D&D 5E Fighter Weapon Choice

[n00b f00]

That is a growing opinion, and all the same it comes mostly out of the idea that the cartridge is suboptimal for that particular conflict. The idea that the CBR is superior in every meaningful way is a slowly growing idea in the tactical community. But still very much a minority opinion. And even most of the people who espouse it are unlikely to openly mock and rebuke someone who uses another cartridge.

If we modeled the modern times for a game, and we modeled it so that CBRs were either just better, or mechanically identical except in one or 2 rare situations. We'd be deciding who was right by the rules, as a result the way players tried to optimize their loadouts would change. But the setting wouldn't. The universe wouldn't suddenly understand that yes, .308 is the God Bullet, and begin slowing phasing out all substandard catridges. A group of mercenary murder hobo PCs wouldn't burst into laughter when they say a new recruit with an M4. Rendering every person who chose to but an AR in real life a willful imbecile. In real life we have some idea of how damage works, those who disagree are generally civil with a couple wise cracks here and there. We mostly advocate that people choose between a few similar cartridges(d6 or d8, d8 or d10), and a model that is affordable and comfortable for them(few mechanical expressions).

That's something that is not modeled into 5e, which is fine. You can houserule it a few ways, take a slightly suboptimal weapon, or just rework the flavor of the character. If you want to give an in world reflection of powergaming, that the PCs have a strong understanding of how fights happen in their world, and do their best to get an advantage to defend their lives. That is totally a valid way to play, even if they do magically know what your weapon proficiencies and class features, and are somewhat standoffish about non optimized characters. I totally get it as the logical conclusion of a desired playstyle. In the same way I often play in permissive, low lethality campaigns where the PCs rarely die, and most combats are balanced to make them look cool rather then be a life or death struggle. With that playstyle, the PCs RP differently, they interact with NPCs in a different fashion, they take different kinds of risks. And it makes sense to them because those actions have always worked out for them in that way. They're Arnold in Commando, not John McClane in Die Hard 1(which incidentally started as a Commando sequel).

But that's not a reflection of reality, that's an IC reflection of my table's taste. In real life PCs don't jump onto a chandelier in a sword fight to look cool("Uh, you die,"). In real life we have a tough time quantifying weapon damage, and only come down on people if what they are carrying is against regulations(in an organisation with standard weapons) or against the weapons role(standing in a shield wall while dual wielding crossbows). Not excluding a guy in your irregular group when he chooses to use a weapon you believe to be marginally substandard. That's not a common real life reaction.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That is a growing opinion, and all the same it comes mostly out of the idea that the cartridge is suboptimal for that particular conflict. The idea that the CBR is superior in every meaningful way is a slowly growing idea in the tactical community. But still very much a minority opinion. And even most of the people who espouse it are unlikely to openly mock and rebuke someone who uses another cartridge.

If we modeled the modern times for a game, and we modeled it so that CBRs were either just better, or mechanically identical except in one or 2 rare situations. We'd be deciding who was right by the rules, as a result the way players tried to optimize their loadouts would change. But the setting wouldn't. The universe wouldn't suddenly understand that yes, .308 is the God Bullet, and begin slowing phasing out all substandard catridges. A group of mercenary murder hobo PCs wouldn't burst into laughter when they say a new recruit with an M4. Rendering every person who chose to but an AR in real life a willful imbecile. In real life we have some idea of how damage works, those who disagree are generally civil with a couple wise cracks here and there. We mostly advocate that people choose between a few similar cartridges(d6 or d8, d8 or d10), and a model that is affordable and comfortable for them(few mechanical expressions).

I think more granularity than that would be required to model real-world ammunition calibre differences. I'm no gun expert, but I'd expect it to be something more like (7.62: recoil 2 range 200/1200 1d10 damage, 1d8 at long range, 20 rounds per pound) vs (5.56: recoil 1 range 150/600 1d10 damage, 1d6 at range, 50 rounds per round) wherein each has a specific niche, and the debate is essentially over how relatively common each niche is. That makes it more like a debate over GWM or Sharpshooter's -5/+10 than it is like a rapier vs. shortsword 'debate'.

But that's not a reflection of reality, that's an IC reflection of my table's taste. In real life PCs don't jump onto a chandelier in a sword fight to look cool("Uh, you die,"). In real life we have a tough time quantifying weapon damage, and only come down on people if what they are carrying is against regulations(in an organisation with standard weapons) or against the weapons role(standing in a shield wall while dual wielding crossbows). Not excluding a guy in your irregular group when he chooses to use a weapon you believe to be marginally substandard. That's not a common real life reaction.

I think the D&D convention of limited-size adventuring groups is the source of this distortion. In real life, if you're going into a dangerous situation you don't care if the other guy is using a small-caliber weapon that kills 20% slower. He's still an extra body firing bullets, why would you turn that down? You do care if you can't trust him, or if you think he might get somebody killed by shooting at the wrong thing or by slipping up at stealth and giving everyone away. In D&D the opportunity cost is higher if you're expecting to have only four people in your little commando group, or if you're taking it for granted that you're going to succeed in your mission and are just trying to minimize how many ways you split the treasure/XP.

For that reason among others I think it's good to have threats/rewards which are too much for the PCs to be certain of taking on alone, and it is also good to allow them to have AD&D-style hirelings. I've got a crashed ship ready for as soon as my PCs go looking for it. It has 1.2 million adjusted XP worth of undead skeletons in it (70 CR Stygian Skeletons) and at the center, a Skeletal Warrior with splint mail Armor of Invulnerability and Blackrazor the sentient greatsword. The rewards are great, but the peril is too, and if my PCs go in by themselves I fully expect to kill them all if they don't retreat. But if they bring mercs with them their odds get better.

P.S. I probably would pay a merc less if I saw him carrying a shortsword though. Unless he's a monk, it's basically a declaration that "I stink at fighting with weapons."

 

[aramis erak]

According to scholagladiatoria (Matt Easton) Katanas are shorter than most European swords, and on;y a couple inches longer than a typical Roman gladius.

They're actually about the same as most 1-h swords. 28-36 inches of blade; the difference being 8-10 inches of grip. That rapiers ran to 60 inches is the outlier.

All historical classification systems have gray areas. The Japanese has fewer, because the fundamental definitions have been, since before the shogunate, fixed by law. The shaku, or "japanese foot" is about 11.9" - it's currently defined by law as 30.3 cm.

Japanese blades have relatively straightforward categorizations. Much cleaner than the muddle of european blades.

 

[n00b f00]

That's a fair enough way to put it in general. Though you could also argue that what made a shortsword an effective weapon in certain conflicts doesn't really have a reflection in the RAW. By RAW it's the dual wielding weapon, not the fighting in a tight space weapon, there's no rules for that. If you take the idea of dwarven tunnel shield walls, that's an idea that makes a decent amount of sense, but according to RAW they absolutely should have used rapiers. The only story explanation in the face of RAW is expense, which I think is pretty weak considering the total GP value measured against an extra 15 GP. I personally would reskin it, or failing that I'd accept the mechanical hit if the GM said no ("I secretly hate you GM"). I'd be loathe to throw out what I felt was a cool reasonable idea because the RAW didn't support it, and the idea of orc formations being broken on rapier shield walls seemed like a silly contrivance of a sorta fast and loose combat table that doesn't designed to emulate those fights.

In a meta sense I imagine most DND parties don't have a specific head limit, and would happy to have an extra body barring specific circumstance(this teleport spell is good for 4 people). Which is why I sometimes include PC minions, though I'm personally unexcited about running a ton more NPCs in a fight. I mostly just have it in the background, and have the encounter resolved by either a few command rolls, or the PCs personal combat reflecting the battle at large. All the same it's a decent way to get across certain narrative ideas, and answer certain questions I'd otherwise handwave or plot around. "Why can the villain's army be taken by 5 guys, are they still using shortswords too?"

When it comes to paying the merc less I get it. The shortsword is, because of the assumed setting and RAW, a sorta shorthand for a character that has an interest in martial pursuits but is not exactly a hero among men or wealthy. In a way that carrying around simple handaxes, and clubs might also be occasionally used. Even then there are exceptions. Narratively they can be whatever, the elite praetorian palace guard uses short swords, and are the most feared martial fighters in the nation. But perhaps more saliently there is the monk, who can like all classes be rethemed and refluffed all sorts of different ways. Whether he's a wise old holy man wandering the world, a ruthless death worship ping assassin, a drunken kung fu braggart trying to prove his mettle, or a charming swashbuckler that is only mechanically a monk.

If you were running a pirate game, and you have among others a monk, a barbarian, a fighter, and a rogue. They all dress thematically similar, they have a similar backstories and nations of origin. While they are not in any way copycats of each other, their class isn't obvious by looking at them. How do the other PCs in universe know how well optimized they are? If they are wearing the right armor, or using the right sword? That Bob should use a shortsword, and Sasha is being a showoff jerk.

There's a few ways to justify it, but it all more or less falls down to how the table feels about when and how they metagame. When you see someone wearing leather armor drop a fireball, does you character think "Magic user! Get'em/run away," or do they think "Is he a warlock, or did he take a feat, or did he multiclass, let's see what next class feature he uses," ? They're both valid approaches to the game, but depending on how far you take it. The PCs are using information that's non obvious in universe, which while cool, is not necessarily the default logical conclusion. Like for me if I wasn't metagaming, I'd hire the merc at a reduced rate assuming he was a lowly poorly armed mook(a dirty peasant), paying the best rates to the heavily armed(they are heroic knights of course!) and obviously magical(he can destroy an army all by himself!) with everyone else falling in the middle more or less. Unless I knew for a fact that he was actually a bad ass, because I was familiar with him or had a lot of experience with his type. Otherwise I'd assume he was just poor and not a badass monk.

 

[S'mon]

They're actually about the same as most 1-h swords. 28-36 inches of blade; the difference being 8-10 inches of grip. That rapiers ran to 60 inches is the outlier.

All historical classification systems have gray areas. The Japanese has fewer, because the fundamental definitions have been, since before the shogunate, fixed by law. The shaku, or "japanese foot" is about 11.9" - it's currently defined by law as 30.3 cm.

Japanese blades have relatively straightforward categorizations. Much cleaner than the muddle of european blades.

Surviving historical examples tend to be at the lower end of that range, 28"-30", while a typical gladius is around 26" AIR.

 

[S'mon]

Shortsword - I think the main thing there is to let 3 men use one in a 10' space, vs 2 men with the larger weapons. They also won't have Disadvantage in a close crush where other weapons including spears would. So if you have two opposing masses in tight then the shortswords should be buzz-sawing their way through the enemy Roman style. As a skirmish weapon it's not great, makes sense a longsword would be superior.

 

[aramis erak]

Shortsword - I think the main thing there is to let 3 men use one in a 10' space, vs 2 men with the larger weapons. They also won't have Disadvantage in a close crush where other weapons including spears would. So if you have two opposing masses in tight then the shortswords should be buzz-sawing their way through the enemy Roman style. As a skirmish weapon it's not great, makes sense a longsword would be superior.

It's worth noting that the definitions of those two leaves a weapon gap (traditionally filled by the broadsword, backsword, spatha, epeé, and similar), and that (except for the DMG claims otherwise) the D&D Longsword is esentially the nodachi... the missing chunk is the 2.5' to 3' long swords. Definitionally, the shortsword is under 28 inches in the west and under 24 in Japan. Longswords in the west are usually considered to be well over 3' of blade - usually 3.5-5' of blade.
There is no "Sword, Normal" in 5E, and nothing particularly close to it based upon the standard meaning of the terms, excepting if the larger Katana range is the axiomatic longsword.

 

[S'mon]

It's worth noting that the definitions of those two leaves a weapon gap (traditionally filled by the broadsword, backsword, spatha, epeé, and similar), and that (except for the DMG claims otherwise) the D&D Longsword is esentially the nodachi... the 2.5' to 3' long swords. Definitionally, the shortsword is under 28 inches in the west and under 24 in Japan. Longswords in the west are usually considered to be well over 3' of blade - usually 3.5-5' of blade.
There is no "Sword, Normal" in 5E, and nothing particularly close to it based upon the standard meaning of the terms, excepting if the larger Katana range is the axiomatic longsword.

I agree - because 5e gets rid of the 'bastard sword' and has the longsword essentially fill that role, the 5e terminology is now closer to current medievalist usage, but we're left without a 'typical sword'. I added some notes to my PHB for various mid-size swords, but they essentially boil down to d8 damage, non-versatile, and a bit cheaper than a longsword.

I find Classic D&D easier to work with - there a shortsword is d6, sword d8, 2-h sword d10. I basically have any sword wielded 2-h from katana to zweihander do d10, optimised 1-h skirmish swords (rapier backsword arming sword cutlass etc etc) do d8, and backup swords (eg smallsword) very small swords (halfling sword), or 2nd rate swords (eg an orc falchion) do d6, like all the other 1-h weapons.

Generally I run it in both systems that d8+ weapons need 5' space to wield effectively, while d6 weapons can be used with less space, eg 3 to a 10' frontage.

Very short weapons can be used to press in close and attack when the enemy would have Disadvantage using a longer weapon, this generally only works when you have a mass of combatants.

 

[Uchawi]

A variety of weapons is good, including the damage that is dealt, but I believe variety of choice is even more important when it comes to martial classes. To bad 5E did not implement maneuvers in a similar fashion to spells so the fighter had a tool box just like the wizard.

 

[redrick]

The player playing the paladin in our game last night switched to a greataxe. He said, "I guess the greatsword does a little more damage, but I never get to roll my d12."