I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon. If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy.
It really isn't, especially when you consider that sickle, axe, hammer and dagger-like tools where common everyday items that most people used on a at least semi-regularly basis (admittedly less so if you lived in a city). And using a club, mace, staff and even great club is mainly about getting the mass of the item in motion towards your target. Sure training will make you better at it but compared to the complexities of effectively using sword-type weapons or polearms it really is nothing.
Not that I think that the naming, damage dice, traits or general "what types of weapons exists" is especially well done or logical but the one thing that I do think works fairly well is the separation of simple/martial weapons (well for melee weapons that is, ranged ones is a bit more iffy).
Weapons: A cleric cannot use any weapon with a sharp edge; this is forbidden by the cleric’s beliefs. A cleric may only use a mace, club, war hammer, or sling.
A cleric's belief forbade bleeding that wasn't internal. :D
It very well may have, I started with AS&D2e so I cannot speak to that. I can tell you that in 2e, it a deity had a favorite weapon they blessed their clerics with the knowledge of its use and a special dispensation to use it.
You are both right. In becmi and 1e, clerics could not use weapons that “drew blood.” That’s where the classic image of a cleric with a mace came along. (I’m assuming gygax never saw what happens when you hit someone with a mace, there’s plenty of blood. afaik, I’ve never seen it irl either). Then in 2e, they introduced the favored weapons which differed by god. I miss that about prior editions, I always thought it was a nice bit of flavor.
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon. If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy.
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
Farm implements became weapons because they were tools that were already on hand for gardening (sickle), threshing wheat (flail), chopping wood (hand axe), food preparation (dagger). And what are clubs, great clubs and quarterstaves but appropriately sized sticks, available for free in the forest? OTOH, swords are specialized and expensive items. Even if they could afford a sword, rabble was periodically prohibited from ownership anyway—an unarmed population is ostensibly easier to rule.
Martial weapons are certainly better weapons. Speaking loosely in terms of human history, if people had their druthers, they’d prolly have preferred a sword to a hand axe but it’s not a matter of preference; it’s prevalence. Simple weapons abound. Swords, not so much. They made do with what they had.
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon. If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy.
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
Farm implements became weapons because they were tools that were already on hand for gardening (sickle), threshing wheat (flail), chopping wood (hand axe), food preparation (dagger). And what are clubs, great clubs and quarterstaves but appropriately sized sticks, available for free in the forest? OTOH, swords are specialized and expensive items. Even if they could afford a sword, rabble was periodically prohibited from ownership anyway—an unarmed population is ostensibly easier to rule.
Martial weapons are certainly better weapons. Speaking loosely in terms of human history, if people had their druthers, they’d prolly have preferred a sword to a hand axe but it’s not a matter of preference; it’s prevalence. Simple weapons abound. Swords, not so much. They made do with what they had.
Swords are astonishingly simple as weapons. Moreover, they've been balanced for ease and readiness of use.
I'd have thought it would be simpler to learn to fight with a weapon that was designed and balanced to be a weapon rather than a weapon based on a tool.
Sure, if you have a background in using a sickle then you'd have had more opportunity to gain proficiency in it - but the proficiency would come despite the weapon's lack of simplicity. Beyond issues of lack of symmetry, sickle fighting yields phenomenal opportunities for technical fighting.
I suspect a curved sickle would need to be heavier than a straight sword to have the same amount of durability and this is due to swords being simpler.
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon. If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy.
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
Farm implements became weapons because they were tools that were already on hand for gardening (sickle), threshing wheat (flail), chopping wood (hand axe), food preparation (dagger). And what are clubs, great clubs and quarterstaves but appropriately sized sticks, available for free in the forest? OTOH, swords are specialized and expensive items. Even if they could afford a sword, rabble was periodically prohibited from ownership anyway—an unarmed population is ostensibly easier to rule.
Martial weapons are certainly better weapons. Speaking loosely in terms of human history, if people had their druthers, they’d prolly have preferred a sword to a hand axe but it’s not a matter of preference; it’s prevalence. Simple weapons abound. Swords, not so much. They made do with what they had.
Swords are astonishingly simple as weapons. Moreover, they've been balanced for ease and readiness of use.
I'd have thought it would be simpler to learn to fight with a weapon that was designed and balanced to be a weapon rather than a weapon based on a tool.
Sure, if you have a background in using a sickle then you'd have had more opportunity to gain proficiency in it - but the proficiency would come despite the weapon's lack of simplicity. Beyond issues of lack of symmetry, sickle fighting yields phenomenal opportunities for technical fighting.
I suspect a curved sickle would need to be heavier than a straight sword to have the same amount of durability and this is due to swords being simpler.
I think you underestimate the cost and technological differential between crafting a sword and crafting any simple weapon. Again, we’re not talking about ease of use when referring to “simple”. People used farm implements as weapons not because they are good weapons but because they were pretty much laying around the house and owning them did not raise suspicion from authorities.
Nothing I’ve said is to justify the class proficiencies in Dungeons and Dragons. I made an observation about the nature of the weapons.
You could say that "simple weapons" are what the "simple folk" use :P
That's great as far as definitions go.
As far as mechanics go, it's just a way of splitting wieldy (finesse) weapons from other common weapons.
For those that could afford them common weapons, when going to the local hostelry in weapon using cultures, might have been: clubs (2 lbs) knives, daggers (1lb -the weight of a modern claw hammer) or, more rarely, something like a not so longsword (5e shortswords weigh 2lb).
From various types of home, common weapons might commonly include pitchforks (we've all seen Shrek), hand axes (2lb), and sickles (2lb). I'm not so sure they would have included maces (5gp and 4lb) or bulky great clubs (2sp and 10lb) or that these weapons would have been simple to use.
Yes, swords have complexities like guards, but these make the sword simpler to use. You don't need to worry so much about getting your fingers hurt.
I also can't fathom (I'm left fathomless) why a warlock would be granted weapon proficiencies to include the use of great clubs, maces, and sickles and not swords. It's a bit of an oversight on behalf of any patron without a vested interest in metagaming for WotC.
Ancient armies commonly used swords as stock weapons and, presumably, this is because they were readily effective. Swords, second to spears, were items of choice.
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon. If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy.
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
Farm implements became weapons because they were tools that were already on hand for gardening (sickle), threshing wheat (flail), chopping wood (hand axe), food preparation (dagger). And what are clubs, great clubs and quarterstaves but appropriately sized sticks, available for free in the forest? OTOH, swords are specialized and expensive items. Even if they could afford a sword, rabble was periodically prohibited from ownership anyway—an unarmed population is ostensibly easier to rule.
Martial weapons are certainly better weapons. Speaking loosely in terms of human history, if people had their druthers, they’d prolly have preferred a sword to a hand axe but it’s not a matter of preference; it’s prevalence. Simple weapons abound. Swords, not so much. They made do with what they had.
Swords are astonishingly simple as weapons. Moreover, they've been balanced for ease and readiness of use.
I'd have thought it would be simpler to learn to fight with a weapon that was designed and balanced to be a weapon rather than a weapon based on a tool.
Sure, if you have a background in using a sickle then you'd have had more opportunity to gain proficiency in it - but the proficiency would come despite the weapon's lack of simplicity. Beyond issues of lack of symmetry, sickle fighting yields phenomenal opportunities for technical fighting.
I suspect a curved sickle would need to be heavier than a straight sword to have the same amount of durability and this is due to swords being simpler.
You are massively underestimating the power of the pointy stick. Consider that most massed troops were using variants on pointy sticks rather than swords. They function far better in formation and are particularly useful against cavalry. Thrusting weapons do not need the fine balance that swords do because they are relying on concentrating force on point rather than edge and on thrust rather than leverage. ...
I hope not. I've been trying to stick to the topic of possible parameters for the definition of a so-called shortsword as a simple weapon.
... Swords, second to spears, were items of choice.
Certainly, the gladius was well suited to close formation fighting (without such things as needing polearms to be swung around) and has a noted history of among groups like the Romans who used them to great effect with practically shoulder to shoulder warriors pointing them forward in front of their shield walls.
I don't argue that, for a lone warrior, a spear and shield might be a better option than a sword and shield and that's despite the spear fighter lacking a sword's handguard.
A separate topic is whether a warrior might find it as simple to learn to use a shortsword as they might find it easy to use weapons such as hammer, mace or sickle.
... Scythes and sickles are poor weapons at best but many polearms are nevertheless based on harvesting tools with conventional blade curves rather than inward curves that function far better as weapons.
I don't know. Sythes and hooks (with inward curves and very inward curves) have long been a mainstay of polearms.
Inward curves have definitely had their place though I'd conjecture that they'd tend to add further complexities to use.
However, for one definition of "simple weapon" one question that might be asked is whether using a straight jabby weapon might be at least as simple as using a sickle slashy type weapon. From where I'm sitting, I think it might be likely.
GergKaye, are you somehow contending that everyone should know how to use a sword because it is simpler to use than a great club? Meaning that only the martial classes should know how to use a great club because it is so very difficult to swing a big, clumsy stick that was never really designed to be a weapon versus a sword, which was? Maybe in Bizarro D&D, where everything is inverted…
Martial weapons require training that simple do not. Only the martial classes whose members may have received training in those weapons have proficiency in them. A warlock is not a warrior or a soldier or any of the other types of martially trained person that you keep referring to and then wondering why the warlock shouldn’t be able to use a sword. A warlock is a dude who made a deal with the devil (or other powerful being) who prolly knows how to use a dagger along with a few other cheap, uncomplicated weapons they may have had their hands on throughout their life as a schemer taking shortcuts instead of applying themselves at sword-school. There may be good reasons why a particular warlock can use a sword based on their life story but, for most warlocks, the developers decided this is not the case so they didn’t get the proficiencies.
GergKaye, are you somehow contending that everyone should know how to use a sword because it is simpler to use than a great club? ...
Meaning that only the martial classes should know how to use a great club because it is so very difficult to swing a big, clumsy stick that was never really designed to be a weapon versus a sword, which was? Maybe in Bizarro D&D, where everything is inverted…
Martial weapons require training that simple do not. Only the martial classes whose members may have received training in those weapons have proficiency in them. A warlock is not a warrior or a soldier or any of the other types of martially trained person that you keep referring to and then wondering why the warlock shouldn’t be able to use a sword. A warlock is a dude who made a deal with the devil (or other powerful being) who prolly knows how to use a dagger along with a few other cheap, uncomplicated weapons they may have had their hands on throughout their life as a schemer taking shortcuts instead of applying themselves at sword-school. There may be good reasons why a particular warlock can use a sword based on their life story but, for most warlocks, the developers decided this is not the case so they didn’t get the proficiencies.
No.
Not all classes are given proficiency in all simple weapons and, even if they did, I'm happy with the differentiation of shortswords as martial weapons as an arguably nonsensical mechanic that is, nonetheless, balanced for gameplay within the framework as it has been developed in d&d.
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon.
... If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy. ...
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
You're right. Scythes, as per your mention, are certainly poor weapons at best and I'd imagine that it might take a great deal of practice if someone for some reason wanted to become proficient in the use of one.
You're right. Scythes, as per your mention, are certainly poor weapons at best and I'd imagine that it might take a great deal of practice if someone for some reason wanted to become proficient in the use of one.
A great deal of practice like harvesting crops with them day in and day out each season for years and years of their life? It’s mind-boggling that you can’t seem to understand how utterly ubiquitous simple weapons are to daily life in non-industrial societies. Scythes are used to this day. Travel to Ukraine and you will find swathes of people proficient in their use who could, if pressed, hurt you with one much more easily than compared to a sword, which most of them have never held in their hands or even seen outside of a photo, for example. Without even taking into account the practice they’ve put in with the scythe to feed themselves, the fact they have a scythe available on hand puts it miles ahead of a sword in terms of simplicity.
Funny thing is that I doubt a scythe would even be classified as a simple weapon if it did exist in 5e but it’s a lot closer to that definition than a sword ever could be. Unlike most simple weapons, no one used a sword on the daily for anything other than fighting other people.
You're right. Scythes, as per your mention, are certainly poor weapons at best and I'd imagine that it might take a great deal of practice if someone for some reason wanted to become proficient in the use of one.
A great deal of practice like harvesting crops with them day in and day out each season for years and years of their life? It’s mind-boggling that you can’t seem to understand how utterly ubiquitous simple weapons are to daily life in non-industrial societies. Scythes are used to this day. Travel to Ukraine and you will find swathes of people proficient in their use who could, if pressed, hurt you with one much more easily than compared to a sword, which most of them have never held in their hands or even seen outside of a photo, for example. Without even taking into account the practice they’ve put in with the scythe to feed themselves, the fact they have a scythe available on hand puts it miles ahead of a sword in terms of simplicity.
Funny thing is that I doubt a scythe would even be classified as a simple weapon if it did exist in 5e but it’s a lot closer to that definition than a sword ever could be. Unlike most simple weapons, no one used a sword on the daily for anything other than fighting other people.
So, to what extent, do you think that acolytes, anthropologists, athletes, charlatans, clan crafters, cloistered scholars, courtiers, criminals, entertainers, etc. would have gained proficiency in using scythes as weapons?
GergKaye, are you somehow contending that everyone should know how to use a sword because it is simpler to use than a great club? ...
Meaning that only the martial classes should know how to use a great club because it is so very difficult to swing a big, clumsy stick that was never really designed to be a weapon versus a sword, which was? Maybe in Bizarro D&D, where everything is inverted…
Martial weapons require training that simple do not. Only the martial classes whose members may have received training in those weapons have proficiency in them. A warlock is not a warrior or a soldier or any of the other types of martially trained person that you keep referring to and then wondering why the warlock shouldn’t be able to use a sword. A warlock is a dude who made a deal with the devil (or other powerful being) who prolly knows how to use a dagger along with a few other cheap, uncomplicated weapons they may have had their hands on throughout their life as a schemer taking shortcuts instead of applying themselves at sword-school. There may be good reasons why a particular warlock can use a sword based on their life story but, for most warlocks, the developers decided this is not the case so they didn’t get the proficiencies.
No.
Not all classes are given proficiency in all simple weapons and, even if they did, I'm happy with the differentiation of shortswords as martial weapons as an arguably nonsensical mechanic that is, nonetheless, balanced for gameplay within the framework as it has been developed in d&d.
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon.
... If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy. ...
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
Way to dodge the question. Allow me to rephrase: GergKaye, are you somehow contending that everyone with simple weapon proficiency should know how to use a sword because it is simpler to use than a great club? ...
I'd also like to speculate that many farmworkers might do more actual weapons practice with wooden swords (you wouldn't often practice with a real one) than they would be to practice fighting with something any form of sickle for two reasons, swords are simpler and, when called on to use a real one, they are better.
Swords (even the metal ones) are also a lot cheaper than short bows or light crossbows and yet proficiency with simple weapons somehow gets you good with those.
You're right. Scythes, as per your mention, are certainly poor weapons at best and I'd imagine that it might take a great deal of practice if someone for some reason wanted to become proficient in the use of one.
A great deal of practice like harvesting crops with them day in and day out each season for years and years of their life? It’s mind-boggling that you can’t seem to understand how utterly ubiquitous simple weapons are to daily life in non-industrial societies. Scythes are used to this day. Travel to Ukraine and you will find swathes of people proficient in their use who could, if pressed, hurt you with one much more easily than compared to a sword, which most of them have never held in their hands or even seen outside of a photo, for example. Without even taking into account the practice they’ve put in with the scythe to feed themselves, the fact they have a scythe available on hand puts it miles ahead of a sword in terms of simplicity.
Funny thing is that I doubt a scythe would even be classified as a simple weapon if it did exist in 5e but it’s a lot closer to that definition than a sword ever could be. Unlike most simple weapons, no one used a sword on the daily for anything other than fighting other people.
So, to what extent, do you think that acolytes, anthropologists, athletes, charlatans, clan crafters, cloistered scholars, courtiers, criminals, entertainers, etc. would have gained proficiency in using scythes as weapons?
Weapon proficiencies are assigned by class not background so I don’t think any background facilitates any weapon proficiency.
I'd also like to speculate that many farmworkers might do more actual weapons practice with wooden swords (you wouldn't often practice with a real one) than they would be to practice fighting with something any form of sickle for two reasons, swords are simpler and, when called on to use a real one, they are better.
Swords (even the metal ones) are also a lot cheaper than short bows or light crossbows and yet proficiency with simple weapons somehow gets you good with those.
Swords are absolutely not cheaper to produce than short bows. Show me any evidence to support such a claim. Short bows are virtually free! I mean, short bows were produced by the most primitive of mankind. There are cave paintings of people using short bows. How long after prehistoric cave paintings did the first steel sword see production? This is a ridiculous assertion. And speculate all you like about who messed about with wooden swords. There is historical evidence to the contrary in our real world. You can say whatever you like about your D&D worlds though, including that short swords are simple weapons but sickles are not.
..., I'm happy with the differentiation of shortswords as martial weapons as an arguably nonsensical mechanic that is, nonetheless, balanced for gameplay within the framework as it has been developed in d&d.
For many people from many backgrounds, it could be at least as easy to learn the basics of very wieldy weapons like swords as it would to gain a similar level of proficiency with 10 lb great clubs, far end weighted hand axes or maces, or crossbows, shortbows or stringy slings.
In a Phandalin campaign, our group wanted to support the settlement to develop skills so that the inhabitants could defend themselves. The first thing we did was to supply wooden practice swords as a prelude for supplying the real thing (and we also supplied javelins and practice targets for some ranged weapon training). This just seemed like a sensible thing to do and I'm sure that many local citizens that wanted to support the protection of their towns might do similar. In our case we brought back pillaged weapons but, otherwise, we'd have bought them. Why should we protect the town when the people can protect themselves?
5e rules can say what they like but I'd dispute a generalisation "Most people can xyz with proficiency". People can use do things they have been proficient at proficiency. I see no reason why Harry Potter would have become proficient with Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows or why any scholar necessarily would. I certainly don't see why a warlock would become proficient with sickles but not swords and simitars. I'd have thought that a weapon that had been designed to be used as a weapon might be intuitively used as a weapon. If you pick up a perfectly balanced sword I'd have thought that it might be more intuitively used than a sickle, hand axe or two-handed greatclub which all strike me as not being particularly wieldy.
Most people gain proficiency with whatever they practice, though that may not make for easy to use game mechanics.
Farm implements became weapons because they were tools that were already on hand for gardening (sickle), threshing wheat (flail), chopping wood (hand axe), food preparation (dagger). And what are clubs, great clubs and quarterstaves but appropriately sized sticks, available for free in the forest? OTOH, swords are specialized and expensive items. Even if they could afford a sword, rabble was periodically prohibited from ownership anyway—an unarmed population is ostensibly easier to rule.
Martial weapons are certainly better weapons. Speaking loosely in terms of human history, if people had their druthers, they’d prolly have preferred a sword to a hand axe but it’s not a matter of preference; it’s prevalence. Simple weapons abound. Swords, not so much. They made do with what they had.
Swords are astonishingly simple as weapons. Moreover, they've been balanced for ease and readiness of use.
I'd have thought it would be simpler to learn to fight with a weapon that was designed and balanced to be a weapon rather than a weapon based on a tool.
Sure, if you have a background in using a sickle then you'd have had more opportunity to gain proficiency in it - but the proficiency would come despite the weapon's lack of simplicity. Beyond issues of lack of symmetry, sickle fighting yields phenomenal opportunities for technical fighting.
I suspect a curved sickle would need to be heavier than a straight sword to have the same amount of durability and this is due to swords being simpler.
You are massively underestimating the power of the pointy stick. Consider that most massed troops were using variants on pointy sticks rather than swords. They function far better in formation and are particularly useful against cavalry. Thrusting weapons do not need the fine balance that swords do because they are relying on concentrating force on point rather than edge and on thrust rather than leverage. ...
I hope not. I've been trying to stick to the topic of possible parameters for the definition of a so-called shortsword as a simple weapon.
... Swords, second to spears, were items of choice.
Certainly, the gladius was well suited to close formation fighting (without such things as needing polearms to be swung around) and has a noted history of among groups like the Romans who used them to great effect with practically shoulder to shoulder warriors pointing them forward in front of their shield walls.
I don't argue that, for a lone warrior, a spear and shield might be a better option than a sword and shield and that's despite the spear fighter lacking a sword's handguard.
A separate topic is whether a warrior might find it as simple to learn to use a shortsword as they might find it easy to use weapons such as hammer, mace or sickle.
... Scythes and sickles are poor weapons at best but many polearms are nevertheless based on harvesting tools with conventional blade curves rather than inward curves that function far better as weapons.
I don't know. Sythes and hooks (with inward curves and very inward curves) have long been a mainstay of polearms.
Inward curves have definitely had their place though I'd conjecture that they'd tend to add further complexities to use.
However, for one definition of "simple weapon" one question that might be asked is whether using a straight jabby weapon might be at least as simple as using a sickle slashy type weapon. From where I'm sitting, I think it might be likely.
Only one of the polearms in that graphic you linked has a meaningful inward curve and that is definitely not related to a scythe.
To use such a weapon offensively, you have to reach the blade around behind the target and then try to rake their back with it. That is simply impractical in combat.
Or you do this:
These are war scythes (and some spears and pikes at the bottom). War scythes were derived from agricultural scythes and were known to be popular and effective weapons used by peasants in late Medieval Europe. They were known for being much cheaper to manufacture than swords, pikes, or guns, and they were considered easy to use because they were wielded in almost exactly the same way as agricultural scythes. This was a common, recurring theme: many polearms were descended from repurposed agricultural implements.
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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.
In AD&D clerics were not supposed to use blade weapons and Magic Users were limited to d4 weapons. Maybe it is a holdover from the early days. I don't find it to be a problem.
I was just about to say the same thing, well…the part about clerics. No pointy swords for old edition clerics just a good old mace (the cleric weapon of choice at our table back then)
It really isn't, especially when you consider that sickle, axe, hammer and dagger-like tools where common everyday items that most people used on a at least semi-regularly basis (admittedly less so if you lived in a city). And using a club, mace, staff and even great club is mainly about getting the mass of the item in motion towards your target. Sure training will make you better at it but compared to the complexities of effectively using sword-type weapons or polearms it really is nothing.
Not that I think that the naming, damage dice, traits or general "what types of weapons exists" is especially well done or logical but the one thing that I do think works fairly well is the separation of simple/martial weapons (well for melee weapons that is, ranged ones is a bit more iffy).
You are both right. In becmi and 1e, clerics could not use weapons that “drew blood.” That’s where the classic image of a cleric with a mace came along. (I’m assuming gygax never saw what happens when you hit someone with a mace, there’s plenty of blood. afaik, I’ve never seen it irl either). Then in 2e, they introduced the favored weapons which differed by god. I miss that about prior editions, I always thought it was a nice bit of flavor.
Farm implements became weapons because they were tools that were already on hand for gardening (sickle), threshing wheat (flail), chopping wood (hand axe), food preparation (dagger). And what are clubs, great clubs and quarterstaves but appropriately sized sticks, available for free in the forest? OTOH, swords are specialized and expensive items. Even if they could afford a sword, rabble was periodically prohibited from ownership anyway—an unarmed population is ostensibly easier to rule.
Martial weapons are certainly better weapons. Speaking loosely in terms of human history, if people had their druthers, they’d prolly have preferred a sword to a hand axe but it’s not a matter of preference; it’s prevalence. Simple weapons abound. Swords, not so much. They made do with what they had.
Swords are astonishingly simple as weapons. Moreover, they've been balanced for ease and readiness of use.
Sure, if you have a background in using a sickle then you'd have had more opportunity to gain proficiency in it - but the proficiency would come despite the weapon's lack of simplicity. Beyond issues of lack of symmetry, sickle fighting yields phenomenal opportunities for technical fighting.
I suspect a curved sickle would need to be heavier than a straight sword to have the same amount of durability and this is due to swords being simpler.
I think you underestimate the cost and technological differential between crafting a sword and crafting any simple weapon. Again, we’re not talking about ease of use when referring to “simple”. People used farm implements as weapons not because they are good weapons but because they were pretty much laying around the house and owning them did not raise suspicion from authorities.
Nothing I’ve said is to justify the class proficiencies in Dungeons and Dragons. I made an observation about the nature of the weapons.
You could say that "simple weapons" are what the "simple folk" use :P
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That's great as far as definitions go.
As far as mechanics go, it's just a way of splitting wieldy (finesse) weapons from other common weapons.
For those that could afford them common weapons, when going to the local hostelry in weapon using cultures, might have been: clubs (2 lbs) knives, daggers (1lb -the weight of a modern claw hammer) or, more rarely, something like a not so longsword (5e shortswords weigh 2lb).
From various types of home, common weapons might commonly include pitchforks (we've all seen Shrek), hand axes (2lb), and sickles (2lb). I'm not so sure they would have included maces (5gp and 4lb) or bulky great clubs (2sp and 10lb) or that these weapons would have been simple to use.
Yes, swords have complexities like guards, but these make the sword simpler to use. You don't need to worry so much about getting your fingers hurt.
I also can't fathom (I'm left fathomless) why a warlock would be granted weapon proficiencies to include the use of great clubs, maces, and sickles and not swords. It's a bit of an oversight on behalf of any patron without a vested interest in metagaming for WotC.
Ancient armies commonly used swords as stock weapons and, presumably, this is because they were readily effective. Swords, second to spears, were items of choice.
I hope not. I've been trying to stick to the topic of possible parameters for the definition of a so-called shortsword as a simple weapon.
Certainly, the gladius was well suited to close formation fighting (without such things as needing polearms to be swung around) and has a noted history of among groups like the Romans who used them to great effect with practically shoulder to shoulder warriors pointing them forward in front of their shield walls.
I don't argue that, for a lone warrior, a spear and shield might be a better option than a sword and shield and that's despite the spear fighter lacking a sword's handguard.
A separate topic is whether a warrior might find it as simple to learn to use a shortsword as they might find it easy to use weapons such as hammer, mace or sickle.
I don't know. Sythes and hooks (with inward curves and very inward curves) have long been a mainstay of polearms.
Inward curves have definitely had their place though I'd conjecture that they'd tend to add further complexities to use.
Ancient swords have also included the inward curving, Thracian Falx.
However, for one definition of "simple weapon" one question that might be asked is whether using a straight jabby weapon might be at least as simple as using a sickle slashy type weapon. From where I'm sitting, I think it might be likely.
GergKaye, are you somehow contending that everyone should know how to use a sword because it is simpler to use than a great club? Meaning that only the martial classes should know how to use a great club because it is so very difficult to swing a big, clumsy stick that was never really designed to be a weapon versus a sword, which was? Maybe in Bizarro D&D, where everything is inverted…
Martial weapons require training that simple do not. Only the martial classes whose members may have received training in those weapons have proficiency in them. A warlock is not a warrior or a soldier or any of the other types of martially trained person that you keep referring to and then wondering why the warlock shouldn’t be able to use a sword. A warlock is a dude who made a deal with the devil (or other powerful being) who prolly knows how to use a dagger along with a few other cheap, uncomplicated weapons they may have had their hands on throughout their life as a schemer taking shortcuts instead of applying themselves at sword-school. There may be good reasons why a particular warlock can use a sword based on their life story but, for most warlocks, the developers decided this is not the case so they didn’t get the proficiencies.
No.
Not all classes are given proficiency in all simple weapons and, even if they did, I'm happy with the differentiation of shortswords as martial weapons as an arguably nonsensical mechanic that is, nonetheless, balanced for gameplay within the framework as it has been developed in d&d.
But generally:
You're right. Scythes, as per your mention, are certainly poor weapons at best and I'd imagine that it might take a great deal of practice if someone for some reason wanted to become proficient in the use of one.
A great deal of practice like harvesting crops with them day in and day out each season for years and years of their life? It’s mind-boggling that you can’t seem to understand how utterly ubiquitous simple weapons are to daily life in non-industrial societies. Scythes are used to this day. Travel to Ukraine and you will find swathes of people proficient in their use who could, if pressed, hurt you with one much more easily than compared to a sword, which most of them have never held in their hands or even seen outside of a photo, for example. Without even taking into account the practice they’ve put in with the scythe to feed themselves, the fact they have a scythe available on hand puts it miles ahead of a sword in terms of simplicity.
Funny thing is that I doubt a scythe would even be classified as a simple weapon if it did exist in 5e but it’s a lot closer to that definition than a sword ever could be. Unlike most simple weapons, no one used a sword on the daily for anything other than fighting other people.
So, to what extent, do you think that acolytes, anthropologists, athletes, charlatans, clan crafters, cloistered scholars, courtiers, criminals, entertainers, etc. would have gained proficiency in using scythes as weapons?
Way to dodge the question. Allow me to rephrase: GergKaye, are you somehow contending that everyone with simple weapon proficiency should know how to use a sword because it is simpler to use than a great club? ...
I'd also like to speculate that many farmworkers might do more actual weapons practice with wooden swords (you wouldn't often practice with a real one) than they would be to practice fighting with something any form of sickle for two reasons, swords are simpler and, when called on to use a real one, they are better.
Swords (even the metal ones) are also a lot cheaper than short bows or light crossbows and yet proficiency with simple weapons somehow gets you good with those.
Weapon proficiencies are assigned by class not background so I don’t think any background facilitates any weapon proficiency.
Swords are absolutely not cheaper to produce than short bows. Show me any evidence to support such a claim. Short bows are virtually free! I mean, short bows were produced by the most primitive of mankind. There are cave paintings of people using short bows. How long after prehistoric cave paintings did the first steel sword see production? This is a ridiculous assertion. And speculate all you like about who messed about with wooden swords. There is historical evidence to the contrary in our real world. You can say whatever you like about your D&D worlds though, including that short swords are simple weapons but sickles are not.
phb/equipment#Weapons
Shortsword 10 gp
Longsword 15 gp
Crossbow, light 25 gp
Shortbow 25 gp
I'd agree that it's ridiculous, but that's 5e for you.
As I've also indicated,
For many people from many backgrounds, it could be at least as easy to learn the basics of very wieldy weapons like swords as it would to gain a similar level of proficiency with 10 lb great clubs, far end weighted hand axes or maces, or crossbows, shortbows or stringy slings.
In a Phandalin campaign, our group wanted to support the settlement to develop skills so that the inhabitants could defend themselves. The first thing we did was to supply wooden practice swords as a prelude for supplying the real thing (and we also supplied javelins and practice targets for some ranged weapon training). This just seemed like a sensible thing to do and I'm sure that many local citizens that wanted to support the protection of their towns might do similar. In our case we brought back pillaged weapons but, otherwise, we'd have bought them. Why should we protect the town when the people can protect themselves?
Or you do this:
These are war scythes (and some spears and pikes at the bottom). War scythes were derived from agricultural scythes and were known to be popular and effective weapons used by peasants in late Medieval Europe. They were known for being much cheaper to manufacture than swords, pikes, or guns, and they were considered easy to use because they were wielded in almost exactly the same way as agricultural scythes. This was a common, recurring theme: many polearms were descended from repurposed agricultural implements.
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I was just about to say the same thing, well…the part about clerics. No pointy swords for old edition clerics just a good old mace (the cleric weapon of choice at our table back then)
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