like i can kinda maybe understand why the proficiency might be useful for certain strength based valor bard before they reach 3rd level, as well as for some gimmicy lore bard grapple build who wants an two handed weapon for some reason, but why would an rouge of all people be interested in an longsword of all people? one handed it is no better than the rapier (in fact it is worse since you can only use strength to wield it instead of ether strength or dexterity), and two handed it is only slightly better damage wise than a rapier, with the obious drawback that you cannot sneak attack with an longsword. So why is it even there? is it an relic from the time back in second and third edition where you can sneak attack with anything from an vial of acid to an glaive, is becuase longswords are common magic items? jusst becuase why not?
probably legacy reasons, much like druids getting scimitars.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I suspect that Rogues get longsword probably for legacy reasons (fairly sure that goes as far back as 1st ed, certainly 2nd, but I'm not going to dig out books just to check, and 1e proficiencies were more than a little odd; 2e codified them a bit), but also so that the STR based rogue brute gets access to a better weapon - albeit one possibly 'borrowed' from the local watch than actually obtained from more legal methods.
Equally a Longsword/Shortword dual wielder was common enough back in the day when the offhand had to be a lighter and/or smaller weapon. Usually more Ranger or Fighter than Rogue, but it wasn't unheard of. Rapiers weren't really a thing until 3e as I recall so it was probably equally a substitute placeholder for that style of weapon, though more sabre than rapier in style. If I cared to dig out the books it's possible it was provided as an option to give rogues (or thieves as they were then) a weapon better against certain armour types than a shortsword - I think longswords had different modifiers against some armour types compared to shortswords but in all honesty I don't know anyone who ever used that particular table...
Bards are likely to have gotten the proficiency for similar reasons - 1e bards had to be multiclassed in fighter, then thief, then druid so they would have had the ability to use both long- and shortswords (as well as broadswords and bastard swords IIRC).
But 1e weapon proficiencies were sometimes peculiar in their specificity, perhaps until you understood where the intent came from (druids and scimitars, for example rather than just sickles), so I'd just shrug and move on. If you cared you could likely remove it without issue, maybe offer scimitar as an option as it's a finesse slashing wepaon?
There is the highly situational scenario where a person multiclasses to Rogue in order to grab "Expertise"; and the longsword simply becomes a nice bonus for Strength-builds to wield in both hands.
Off the top of my head, that situation wouldn't come up often...Clerics without martial weapon proficiencies, Sorcerers, Warlocks...it's pretty clunky, though. You waste the Sneak Attack (a meagre d6; but still...damage is damage).
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
So would Longswords still deal the sneak attack damage even though they're not light or finesse weapons?
To expand on crzyhawk's elegant answer a little bit. The 'light' property has nothing to do with sneak attacks. The requirements to trigger a sneak attack is a finesse or ranged weapon.
For example you can sneak attack with a dagger (light, finesse, thrown properties) but not a hand-axe (light, thrown properties) because it lacks the important finesse property.
You can also sneak attack with ranged weapons that have the heavy property eg longbow, heavy crossbow as long as you are proficient with them because they are ranged weapons.
Rogues and Bards have proficiency in staff, spear, club, mace, sickle, greatclub, handaxe, javelin and light hammer too and a longsword is better than all those weapons in just about any melee situation.
longbow, heavy crossbow as long as you are proficient with them because they are ranged weapons.
There is no requirement to be proficient in them. Any Rogue that is medium or large can sneak attack with a longbow or a heavy crossbow, the just do not get thier proficiency bonus on the attack.
In normal circumstances a Rogue can't sneak attack with them if she is a small race (halflings, gnome, goblins etc) because they get disadvantage using a heavy weapon and disadvantage cancels sneak attack in all cases.
longbow, heavy crossbow as long as you are proficient with them because they are ranged weapons.
There is no requirement to be proficient in them. Any Rogue that is medium or large can sneak attack with a longbow or a heavy crossbow, the just do not get thier proficiency bonus on the attack.
In normal circumstances a Rogue can't sneak attack with them if she is a small race (halflings, gnome, goblins etc) because they get disadvantage using a heavy weapon and disadvantage cancels sneak attack in all cases.
Oh true I forgot weapons don't have additional drawbacks like armor does. Thanks for the correction.
Rogues and Bards have proficiency in staff, spear, club, mace, sickle, greatclub, handaxe, javelin and light hammer too and a longsword is better than all those weapons in just about any melee situation.
Not really for /most/ rogues and bards. For rogues in particular, longswords are bad. First, they require strength which /most/ rogues rogues and bards will not have outside your odd build that dives into the MADness. Secondly for rogues in particular, longswords are not a finesse weapon. so they cannot backstab with it.
At the end of the day, from an efficiency perspective, the only weapon worth considering on rogues or bards should be the rapier.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
probably legacy reasons, much like druids getting scimitars.
Yup, from back in the back in the when they thought a longsword and an arming sword were the same thing…. (Oh… wait… they still do. 🙄) But yeah, legacy reasons.
At the end of the day, from an efficiency perspective, the only weapon worth considering on rogues or bards should be the rapier.
Unless they wanna use their bonus action for Two-Weapon fighting to get another chance to Sneak Attack in case they missed with the first one. If they don’t miss they can still use Cunning Action to yeet, and the difference from 1d8 to 1d6 is so negligible compared to the Xd6 they’ll not do if they miss that IMO, it’s worth it to carry the two shortswords instead of the rapier (unless it’s magic). The other alternative would be two daggers just for the option to throw them. Again, IMO, getting that Xd6 Sneak Attack in any way one can is way more of a priority IMO than using a d8 base weapon over a d4 weapon except at maybe the lowest of levels. By Tier-2, the Sneak Attack damage pulls so far ahead of the base weapon damage that it’s no contest. Now, if the Rapier is magic and the other weapons aren’t, then that’s a thing. But, half of the rest of the party will also be eyeballing that magic rapier, and nobody but the rogue will be able to make good use of those magic daggers. 😉
It’s just too bad Rogues (stupidly) don’t get proficiency with Whips, Catwoman would be ashamed of WotC for that. 🤨
Well, the poster I was commenting on was talking about Longswords...so he wouldn't be DW anyways. That being said, bards and rogues both get shortswords as well, which is a superior choice to the humble dagger, with no drawback at all.
That said, the dagger has /cool points/ and is the obvious pick for rogues imo. I wish 5e encouraged rogues to use them like 4e did.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Rogues and Bards have proficiency in staff, spear, club, mace, sickle, greatclub, handaxe, javelin and light hammer too and a longsword is better than all those weapons in just about any melee situation.
Not really for /most/ rogues and bards. For rogues in particular, longswords are bad. First, they require strength which /most/ rogues rogues and bards will not have outside your odd build that dives into the MADness. Secondly for rogues in particular, longswords are not a finesse weapon. so they cannot backstab with it.
At the end of the day, from an efficiency perspective, the only weapon worth considering on rogues or bards should be the rapier.
All the weapons I mentioned require using strength in melee and are not a finesse weapon, yet Rogues (and Bards) are proficient in all of them.
A Rogue using a longsword will do more damage on average than a Rogue using any of the weapons I mentioned.
At the end of the day, there is nothing special or unique about the longsword proficiency on Rogues and Bards. Rogues and Bards are proficient in 13 different melee weapons and only three of them are finesse weapons. Sure, the three finesse weapons are better to use for Rogues and often better for Bards, but the longsword is never going to be lower than the 4th out of the 13 weapons they could use in melee with proficiency. So in this respect it is in the top half and better than MOST of their options.
The longsword is the AK-47 of D&D, and Rogues and Bards will always fight for liberation. Whips are a special feat of certain cat burglers and people with an archaeology background.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The longsword is the AK-47 of D&D, and Rogues and Bards will always fight for liberation. Whips are a special feat of certain cat burglers and people with an archaeology background.
Rogues are not proficient in whips. If they get proficiency somehow it is a great weapon to use, especially for Arcane Tricksters. The Archaologist background can get you a whip as starting equipment but it does not get you the starting proficiency.
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like i can kinda maybe understand why the proficiency might be useful for certain strength based valor bard before they reach 3rd level, as well as for some gimmicy lore bard grapple build who wants an two handed weapon for some reason, but why would an rouge of all people be interested in an longsword of all people? one handed it is no better than the rapier (in fact it is worse since you can only use strength to wield it instead of ether strength or dexterity), and two handed it is only slightly better damage wise than a rapier, with the obious drawback that you cannot sneak attack with an longsword. So why is it even there? is it an relic from the time back in second and third edition where you can sneak attack with anything from an vial of acid to an glaive, is becuase longswords are common magic items? jusst becuase why not?
oh yeah here is something interesting to do with the subject
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
probably legacy reasons, much like druids getting scimitars.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Don't really know why they have the proficiency, but it does make the sun blade an attractive option.
You are proficient with a sun blade with a shortsword OR longsword proficiency anyway
I suspect that Rogues get longsword probably for legacy reasons (fairly sure that goes as far back as 1st ed, certainly 2nd, but I'm not going to dig out books just to check, and 1e proficiencies were more than a little odd; 2e codified them a bit), but also so that the STR based rogue brute gets access to a better weapon - albeit one possibly 'borrowed' from the local watch than actually obtained from more legal methods.
Equally a Longsword/Shortword dual wielder was common enough back in the day when the offhand had to be a lighter and/or smaller weapon. Usually more Ranger or Fighter than Rogue, but it wasn't unheard of. Rapiers weren't really a thing until 3e as I recall so it was probably equally a substitute placeholder for that style of weapon, though more sabre than rapier in style. If I cared to dig out the books it's possible it was provided as an option to give rogues (or thieves as they were then) a weapon better against certain armour types than a shortsword - I think longswords had different modifiers against some armour types compared to shortswords but in all honesty I don't know anyone who ever used that particular table...
Bards are likely to have gotten the proficiency for similar reasons - 1e bards had to be multiclassed in fighter, then thief, then druid so they would have had the ability to use both long- and shortswords (as well as broadswords and bastard swords IIRC).
But 1e weapon proficiencies were sometimes peculiar in their specificity, perhaps until you understood where the intent came from (druids and scimitars, for example rather than just sickles), so I'd just shrug and move on. If you cared you could likely remove it without issue, maybe offer scimitar as an option as it's a finesse slashing wepaon?
i would think it's kind of a flavor thing.
Like pretending to be good with a longsword to avoid suspicion.
It's still flavor though.
There is the highly situational scenario where a person multiclasses to Rogue in order to grab "Expertise"; and the longsword simply becomes a nice bonus for Strength-builds to wield in both hands.
Off the top of my head, that situation wouldn't come up often...Clerics without martial weapon proficiencies, Sorcerers, Warlocks...it's pretty clunky, though. You waste the Sneak Attack (a meagre d6; but still...damage is damage).
So would Longswords still deal the sneak attack damage even though they're not light or finesse weapons?
No
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
To expand on crzyhawk's elegant answer a little bit. The 'light' property has nothing to do with sneak attacks. The requirements to trigger a sneak attack is a finesse or ranged weapon.
For example you can sneak attack with a dagger (light, finesse, thrown properties) but not a hand-axe (light, thrown properties) because it lacks the important finesse property.
You can also sneak attack with ranged weapons that have the heavy property eg longbow, heavy crossbow as long as you are proficient with them because they are ranged weapons.
Rogues and Bards have proficiency in staff, spear, club, mace, sickle, greatclub, handaxe, javelin and light hammer too and a longsword is better than all those weapons in just about any melee situation.
There is no requirement to be proficient in them. Any Rogue that is medium or large can sneak attack with a longbow or a heavy crossbow, the just do not get thier proficiency bonus on the attack.
In normal circumstances a Rogue can't sneak attack with them if she is a small race (halflings, gnome, goblins etc) because they get disadvantage using a heavy weapon and disadvantage cancels sneak attack in all cases.
Oh true I forgot weapons don't have additional drawbacks like armor does. Thanks for the correction.
Not really for /most/ rogues and bards. For rogues in particular, longswords are bad. First, they require strength which /most/ rogues rogues and bards will not have outside your odd build that dives into the MADness. Secondly for rogues in particular, longswords are not a finesse weapon. so they cannot backstab with it.
At the end of the day, from an efficiency perspective, the only weapon worth considering on rogues or bards should be the rapier.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Yup, from back in the back in the when they thought a longsword and an arming sword were the same thing…. (Oh… wait… they still do. 🙄) But yeah, legacy reasons.
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Unless they wanna use their bonus action for Two-Weapon fighting to get another chance to Sneak Attack in case they missed with the first one. If they don’t miss they can still use Cunning Action to yeet, and the difference from 1d8 to 1d6 is so negligible compared to the Xd6 they’ll not do if they miss that IMO, it’s worth it to carry the two shortswords instead of the rapier (unless it’s magic). The other alternative would be two daggers just for the option to throw them. Again, IMO, getting that Xd6 Sneak Attack in any way one can is way more of a priority IMO than using a d8 base weapon over a d4 weapon except at maybe the lowest of levels. By Tier-2, the Sneak Attack damage pulls so far ahead of the base weapon damage that it’s no contest. Now, if the Rapier is magic and the other weapons aren’t, then that’s a thing. But, half of the rest of the party will also be eyeballing that magic rapier, and nobody but the rogue will be able to make good use of those magic daggers. 😉
It’s just too bad Rogues (stupidly) don’t get proficiency with Whips, Catwoman would be ashamed of WotC for that. 🤨
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Well, the poster I was commenting on was talking about Longswords...so he wouldn't be DW anyways. That being said, bards and rogues both get shortswords as well, which is a superior choice to the humble dagger, with no drawback at all.
That said, the dagger has /cool points/ and is the obvious pick for rogues imo. I wish 5e encouraged rogues to use them like 4e did.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
All the weapons I mentioned require using strength in melee and are not a finesse weapon, yet Rogues (and Bards) are proficient in all of them.
A Rogue using a longsword will do more damage on average than a Rogue using any of the weapons I mentioned.
At the end of the day, there is nothing special or unique about the longsword proficiency on Rogues and Bards. Rogues and Bards are proficient in 13 different melee weapons and only three of them are finesse weapons. Sure, the three finesse weapons are better to use for Rogues and often better for Bards, but the longsword is never going to be lower than the 4th out of the 13 weapons they could use in melee with proficiency. So in this respect it is in the top half and better than MOST of their options.
The longsword is the AK-47 of D&D, and Rogues and Bards will always fight for liberation. Whips are a special feat of certain cat burglers and people with an archaeology background.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Rogues are not proficient in whips. If they get proficiency somehow it is a great weapon to use, especially for Arcane Tricksters. The Archaologist background can get you a whip as starting equipment but it does not get you the starting proficiency.