming Sword to match the HEMA usage or just plain Sword). The blade is pretty similar, it's just the hilt that's different (and the blade only being one-edged in the case of the backsword). The basket-hilt is cool, but doesn't really have a mechanical role in Pathfinder. Otherwise rapiers should have something accounting for the fact that most rapiers also had protective hilts (although not quite as all encompassing as the basket-hilted broadswords and backswords).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The greatsword isn't even the best martial weapon in PF1...The obvious answer is "no".
Pf2 will continue the Pf1 policy of great sword or gtfo.
That would be the falchion.
Scimitar and shield. Or two kukri.
At low levels reach weapons are amazing.
Lance for very specific mounted builds.
And then there is the long bow.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd just be happy if katanas were an agile weapon.
|
Perhaps I'm missing something, but... why is the falchion better than the nodachi? (Heck, if you have a feat or two to spare, why is scimitar and shield better than nodachi and shield?)
Because a 19-20/x3 crit range is ridiculous, particularly when increased to 17-20/x3.
That said, for all the nitpicky weapon stuff, I think the simplest thing to do would be to have really robust crafting rules that allow you to customize the abilities of the weapons you create. The Player's Handbook would have general rules for the "Longsword" as the public knows it, but you can request a special "Longsword" or build your own with different specs, and call it a "Claymore", or "Falcata", or whatever you want and make your own abilities. Ties that issue up with a nice little bow, I think.
|
Contributor
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Perhaps I'm missing something, but... why is the falchion better than the nodachi? (Heck, if you have a feat or two to spare, why is scimitar and shield better than nodachi and shield?)Because a 19-20/x3 crit range is ridiculous, particularly when increased to 17-20/x3.
Pretty sure you're thinking of the falcata, rather than the falchion. ^_^
(Exotic weapons are a whole different ball of wax, since then feat costs enter the picture. Though that might be better than nodachi and shield...)