Community

May 18, 2010 -- 7:14AM, Haldrik wrote:

Earlier in the post, I with the critique of the Char Op forum, came up with the following stats. The katana counts as a 'versatile' hand-and-a-half lightblade.

   Weapon Type: Katana
   Weapon Proficiency: +2
   Weapon Damage: 1d10
   Weapon Catagory: Superior Melee Weapon
   Weapon Group: Light Blade
   Weapon Property (Handedness): Versatile
   Weapon Property: High-Crit

These stats are reasonably useful

After going back to that thread and looking it over, I saw only one mechanical comment on those stats - which was not afterwards addressed.  The comment there paralleled my own questions in this thread, specifically:

May 13, 2010 -- 3:18PM, mplindustries wrote:

May 13, 2010 -- 1:52PM, Haldrik wrote:

Moreover, if someone plans to treat the katana as if it is a heavy blade, then just use one of the many heavyblade weapon types that already exist:

You mean, as opposed to making it a Versatile Light Blade with a low hit bonus, making it utterly unappealing to every class that could concievably abuse it?

[Emphasis added.]

May 21, 2010 -- 8:36PM, ungulateman wrote:

While everyone is going to have an opinion of their own on this, I see no reason to make a katana anything more than a re-fluffed bastard sword, or if they're very common in your setting (sort of a pulp-Asiatic theme?), a longsword.

ungulateman

There may, indeed, not be any reason in your campaign. In fact, I would imagine that the typical D&D campaign has no need to address this issue at all, since katanas are not frequently in the predominantly European medieval fantasy genre.

However, I can think of a few setting-specific reasons why one would desire different, unique stats for a Katana, just as one would expect different, unique stats for any weapons so poetically evocative as this one. I have mine, but I doubt they would apply to anyone else's game.

May 21, 2010 -- 8:59PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Oh, I can understand the desire, and frankly the 1d8 brutal 1 thing probably works OK. Its basically filling the same niche as the bastard sword and it would generally be a toss up which one a character would get more benefit from. I certainly wouldn't be horrified if those stats showed up on a katana in a supplement.

My concern with the light blade version is that simply put nobody outside of rogues has any reason to want to use light blades mechanically. A fighter or warlord COULD make use of such a weapon, but the feat support is inferior to the heavy blades and at the same time surpassing the rapier mechanically is just a gimme for rogues, who least of all martial classes says to me 'samurai'. Not that a samurai modeled as a rogue is inconceivable by any means, but it would seem very odd if this was the only sort of build that used a katana. Making it a bastard sword or a very close mechanical analog thereof puts it in the hands of exactly the classes most thematically appropriate. Fighters can wield one, warlords can easily do so as well, rogues can do so at a cost of 2 feats, and in fact most of your other weapon using classes can use it effectively as well.

And mechanics aside, a katana feels like a heavy blade. It has heft, and it has power behind it, much like any of the broad-bladed european swords, which are all heavy blades. That's why I categorize them as heavy blades, because of the feel, rather than because it's mechanically more appealing (although that's a good reason too). My experience with real-life katanas just says "heavy blade" to me.