I am attempting to creat a Samurai and would like to outfit him with appropriate gear, but when I bring up weapons/armor, no oriental options come up. Am I missing a sourcebook? How would I go about converting standard armor/weapons into their oriental equivalent?
Just change the description details. The longsword becomes a nodachi and you describe it's traits. The rest of it's qualities remain the same. For example only, I don't really know if a nodachi is considered a longsword.
Older editions had tons of different weapons. 3.5 even had an entire supplement book, the Arms & Equipment guide, that was just that. I think the 5e designers intentionally stayed away from that and focused on the core/basic weapon and armor types to make it more user friendly. But it's easy enough to just pick a current weapon and change it's damage type/name/properties to get what you want as Wtfdndad said.
The Dungeon Master's Guide has a table in chapter 2 that lists the equivalent Chinese or Japanese weapon for the weapons in the Player's Handbook.
In short, while the weapon list is eurocentric it's perfectly fine to write down "longsword" on your character sheet for rules purposes but describe it as a katana. The DDB character sheet even lets you rename items in your inventory.
No ancient Samurai ever wrote the word katana or nodachi. Because those words did not exist. Instead they wrote things down using kana - either the variant known as Hiragana or the one known as katakana. Katana and nodachi are what are known as transliteration so that an English speaking person can read something similar to the sounds that a japanese person would speak.
You are speaking English. The English names for the Katana is long sword. The only reason to use the word katana is to help create the culture of japan. If you feel it is important, you can go so far as to change the description, but that is not an in game change. It is just a skin you put on the game system, not a difference.
I am attempting to creat a Samurai and would like to outfit him with appropriate gear, but when I bring up weapons/armor, no oriental options come up. Am I missing a sourcebook? How would I go about converting standard armor/weapons into their oriental equivalent?
Just change the description details. The longsword becomes a nodachi and you describe it's traits. The rest of it's qualities remain the same. For example only, I don't really know if a nodachi is considered a longsword.
Older editions had tons of different weapons. 3.5 even had an entire supplement book, the Arms & Equipment guide, that was just that. I think the 5e designers intentionally stayed away from that and focused on the core/basic weapon and armor types to make it more user friendly. But it's easy enough to just pick a current weapon and change it's damage type/name/properties to get what you want as Wtfdndad said.
The Dungeon Master's Guide has a table in chapter 2 that lists the equivalent Chinese or Japanese weapon for the weapons in the Player's Handbook.
In short, while the weapon list is eurocentric it's perfectly fine to write down "longsword" on your character sheet for rules purposes but describe it as a katana. The DDB character sheet even lets you rename items in your inventory.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
No ancient Samurai ever wrote the word katana or nodachi. Because those words did not exist. Instead they wrote things down using kana - either the variant known as Hiragana or the one known as katakana. Katana and nodachi are what are known as transliteration so that an English speaking person can read something similar to the sounds that a japanese person would speak.
You are speaking English. The English names for the Katana is long sword. The only reason to use the word katana is to help create the culture of japan. If you feel it is important, you can go so far as to change the description, but that is not an in game change. It is just a skin you put on the game system, not a difference.
A little over technical there buddy but, I think the intent is to create an item readily identifiable by the pop culture audience. LOL.
It is considered a 2 handed greatsword. A katana is a longsword, a tanto is a dagger, etc...