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[Untrustedlife]

A rapier is a thin, light sharp-pointed sword used for thrusting. That is ubiquitous in fantasy but does not exist in dwarf fortress.



I always mod it in anyway, but it would be nice to have these in vanilla, they are ubiquitous in fantasy.

Heres my raw example which toady should just basically copy and add, basically its just a sword thats better at stabbing and worse at slicing and has some flavor. Because what bard doesn't want to have a rapier. I don't know why dwarf fortress has scimitars but not rapiers.

When you attack it should say something like "*standard df combat text* with the point of the iron rapier" (You can see this flavor if you install and try this, it feels very flavored compared to the vanilla sword.

Code: [Select]

item_rapier

[OBJECT:ITEM]

[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_RAPIER]
[NAME:Rapier:Rapier]
[SIZE:300]
[SKILL:SWORD]
[TWO_HANDED:27500]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:5000]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:EDGE:30000:3000:slash:slashes:point:1250]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:4:4]
[ATTACK:EDGE:20:6000:stab:stabs:point:1000]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:1:1]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:60000:6000:slap:slaps:flat:1250]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:100:1000:strike:strikes:pommel:1000]
[ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]

(Of course you need to also enable the weapon in the entity raws aswell, but thats very easy, so i wont post that here)


There is absolutely no reason to not have rapiers there are no missing mechanics that are central to having rapiers in the game.

[Ninjabread]

Pretty sure rapiers aren't in there because DF weapons are kinda left open to the player as to exactly what it is. Note, we don't have greatswords, montantes, or zweihanders, we have the generic "two-handed sword". Look a little closer, and you'll realise, we don't even have shortswords and longswords, we have short swords and long swords. There's a space. That human monster slayer isn't necessarily stabbing that trog with a longsword, it's a sword that is long. It might be a longsword, it might be a rapier, it might be a bastard sword, that's up to you as the narrator. Scimitars are probably called scimitars because it's the most iconic curved sword out there, and "scimitar" is shorter than "curved sword"

[Untrustedlife]

And the rapier isnt Iconic? Really. There is a mechanical difference between a rapier and a generic sword. We have halbards that are different from pikes and have both, we have morning stars which are different from maces and have both. And rapiers are ubiquitous in fantasy. It would be a sword for stabbing instead of slashing, its probabbly more iconic then a scimitar.

[George_Chickens]

I'd love to see rapiers as a sidegrade to shortswords for dorfs.

[Ninjabread]

And the rapier isnt Iconic?

 That isn't the point I was making with scimitars being iconic. The word "scimitar" is used instead of the words "curved sword", because the scimitar is so iconic that those two are almost interchangeable.

There is a mechanical difference between a rapier and a generic sword [...] It would be a sword for stabbing instead of slashing

That's not a significant mechanical difference, they are still used the same way, generally speaking. You slash, you stab, you bash with the hilt. Introducing something that just specialises in one of those but still uses them all isn't significantly mechanically different.

We have halbards that are different from pikes and have both.

They are significantly mechanically different. A pike is to the spear what the two-handed sword is to the long sword. The word halberd is often used to reference any and/or all non-spearlike polearms, such as billhooks, poleaxes, glaives, e.c.t. and this is shown in game as it is classed as an axe rather than a spear.

we have morning stars which are different from maces and have both

Being sharp, rather than blunt, is a pretty significant difference.

And rapiers are ubiquitous in fantasy

That's irrelevant when all weapons are generalised. Greatswords are also ubiquitous in fantasy, but they are lumped in with every other really big sword.

its probably more iconic then a scimitar.

I very much doubt it, and again, that isn't the point I was making about the scimitar.

I'd love to see rapiers as a sidegrade to shortswords for dorfs.

I'd say it'd be more of a longsword sidegrade, with smallswords being the sidegrade to shortswords.

Having looked them up on wikipedia for that link though, they're both post-1400s, which definitely doesn't bode well for them being included in vanilla.

[therahedwig]

On top of that, I am pretty sure rapiers are from after the 1400 cuttoff, as they evolved alongside the fencing fighting style, which itself is a rather urban 'civilized' form of swordsmanship(Wikipedia lists their inception in Spain, 1500). And yes, having held real-life antique rapiers, they are very long, so I am not seeing them as easy to wield by a short creature.

That said, if we're ever going to see a vanilla weaponry update and will also see things like bastard swords, katanas, kopesh, I would welcome the rapier among them

[Grand Sage]

I doubt that. DF has always seemed like it took its items form europe and america, not asia or whereever the kopesh is from (greece? egypt?)

One thing i like to note, is that the guardians of spoilers already have procedually generated weapons, amongst them "thin swords" IIRC. those could easily be interpreted as rapiers. they do funktion just like a sword though...

I would also like to concurr with the OP, in that rapiers are awesome, but just like Therahedwig said, probably from after the cutoff.

[therahedwig]

It's one of those weird Ancient Egyptian half rounded swords, and the current tombs are pyramids... I suspect the geographical cut-off, if there is any is more out of place-holderism.

[GoblinCookie]

I'm pretty sure swords will all be procedurally generated in the end anyway.   

[Grand Sage]

very fair points, both of you!

[Entropy]

A rapier? What are you, some kind of elf?
Hardly seems dwarfy.

As has been mentioned, they are renaissance rather than medieval, tend to be far longer than could be comfortably handled by someone short, and a level of specificity in blade type which is not likely to be indulged. I don't expect to see the infinite variations between messers, falchions, backswords, or specifying the Oakeshott typology of a blade.
As much as some of us can get nerdy about swords, doing justice to the infinite variety they come in would be too much even for something as esoteric as DF.

[Untrustedlife]

A rapier? What are you, some kind of elf?
Hardly seems dwarfy.

As has been mentioned, they are renaissance rather than medieval, tend to be far longer than could be comfortably handled by someone short, and a level of specificity in blade type which is not likely to be indulged. I don't expect to see the infinite variations between messers, falchions, backswords, or specifying the Oakeshott typology of a blade.
As much as some of us can get nerdy about swords, doing justice to the infinite variety they come in would be too much even for something as esoteric as DF.

The game has way more then just dwarves in it and there are already weaponsa dwarves cant use. Also, adventure mode. I didnt realize rapiers popped up after the cutoff though.

[Shonai_Dweller]

A rapier? What are you, some kind of elf?
Hardly seems dwarfy.

As has been mentioned, they are renaissance rather than medieval, tend to be far longer than could be comfortably handled by someone short, and a level of specificity in blade type which is not likely to be indulged. I don't expect to see the infinite variations between messers, falchions, backswords, or specifying the Oakeshott typology of a blade.
As much as some of us can get nerdy about swords, doing justice to the infinite variety they come in would be too much even for something as esoteric as DF.

The game has way more then just dwarves in it and there are already weaponsa dwarves cant use. Also, adventure mode. I didnt realize rapiers popped up after the cutoff though.

Don't think it matters too much with weapons. That's not quite the same as "technology". And as Goblincookie says, we'll probably get procgen weapons eventually, and no doubt the parameters will be varied enough to produce thin pointy swords.

Hopefully (unlike instruments) with meaningful names like "Elven sword" or with more cultural granuality, "Swamp-Elf Halberd" leaving you with a vague idea of what's coming, with more details  learned quickly by one examination (in each new world).

[therahedwig]

Toady actually addressed this in one of the FotF replies this year:

2. In regards to Mythgen and items: Completely random worlds probably will have some bizarrely named equipment. How will it be communicated to the player that "zbfkl"s or whatever random jumbles of letters are infact, swords? This also extends to other things: As far as i know there isn't any indication in-game that a piece of armor is shaped, for example.

2. FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7897900#msg7897900
Instruments are a special case, since people are used to encountering instruments with various names from various cultures, more than most other objects, in my experience (though I'm not stating a thesis here.)  And they generally aren't a life or death object.  For those, you can see in the vaults that we just call them e.g. <adjective> swords right now, generally.  I'm not sure how far we'll attempt to step beyond that at default settings.  There is a possible mixture where items get both descriptive and cultural names.  Some existing games already extend that backwards to items we just use regular names for, giving descriptive names that give way as you learn about them, and that's possible depending on the context.  But I don't intend to throw people into a complete mess.

[Grand Sage]

Shonai, I tend to disagree with you on this one. while, yes, the cutoff is mainly technological, and not cultural, the reason why the rapier wasn't invented before the renaissance, is that they aren't really feasible if not made from steel. copper rapires would bend or break very quickly, and iron ones would simply be to heavy for how a rapier is used. So since dwarves are the only ones producing steel (of undefined quality, may i add) it seems rather impossible to have them in DF. Realisticly, that is.