This corresponds to D&D hand crossbows in size and can be fired single-handedly, but doing so is awkward and the damage potential is laughable. It's the sort of thing used by rich nobility as a toy to shoot at targets in the garden, not a weapon.
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
I don’t know much about medieval history I prefer learning about 20th century and ancient history but because we have plate and hooded lanterns then I would say 1600s(I know hooded lanterns came around in the 1700s but gimme some leeway) but again I really have no idea and since it’s all fantasy you can’t really have an accurate time period, it also depends if you play with certain items or not(firearms, plate, hooded lanterns, printing press, etc.). If you where to run a historical campaign I’d do some research on the time period and “reskin” some items and take out others and maybe homebrew a few. Hope this helps!
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
The rapier was invented for fighting against unarmored people. At the time of its invention, the owners of rapiers might have owned a suit of full plate armor, but carried the rapier when they weren't planning on going into battle and weren't wearing their full plate or expecting to fight people wearing full plate. It was an urban self-defense weapon, the way people use pistols today, even though pistols are not a major weapon of war.
So it did overlap with plate armor, but not by much. 1500s is pretty much your most plausible century for rapiers and plate armor to both be commonplace.
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
What's your source? As far as I know, the rapier picked up prominence during the late 1500's and early 1600's due to hilt design. We agree that they were sidearms (the sabre was far better suited for war), but complex hilts pretty much come about as a response to the decline of armour (specifically gauntlets). And armour wasn't so much found as useless against firearms so much as too expensive for most to buy quality, but there was a high demand, so some groups started to use poorer quality iron, which then required it to be thicker to sustain proof against bullets, which is where the Victorians got the concept of armour being ungodly heavy as opposed to 30 to 40lbs.
I don’t know much about medieval history I prefer learning about 20th century and ancient history but because we have plate and hooded lanterns then I would say 1600s(I know hooded lanterns came around in the 1700s but gimme some leeway) but again I really have no idea and since it’s all fantasy you can’t really have an accurate time period, it also depends if you play with certain items or not(firearms, plate, hooded lanterns, printing press, etc.). If you where to run a historical campaign I’d do some research on the time period and “reskin” some items and take out others and maybe homebrew a few. Hope this helps!
For realsies? I didn't know that about hooded lanterns (I've never thought about it). I'll need to look into that, but if it's true, that's pretty cool... and to be fair, I've heard a lot about the value of torches during the 1500's, and not lanterns.
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
What's your source? As far as I know, the rapier picked up prominence during the late 1500's and early 1600's due to hilt design. We agree that they were sidearms (the sabre was far better suited for war), but complex hilts pretty much come about as a response to the decline of armour (specifically gauntlets). And armour wasn't so much found as useless against firearms so much as too expensive for most to buy quality, but there was a high demand, so some groups started to use poorer quality iron, which then required it to be thicker to sustain proof against bullets, which is where the Victorians got the concept of armour being ungodly heavy as opposed to 30 to 40lbs.
As firearms became more advanced there was a simultaneous effect of plate armor having to be thicker (and therefore more expensive and harder to move in) combined with the value of an armored knight dropping compared to musket-armed infantry. And then field artillery started proliferating and at that point the value of armor on the battlefield dropped considerably, since it was basically impossible to wear enough to protect yourself from that.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
We have knights in full plate and, sure, that seems fairly medieval. But then look at cities like Waterdeep with its distinctively Renaissance guild system. Or the fact that ball bearings exist; which were first patented in 1794. Or the fact that hand crossbows were a real thing in the early 19th century; albeit apparently only for home recreational shooting. But one doesn't really have to look any further than the light and heavy crossbows and their ability to be fired at least once every six seconds. They're functionally the bolt-action rifles of whatever era you think you're playing in.
And the very existence of spells like fireball drastically change the face of warfare. There's nothing truly analogous to it in our world.
We have knights in full plate and, sure, that seems fairly medieval. But then look at cities like Waterdeep with its distinctively Renaissance guild system. Or the fact that ball bearings exist; which were first patented in 1794. Or the fact that hand crossbows were a real thing in the early 19th century; albeit apparently only for home recreational shooting. But one doesn't really have to look any further than the light and heavy crossbows and their ability to be fired at least once every six seconds. They're functionally the bolt-action rifles of whatever era you think you're playing in.
And the very existence of spells like fireball drastically change the face of warfare. There's nothing truly analogous to it in our world.
An excellent summary.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
What's your source? As far as I know, the rapier picked up prominence during the late 1500's and early 1600's due to hilt design. We agree that they were sidearms (the sabre was far better suited for war), but complex hilts pretty much come about as a response to the decline of armour (specifically gauntlets). And armour wasn't so much found as useless against firearms so much as too expensive for most to buy quality, but there was a high demand, so some groups started to use poorer quality iron, which then required it to be thicker to sustain proof against bullets, which is where the Victorians got the concept of armour being ungodly heavy as opposed to 30 to 40lbs.
As firearms became more advanced there was a simultaneous effect of plate armor having to be thicker (and therefore more expensive and harder to move in) combined with the value of an armored knight dropping compared to musket-armed infantry. And then field artillery started proliferating and at that point the value of armor on the battlefield dropped considerably, since it was basically impossible to wear enough to protect yourself from that.
While that is true, it doesn't cover a source stating that the rapier existed hundreds of years before armour became ineffective against bullets, which is what I was asking him about. The rapier as far as I know came out within 50 years of armour being close to worthless against bullets, not 200+ years.
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
What's your source?
Reality. What's your source?
As far as I know, the rapier picked up prominence during the late 1500's and early 1600's due to hilt design.
Say what now? What does hilt design have to do with armour and bullets?
We agree that they were sidearms (the sabre was far better suited for war), but complex hilts pretty much come about as a response to the decline of armour (specifically gauntlets).
No, not at all. Complex hilts came about as a way to protect your hand for the occassions when you weren't wearing armour to begin with. Ie as when you were walking around in your civvies. Complex hilt design has nothing to do with "the decline of armour" and even less so to do with the rise of firearms.
And armour wasn't so much found as useless against firearms so much as too expensive for most to buy quality, but there was a high demand, so some groups started to use poorer quality iron, which then required it to be thicker to sustain proof against bullets, which is where the Victorians got the concept of armour being ungodly heavy as opposed to 30 to 40lbs.
First of all, poorer quality iron doesn't make things heavier. Also at this time you had munitions grade armour that were of decent enough quality that those who needed it had access to it. Usually through a feudal lord or employer who paid the expenses (we're talking 16th and 17th century here). Secondly, if armour wasn't useless against bullets, then why did you say that armour being useless against firearms was the reason why rapier became popular? Third, rapiers came about in the early 1500s (there were rapier manuals from the 1530s which means that the rapier had been around long enough for someone to develop techniques and write a manual on the subject), armour was being bullet proofed way into the 1600s and was being worn as at least nominal, long range protection against bullets at least until the Napoleonic war. At this time the rapier had gone out of use both as a military and civilian weapon.
I don’t know much about medieval history I prefer learning about 20th century and ancient history but because we have plate and hooded lanterns then I would say 1600s(I know hooded lanterns came around in the 1700s but gimme some leeway) but again I really have no idea and since it’s all fantasy you can’t really have an accurate time period, it also depends if you play with certain items or not(firearms, plate, hooded lanterns, printing press, etc.). If you where to run a historical campaign I’d do some research on the time period and “reskin” some items and take out others and maybe homebrew a few. Hope this helps!
For realsies? I didn't know that about hooded lanterns (I've never thought about it). I'll need to look into that, but if it's true, that's pretty cool... and to be fair, I've heard a lot about the value of torches during the 1500's, and not lanterns.
Torches are actually not very handy nor useful as a light source is most situations.
Many here have commented that D&D is a hodgepodge of different eras and a mixture of fantasy and science fiction.
But the primary setting is middle ages to renaissance. Normal, non adventurers used technology available during that time period.
Otherwise, fighters would be able to purchase laser guns at the local supply store, farmers would be using gas powered vehicles to tend their fields, or to travel, wizards would be using technology instead of magic (think tech mages from Babylon 5), Clerics would be using hypo-sprays and bandaids, etc.
Also, someone said that fireball takes D&D out of the middle ages, but Merlin (King Arthur) used magic...
Many here have commented that D&D is a hodgepodge of different eras and a mixture of fantasy and science fiction.
But the primary setting is middle ages to renaissance. Normal, non adventurers used technology available during that time period.
Otherwise, fighters would be able to purchase laser guns at the local supply store, farmers would be using gas powered vehicles to tend their fields, or to travel, wizards would be using technology instead of magic (think tech mages from Babylon 5), Clerics would be using hypo-sprays and bandaids, etc.
Also, someone said that fireball takes D&D out of the middle ages, but Merlin (King Arthur) used magic...
Considering most scholars place the Renaissance starting in the 14th century and ending in the 17th, that's a conservative ballpark of 250 years. The English had seige guns in the 1340s, and Italian schioppi (hand-cannons) were around by the end of the century. Plate armor also became popular around 1400. The first fencing manual was in 1471, and the first rapier in England was 1540. And, as firearms continued to develop, plate armor eventually fell out of favor by around 1650. So, from a certain point of view, the default assumption is solidly Renaissance. That said, anachronisms (at least from our perspective) abound. But that's because the reality of the setting required verisimilitude in order for us to buy in.
Whether or not someone like Merlin (who has never been consistently depicted) existed is irrelevant. You're not going to see formations of pikemen when a single fireball can take out 42 men. And if ignites black powder, then lines of musketeers aren't going to happen, either. Firearms become a novelty. With bows remaining popular far longer, so does heavy armor. Large military formations give way to smaller, lighter forces better capable of skirmishing. Rather than leading charges, cavalry (especially heavy cavalry) will be held back for sweeping after opposing spellcasters are exhausted.
Even a setting Eberron, which is more like D&D meets Downton Abbey in terms of magic and technology, still has people running around in "medieval" armor and carrying longswords. Heck, their ubiquity alone is off-putting. Swords were historically reserved for the noble class. It wasn't until the late 16th century that "cut and thrust" swords like the rapier were popularized for civilian defense. And, depending on where you were, you still weren't allowed to walk around town with one on your hip.
Knowing the rough time period is helpful when you want to describe something or know how it works. But it's just not analogous enough to our own history.
Also, someone said that fireball takes D&D out of the middle ages, but Merlin (King Arthur) used magic...
Maybe we should look at the accounts of Merlin written in the Middle Ages. While Merlin was initially a product of the medieval imagination (and not an imagination striving for historic realism, the most stable genre associated with medieval Arthuriana was Romance) he was then much more what D&D players would recognize as a Druid or maybe a Druid/Bard (maybe a Whisper Bard since he was more private audience than big public gathering) what with inspiring/encouraging the formulation of Camelot and all that. You don't see Merlin slinging spells like fireball till much more modern incarnations like that Brit TV show. You might be mistaking him for Tim:
of course that production is very much in ahistorical vein too.
As many said at the outset of this thread, when it comes down to it D&D is very much ahistorical. It's ability to capture a "medieval" society is pretty much on the same level as a Renn Faire. That doesn't make it bad, TTRPGs don't have to be historically burdened, D&D's genesis is pretty much a kitchen sink of 60/70s fantasy tropes (some tropes actually conflicting or contesting each other - Tolkien v Moorcock being the most obvious to me). Some folks use the word "medieval" because it's what they think of when swords and armor are at play, so to speak, but the really curious players who get into digging what "medieval" societies really were find a world not at all well captured by the game as written.
For me, D&D will always be the middle ages, so between 1000 and 1200AD.
With the Artificer and guns, D&D is being pushed into the renaissance era, but that feels "wrong" to mix technology and magic. (IMO)
I remember a 1E/2E module were players discover a crashed spaceship. In order to properly operate any gun they find, required an intelligence check (which I recall being set at a very high bar)
Then I guess your games don’t include the rapier as that was not invented until the Renaissance (around 1,500).
And of course, it was only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms….
Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
What's your source?
Reality. What's your source?
As far as I know, the rapier picked up prominence during the late 1500's and early 1600's due to hilt design.
Say what now? What does hilt design have to do with armour and bullets?
We agree that they were sidearms (the sabre was far better suited for war), but complex hilts pretty much come about as a response to the decline of armour (specifically gauntlets).
No, not at all. Complex hilts came about as a way to protect your hand for the occassions when you weren't wearing armour to begin with. Ie as when you were walking around in your civvies. Complex hilt design has nothing to do with "the decline of armour" and even less so to do with the rise of firearms.
And armour wasn't so much found as useless against firearms so much as too expensive for most to buy quality, but there was a high demand, so some groups started to use poorer quality iron, which then required it to be thicker to sustain proof against bullets, which is where the Victorians got the concept of armour being ungodly heavy as opposed to 30 to 40lbs.
First of all, poorer quality iron doesn't make things heavier. Also at this time you had munitions grade armour that were of decent enough quality that those who needed it had access to it. Usually through a feudal lord or employer who paid the expenses (we're talking 16th and 17th century here). Secondly, if armour wasn't useless against bullets, then why did you say that armour being useless against firearms was the reason why rapier became popular? Third, rapiers came about in the early 1500s (there were rapier manuals from the 1530s which means that the rapier had been around long enough for someone to develop techniques and write a manual on the subject), armour was being bullet proofed way into the 1600s and was being worn as at least nominal, long range protection against bullets at least until the Napoleonic war. At this time the rapier had gone out of use both as a military and civilian weapon.
I don’t know much about medieval history I prefer learning about 20th century and ancient history but because we have plate and hooded lanterns then I would say 1600s(I know hooded lanterns came around in the 1700s but gimme some leeway) but again I really have no idea and since it’s all fantasy you can’t really have an accurate time period, it also depends if you play with certain items or not(firearms, plate, hooded lanterns, printing press, etc.). If you where to run a historical campaign I’d do some research on the time period and “reskin” some items and take out others and maybe homebrew a few. Hope this helps!
For realsies? I didn't know that about hooded lanterns (I've never thought about it). I'll need to look into that, but if it's true, that's pretty cool... and to be fair, I've heard a lot about the value of torches during the 1500's, and not lanterns.
Torches are actually not very handy nor useful as a light source is most situations.
Reality. That would be a great source if it meant anything. Without a time machine we can't go back and check, so you need a real source. Like, maybe you're trolling in which case, okay. "Reality" without ever actually answering thr question is every troll's favourite source.
And what does hilt design have to do with armour and bullets? Nothing, except you're using this statement to deflect focus from what was actually being asked of you. But again, if you're trolling, deflecting is a common tactic.
As for poorer quality iron, it 100% does. You cannot make a wrought iron chestplate with proof against bullets without chonking it up. Steel was super expensive pretty much until Carnegie and was reserved for things like jewelry and tools. I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish here besides hear yourself type.
Next, we come to a misunderstanding. Armour could have proof against bullets, but that is going to protect you from a few shots, not an army's worth. The bullet still deforms the steel (which is literally what formed the proof), which created additional weak spots. Besides that, most proofs were done between 10 and 30ft away, with a pistol or arquebus. When muskets were invented, they fired much heavier projectiles which typical steel armour couldn't compete with. This is why courassiers became a thing. They lost the weight of their armour to gain speed because the ground covered between vollies was far more valuable than the unlikely chance of getting shot somewhere besides center-mass. This meant you were less likely to wear armour in general, and greater hand protection from other blades became valuable, hence the rise in knuckle bows and basket hilts.
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They did, but only sort of.
This corresponds to D&D hand crossbows in size and can be fired single-handedly, but doing so is awkward and the damage potential is laughable. It's the sort of thing used by rich nobility as a toy to shoot at targets in the garden, not a weapon.
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This particular one takes time to load and seems mildly effective. The designers are probably thinking about a version of modern hand crossbow.
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Well, not really. The rapier wasn incented as a more convenient to carry sidearm. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that armour was useless against firearms. Funnily enough, at this point rapiers had gone out of use.
But yes, if you consider D&D to be in between 1000 and 1200, there are a lot of things you must exclude, the rapier being one of them.
I don’t know much about medieval history I prefer learning about 20th century and ancient history but because we have plate and hooded lanterns then I would say 1600s(I know hooded lanterns came around in the 1700s but gimme some leeway) but again I really have no idea and since it’s all fantasy you can’t really have an accurate time period, it also depends if you play with certain items or not(firearms, plate, hooded lanterns, printing press, etc.). If you where to run a historical campaign I’d do some research on the time period and “reskin” some items and take out others and maybe homebrew a few. Hope this helps!
insert original witty signature here:
The rapier was invented for fighting against unarmored people. At the time of its invention, the owners of rapiers might have owned a suit of full plate armor, but carried the rapier when they weren't planning on going into battle and weren't wearing their full plate or expecting to fight people wearing full plate. It was an urban self-defense weapon, the way people use pistols today, even though pistols are not a major weapon of war.
So it did overlap with plate armor, but not by much. 1500s is pretty much your most plausible century for rapiers and plate armor to both be commonplace.
What's your source? As far as I know, the rapier picked up prominence during the late 1500's and early 1600's due to hilt design. We agree that they were sidearms (the sabre was far better suited for war), but complex hilts pretty much come about as a response to the decline of armour (specifically gauntlets). And armour wasn't so much found as useless against firearms so much as too expensive for most to buy quality, but there was a high demand, so some groups started to use poorer quality iron, which then required it to be thicker to sustain proof against bullets, which is where the Victorians got the concept of armour being ungodly heavy as opposed to 30 to 40lbs.
For realsies? I didn't know that about hooded lanterns (I've never thought about it). I'll need to look into that, but if it's true, that's pretty cool... and to be fair, I've heard a lot about the value of torches during the 1500's, and not lanterns.
D&D is some weird mix of 2000 B.C. to 1600 A.D. sprinkled with some Wild West vibes.
As firearms became more advanced there was a simultaneous effect of plate armor having to be thicker (and therefore more expensive and harder to move in) combined with the value of an armored knight dropping compared to musket-armed infantry. And then field artillery started proliferating and at that point the value of armor on the battlefield dropped considerably, since it was basically impossible to wear enough to protect yourself from that.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
D&D is very much a kitchen sink.
We have knights in full plate and, sure, that seems fairly medieval. But then look at cities like Waterdeep with its distinctively Renaissance guild system. Or the fact that ball bearings exist; which were first patented in 1794. Or the fact that hand crossbows were a real thing in the early 19th century; albeit apparently only for home recreational shooting. But one doesn't really have to look any further than the light and heavy crossbows and their ability to be fired at least once every six seconds. They're functionally the bolt-action rifles of whatever era you think you're playing in.
And the very existence of spells like fireball drastically change the face of warfare. There's nothing truly analogous to it in our world.
An excellent summary.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
While that is true, it doesn't cover a source stating that the rapier existed hundreds of years before armour became ineffective against bullets, which is what I was asking him about. The rapier as far as I know came out within 50 years of armour being close to worthless against bullets, not 200+ years.
That is true, I wasn't taking issue with your statements about the rapier.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
My bad! Sorry for the misunderstanding.
No worries.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Reality. What's your source?
Say what now? What does hilt design have to do with armour and bullets?
No, not at all. Complex hilts came about as a way to protect your hand for the occassions when you weren't wearing armour to begin with. Ie as when you were walking around in your civvies. Complex hilt design has nothing to do with "the decline of armour" and even less so to do with the rise of firearms.
First of all, poorer quality iron doesn't make things heavier. Also at this time you had munitions grade armour that were of decent enough quality that those who needed it had access to it. Usually through a feudal lord or employer who paid the expenses (we're talking 16th and 17th century here). Secondly, if armour wasn't useless against bullets, then why did you say that armour being useless against firearms was the reason why rapier became popular? Third, rapiers came about in the early 1500s (there were rapier manuals from the 1530s which means that the rapier had been around long enough for someone to develop techniques and write a manual on the subject), armour was being bullet proofed way into the 1600s and was being worn as at least nominal, long range protection against bullets at least until the Napoleonic war. At this time the rapier had gone out of use both as a military and civilian weapon.
Torches are actually not very handy nor useful as a light source is most situations.
You mean besides the fact that you're carrying around an open flame with little to no protection, or is that the primary reason?
Many here have commented that D&D is a hodgepodge of different eras and a mixture of fantasy and science fiction.
But the primary setting is middle ages to renaissance. Normal, non adventurers used technology available during that time period.
Otherwise, fighters would be able to purchase laser guns at the local supply store, farmers would be using gas powered vehicles to tend their fields, or to travel, wizards would be using technology instead of magic (think tech mages from Babylon 5), Clerics would be using hypo-sprays and bandaids, etc.
Also, someone said that fireball takes D&D out of the middle ages, but Merlin (King Arthur) used magic...
Considering most scholars place the Renaissance starting in the 14th century and ending in the 17th, that's a conservative ballpark of 250 years. The English had seige guns in the 1340s, and Italian schioppi (hand-cannons) were around by the end of the century. Plate armor also became popular around 1400. The first fencing manual was in 1471, and the first rapier in England was 1540. And, as firearms continued to develop, plate armor eventually fell out of favor by around 1650. So, from a certain point of view, the default assumption is solidly Renaissance. That said, anachronisms (at least from our perspective) abound. But that's because the reality of the setting required verisimilitude in order for us to buy in.
Whether or not someone like Merlin (who has never been consistently depicted) existed is irrelevant. You're not going to see formations of pikemen when a single fireball can take out 42 men. And if ignites black powder, then lines of musketeers aren't going to happen, either. Firearms become a novelty. With bows remaining popular far longer, so does heavy armor. Large military formations give way to smaller, lighter forces better capable of skirmishing. Rather than leading charges, cavalry (especially heavy cavalry) will be held back for sweeping after opposing spellcasters are exhausted.
Even a setting Eberron, which is more like D&D meets Downton Abbey in terms of magic and technology, still has people running around in "medieval" armor and carrying longswords. Heck, their ubiquity alone is off-putting. Swords were historically reserved for the noble class. It wasn't until the late 16th century that "cut and thrust" swords like the rapier were popularized for civilian defense. And, depending on where you were, you still weren't allowed to walk around town with one on your hip.
Knowing the rough time period is helpful when you want to describe something or know how it works. But it's just not analogous enough to our own history.
Maybe we should look at the accounts of Merlin written in the Middle Ages. While Merlin was initially a product of the medieval imagination (and not an imagination striving for historic realism, the most stable genre associated with medieval Arthuriana was Romance) he was then much more what D&D players would recognize as a Druid or maybe a Druid/Bard (maybe a Whisper Bard since he was more private audience than big public gathering) what with inspiring/encouraging the formulation of Camelot and all that. You don't see Merlin slinging spells like fireball till much more modern incarnations like that Brit TV show. You might be mistaking him for Tim:
of course that production is very much in ahistorical vein too.
As many said at the outset of this thread, when it comes down to it D&D is very much ahistorical. It's ability to capture a "medieval" society is pretty much on the same level as a Renn Faire. That doesn't make it bad, TTRPGs don't have to be historically burdened, D&D's genesis is pretty much a kitchen sink of 60/70s fantasy tropes (some tropes actually conflicting or contesting each other - Tolkien v Moorcock being the most obvious to me). Some folks use the word "medieval" because it's what they think of when swords and armor are at play, so to speak, but the really curious players who get into digging what "medieval" societies really were find a world not at all well captured by the game as written.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Reality. That would be a great source if it meant anything. Without a time machine we can't go back and check, so you need a real source. Like, maybe you're trolling in which case, okay. "Reality" without ever actually answering thr question is every troll's favourite source.
And what does hilt design have to do with armour and bullets? Nothing, except you're using this statement to deflect focus from what was actually being asked of you. But again, if you're trolling, deflecting is a common tactic.
As for poorer quality iron, it 100% does. You cannot make a wrought iron chestplate with proof against bullets without chonking it up. Steel was super expensive pretty much until Carnegie and was reserved for things like jewelry and tools. I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish here besides hear yourself type.
Next, we come to a misunderstanding. Armour could have proof against bullets, but that is going to protect you from a few shots, not an army's worth. The bullet still deforms the steel (which is literally what formed the proof), which created additional weak spots. Besides that, most proofs were done between 10 and 30ft away, with a pistol or arquebus. When muskets were invented, they fired much heavier projectiles which typical steel armour couldn't compete with. This is why courassiers became a thing. They lost the weight of their armour to gain speed because the ground covered between vollies was far more valuable than the unlikely chance of getting shot somewhere besides center-mass. This meant you were less likely to wear armour in general, and greater hand protection from other blades became valuable, hence the rise in knuckle bows and basket hilts.