User:Spazalicious Chaos/Weapons- A Disection

Weapons- A Disection
I have a copy of Arms and Weapons by Leonid Tarassuk and Claude Blair, and I'm not afraid to use it! What you will find below is what the D&D weapons in the PHB actually look like in real world terms, at least as I interpret them.

Guantlet
Really nothing to elaborate on: your fist in incased in about a quarter to an eighth of an inch thick metal coating of of one type or another, adding weight to your strikes and preventing your little finger and hand bones from breaking. However, I would add that leather boiled in wax after tanning (studded leather and hide armor) should also count as guantlets. this improvement to lethal damage should also be considered in my points on unarmed strikes below.

Unarmed Strike
Very, very wrong to lump all the wonderful ways our own bodies can make cripples and widows into one "catch-all" that doesn't really do it right. Damage is about right for fists and headbutts, but kicks, elbows and knees should count as two handed weapons (adding 1 1/2 Str mod) for damage but take a -1 to hit, as they are pretty obvious and easily avoided; you have to be fast like a freak or have some other serious advantage to make a kick work in combat. Also, while head butts should only work in a grapple, the opponent should be flat footed unless the target is higher in initiative, as it takes pretty specialized training and reflexes to avoid those.

Dagger
The dagger is nothing like a dagger. Knife would have been a better name, as knives are as tiny and concealable as D&D daggers are supposed to be. The listed stats are good for blades under eight inches in legnth with palm-sized handles. This is a good stat for the eating knives everyone carried in medival society, as well as dirks, bodice daggers and other intentionaly tiny blades for every day wear, as well as throwing blades. Player should never be harassed for carrying knives, beacuse knives are very much an "everymans tool", often considered a peasant weapon, and it is the mark of supreme poverty not to own one.

Punching Dagger
It's called a khatar, ass-hats, though the stats work well for tigers claws, ring blades and other tiny blades your fingers get stuck in. Switch the type from peircing to bludgeoning, and you have the perfect brass knuckle stats.

Maces
Wow, the WotC fucked up here. They made the mace into little better than a metal club. I guess they never bothered to do the research and discover that maces were built solely for the purpose of cracking open or crushing armor, leaving knights either defenseless or fighting a severe concave in their armor crushing their sternum for the rest of the fight. But they did fix this with the warhammer, which is effectively the same weapon historically built for the same purpose. Traditionally, maces and war hammers were grouped together and often noone bothered to distiguish between the two. In short, rename the mace "metal bar", use the stats to represent lead pipes and crowbars the players find lying around and use the war hammer stats to represent maces. However, crafted metal war bars (the masterworks), are much like crafted rocks: yeah, they work better, but you're a bit of a sucker if you buy one. Player will still be harassed by officials, because anyone who carries a crowbar around must be up to no good.

Sickle
A traditional peasant weapon, thus no character with ambitions of pretige would be caught dead weilding one. However, because they are farming tools people never get into trouble for just carrying them around. Using one to chop up babies, yes, walking into a bar with one, no.

Morning Star
Yet another mace WotC fucked up, but this is a relatively easy fix- x3 crit. Then it starts working like it did way back when- crushing a knights armor so he can't breathe while at the same time puncturing lungs so he drowns while suffocating. As you could probably tell, medival warriors loved the idea of "overkill."

Club
Really, any random stick under four feet (ie walking stick sized) in legnth that won't shatter after one hit. Crafted ones can be and are made, but only heros in need of a signiture weapon (like Hercules, who used a club) even bother with crafted clubs. Kinda like the stone dealer from Monty Pythons Life of Brian, crafted clubs are for suckers. However, noone is threatened by a guy with a stick, thus the mighty stick weilding heros can go armed and unmolested, as they bear the mighty generic peasant weapon!

Spears
These were the best weapons on the field of battle, able to slay foes at a distance beyond sword reach. D&D has not assigned too many warriors with spears for some reason, and this needs to end for the massive battles. Killing at a distance is power in war, thus spears should be mush more common.

Quarter Staff
A quarter staff is traditionally as tall to a foot taller than it's weilder, which makes it an odd choice for a walking stick but the sensible choice for acrobats, rafters, and others who need a stick with long reach. Even with it's unsual size, most societies recognize it as purely a peasnt weapon, thus players should only be harassed for carrying one as an exception to a rule, not a rule itself.

Crossbows
D&D crossbows are WAY faster than real ones. I have played with a pistol crossbow (a hand crossbow, stat wise) and found that even with my guestimated 13-14 Strength it took me a full 8 seconds to completely reload it, from firing to resetting to new quarrel notched. A full round action, by my math. The bigger crossbows take even longer, I found. While I suppose that in our modern day I should not be surprised that none of the WotC has ever touched a real weapon, but do they need to make it so painfully obvious? Was it really that hard to go down to a firing range like the White Wolf guys and do some fucking research?!? However, if you feel that everyone in D&D should be slightly super human anyway, don't change the reload times. There is nothing wrong with this, just don't be at all surprised when the player who got the evil grin upon hearing this demands that magazine-loading minigun he invented should only take a standard action to reload.

Dart
Darts are little more than micro-javalins that took on arrow traits in the later renaisance, becoming the pub toys we know and love today. Believe it or not, these were a favorite hunting weapon of the noble class and were widely used in both naval and land wars. However, the are a noble weapon, used almost exclusively by the social elite. Thus, it is hgihly recommended that your character never be causght using one, as nobles don't take kindly to peasants using their toys.

Javalin
Basically, a throwing spear. It is an areodynamic short spear that was used because it was light enough not only to throw, but to weild effectively while using a shield. The whole section on how they are ineffective melee weapons is bullshit. Really, the short spear and javalin are the same weapon.

Sling
The ultimate peasant ranged weapon, the sling was a popular weapon among criminals for it's concealability and the fact that it's ammunition was freaking everywhere, and it was also a very popular hunting weapon for the same ammo reasons. However, the whole "lead bullets" thing is ridiculous for the ammunition prices, as lead was expensive, at least the cost of a masterwork rock. No, keep it simple and let the base stats represent a fist sized rock being launched. Weirdly shaped rock penalize attack rolls, tiny rocks penalize damage. Simple, and accurate.

Throwing Axe/Hand Axe
Same weapon from a historical view. Small hand axes were carried around by warriors so that they could throw them at enemies in close range in addition to having a back up weapon should they lose their spear. Really, just use the throwing axe stats except for weight. Seriously, the weight is closer to 4 pounds. You know what you call a two pound axe? Titanium axes, which were proven to be absolutely worthless because they were too light to cut anything. Keep this in mind with all axes- the cutting power comes from putting all the weight directly behind the small cutting space, and that weight needs to be significant in order to cut at all.

Light Hammer
Bullshit. The only throwing hammer ever devolped is the one they use in the Olympics- a heavy weight on a chain that takes at least a full round action to throw. You are better off just deleting this entry from your Players Handbook. Give me an adress and I will email you a sharpie to do so.

Kukri
Is not a kukri. The original kukris were heavy blades meant for decapitation, from man choppers to bull choppers, resulting in something that would be better described as a slashing short sword with increased critical range. Remeber when I asked you to rename the dagger "knife?" This is the stats for a dagger now, at least for bowie knife and jambiya style daggers that are intended for slicing. For daggers like the stiletto and the main gauche, change the damage to peircing and you still have a dagger. Yes, you can't throw daggers anymore, but daggers were never meant to be thrown anyway, as they were the supreme useful tool carried by the men of the day, like hunters, nobles and soldiers. You know what you call a tiny blade that you can throw away? A knife.

Picks
The real war picks ranged from apache war clubs (little better that daggers perpendicular from a heavy legnth of wood) to things like the kama. Either way, the result was the same- a heavy club with a dagger sticking out of it. The stats work well for this end, but it should be noted that these were purely warriror weapons used by unpleasant people, thus their use is often enough to convince every one you are a baby eating savage.

Sap
I actually can not find a referance to anything like the sap in any of my books outside D&D. However, the D&D effects and description make it clear to me what it really is- a sock full of quarters, possibly gravel or bird shot. I'm starting to think the creative process went like this:
 * Player- "My rogue fills his sock with copper coins. I already worked out the stats for what that would look like as a weapon." >hands DM note<
 * DM- "Alright, this is very reasonable. I'm going to send this up to the developers. But I think they will want a different name for it then 'sock full of coins', though."
 * P- "Fine, just call it a sap. Becasue that is what you are if you buy one." >rolls dice< "My rogue uses his cleave feat and knocks out both guards in one strike, by the way. Didn't even see me coming."

Short Sword
This describes most blades around two feet long, from the gladius to the wakizashi. Reall all one would have to do is staple "or slashing" to the damage type. Also keep in mind that these babies were considered noble weapons in many cultures, or at the very least military weapons, and that carries a lot of social weight that could pull you out of the tavern, beat the shit out of you and let you rot in a dungeon, and not the fun kind.

Battle Axe
This decribes most of the larger one-handed axes used by nearly every culture. However, keep in mind that many of these were weighted to be thrown as well, like the viking battle axes. Thus, some (but not all) with have a thrown range increment of 10 feet.

Flails
Believe it or not, these started as farming tools, used to thresh wheat and grain. Thus, these are often considered peasant weapons and carry no ramifiactions for walking around with them. However, unlike most weapons used by smelly farmers, knights started using them after they found out that shields are useless against them. You should add to the weapons special benefits that it ignores shield bonuses to armor and halves the bonus provided by cover, just to represent how fucked you are if your trying to use a shield against these.

Longsword
The grand knightly weapon, the longsword also represnts most blades around three feet long carried by nobles and elite warriors, like the spartha, broad sword, and the rapier. What? The rapier, you ask? Yes the rapier, because the original rapier was still very much a heavy long blade that had not quite mastered the finesse of the foil or saber. To represent a rapier, just switch slashing to peircing on the longsword stats.

Rapier
Not so much a rapier as a small sword, characterized by being as long as a longsword but way skinnier, such as the foil or the fencing saber. Light and agile, this is yet another sample of how WotC can't get their history striaght, as these started showing up at the beginning of the 17th century. However, during that time they were the first "civilian sword", carried around as the peak of fashion and largely considered a dress sword. However, the cost was still the equivilant of a ferrari nowadays, ensuring that it was still only nobles and other aristocrats that actually had them.

Scimitar
This blade represents many of the heavily curved swords of history, like the shamshir, the cavalry saber, the the popular huntig sword of europe- the falshion. Yes, WotC fucked up on the falshion as well. First off, totally one handed sword, thus well represented by the scimitar stats. Second, very much an every man weapon like the dagger and the crossbow was, thus it could be considered a simple weapon like the the sickle was. However, it is a sword, and like archery swordsmanship is difficult to master, thus the falshion stays where it is- a subclass of scimitar.

Trident
Enter the mighty trident, the terrible awesome spear of awesomeness- if your a fish. Otherwise, bringing a trident into battle indicates that you are a fisherman who was forced into the frontlines with all the other worthless everymen. However, because you are clearly a fisherman because no serious soldier would be caught dead with a fish stabbing stick, the guards will not arrest you unless they want to for some other reason.

Warhammer
Well done. Representes the war hammer of old very well, in addition to all other maces. Really all one should keep in mind that it is very much a military weapon used by soldier and priests who haves rules aginst spilling blood. Apparently, Christians once believed that breaking bones and squishing organs is all okay as long as none of the blood escapes. I'm glad we got past that.