Gods and Magic: weapons and culture


Advice


What cultures do you think would get access to the new weapons? My thoughts are:

Bladed scarf: Shoanti, Varisian
Bolas: Shoanti
Fighting fan: Tian
Khopesh: Osirion
Machete: Mwangi
Mambele: Mwangi, Osirion
Meteor hammer: Tian
Naginata: Tian
Nine-ring sword: Tian
Polytool: Numerian
Tekko-kagi: Tian
Urumi: Tian
War razor: Chelish

What does everyone think? Any others you can think of to add or don't agree with my picks?

Liberty's Edge

Looks good.

Some form of Machete exists anywhere there is jungle. So the Southern Tian would use it too IMO.

Why is it even Martial BTW? It is a very simple weapon to use.

War razor might be a Goblin thing too IMO.


Pretty good list, but the Urumi is an Indian weapon, so it should be Vudrani in Pathfinder.

And the Meteor Hammer, Machete, and War Razor are all common. I think it is for the best as they are pretty straight forward. I'm just wondering why Meteor Hammers aren't advanced, but that is minor.

Liberty's Edge

Albatoonoe wrote:

Pretty good list, but the Urumi is an Indian weapon, so it should be Vudrani in Pathfinder.

And the Meteor Hammer, Machete, and War Razor are all common. I think it is for the best as they are pretty straight forward. I'm just wondering why Meteor Hammers aren't advanced, but that is minor.

Alas they are not :-/

Table 2 is Martial melee weapons.


The Raven Black wrote:
Albatoonoe wrote:

Pretty good list, but the Urumi is an Indian weapon, so it should be Vudrani in Pathfinder.

And the Meteor Hammer, Machete, and War Razor are all common. I think it is for the best as they are pretty straight forward. I'm just wondering why Meteor Hammers aren't advanced, but that is minor.

Alas they are not :-/

Table 2 is Martial melee weapons.

The uncommon ones are on Table 3.


Ah, you guys are right: I saw Meteor Hammer and my brain thought uncommon. Good to know you can pick those up everywhere. ;)

So those three don't need access but it never hurts to brainstorm where weapons are more common.

Albatoonoe wrote:
I'm just wondering why Meteor Hammers aren't advanced, but that is minor.

I think it's because it's a 2 handed weapon that does 1d8 and has 4 traits: it mirrors spiked chain that way. simple, martial and advanced is more about how the mechanics match up to other weapons than how hard it is to use.

Albatoonoe wrote:
Pretty good list, but the Urumi is an Indian weapon, so it should be Vudrani in Pathfinder.

Thanks! On the Urumi, one Tian god and one Oni Daimyo have it as a favored weapon in PF1 so I figured Tian for sure. One Asura Ranas so I can see a Vudrani presence too.

Liberty's Edge

Gisher wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Albatoonoe wrote:

Pretty good list, but the Urumi is an Indian weapon, so it should be Vudrani in Pathfinder.

And the Meteor Hammer, Machete, and War Razor are all common. I think it is for the best as they are pretty straight forward. I'm just wondering why Meteor Hammers aren't advanced, but that is minor.

Alas they are not :-/

Table 2 is Martial melee weapons.

The uncommon ones are on Table 3.

My bad, I thought we were talking about Simple VS Martial.

Apologies for my mistake and thank you for correcting me.


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Tian Xia isn't just one culture, I don't believe. It's a continent with a bunch of different nations. The Tian aren't a single ethnic group or single culture.

Tian-Shu are somewhat analogous to real world China, so weapons like the Meteor Hammer and Nine Ringed Sword are appropriate there, since they are drawn from Chinese martial arts tradition.

Tian-Min are somewhat analogous to real world Japan, so weapons like the Naginata and Tekko-kagi are appropriate to this group since those weapons are drawn from real world Japanese history.

My point is that it's silly to differentiate between groups like Shoanti and Varisian, or Numerian and Chelish, but then lump an entire continent into one cultural group.


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Saldiven wrote:

Tian Xia isn't just one culture, I don't believe. It's a continent with a bunch of different nations. The Tian aren't a single ethnic group or single culture.

Tian-Shu are somewhat analogous to real world China, so weapons like the Meteor Hammer and Nine Ringed Sword are appropriate there, since they are drawn from Chinese martial arts tradition.

Tian-Min are somewhat analogous to real world Japan, so weapons like the Naginata and Tekko-kagi are appropriate to this group since those weapons are drawn from real world Japanese history.

My point is that it's silly to differentiate between groups like Shoanti and Varisian, or Numerian and Chelish, but then lump an entire continent into one cultural group.

I don't things in the oriental weapons fall so neatly into a single bucket: Take Tekko-Kagi once. There are similar weapons in chinese and indian cultures. Meteor hammers along with Kusari-fundo and manrikigusari are slungshots, all of similar use and construction. The naginata [japan] and the Mei chein doa [china] are nearly identical weapons. Fighting fans are in china, japan, Indonesia, Korea....

I'm not sure I'd want to try to narrow it down too much. I think if you try to go into sub-cultures you'll get bleed over and have items falling under multiple ones. I think it's like “Avistani” or “Mwangi”: a term for the many different residents of several kingdoms and countries, in this case on the distant continent of Tian Xia. If someone wanted to map the tain subcultures to real life areas then map the items to those area, I'd be interested to see the results but it's a finer hair than I'm willing to split myself.


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I am honestly a bit surprised that the bladed scarf is not a finesse weapon, would have been perfectly valid (and made it a good alternative to the spiked chain)
It might be a little strong as it is then...maybe as advanced weapon then?

The war fan on the other hand would've been a perfect candidate for parry, which would make it an excellent weapon for (playtest) swashbuckler


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graystone wrote:
Saldiven wrote:

Tian Xia isn't just one culture, I don't believe. It's a continent with a bunch of different nations. The Tian aren't a single ethnic group or single culture.

Tian-Shu are somewhat analogous to real world China, so weapons like the Meteor Hammer and Nine Ringed Sword are appropriate there, since they are drawn from Chinese martial arts tradition.

Tian-Min are somewhat analogous to real world Japan, so weapons like the Naginata and Tekko-kagi are appropriate to this group since those weapons are drawn from real world Japanese history.

My point is that it's silly to differentiate between groups like Shoanti and Varisian, or Numerian and Chelish, but then lump an entire continent into one cultural group.

I don't things in the oriental weapons fall so neatly into a single bucket: Take Tekko-Kagi once. There are similar weapons in chinese and indian cultures. Meteor hammers along with Kusari-fundo and manrikigusari are slungshots, all of similar use and construction. The naginata [japan] and the Mei chein doa [china] are nearly identical weapons. Fighting fans are in china, japan, Indonesia, Korea....

I'm not sure I'd want to try to narrow it down too much. I think if you try to go into sub-cultures you'll get bleed over and have items falling under multiple ones. I think it's like “Avistani” or “Mwangi”: a term for the many different residents of several kingdoms and countries, in this case on the distant continent of Tian Xia. If someone wanted to map the tain subcultures to real life areas then map the items to those area, I'd be interested to see the results but it's a finer hair than I'm willing to split myself.

Nice, but totally missing the point.

If we're going to make cultural distinctions in this case between neighboring kingdoms in the Inner Seas region (which is just a part of the continent upon which it is located), it is silly to lump an entire continent (containing multiple different nations) into one single cultural group.

Shoanti and Varisian peoples are no more culturally dissimilar than are the various Tian groups, for example. If we're going to say "Tian" is one single cultural group, we should also say "Inner Sea" is one single cultural group.


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Saldiven wrote:
Nice, but totally missing the point.

I don't think so: lots of inner sea regions are made up of different cultural groups and ethic types:

"The name Mwangi is given to a group of related but ultimately different human ethnicities who inhabit the western coast of Garund, the jungles and plains of interiors, and all the way to the southern reaches of the continent."
"There is no single, united Mwangi culture"
"The appearance of the Mwangi people varies according to their subgroup: the Zenj, Bonuwat, Mauxi, and Bekyar."
This from PF1. In PF2, Access to rules elements in the lost omens world guide is by large regions: For instance, Golden Road includes Katapesh, Osirion, Qadira, Rahadoum and Thuvia: you can take Living Monolith without being Osirion. Same way the Saga Lands means you qualify for Runescarred even if you aren't from Varisia or New Thassilon.

What all this means is that even going by the list I made, I went into more detail than PF2 does with it's requirements: If someone wanted to go into each and every regional subculture, they could but I don't think it's needed. For myself, it's more trouble than it's worth it unless you make it based in that section of the world and the only major differences where which tian you were.


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You don't think you need to? But you did.

You are the one that differentiated between Shoanti, Varisian, Numerian, Chelish, Mwangi, and Osirion, but then lumped the entire continent of Tian into one.

I just suggested that this was silly. You countered that you didn't want "to narrow it down too much," when you had already done so.

I'm not sure why you're defending your decision to be so narrow and specific for one region, but then poo-pooing a similar degree of granularity for another region.

As for Mwangi, it's a tiny region compared to Tian. Mwangi is roughly 20% of the continent upon which it lies. Tian is the largest continent on Golarion. I'll reiterate that lumping Tian into one cultural group would be like lumping all of the Inner Sea region into one group (including Mwangi, Osirion, Absalom, Cheliax, etc. into one group).


Saldiven wrote:
You are the one that differentiated between Shoanti, Varisian, Numerian, Chelish, Mwangi, and Osirion, but then lumped the entire continent of Tian into one.

These are the general PF1 differentiations. I just went with that off hand: it was the way things where [and are] done, by lumping things together. Things like weapons are region based unless they are ancestry ones. I've seen nothing that correlates to a tian sub-ethnicity getting access to a nations items when they don't have access to said region: You can see this in the wiki page where history and culture are given for them as a whole and not broken down into ethnicities.

Saldiven wrote:
I just suggested that this was silly.

You're complaining to the wrong person IMO. I'm not stopping you from dividing weapons as you like and posting them: I just said what I thought on it.

Saldiven wrote:
I'm not sure why you're defending your decision to be so narrow and specific for one region, but then poo-pooing a similar degree of granularity for another region.

I gave an opinion: MYSELF, I didn't feel the need as an inner sea game is going to lump tian into one pile, like it's always done. I can't think of anything in the past that specified a specific tian group but different nations: for instance, Xa Hoi is required for a trait but Tian-Dans, Tian-Dtangs, Tian-Hwans live there so it's not dividing things like you wanted. You're using ancestry and it's more culture and local.

Saldiven wrote:
As for Mwangi, it's a tiny region compared to Tian.

IMO, that's a moot point: you're lumping multiple groups together for the same reason. Tian has 7 racial groups while Mwangi had 8 tribes listed... Size doesn't change the multicultural nature of either. Korea is a small place, but there are stark differences between the cultures of north and south: size is irrelevant here.

And as I said in another post "I'm not sure I'd want to try to narrow it down too much." If you wish to, have at it: divide things down to the level of Aldori Dueling Sword just being from Brevoy if you wish but it's a project that, IMO is too much work for too little return.


graystone wrote:
I think it's because it's a 2 handed weapon that does 1d8 and has 4 traits: it mirrors spiked chain that way. simple, martial and advanced is more about how the mechanics match up to other weapons than how hard it is to use.

I believe spiked chain has three functional traits? As do most 2 handed d8 weapons in core (curve blade is an exception, but forceful seems to variably take up more room anyway).


Appletree wrote:
graystone wrote:
I think it's because it's a 2 handed weapon that does 1d8 and has 4 traits: it mirrors spiked chain that way. simple, martial and advanced is more about how the mechanics match up to other weapons than how hard it is to use.
I believe spiked chain has three functional traits? As do most 2 handed d8 weapons in core (curve blade is an exception, but forceful seems to variably take up more room anyway).

My bad: having rarity tossed into it throws me off: Fauchard [Deadly d8, Reach 10 ft., Sweep, Trip] and Bo Staff [Monk, Parry, Reach, Trip] fit the bill.


Thanks for this list graystone.

A bit off topic but does anyone know which, if any, of the new weapons are "monk weapons" (i.e. have the monk trait)?

Many thanks!


dpb123 wrote:

Thanks for this list graystone.

A bit off topic but does anyone know which, if any, of the new weapons are "monk weapons" (i.e. have the monk trait)?

Many thanks!

Fighting fan [11 sp, 1d4 ,S ,L ,1 ,Knife, [Agile, backstabber, deadly d6, finesse, monk]


graystone wrote:
Fighting fan [11 sp, 1d4 ,S ,L ,1 ,Knife, [Agile, backstabber, deadly d6, finesse, monk]

Thanks grayston!


dpb123 wrote:
graystone wrote:
Fighting fan [11 sp, 1d4 ,S ,L ,1 ,Knife, [Agile, backstabber, deadly d6, finesse, monk]
Thanks grayston!

Happy to help. ;)


Why is naginata even a thing? It’s just a glaive. (Okay, they’re considered nihonto because of the method of forging and mounting to the haft by pinning through the tang, rather than the haft into a socket. In game terms, that’s irrelevant.)


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It is kind of weird that we draw a distinction between a Naginata and a Glaive but if you wanted a charcter to use a Jumonji Yari, people would just say "eh... it's just a ranseur".


Dragonstriker wrote:
Why is naginata even a thing? It’s just a glaive. (Okay, they’re considered nihonto because of the method of forging and mounting to the haft by pinning through the tang, rather than the haft into a socket. In game terms, that’s irrelevant.)

You know they gave them different traits right? [one has forceful and one has versatile] So going by that, they are saying is the naginata has a blade that easily stabs while the glaive has a broader blade making it less pointy [some didn't even have a forward facing point] but heftier [ie forceful].

But if you're going to quibble too much on polearms... they pretty much all overlap a lot. The difference between some glaives, ranseur, fauchard and spears aren't that great either. How little or great you differentiate them is more a matter of opinion that any real necessity: we've never needed 1/2 the polearms except as a vehicle for vehicle for different traits and damage die and types.

Dark Archive

graystone wrote:


But if you're going to quibble too much on polearms... they pretty much all overlap a lot. The difference between some glaives, ranseur, fauchard and spears aren't that great either. How little or great you differentiate them is more a matter of opinion that any real necessity: we've never needed 1/2 the polearms except as a vehicle for vehicle for different traits and damage die and types.

And we're still vastly better off than AD&D was with it's 45 different types of polearm! (Hyperbole... but not by much I suspect)


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Richard Lowe wrote:
graystone wrote:


But if you're going to quibble too much on polearms... they pretty much all overlap a lot. The difference between some glaives, ranseur, fauchard and spears aren't that great either. How little or great you differentiate them is more a matter of opinion that any real necessity: we've never needed 1/2 the polearms except as a vehicle for vehicle for different traits and damage die and types.
And we're still vastly better off than AD&D was with it's 45 different types of polearm! (Hyperbole... but not by much I suspect)

A rough mental count puts it about 20. ;)


I'm just impressed with Torag's Meteor Anvil if I had seen that prior to almost being done with our current 1E campaign I would have considered asking the GM to let my character use one.


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Richard Lowe wrote:
graystone wrote:


But if you're going to quibble too much on polearms... they pretty much all overlap a lot. The difference between some glaives, ranseur, fauchard and spears aren't that great either. How little or great you differentiate them is more a matter of opinion that any real necessity: we've never needed 1/2 the polearms except as a vehicle for vehicle for different traits and damage die and types.
And we're still vastly better off than AD&D was with it's 45 different types of polearm! (Hyperbole... but not by much I suspect)

Relevant comic.

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