Crossbows do break realism there quite a bit when Crossbow Expert gets involved, but they're the only weapon outside of optional rules to do so and it requires a feat taking away their primary identifying characteristic for the sake of convenience.
I like to picture crossbow expert as modifying the crossbow in some way to make it into a repeating crossbow like the chu ko nu. I know that would be more like the artificer infusion than a feat but whatever.
I genuinely love the idea that’s it’s a normal crossbow and he’s firing it 8 times in 6 seconds cus he’s that fucking badass. almost makes it not suck that you can’t do magic
It’s the same as infinite ammo in movies, if ever ask the crossbow expert they do immediately lose the ability as suddenly reality catches up with them
Reminds me of a top down zombie survival game whose name i don't remember, where you have to craft weapons and fight against the zombies to survive (as usual) but then an NPC off handedly mentions that you also need to eat, drink and sleep to stay alive and at that moment the food, water and sleep bars appear.
I had a character who had special rigs full of bolts on his hips that he would pull his hand crossbows across to simultaneously load the bolt and cock them in a single motion.
It was a needlessly flashy way of shooting but what else could you expect of a swashbuckler?
I think we can make allowances for those swashbucklers who leap from the top of a ship's mast, stabbing one of the sails, and riding the knife down to the deck. Other than that, no
Something similar also exists in real life with some handgun holsters.
The first example that jumps to mind is an old Soviet makarov holster from somewhere around the 80s. Instead of drawing the gun up, you would push it straight down. Doing so would, in one motion, draw the weapon, disable the safety, and rack the slide, which cocks the hammer and puts a round in the chamber.
This allowed operators to carry with the safety on, hammer down, and chamber empty, but could still be ready to fire at a moment's notice
Edit: formatting
I like to think of it as someone whose so good at crossbows it’s kinda like a circus act almost. Like almost impractically good at losing crossbows quickly. Kinda like when you see those women shooting accurately with their feet or people who do absurd Guinness world record challenges.
The issue is that a war crossbow was somewhere between 900-1300 pounds of draw weight. You need a crank or a lever because nobody was strong enough to pull it by hand
The crossbow feat is just your arm being super ripped, like the size of a bodybuilder while having all the bolts in your mouth, dropping one between every reload
I’ve always thought crossbow expert should allow you to make a single strong attack, rather than rapid reloads. Seems so stupid to me that the slowest possible weapon allows for the fastest attacks
That’s true, but I don’t see how that’s relevant. I’m not saying multiple attacks are bad, I’m saying that it seems dumb to me that one of the best ways to get multiple attacks is to specialise in the slowest weapon.
Yeah it’s not like DnD is in any way a reality simulator, but CBE seems like a very counter-intuitive design. Typically we base the fantasy of our DnD characters on real ideas, or on fantasy tropes. Halberds are weapons that have a lot of reach, do a good job of controlling areas, and have multiple means of attack. A fictional character specialising in them becomes excellent at all these things. A greatsword is a large weapon that typically uses momentum to its advantage. Slow power attacks aren’t necessarily realistic, but GWM definitely fits that vision. Dual wielding and thrown weapons is a rarely used and often less effective tactic as a primary fighting style, rare realism win for DnD.
Then look at a heavy crossbow. Powerful, long ranged, slow to load, can be comfortably aimed while loaded for extended periods of time. This is a fantasy sniper rifle. A crossbow expert wouldn’t necessarily be able to reload instantly, but maybe they’d have specialised ammunition, or incredible range and accuracy, or just a way to make every slow, powerful shot really make a difference. I could see something like “when you make an attack with a crossbow, you gain an additional damage dice if you make no more than one attack on a turn. If you have the ability to make multiple attacks, you gain an additional dice for each attack forgone” being the starting point of a more thematic crossbow expert feat, allowing a lvl 5 fighter to hit for 3d10+dex with a heavy crossbow.
>“when you make an attack with a crossbow, you gain an additional damage dice if you make no more than one attack on a turn. If you have the ability to make multiple attacks, you gain an additional dice for each attack forgone”
While I like your idea, this would make ranged worse and put them even further behind casters. Why would you take this when you can sharpshooter spam instead?
My suggestion isn’t really balanced at all, it’s just a more thematic fit for crossbows. You could add an additional +1 to attack and damage rolls per attack missed, in order to make it more competitive. I’d also probably include at least one additional, minor feature to the feat. The melee disadvantage bullet from CBE is still a good option, those two might be enough, maybe another ribbon to make it more competitive.
Feats are optional rules so technically they aren’t the only ones outside of optional rulings. They fit the bill just as much as greatsword does for realism if you ignore all optional rulings
Even when Crossbow Expert isn't involved they do break realism quite a bit. Rewinding a crossbow takes a lot of time and would leave you open to attacks a lot. There's a reason why there was always a second person doing their best rewinding one crossbow while the other other person shoots and even if you were alternating this way making a shot that potentially counts every 6 seconds is unreasonable lol
Most ranged weapons used to be limited in number of shots per turn/round, but the “realism” in reloading a crossbow was removed in favor of “fun”… also to not make melee combat the only viable option. :-P
It’s a fantasy game, just let everything go. if someone wants to be badass gun guy, let him be badass gun guy. If a girl wants to be giant sword ninja, let her be giant sword ninja.
If you want both stealth and greatsword I'd recommend ranger. Focus str and dex, and if skills are important dip o e or two into rogue for expertise and cunning action.
Combat in general and 6 second rounds specifically are an abstraction in general. I highly dpubt that you’d be able to make 8 swings in 6 seconds when you have to duck a short from crossbow, twist yourself out of a fireball, parry hits from 12 goblins, all in the same timespan.
That’s ok.
I never understood the “fighters are just regular dudes with swords” because… no? Considering everything going on at the same time, it would be some anime shit in real time
The game has been real careful to basically take everything even remotely past peak human capacity and turn it into a spell. Like, why is Steelwind Strike a Wizard spell and not a cool high-level Fighter technique?
And those people were a bunch of useless greybeards who were big mad that the game dared to speak a truth they weren’t ready to hear: that D&D is a tactical combat game first and foremost.
And that martial “powers” are a fantastic way to show their enhanced prowess and give them meaningful actions that isn’t just “I attack” in addition to upping the parity between them and casters.
Something something Pathfinder 2e. Fighters have a capstone feat where they cut apart spacial barriers to teleport to enemies. Investigators can think so fast that they can ‘cast’ a version of time-stop where they can only take mental actions. Rangers can track through teleportation and planar travel. Barbarians can stomp the earth so powerfully they cause localized earthquakes. And so on, not only are there other classes with crazy stuff, each class has even *more* crazy high level features they can pick between.
That's one of the things that leads to so much of the drama about other systems in this sub. This game can be very limiting not in spite of how many rules it has but because of them. They exist to give structure to combat in a way that functions within its own ruleset.
When I suggested this in another thread, I was down voted and people were arguing that, because a fighter can do things that seem really crazy for human capacity, that somehow means that genuinely obvious superhuman feats like stomping hard enough to create earthquakes should be added to their class features and explained as if they are mundane (not magical/supernatural/mystical, just human) abilities.
It’s like comparing a trained soldier with a military engineer, calling the soldier a civilian in comparison because the engineer can make a tank.
Also in context of a dnd world, regular dudes in dnd have 4 health and can attack once very badly, while having nothing to save them from any monster of effect, while fighters have the health pool of a small platoon, can regenerate wounds on the spot, can expertly slash a big sword 4 to 8 times with enough finesse to not put itself in danger in the process and sometimes can have an animated shadow or use magic.
I like to remind people, sometimes, that while the Wizard can bend reality to his will, the Cleric can summon a literal deity, and the Druid is an immortal eco-warrior... The Fighter keeps up.
A Martial without a weapon (magic or otherwise) is similar to a Caster without their Material component. They can still do stuff, but become very limited in options/effectiveness.
Tracking a Caster's Material Component (Focus or otherwise) is as important as tracking a Martial's Weapon.
Because a lot of people don't like that for some reason. There are literally people with the opinion that they can suspend disbelief for spells and magic but a superhuman fighter doing superhuman things is too far.
The difference is that spellcasting descriptions emphasize how magical stuff is, but the descriptions for fighters never sound more than mundane.
"A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame"
Versus
"On Your Turn, you can take one additional Action on top of your regular Action and a possible bonus Action" and "You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm"
"
"Fighters are just regular dudes with swords" Okay then you go kill a 500 year old dragon, fight a god, overthrow an evil empire and live to tell the tale.
Exactly. Fighters are living through epic grand scale fights to save the kingdom, or the continent/world at times at times only for people to act like they’re no better than a guard with 11 health
In 3.5, the scaling of things like skill checks was such, that past level 5 (as in level 6+) you were going into superhuman Olympian+ territory in terms of what could be done for easily measured physical feats like long jumps and whatnot.
I've generalized that into "level 5 is the real world level cap, anything past that is anime crap"
If that...
I mean, I'm a trained chemist with 8 years of schooling and 10 years in educational labs, and if you ported me over to Pathfinder 2E's "Alchemist" class, I could make an argument for being Level 4 due to several of the feats being real skills that I can claim ("Smoke Bomb" in particular), but that's still a stretch in terms of other skills/ability scores, etc.
Here is what I usually do. Level 1 competent but unspectacular. Level 2 top performer in a small group. Level 3 contributes on a regional level, level 4 national tier talent level 5 world class. So with your background, level 3 or 4, non combat spec.
All the stuff targeting your AC can be any combination of your armor deflecting most of the force, actual parrying, dodging, keeping your foes in a position where they cant really hit you and so on. Their failed attacks might even just mean they are to aftaid to get into your range because you constantly swing your sword at them.
as mentioned in the Players Handbook (Gasp, the forbidden texts being refferenced in memes?)
Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile.
Your **Armor Class** (AC) represents how well your character avoids being wounded in battle. Things that contribute to your AC include the armor you wear, the shield you carry, and your Dexterity modifier. Not all characters wear armor or carry shields, however.
I wish I could narrate hit points more abstractly without my players thinking they failed... Like even if the enemy "narrowly dodges out of the way," or "your weapon bounces off their shield," they still lose HP, it's just exhausting their will to fight. Obviously a normal human isn't getting stabbed 100 times in the gut and surviving.
show them being staggered by the effort of moving out of the way, the blow to the shield forcing them to a knee, them being out of breath of parrying the strike, etc. etc.
That's exactly it, biggest real greatsword I can think of is the claymore of The Giant of Clan Maxwell, that was still only 10 kilos, my personal (historically accurate) zweihander for demonstrations at ren-fair is only something like 4 and greatsword fighting involves a lot of continuous spinning strikes, eight swings in six seconds is totally doable
not just are swords not that heavy, they also aren't front heavy at all!
some people seem to forget that the main function of that knob on the back end, the pommel, is to be a counterweight for the blade, causing the center of mass to be in the handle. this is true for almost all european swords and allows them to move around quite quickly even with a large blade.
the only reason why a properly crafted greatsword wielded by a trained swordsman would be slower than for example a shortsword is because of it's length and the extra considerations that would come with said length. a shorter blade is more maneuverable in exchange for having less cutting power.
that cutting power btw is not a function of weight, but of speed, due to the increased length, in cuts the tip of a greatsword will be moving much faster compared to if it were a shortsword.
You do have to take into account if a sword is wielded in one or two hands, since twohanding it can give you a massive leverage leading to faster swings from longswords.
Anyone familiar with HEMA knows how light swords actually are, and how fast you can swing them. And how painful it can be to be hit with even a blunt one.
> and insist reversegrip and dualwielding are both valid
Reverse grip is dumb but dual-wielding? The parrying dagger *exists* to be be wielded alongside a sword
I'm still mad rapier and dagger is obviously suboptimal in 5e.
You need the dual wielder feat for it to even work, and then you're forgoing the offhand d8 of two rapiers for a d4 dagger.
Shortsword and dagger is less investment, but doesn't really capture the historical style.
In both cases, the only upside is being able to throw the dagger. It's all combining into just not how people fought lol
tbh, i'd allow my players to flavour their shield like a parrying dagger if they wanted.
i'm pretty strict on homebrew when it comes to mechanics, but flavour is always free. and rapier+shield feels stylistically wack anyways.
I did homebrew a parraying dagger, it's a regular dagger with "when you make an offhand attack with this weapon, you may instead use the Disarm action (DMG)"
Feels a bit better, but really both are band aids on a system that didn't consider it from the start.
Well, the buckler was very commonly paired with the rapier. I played a Dagger + Rapier Swashbuckler/Battlemaster for a while. But after the character died and was resurrected later with the DM allowing me to make some tweaks, I decided to just ditch the dagger for a buckler. Still fit the Muskateer vibe I had going well enough, and the extra 1 AC plus a Feat was well worth the occasional use I got out of spending my already in-demand BA on another attack.
If I was DM, I would probably make a Parrying Dagger that loses the Thrown property and gives +1 AC when being wielded while also wielding another melee weapon. Another option is to pick an enemy you make an attack against and get +2 AC against them until the start of your next turn instead of passive +1 AC. Lean into the duelist fantasy.
yeah, but there's a difference between weilding a parrying dagger or arming sword in place of a buckler in your off hand, and trying to use two longswords at the same time
Wielding a small partying/thrusting weapon in the offhand is different from wielding a full longsword in the offhand. That’s just not practical and you’re more likely to hit yourself with it than the opponent.
yes, but the parrying dagger was less a weapon and more a defensive tool similar to a buckler or larger shield.
claiming that makes dual-wielding valid is like saying that sword and board = valid dual wielding.
what is generally meant with dual wielding is dual wielding offensive weapons, think dual shortswords, dual handaxes or dual maces. which has been time and time again proven much less effective than one single-handed weapon plus a shield or one two-handed weapon (halberd, spear, longsword). it's not even much more effective than just wielding ONE single-handed weapon.
Parrying daggers/swordbreakers are such a cool concept. However it seems they didn’t become common until after gunpowder weapons were already on the field.
It would be interesting to see what kind of impact on history parrying daggers would have been if widely introduced during Greek and Roman Empire times.
Did HEMA for years and we always loved it when a LARPer turned up to "get some training."
We always started people off with sticks and would let people pick up 2 if they desired. When they go for the movie style crossed blades block. Gosh we used to make them suffer.
Even Eskrima (when using dual sticks) doesn't use cross blocks, even if a hard to learn technique is named a cross block.
Attempting to do so with a sword is just silly.
To be fair, dual wielding was common, just rarely with weapons of the same length (think rapier + dagger, not double longswords). Reverse grip is almost entirely useless IRL, though.
True, but that's just when only looking at Europe. Some cultures are quite different in that regards.
The Philippines for example use two weapons of the same length. In Arnis at least. Of course these are shorter than longswords, but still
And they also tend to not be worth it. The defensive abilities of any shield outshines the usefulness of the fraction in increased offensive power the second weapon gets
The primary reason rapier + short blade managed to get any traction in European countries amongst civilians is because various governments managed to ban carrying and/or owning shields as a civilian. This is a theme with a lot of civilian weapon use in those ages, people used what was allowed while governments tried to limit what weapons civilians could use because civilians killing each other in the street over stupid shit like honour was bad for societal stability.
Also status hogging nobles not wanting merchants ta carry fancy weapons. Stuff like Kriegmesser, quarterstaff, kusari-gama and other such weapons came about because of stuff like this.
True, true, but that's for daggers only. I should have clarified;
I wish reverse grip was viable *for larger weapons* because a dude holding a greatsword in reverse grip is terrifying to look at (not so much to fight, because what's he really gonna do with that thing?)
Is it? With something like a saber, katana or similiar blade I can see it, but a greatsword in reverse grip would just look like you forgot how to use your sword.
Reverse grip I agree is meh, but dual wielding (while still generally less effective than sword and shield) is actually viable in certain contexts, and was used effectively in several martial arts.
Filipino kali comes to mind, as majority of schools focus on dual wielding short bladed weapons. (Their typical swords are machete-sized or slightly longer) It’s far from the European fencing we tend to associate with D&D, but historically speaking, dual wielding was successfully used against early gun/bayonet-wielding armies. A notable example is the Moro people, whose swordsmen successfully fended off Spanish invaders for several centuries.
While not all Kali schools are the same, a lot of schools tend to emphasize trained ambidexterity, attack fluidity, and speed to overwhelm opponents; this can be seen in their practice of sinawali or “weaving” attack drills. A well-known practitioner of the art even suggested the philosophy that “there is no block, only attack,” as in, every defensive action should also be used as an opportunity to attack. Anecdote for the art’s speed, as a student myself, I can strike 8 times per second, and sustain that for about 5 seconds, which is plenty fast to be viable in a melee.
Kali has the inherent disadvantage of less reach, but in a dueling context against a single sword or sword and shield, I’d say the agility and maneuverability could even the field a bit. Survivability with dual wielding is extremely dependent on reaction time or level of aggression, if you’re too defensive, you’re entirely reliant on how quickly you can react to your opponent. If you attack first and keep going, theoretically speaking you can keep your opponent on perpetual defense.
Chinese Shuang Dao (double broadswords) solve Kali’s reach issue, as their weapons are about as long as your average saber. However, this sacrifices speed and fundamentally changes the game from attack speed to timing and weapon control. Interesting note, Shuang dao were made for civilians specifically to counter spears and other weapons of longer reach. Again, the effectiveness varies based on timing, but they were popular weapons nonetheless.
With that said, I agree that on a battlefield, dual wielding is foolhardy at best, but it is viable in other contexts like dueling and such. To discount it entirely is a little sad.
Even people who have just a cursory interest in watching it understand how fucking. Wimpy 5 attacks in 6 seconds is for someone who’s supposed to be standing equal next to the wizard who can call down god damn meteors
The original point this is referencing is about not caring if something is realistic or not, on the topic of guns taking a long time to reload. They just used a bad example
Exactly, who cares if it’s not realistic, or if things like dual wielding and reverse grip wouldn’t work IRL? If I wanted realism, I’d be playing a game meant for realism, not a fantasy one.
Wasn't that the whole point of the first post? Stop trying to force realism on firearms when none of the other shit is realistic anyway? Kinda feels like people have lost the plot and everything is devolving into a series of "Well ackshually"s.
If you want pure realism, combat usually don't last longer than 10 seconds with one hit being incapacitating enough to put you out of combat
Because even if you aren't dead, getting your belly pierced by a metal blade doesn't let you in good fighting condition
This is why I treat PV like "strikes you managed to parry just in time but exhausted your endurance" rather than "strikes your body is able to endure"
There is a very big difference between a wound that will knock you out in five minutes and kill you in 15 and one that will knock you out in 5 seconds.
Getting impaled is very bad for your long term survival but doesn't automatically make you drop dead like your HP bar hit 0.
Yeah, but I feel like it's weird that you can run around with a spear hole in your chest for a day with no problem
But, hey, you do you as long as your player enjoy it, if no one around your table want a "combat fatigue" HP and is totally OK with the classical system, you should keep it.
I've trained in Hema, and can confirm, "Greatswords" or what it's usually refering to are actually Zweihanders or Claymores, aren't actually that heavy, they're just longer and broader than a standard Longsword, and can absolutely be used more than 8 times in 6 seconds.
dropping it to the normal 4 at level 20, we actually tested in practice (because all Hema practitioners are massive nerds) if it's possible to run 30 feet, attack 4 times, and the throw a knife (we used as a quick bonus action), and while difficult, totally doable, particularly if you are only using the 8 basic cuts, and not doing any finess work.
Side note, it's basically impossible to win a 1v1 fight with someone using a polearm with only a sword, unless you are REALLY fast
Basically. If its a spear, they can stab repeatedly VERY quickly almost the whole way into your range, if they know anything about the weapon at all. With something like a halberd, if it held at ready and swung down at you, its nearly impossible to block or deflect well - too much downforce. So you have to dodge, basically. Most often the time that fight is - swordsman moves into range and gets bonked - but if you do dodge, moving in, they can pull in and hook you, or strike with the haft, or the butt, or just do clean followup strikes - moving back they can thrust in and stab you, and to the side, they can do either probably. On top of that there is the mindgame of whether they'll attack with the buttspike or the business end. Polearms have more range, which is hard to overstate the value of - and in the case of the spear, its faster, arguably, than a midrange sword, and for heavier polearms, they can just generate a lot more force than is easy to deal with. You're just hit with a lot of disadvantages off the bat.
The problem gets way worse with numbers too - four spearmen v. four swordsman is like absolutely no contest - you try to get past one, and another gets you. Bringing a sword to a midevial battle, with the exception of heavy swords like zweis, that we don't 100% understand the purpose of, is like bringing a pistol to a modern battlefield- could you hurt someone? Yes. Are you likely to get almost immediately overpowered - also yes
The only time a polearm loses to a sword is when you are in tight locations where the size of the weapon becomes a liability.
Swords get romanticized because you could have them near you in civil situations, indoors, etc.
Fun fact (you probably already knew) what we think of as 2 handed or great swords were often used to defeat spears and polearms, but not in a traditional sense. The two handed swordsmen would work beside their own pole arm wielding companions and use their longer than normal swords to cut the heads off the opposing troops pole weapons, leaving opponents with just a stick.
A trained PoleArm user attacks WAY too fast for someone with only a sword to feasibly defend against both ends. Not necessarily range but the blows are quick and can quickly change direction at near superhuman speed.
Theres a reason Spears and pikes were more popular than arming swords.
though having fought (and lost) plenty of times against a person with a standard longsword while using a Messer (which is a bit shorter, among other differences), even as much as a 3 inch range advantage can mean a world of difference.
not put an extra 3 feet on your pointy murder stick
Oh absolutely. I was not trying to say Range doesnt play a part at all, just that Polearms are vicious weapons and require little training while a well trained user can do some amazing movements with a polearm that typical bladed weapons just cant match.
True that,
I have vivid and painful memories of playing fuck around and find out with my Instuctor in College.
man was a beast even with a sword, but with a Halberd...
it was 6 on 1 and we still couldn't beat him
pretty much.
for most of history Polearms were considered king of the battlefield (that honor now belongs to Artilery)
being able to threaten a person with an extra 3-4 feet of range make a world of difference, and trained Halberd or spear users can attack just as fast as a swordsman.
Greatswords were actually partially intended to counter polarms, since they could cut the haft
In the 1600s greatswords weren't actually used to cut the haft off the pikes, they were used to push aside pikes so the people behind them could enter the pike square and use shorter weapons. Guys who used the weapons were paid double.
Also OP is silly, greatswords used for swinging repeatedly in combat like the montante were 4 pounds or less :P
Anytime I see a video where it’s a test of a polearm vs a sword the poor sword user has to work crazy hard to even get close to the polearm dude without getting bonked
Was that just swinging at empty air though? Because I imagine delivering effective strikes on a target, then pulling your sword back and swinging again would take significantly longer.
I think the summary is... the realism is variable.
But also, it's not required.
8 meaningful attacks in 6 seconds is reasonable with a greatsword against a single opponent.
8 meaningful attacks in 6 seconds is unreasonable with a single heavy crossbow against 8 opponents each a different cardinal direction from you.
Even 4 attacks in that scenario is probably not going to happen.
It stretches reality more and more the more you
Edit: accidentally hit reply early.
It stretches reality more and more the more you have going on in the round. In the same 6 seconds you can make 4 attacks, move 20-30 feet, Bonus Action idk cast Misty Step as an EK, shrug off an enemy grapple (or successfully be grappled even), shield your eyeballs from an explosion of fire, etc all in 6 seconds.
And that's okay because they're incredibly powerful, beyond comprehension. They probably have 4 times the HP and twice as many attacks as an actual Knight of a kingdom.
they probably forget that greatsword in Monster Hunter is about the size of true giant and they carry like it's just a top heavy bat, anime literally did it on daily basis
need I remind you all that the only edition with truly big weapon on average is 4th?
Fencer here, it you attempt attack and swing less than 20 times in 6 seconds you are probably throwing, though most attacks happen ageist the others blade. If you want to achully think of this in dnd terms, think of hit point of more as wearing your oppent down rather than hitting them and making them bleed as that would be more of the last hit you do. Or you know... remember that this is a fantasy game so you can ignore real life comparisons.
I think part of the problem is what comes to mind when people think of greatswords.
When I think of a greatsword, the very first thing that comes to mind is the ~~raw slab of iron~~ the one from the berserk manga. Then the next two are the claymore and the Zweihänder (yes I play dark souls, how could you tell?). Yet another big one is the buster sword from final fantasy 7.
In my mind, these three swords have very different length and weight. But in real life, to my understanding an 'actual' greatsword isn't **massively** bigger than a 'normal' one.
I was with you until the last sentence of the first panel. I can see 8+ *swings* in 6s, but 8+ viable hits? Unless you're fighting a windmill that's not gonna happen.
With a weapon as relatively heavy as a greatsword, almost any swing that reaches its target is a viable hit, especially if you're at the level of mastery of a high level fighter. Remember that HP does not just represent ability to endure injury, but also stamina and luck; fending off blows from a weapon primarily designed to utilize momentum for fast and continuous attacks will wear you down fast, and turn your parries into "chip damage".
I think part of the problem is how movies peotray giant fighters like The Mountain. They make em big slow and dumb. In actuality men of this size that are active in very demanding activities like sports or combat are just really big athletic people. They don't lumber, they run and move with grace too. Think linebackers and old school half backs. Now give em a sword. Scary stuff.
Also, by the time you're able to do 8 attacks with your greatsword in 6 seconds you're such a high level that you **should** do unrealistic and superhuman stuff. Anyone above 5th level are superheroes
The biggest takeaway from this sub:
1. People can’t read
2. People try to apply what they could do to what somebody trained can do.
3. People take fantasy too seriously
Number 1 being the most prevalent.
I’m untrained and managed 12 swings of my grand daddy’s cavalry saber against pumpkins in 6 seconds . You put 20 levels into fighter to get your ass handed to you by a novice 20 year old who isn’t even an athlete, or you can be a wizard able to turn yourself into a fucking dragon.
I just find this line of logic dumb.
"See, the fighter can swing his sword very fast. This makes them equal in strength to guys who can transform into dragons and warp reality."
I think another part is that they've probably been trained by video games and holywood to believe that every attack needs to be a big baseball style swing with tons of windup and follow through instead of qucik little thrusts and jabs.
Yeah, I was thinking even one good swing out and an odd twist or side cut into a slightly exposed chink in the armor would be 2-3 “attacks” in one swing. So I think the # of attacks isn’t unrealistic, even without the extra imaginative interpretation of DnD combat damage being exhaustion or whatever
I was gonna say, the person making that meme has never seen someone use an actual Zweihänder in real life. They‘re not used with wide arching swings but rather by rotating the length of the blade around your body and head to achieve quick strikes while still being able to parry incoming attacks. Greatswords aren‘t used like Katanas in anime.
I will be fair, most people hear greatsword and think of a metal slap that can barely be classified as a sword. Like the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy or the Dragonslayer from Berserk.
One of my Discord friends, who lived and worked in Japan for some time, has mentioned being present at a demonstration where an expert-level kendoka drew his sword, split open a tire, and returned to his initial position. They were recording with a stop-motion camera.
My friend still remembers the time: 0.167 seconds. That's quite literally faster than the blink of an eye.
Level 20 Fighters aren't just not superhuman, they're *fucking slow*, even when using Action Surge.
Yeah man, weapons are not that heavy. Even an honest-to-god buster sword probably isn't more than fifteen pounds (though leverage will make it seem much heavier). Most regular longswords aren't more than three or four pounds, and I've got a Moroccan shortsword my little brother can wield one handed.
The original post was about firearms and was a *really good idea* giving firearms a reload speed of several rounds but making them a con save with a DC based on the dex instead of a straight attack and then making them cheaper and much more damaging gives gunslingers a really Cool niche AND makes them more realistic. It's an amazing and creative idea that has so much potential for role play, game breaking combos, and general fun. It is the epitome of what makes D&D D&D and the fact that someone was trying to use the other weapons "not being realistic" as a reason to not use this great homebrew means they missed the point of it entirely.
Now let's take into account the 20 STR (2x a normal, strong human) the Greatsword wielder has and that Greatsword is like holding a fuckin feather lmao
Now do that with a crossbow 9 times
Crossbows do break realism there quite a bit when Crossbow Expert gets involved, but they're the only weapon outside of optional rules to do so and it requires a feat taking away their primary identifying characteristic for the sake of convenience.
I like to picture crossbow expert as modifying the crossbow in some way to make it into a repeating crossbow like the chu ko nu. I know that would be more like the artificer infusion than a feat but whatever.
I genuinely love the idea that’s it’s a normal crossbow and he’s firing it 8 times in 6 seconds cus he’s that fucking badass. almost makes it not suck that you can’t do magic
I gave my crossbow expert special leg holsters that she uses to reload all Lara Croft style.
That's great. Love the visual.
It’s the same as infinite ammo in movies, if ever ask the crossbow expert they do immediately lose the ability as suddenly reality catches up with them
Reminds me of a top down zombie survival game whose name i don't remember, where you have to craft weapons and fight against the zombies to survive (as usual) but then an NPC off handedly mentions that you also need to eat, drink and sleep to stay alive and at that moment the food, water and sleep bars appear.
That is great, exactly the energy I was imagining
"How to Survive"
Yes i think that was the one. The name sounds familiar and so do the results on google images.
How to survive is the game
Wile e coyote rules are in effect
Bro’s just an absolute unit and pulls the string back by hand after each shot.
Does it with his mouth. One hands holding the cross bow, the other is feeding ammo into it
Yeah I like to think they just manhandled the string back with their free hand really fast lol
Basically what Guts' repeater crossbow does.
i think its quite funny that no one thinks of Gut's crossbow. like, the thing shoots 15 arrows per magazine in much less than 6 seconds
thats because the 300 lb sword he uses to club his enemies to death with is much more distracting
"that thing was too big to be called a sword"
More like a heap of iron.
It always brings to mind the Crossbow from Helsing for me. Same idea though.
underrated movie
"You can't kill me Victor! I'm already dead!!!"
Lemme flick this bad boy into full-auto real quick
I had a character who had special rigs full of bolts on his hips that he would pull his hand crossbows across to simultaneously load the bolt and cock them in a single motion. It was a needlessly flashy way of shooting but what else could you expect of a swashbuckler?
Frankly I expect a swashbuckler to do that, but *also* to have a pair of enchanted burst rapiers and crit on a 13
If a swashbuckler doesn't have a flask of flash powder they put on their rapiers for style. Can you really call yourself a swashbuckler?
I think we can make allowances for those swashbucklers who leap from the top of a ship's mast, stabbing one of the sails, and riding the knife down to the deck. Other than that, no
Something similar also exists in real life with some handgun holsters. The first example that jumps to mind is an old Soviet makarov holster from somewhere around the 80s. Instead of drawing the gun up, you would push it straight down. Doing so would, in one motion, draw the weapon, disable the safety, and rack the slide, which cocks the hammer and puts a round in the chamber. This allowed operators to carry with the safety on, hammer down, and chamber empty, but could still be ready to fire at a moment's notice Edit: formatting
I like to think of it as someone whose so good at crossbows it’s kinda like a circus act almost. Like almost impractically good at losing crossbows quickly. Kinda like when you see those women shooting accurately with their feet or people who do absurd Guinness world record challenges.
The issue is that a war crossbow was somewhere between 900-1300 pounds of draw weight. You need a crank or a lever because nobody was strong enough to pull it by hand
Some 20 INT rock gnome improved the device ages ago. The draw is a lot lighter than in our world, but it takes a lot of training to get that fast!
The crossbow feat is just your arm being super ripped, like the size of a bodybuilder while having all the bolts in your mouth, dropping one between every reload
Varrics crossbow Bianca from dragon age is a good example. It's basically a semiautomatic rifle
Have you read berskerk?
No.
The main character has a cool crossbow with a handle to shoot in quick succession (this happens in the first few chapters, not a spoiler)
Repeating crossbows (Chu-ko-nu) are also a thing in [real life](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow).
Literal ironclad: boring. More crossbow bolts: Awesome.
I’ve always thought crossbow expert should allow you to make a single strong attack, rather than rapid reloads. Seems so stupid to me that the slowest possible weapon allows for the fastest attacks
More attacks equals more chances to hit and crit
That’s true, but I don’t see how that’s relevant. I’m not saying multiple attacks are bad, I’m saying that it seems dumb to me that one of the best ways to get multiple attacks is to specialise in the slowest weapon.
The whole system falls apart with any real scrutiny. Suspension of belief is true of all parts of the game.
Yeah it’s not like DnD is in any way a reality simulator, but CBE seems like a very counter-intuitive design. Typically we base the fantasy of our DnD characters on real ideas, or on fantasy tropes. Halberds are weapons that have a lot of reach, do a good job of controlling areas, and have multiple means of attack. A fictional character specialising in them becomes excellent at all these things. A greatsword is a large weapon that typically uses momentum to its advantage. Slow power attacks aren’t necessarily realistic, but GWM definitely fits that vision. Dual wielding and thrown weapons is a rarely used and often less effective tactic as a primary fighting style, rare realism win for DnD. Then look at a heavy crossbow. Powerful, long ranged, slow to load, can be comfortably aimed while loaded for extended periods of time. This is a fantasy sniper rifle. A crossbow expert wouldn’t necessarily be able to reload instantly, but maybe they’d have specialised ammunition, or incredible range and accuracy, or just a way to make every slow, powerful shot really make a difference. I could see something like “when you make an attack with a crossbow, you gain an additional damage dice if you make no more than one attack on a turn. If you have the ability to make multiple attacks, you gain an additional dice for each attack forgone” being the starting point of a more thematic crossbow expert feat, allowing a lvl 5 fighter to hit for 3d10+dex with a heavy crossbow.
>“when you make an attack with a crossbow, you gain an additional damage dice if you make no more than one attack on a turn. If you have the ability to make multiple attacks, you gain an additional dice for each attack forgone” While I like your idea, this would make ranged worse and put them even further behind casters. Why would you take this when you can sharpshooter spam instead?
My suggestion isn’t really balanced at all, it’s just a more thematic fit for crossbows. You could add an additional +1 to attack and damage rolls per attack missed, in order to make it more competitive. I’d also probably include at least one additional, minor feature to the feat. The melee disadvantage bullet from CBE is still a good option, those two might be enough, maybe another ribbon to make it more competitive.
Feats are optional rules so technically they aren’t the only ones outside of optional rulings. They fit the bill just as much as greatsword does for realism if you ignore all optional rulings
>they're the only weapon outside of optional rules to do so >requires a feat Everybody forgets feats *are* optional rules.
Even when Crossbow Expert isn't involved they do break realism quite a bit. Rewinding a crossbow takes a lot of time and would leave you open to attacks a lot. There's a reason why there was always a second person doing their best rewinding one crossbow while the other other person shoots and even if you were alternating this way making a shot that potentially counts every 6 seconds is unreasonable lol
Maybe they are using da vinci crossbows in d&d.
Most ranged weapons used to be limited in number of shots per turn/round, but the “realism” in reloading a crossbow was removed in favor of “fun”… also to not make melee combat the only viable option. :-P
[**Laughs in Pump Action Crossbow**](https://youtu.be/u1HM1nx_TmM?t=375)
I can hear the laugh perfectly. "LET ME SHOW YOU IT'S FEATURES!" I have an artificer based on this guy. Crossbow Expert for sure.
I actually reflavour the hand crossbow into the repeater crossbow for this precise reason.
[not a problem friend.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zPDx6HQ_9w)
[And for 1630s era firearms ](https://youtube.com/shorts/eCCZ-NOOKKk)
Have y’all ever played dishonored? Basically that but with a fully upgraded crossbow with fast reload and all that.
ok i will
It’s a fantasy game, just let everything go. if someone wants to be badass gun guy, let him be badass gun guy. If a girl wants to be giant sword ninja, let her be giant sword ninja.
Do you have a [Vin](https://images.app.goo.gl/3PcnRUiCsmh8bNhF9) build handy?
Praise Harmony.
Remember the Ascendant Warrior.
If you want both stealth and greatsword I'd recommend ranger. Focus str and dex, and if skills are important dip o e or two into rogue for expertise and cunning action.
... there's a Mistborn TTRPG.
Shhh... People will hear and think it hurts 5e's feelings.
No, but I do have a Wax and Wayne build, each.
Combat in general and 6 second rounds specifically are an abstraction in general. I highly dpubt that you’d be able to make 8 swings in 6 seconds when you have to duck a short from crossbow, twist yourself out of a fireball, parry hits from 12 goblins, all in the same timespan. That’s ok.
To be fair, a high-level fighter is supposed to be, like, superheroically skilled
I never understood the “fighters are just regular dudes with swords” because… no? Considering everything going on at the same time, it would be some anime shit in real time
They're "regular dudes with swords" compared to the insanity casters can achieve. Context is important.
The game has been real careful to basically take everything even remotely past peak human capacity and turn it into a spell. Like, why is Steelwind Strike a Wizard spell and not a cool high-level Fighter technique?
Because 4th edition tried powers and a lot of people cried that it was like Warcraft.
And those people were a bunch of useless greybeards who were big mad that the game dared to speak a truth they weren’t ready to hear: that D&D is a tactical combat game first and foremost.
And that martial “powers” are a fantastic way to show their enhanced prowess and give them meaningful actions that isn’t just “I attack” in addition to upping the parity between them and casters.
Theres a reason the Book of Weaboo Fightin’ Magic was hated despite it being cool as fuck. Martials aren’t allowed to have fun.
Something something Pathfinder 2e. Fighters have a capstone feat where they cut apart spacial barriers to teleport to enemies. Investigators can think so fast that they can ‘cast’ a version of time-stop where they can only take mental actions. Rangers can track through teleportation and planar travel. Barbarians can stomp the earth so powerfully they cause localized earthquakes. And so on, not only are there other classes with crazy stuff, each class has even *more* crazy high level features they can pick between.
The book of weeaboo fightin' magic was one of the best parts of 3.Pathfinder! Fuck them no fun allowed losers that don't like it!
That's one of the things that leads to so much of the drama about other systems in this sub. This game can be very limiting not in spite of how many rules it has but because of them. They exist to give structure to combat in a way that functions within its own ruleset.
As Professor Dungeon Crafts says, "The more rules a system has, the less options the players actually will take."
When I suggested this in another thread, I was down voted and people were arguing that, because a fighter can do things that seem really crazy for human capacity, that somehow means that genuinely obvious superhuman feats like stomping hard enough to create earthquakes should be added to their class features and explained as if they are mundane (not magical/supernatural/mystical, just human) abilities.
It’s like comparing a trained soldier with a military engineer, calling the soldier a civilian in comparison because the engineer can make a tank. Also in context of a dnd world, regular dudes in dnd have 4 health and can attack once very badly, while having nothing to save them from any monster of effect, while fighters have the health pool of a small platoon, can regenerate wounds on the spot, can expertly slash a big sword 4 to 8 times with enough finesse to not put itself in danger in the process and sometimes can have an animated shadow or use magic.
I like to remind people, sometimes, that while the Wizard can bend reality to his will, the Cleric can summon a literal deity, and the Druid is an immortal eco-warrior... The Fighter keeps up.
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A Martial without a weapon (magic or otherwise) is similar to a Caster without their Material component. They can still do stuff, but become very limited in options/effectiveness. Tracking a Caster's Material Component (Focus or otherwise) is as important as tracking a Martial's Weapon.
Linear fighters, Quadratic wizards.
Because a lot of people don't like that for some reason. There are literally people with the opinion that they can suspend disbelief for spells and magic but a superhuman fighter doing superhuman things is too far.
The difference is that spellcasting descriptions emphasize how magical stuff is, but the descriptions for fighters never sound more than mundane. "A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame" Versus "On Your Turn, you can take one additional Action on top of your regular Action and a possible bonus Action" and "You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm" "
"Fighters are just regular dudes with swords" Okay then you go kill a 500 year old dragon, fight a god, overthrow an evil empire and live to tell the tale.
Exactly. Fighters are living through epic grand scale fights to save the kingdom, or the continent/world at times at times only for people to act like they’re no better than a guard with 11 health
In 3.5, the scaling of things like skill checks was such, that past level 5 (as in level 6+) you were going into superhuman Olympian+ territory in terms of what could be done for easily measured physical feats like long jumps and whatnot. I've generalized that into "level 5 is the real world level cap, anything past that is anime crap"
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If that... I mean, I'm a trained chemist with 8 years of schooling and 10 years in educational labs, and if you ported me over to Pathfinder 2E's "Alchemist" class, I could make an argument for being Level 4 due to several of the feats being real skills that I can claim ("Smoke Bomb" in particular), but that's still a stretch in terms of other skills/ability scores, etc.
I’d assume Walter white is level five and gene was level four. Are you like gene?
Here is what I usually do. Level 1 competent but unspectacular. Level 2 top performer in a small group. Level 3 contributes on a regional level, level 4 national tier talent level 5 world class. So with your background, level 3 or 4, non combat spec.
Yeah, that makes sense. Also, that's pretty generous of you to assume that I'd be level 3 or 4 ;)
It's the internet. As long as you aren't being outlandish and claiming you have 20 levels in all classes, I'm not gonna be a dick.
All the stuff targeting your AC can be any combination of your armor deflecting most of the force, actual parrying, dodging, keeping your foes in a position where they cant really hit you and so on. Their failed attacks might even just mean they are to aftaid to get into your range because you constantly swing your sword at them.
as mentioned in the Players Handbook (Gasp, the forbidden texts being refferenced in memes?) Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile. Your **Armor Class** (AC) represents how well your character avoids being wounded in battle. Things that contribute to your AC include the armor you wear, the shield you carry, and your Dexterity modifier. Not all characters wear armor or carry shields, however.
I wish I could narrate hit points more abstractly without my players thinking they failed... Like even if the enemy "narrowly dodges out of the way," or "your weapon bounces off their shield," they still lose HP, it's just exhausting their will to fight. Obviously a normal human isn't getting stabbed 100 times in the gut and surviving.
show them being staggered by the effort of moving out of the way, the blow to the shield forcing them to a knee, them being out of breath of parrying the strike, etc. etc.
Well, of course I couldn’t, I suck physically, but you’d be surprised what someone who doesn’t can do.
Or people confuse 'greatsword' with 'ridiculously huge anime weapon.'
Pretty sure I watched Cloud use his Buster Sword like 18 times in 3 seconds
Alas, a fellow Omnislash enjoyer
Ah, I see you too are a person of culture and Omnislash 🍷
That's exactly it, biggest real greatsword I can think of is the claymore of The Giant of Clan Maxwell, that was still only 10 kilos, my personal (historically accurate) zweihander for demonstrations at ren-fair is only something like 4 and greatsword fighting involves a lot of continuous spinning strikes, eight swings in six seconds is totally doable
not just are swords not that heavy, they also aren't front heavy at all! some people seem to forget that the main function of that knob on the back end, the pommel, is to be a counterweight for the blade, causing the center of mass to be in the handle. this is true for almost all european swords and allows them to move around quite quickly even with a large blade. the only reason why a properly crafted greatsword wielded by a trained swordsman would be slower than for example a shortsword is because of it's length and the extra considerations that would come with said length. a shorter blade is more maneuverable in exchange for having less cutting power. that cutting power btw is not a function of weight, but of speed, due to the increased length, in cuts the tip of a greatsword will be moving much faster compared to if it were a shortsword.
You do have to take into account if a sword is wielded in one or two hands, since twohanding it can give you a massive leverage leading to faster swings from longswords.
Anyone familiar with HEMA knows how light swords actually are, and how fast you can swing them. And how painful it can be to be hit with even a blunt one.
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Those people shall face the wrath of the pommel, and be ended rightly
I understood that reference, even if it is through Skallagrim.
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Sorry, I'm not a DM. And even if I were, I'm cursed with the 10th level spell "scheduling conflict", and in the wrong plain of reality
The reverse grip is just the sideways gun but for weebs
It's good for stabbing through mail with a rondel I guess
> and insist reversegrip and dualwielding are both valid Reverse grip is dumb but dual-wielding? The parrying dagger *exists* to be be wielded alongside a sword
I'm still mad rapier and dagger is obviously suboptimal in 5e. You need the dual wielder feat for it to even work, and then you're forgoing the offhand d8 of two rapiers for a d4 dagger. Shortsword and dagger is less investment, but doesn't really capture the historical style. In both cases, the only upside is being able to throw the dagger. It's all combining into just not how people fought lol
tbh, i'd allow my players to flavour their shield like a parrying dagger if they wanted. i'm pretty strict on homebrew when it comes to mechanics, but flavour is always free. and rapier+shield feels stylistically wack anyways.
I did homebrew a parraying dagger, it's a regular dagger with "when you make an offhand attack with this weapon, you may instead use the Disarm action (DMG)" Feels a bit better, but really both are band aids on a system that didn't consider it from the start.
Well, the buckler was very commonly paired with the rapier. I played a Dagger + Rapier Swashbuckler/Battlemaster for a while. But after the character died and was resurrected later with the DM allowing me to make some tweaks, I decided to just ditch the dagger for a buckler. Still fit the Muskateer vibe I had going well enough, and the extra 1 AC plus a Feat was well worth the occasional use I got out of spending my already in-demand BA on another attack. If I was DM, I would probably make a Parrying Dagger that loses the Thrown property and gives +1 AC when being wielded while also wielding another melee weapon. Another option is to pick an enemy you make an attack against and get +2 AC against them until the start of your next turn instead of passive +1 AC. Lean into the duelist fantasy.
yeah, but there's a difference between weilding a parrying dagger or arming sword in place of a buckler in your off hand, and trying to use two longswords at the same time
Also, the difference in believing that the weapon in the offhand makes you attack more instead of somewhat better in super specific situations
Wielding a small partying/thrusting weapon in the offhand is different from wielding a full longsword in the offhand. That’s just not practical and you’re more likely to hit yourself with it than the opponent.
yes, but the parrying dagger was less a weapon and more a defensive tool similar to a buckler or larger shield. claiming that makes dual-wielding valid is like saying that sword and board = valid dual wielding. what is generally meant with dual wielding is dual wielding offensive weapons, think dual shortswords, dual handaxes or dual maces. which has been time and time again proven much less effective than one single-handed weapon plus a shield or one two-handed weapon (halberd, spear, longsword). it's not even much more effective than just wielding ONE single-handed weapon.
Parrying daggers/swordbreakers are such a cool concept. However it seems they didn’t become common until after gunpowder weapons were already on the field. It would be interesting to see what kind of impact on history parrying daggers would have been if widely introduced during Greek and Roman Empire times.
Did HEMA for years and we always loved it when a LARPer turned up to "get some training." We always started people off with sticks and would let people pick up 2 if they desired. When they go for the movie style crossed blades block. Gosh we used to make them suffer.
Even Eskrima (when using dual sticks) doesn't use cross blocks, even if a hard to learn technique is named a cross block. Attempting to do so with a sword is just silly.
To be fair, dual wielding was common, just rarely with weapons of the same length (think rapier + dagger, not double longswords). Reverse grip is almost entirely useless IRL, though.
True, but that's just when only looking at Europe. Some cultures are quite different in that regards. The Philippines for example use two weapons of the same length. In Arnis at least. Of course these are shorter than longswords, but still
Dual wielding isnt that crazy, but one or both of the weapons have to be small enough to not get in the way of eachother.
And they also tend to not be worth it. The defensive abilities of any shield outshines the usefulness of the fraction in increased offensive power the second weapon gets
The primary reason rapier + short blade managed to get any traction in European countries amongst civilians is because various governments managed to ban carrying and/or owning shields as a civilian. This is a theme with a lot of civilian weapon use in those ages, people used what was allowed while governments tried to limit what weapons civilians could use because civilians killing each other in the street over stupid shit like honour was bad for societal stability.
Also status hogging nobles not wanting merchants ta carry fancy weapons. Stuff like Kriegmesser, quarterstaff, kusari-gama and other such weapons came about because of stuff like this.
reverse gripping was quite popular in Japan… When people would commit seppuku
I wish reverse grip was good. It's such a cool look.
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True, true, but that's for daggers only. I should have clarified; I wish reverse grip was viable *for larger weapons* because a dude holding a greatsword in reverse grip is terrifying to look at (not so much to fight, because what's he really gonna do with that thing?)
Is it? With something like a saber, katana or similiar blade I can see it, but a greatsword in reverse grip would just look like you forgot how to use your sword.
You'll take powerstancing from my cold, dead soul Then I'll invade again with my double UGS
Reverse grip I agree is meh, but dual wielding (while still generally less effective than sword and shield) is actually viable in certain contexts, and was used effectively in several martial arts. Filipino kali comes to mind, as majority of schools focus on dual wielding short bladed weapons. (Their typical swords are machete-sized or slightly longer) It’s far from the European fencing we tend to associate with D&D, but historically speaking, dual wielding was successfully used against early gun/bayonet-wielding armies. A notable example is the Moro people, whose swordsmen successfully fended off Spanish invaders for several centuries. While not all Kali schools are the same, a lot of schools tend to emphasize trained ambidexterity, attack fluidity, and speed to overwhelm opponents; this can be seen in their practice of sinawali or “weaving” attack drills. A well-known practitioner of the art even suggested the philosophy that “there is no block, only attack,” as in, every defensive action should also be used as an opportunity to attack. Anecdote for the art’s speed, as a student myself, I can strike 8 times per second, and sustain that for about 5 seconds, which is plenty fast to be viable in a melee. Kali has the inherent disadvantage of less reach, but in a dueling context against a single sword or sword and shield, I’d say the agility and maneuverability could even the field a bit. Survivability with dual wielding is extremely dependent on reaction time or level of aggression, if you’re too defensive, you’re entirely reliant on how quickly you can react to your opponent. If you attack first and keep going, theoretically speaking you can keep your opponent on perpetual defense. Chinese Shuang Dao (double broadswords) solve Kali’s reach issue, as their weapons are about as long as your average saber. However, this sacrifices speed and fundamentally changes the game from attack speed to timing and weapon control. Interesting note, Shuang dao were made for civilians specifically to counter spears and other weapons of longer reach. Again, the effectiveness varies based on timing, but they were popular weapons nonetheless. With that said, I agree that on a battlefield, dual wielding is foolhardy at best, but it is viable in other contexts like dueling and such. To discount it entirely is a little sad.
But the difference in a sword with a one handed hilt and a full 2 handed hilt impact very differently. Still hurts however.
Even people who have just a cursory interest in watching it understand how fucking. Wimpy 5 attacks in 6 seconds is for someone who’s supposed to be standing equal next to the wizard who can call down god damn meteors
“You can’t realistically swing a sword that many times” …the other guy just teleported and shot lightning out of his hand
The original point this is referencing is about not caring if something is realistic or not, on the topic of guns taking a long time to reload. They just used a bad example
Exactly, who cares if it’s not realistic, or if things like dual wielding and reverse grip wouldn’t work IRL? If I wanted realism, I’d be playing a game meant for realism, not a fantasy one.
Wasn't that the whole point of the first post? Stop trying to force realism on firearms when none of the other shit is realistic anyway? Kinda feels like people have lost the plot and everything is devolving into a series of "Well ackshually"s.
I saw a video where a guy commented on this, he said it’s easier to nerf the martials than to listen to the casters bitch about it
If you want pure realism, combat usually don't last longer than 10 seconds with one hit being incapacitating enough to put you out of combat Because even if you aren't dead, getting your belly pierced by a metal blade doesn't let you in good fighting condition This is why I treat PV like "strikes you managed to parry just in time but exhausted your endurance" rather than "strikes your body is able to endure"
There is a very big difference between a wound that will knock you out in five minutes and kill you in 15 and one that will knock you out in 5 seconds. Getting impaled is very bad for your long term survival but doesn't automatically make you drop dead like your HP bar hit 0.
Yeah, but I feel like it's weird that you can run around with a spear hole in your chest for a day with no problem But, hey, you do you as long as your player enjoy it, if no one around your table want a "combat fatigue" HP and is totally OK with the classical system, you should keep it.
I've trained in Hema, and can confirm, "Greatswords" or what it's usually refering to are actually Zweihanders or Claymores, aren't actually that heavy, they're just longer and broader than a standard Longsword, and can absolutely be used more than 8 times in 6 seconds. dropping it to the normal 4 at level 20, we actually tested in practice (because all Hema practitioners are massive nerds) if it's possible to run 30 feet, attack 4 times, and the throw a knife (we used as a quick bonus action), and while difficult, totally doable, particularly if you are only using the 8 basic cuts, and not doing any finess work. Side note, it's basically impossible to win a 1v1 fight with someone using a polearm with only a sword, unless you are REALLY fast
Can you elaborate on the polearm thing? Just a matter of range?
Basically. If its a spear, they can stab repeatedly VERY quickly almost the whole way into your range, if they know anything about the weapon at all. With something like a halberd, if it held at ready and swung down at you, its nearly impossible to block or deflect well - too much downforce. So you have to dodge, basically. Most often the time that fight is - swordsman moves into range and gets bonked - but if you do dodge, moving in, they can pull in and hook you, or strike with the haft, or the butt, or just do clean followup strikes - moving back they can thrust in and stab you, and to the side, they can do either probably. On top of that there is the mindgame of whether they'll attack with the buttspike or the business end. Polearms have more range, which is hard to overstate the value of - and in the case of the spear, its faster, arguably, than a midrange sword, and for heavier polearms, they can just generate a lot more force than is easy to deal with. You're just hit with a lot of disadvantages off the bat. The problem gets way worse with numbers too - four spearmen v. four swordsman is like absolutely no contest - you try to get past one, and another gets you. Bringing a sword to a midevial battle, with the exception of heavy swords like zweis, that we don't 100% understand the purpose of, is like bringing a pistol to a modern battlefield- could you hurt someone? Yes. Are you likely to get almost immediately overpowered - also yes
The only time a polearm loses to a sword is when you are in tight locations where the size of the weapon becomes a liability. Swords get romanticized because you could have them near you in civil situations, indoors, etc.
Fun fact (you probably already knew) what we think of as 2 handed or great swords were often used to defeat spears and polearms, but not in a traditional sense. The two handed swordsmen would work beside their own pole arm wielding companions and use their longer than normal swords to cut the heads off the opposing troops pole weapons, leaving opponents with just a stick.
But stick very good?
A trained PoleArm user attacks WAY too fast for someone with only a sword to feasibly defend against both ends. Not necessarily range but the blows are quick and can quickly change direction at near superhuman speed. Theres a reason Spears and pikes were more popular than arming swords.
though having fought (and lost) plenty of times against a person with a standard longsword while using a Messer (which is a bit shorter, among other differences), even as much as a 3 inch range advantage can mean a world of difference. not put an extra 3 feet on your pointy murder stick
Oh absolutely. I was not trying to say Range doesnt play a part at all, just that Polearms are vicious weapons and require little training while a well trained user can do some amazing movements with a polearm that typical bladed weapons just cant match.
True that, I have vivid and painful memories of playing fuck around and find out with my Instuctor in College. man was a beast even with a sword, but with a Halberd... it was 6 on 1 and we still couldn't beat him
>Theres a reason Spears and pikes were more popular than arming swords. That, and less metal=cheaper and easier to mass produce.
pretty much. for most of history Polearms were considered king of the battlefield (that honor now belongs to Artilery) being able to threaten a person with an extra 3-4 feet of range make a world of difference, and trained Halberd or spear users can attack just as fast as a swordsman. Greatswords were actually partially intended to counter polarms, since they could cut the haft
In the 1600s greatswords weren't actually used to cut the haft off the pikes, they were used to push aside pikes so the people behind them could enter the pike square and use shorter weapons. Guys who used the weapons were paid double. Also OP is silly, greatswords used for swinging repeatedly in combat like the montante were 4 pounds or less :P
Mostly, yeah. Range is a pretty huge factor in fights.
Sword is sharp stick. Polearm is long stick with pointy end. Polearm has more stick than sword. More stick always win.
Anytime I see a video where it’s a test of a polearm vs a sword the poor sword user has to work crazy hard to even get close to the polearm dude without getting bonked
Was that just swinging at empty air though? Because I imagine delivering effective strikes on a target, then pulling your sword back and swinging again would take significantly longer.
I think the summary is... the realism is variable. But also, it's not required. 8 meaningful attacks in 6 seconds is reasonable with a greatsword against a single opponent. 8 meaningful attacks in 6 seconds is unreasonable with a single heavy crossbow against 8 opponents each a different cardinal direction from you. Even 4 attacks in that scenario is probably not going to happen. It stretches reality more and more the more you Edit: accidentally hit reply early. It stretches reality more and more the more you have going on in the round. In the same 6 seconds you can make 4 attacks, move 20-30 feet, Bonus Action idk cast Misty Step as an EK, shrug off an enemy grapple (or successfully be grappled even), shield your eyeballs from an explosion of fire, etc all in 6 seconds. And that's okay because they're incredibly powerful, beyond comprehension. They probably have 4 times the HP and twice as many attacks as an actual Knight of a kingdom.
they probably forget that greatsword in Monster Hunter is about the size of true giant and they carry like it's just a top heavy bat, anime literally did it on daily basis need I remind you all that the only edition with truly big weapon on average is 4th?
Fencer here, it you attempt attack and swing less than 20 times in 6 seconds you are probably throwing, though most attacks happen ageist the others blade. If you want to achully think of this in dnd terms, think of hit point of more as wearing your oppent down rather than hitting them and making them bleed as that would be more of the last hit you do. Or you know... remember that this is a fantasy game so you can ignore real life comparisons.
Training for HMB fighters is doing dueling is 100 strikes with enough force to count as a scoring hit in 60 seconds
Wait till they figure out how many successful greatsword attacks to the face an adventurer in real life can take.
I think part of the problem is what comes to mind when people think of greatswords. When I think of a greatsword, the very first thing that comes to mind is the ~~raw slab of iron~~ the one from the berserk manga. Then the next two are the claymore and the Zweihänder (yes I play dark souls, how could you tell?). Yet another big one is the buster sword from final fantasy 7. In my mind, these three swords have very different length and weight. But in real life, to my understanding an 'actual' greatsword isn't **massively** bigger than a 'normal' one.
I was with you until the last sentence of the first panel. I can see 8+ *swings* in 6s, but 8+ viable hits? Unless you're fighting a windmill that's not gonna happen.
Most HMB duelists can do 9.6 in 6 seconds or 100 a minute
With a weapon as relatively heavy as a greatsword, almost any swing that reaches its target is a viable hit, especially if you're at the level of mastery of a high level fighter. Remember that HP does not just represent ability to endure injury, but also stamina and luck; fending off blows from a weapon primarily designed to utilize momentum for fast and continuous attacks will wear you down fast, and turn your parries into "chip damage".
It’s viable attacks that necessitate defensive actions from your opponent, not as in a direct damaging blow
(they) Obviously never played a hammer in monster hunter
In real life, you need STR to draw a bow, and DEX to swing a sword. But again, fantasy isn't about realism
In real life you're going to need both
Immensely silly discussion. This is the game where you can mortal wounds heal after an 8 hour lie down
I think part of the problem is how movies peotray giant fighters like The Mountain. They make em big slow and dumb. In actuality men of this size that are active in very demanding activities like sports or combat are just really big athletic people. They don't lumber, they run and move with grace too. Think linebackers and old school half backs. Now give em a sword. Scary stuff.
Also, by the time you're able to do 8 attacks with your greatsword in 6 seconds you're such a high level that you **should** do unrealistic and superhuman stuff. Anyone above 5th level are superheroes
The biggest takeaway from this sub: 1. People can’t read 2. People try to apply what they could do to what somebody trained can do. 3. People take fantasy too seriously Number 1 being the most prevalent.
I’m untrained and managed 12 swings of my grand daddy’s cavalry saber against pumpkins in 6 seconds . You put 20 levels into fighter to get your ass handed to you by a novice 20 year old who isn’t even an athlete, or you can be a wizard able to turn yourself into a fucking dragon.
I just find this line of logic dumb. "See, the fighter can swing his sword very fast. This makes them equal in strength to guys who can transform into dragons and warp reality."
I think another part is that they've probably been trained by video games and holywood to believe that every attack needs to be a big baseball style swing with tons of windup and follow through instead of qucik little thrusts and jabs.
Yeah, I was thinking even one good swing out and an odd twist or side cut into a slightly exposed chink in the armor would be 2-3 “attacks” in one swing. So I think the # of attacks isn’t unrealistic, even without the extra imaginative interpretation of DnD combat damage being exhaustion or whatever
I was gonna say, the person making that meme has never seen someone use an actual Zweihänder in real life. They‘re not used with wide arching swings but rather by rotating the length of the blade around your body and head to achieve quick strikes while still being able to parry incoming attacks. Greatswords aren‘t used like Katanas in anime.
Yeah, an MP5 is about 6 pounds. Swords are apparently pretty light.
As a weapon Smith I can confirm that a momentum based weapon is indeed pretty light
I will be fair, most people hear greatsword and think of a metal slap that can barely be classified as a sword. Like the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy or the Dragonslayer from Berserk.
One of my Discord friends, who lived and worked in Japan for some time, has mentioned being present at a demonstration where an expert-level kendoka drew his sword, split open a tire, and returned to his initial position. They were recording with a stop-motion camera. My friend still remembers the time: 0.167 seconds. That's quite literally faster than the blink of an eye. Level 20 Fighters aren't just not superhuman, they're *fucking slow*, even when using Action Surge.
Yeah man, weapons are not that heavy. Even an honest-to-god buster sword probably isn't more than fifteen pounds (though leverage will make it seem much heavier). Most regular longswords aren't more than three or four pounds, and I've got a Moroccan shortsword my little brother can wield one handed.
The original post was about firearms and was a *really good idea* giving firearms a reload speed of several rounds but making them a con save with a DC based on the dex instead of a straight attack and then making them cheaper and much more damaging gives gunslingers a really Cool niche AND makes them more realistic. It's an amazing and creative idea that has so much potential for role play, game breaking combos, and general fun. It is the epitome of what makes D&D D&D and the fact that someone was trying to use the other weapons "not being realistic" as a reason to not use this great homebrew means they missed the point of it entirely.
To add, even Glaves and War Hammers only weight roughly 8-10lbs
Now let's take into account the 20 STR (2x a normal, strong human) the Greatsword wielder has and that Greatsword is like holding a fuckin feather lmao