The forgotten weapon: Short Sword

[Pnumbra]

I might be mistaken, but short swords have been ignored. There are no enhancements or feats for specialized use. Is this by design?

[acemonkey]

I might be mistaken, but short swords have been ignored. There are no enhancements or feats for specialized use. Is this by design?

It's the only weapon at the intersection of Cormyrean Knight Training and Swashbuckling, I think, so while neither are specific to short swords they seem designed to go together.

[droid327]

They're also included in Ninja Spy, which makes them centering as well for the rest of Monk stuff.

[unbongwah]

Adding e.g. a morale bonus to critical multiplier like Knights Training would make short swords overperform for Swashbuckling and we certainly wouldn't want that. Everyone knows Swashbuckler is OP enough already.

[Grailhawk]

Base desired crit profiles with Improved Critical and Competence Bonus
14-20 x3 (Light Weapons) or 16-20 x4 (Heavy Weapons)

Shortsword Base 17-20 x2 (w/ IC)
Shortsword Swashbuckler 15-20 x3 with Competence and IC
Shortsword Ninja Spy 16-20 x3 with Competence and IC

IMO what is needed is a feat that increases Critical Threat by 2 when you have IC and are not Swashbuckling but increases Threat by 1 when you are Swashbuckling.

What I would do to address this is change Swashbuckling to not double Competence Bonus with IC. Then add a new feat (call it Scoundrels Training) that adds moral Bonus and does double the bonus with IC finally have Swashbuckling auto grant this new feat.

Weapon(s)	Competence Bonus from Swashbuckling	Moral Bonus from Feat
Kukri, Rapier	+1 Multiplier	N/A
Light Pick	+1 Threat	+1 Threat, no increase with IC
Dagger	+1 Threat, +1 Multiplier	+1 Insight bonus Critical Multiplier*
Shortsword, Throwing Dagger	+1 Threat, +1 Multiplier	+1, or +2 w/ IC to Threat
Handaxe	+2 Threat	+1, or +2 w/ IC to Threat
Light Mace, Light Hammer, Throwing Hammer	+2 Threat, +1 Multiplier	+1 Threat, no increase with IC
Kama, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe	+2 Threat, +1 Multiplier	+1, or +2 w/ IC to Threat

* Did daggers that way to prevent craziness with Rogue Assassins who already have a better then Base profile (15-20 x4) swash would only be 16-20 x4 + Exploit Weaknesses has probably made this the best weapon for them ... but with no option for Charisma to hit and damage making it ok IMO

Not perfect could use some more work but close, the Dagger change is the hardest to work out might be wise to just drop it from the new feat but then you need to have Swash continue to double the Competence bonus which is not homogeneous ...

[LightBear]

Ahh, swashbuckling. It used to be that you could crit like 75% of the time with the right short sword.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Back when the Sub-T 1st opened, HoX path, the mindflayer chest, I got a min lvl 10 WoP short sword.

Even today on certain builds it's a viable weapon.

Improving the crit range by 1 would help them a lot. (and I could care less about swashbucklers)

[Pnumbra]

Wonderful feedback everyone, I thank you. With that said, the only thing that makes short sword useful is the SB class. This seems a bit shortsighted, ergo, my question. The Ninja tree gives us att/damage but then focuses on dagger master. These are iconic weapons in history and should have some semblance of their of value outside of SB.

[Saekee]

from The Underpowered thread I offered this:

What: short swords
Why: Despite many having expanded threat, their lack of multiplier such as even longsword’s can get now with knight’s training make them a flavor trap. Ninja’s are not strong enough to justify that route and only bards seem to be able to make them handy—but a dagger with Vistani is simply better there too

Suggestions: 1) Feat: Legionaire. the weapon of the Roman Legions...how art though denigrated...I would give it superior abilities with Tower shields since the stabbing motion is fluid—eg when used with a tower shield, gain x% doublestrike or something
2) Feat: Dimarchaemus. when using identical shortswords in each hand, give full offhand damage and +10% offhand chance. They become like fangs with even weight and honors that gladiatorial style. This will synergize with ninjas while limiting them to named weapon, eg two razorends or two envenomed blades, or rare identical lootgen (or just allow any two lootgen). In this way you move beyond the heavy focus of crit crit to raw hitting

Wonderful feedback everyone, I thank you. With that said, the only thing that makes short sword useful is the SB class. This seems a bit shortsighted, ergo, my question. The Ninja tree gives us att/damage but then focuses on dagger master. These are iconic weapons in history and should have some semblance of their of value outside of SB.

Ninja tier 5 is very good in heroics even for wraps—+50% DS at that level is strong. It is weak at cap due to so many builds getting high DS then anyway so becomes redundant. Ninjas need something more interesting in the tree to scale at cap better.

[droid327]

the only thing that makes short sword useful is the SB class. This seems a bit shortsighted

There are plenty of other examples of weapons that are only competitive or useful when paired with a specific tree or class or something...Unarmed is only useful with Shintao monk, Xbow is only useful with Inqui, Maul is only useful with Silvanus - even the example you used, Dagger, is only so good when handcuffed to VKF

I dont see whats wrong with saying Shortsword is a Swashbuckler weapon, and especially for CHA based PDK Swashes, and having that be a viable niche for it. Not every weapon needs to be usable by every melee class. Its still a lot better than Greatclubs or Throwers right now...

[LightBear]

Now darts or throwing hammers, those are overlooked for some tie now.