It’s been a stupid week at work, so I have been spending most of my time at home watching sword fighting videos - historical swordfighting stuff. (Mostly, though not exclusively, this channel.) Interesting stuff. Lots of information on what swords were used and when, how weapons were used together, when they were most effective, now they work - what qualities make a sword cut better, why thrusts are better than cuts - that kind of thing. It's addictive. Once in a while, you come across things that make sense, but you maybe hadn't thought about before - like the fact that while in D&D swords are usually strength weapons and bows dex weapons, in fact, you have to be fairly strong to operate a real bow effectively (and very strong, and well trained, to operate a long bow), but you can operate a sword pretty effectively with fairly minimal strength. And - extending the contradiction - a long sword (that is, a two handed sword) requires less strength than a one handed sword (even something like a rapier.) Long swords weigh what - 3 pounds? But you operate them with two hands - rapiers and one handed swords are a couple pounds, not much less than a long sword (a rapier particularly, because the real ones are much longer and thinner than two handed swords, almost the same amount of steel pounded out into a long thin blade), though you have to operate them one handed. Now, I suppose the D&D rules are all pretty abstract - "strength" and "dexterity" are somewhat general terms for something not quite the same as what the real words mean - dex being more like hand eye coordination, strength being pure force - but it's still fascinating. Makes you think about who should be wielding what weapons.
All this started because I was thinking about the rules for D&D, particularly 5E - especially, the things that seem to be missing. There are a couple things that seem like they should be there - either as historical references, or because they are staples of previous editions of D&D, or even fantasy/adventure stories. Some of the 5E options seem too broad, too generic - like 2 weapon fighting. This is either difficult, if you don't have feats or the right fighting style or the right weapons (impossible without the right weapons, if you don't have the feat) - or two easy. If you take the feat - you can fight with any two one-handed weapons, more or less equally. And it seems to me that the rules ought to be more nuanced. They were in 3E - there were limits on what kinds of weapons you could use in the off-hand (without feats) - but you could use a dagger or short sword with a long sword without special training. That seems logical to me - even with training, you would be better off with a smaller weapon in the off hand - and I think that is the far more common historical style. Sword and dagger, especially rapier and dagger, seems to have been a very common style of fighting. But that isn't really there in the rules - I mean - the specific combination is not there. You can either use 2 light weapons, or you can use anything you want; the most common actual combination is not optimized in the rules.
On the other hand: watching these videos got me thinking about the rules as they are - and makes me think that the rules in 5E are not half bad. The main reason for using 2 weapons in fact is defense - specifically for defense in circumstances where you do not want to carry a shield. Shields are better defense - but shields are big and bulky and you can’t walk around town with them. (And there are circumstances where a shield would be inconvenient - like on a ship.) Swords are easy to carry - you can sheath them and hang them from a belt very easily. Having two gives you defensive advantages. The 5E rules for 2 weapon wielding works nicely for that: it allows you to get one extra attack (or a better extra attack), but doesn't really double your attacks. The fighting style doesn't help with defense (which might be a problem) - but the feats do. The 2 weapon feat specifically gives you +1 for having the second weapon - that's about right: it is about as useful as having a small shield. (Big shields are +2; bucklers aren't in the rules but would probably be +1. Bucklers should be in the rules - they seem to have been very widely used. They are, like swords, quite portable.) The defensive duelist lets you use any finesse weapon as a one time shield (with your reaction) - which also seems very realistic.
Though that raises an interesting technical question: how narrow is the definition of wielding? if you are holding a dagger in the off hand - presumably you can use it for defense (if you have this feat) - though does that break the Dueling fighting style? That gives you a bonus for using just one one-handed weapon - but does holding a weapon in the off hand break that? or do you have to use the weapon on the off hand - and does defense count as use? I have to say - this piece of the rules is one of the harder ones to swallow. If holding a weapon in the off hand is enough to break the style (cost you your +2 damage) - it implies that you can, in fact, fight better with, say, a small live pig in your off hand than with a dagger. It is a puzzle.
In the end - D&D is a game, and has to work as a game. But it is also a game meant as a simulation of a kind of reality - so it's interesting to see how it compares to reality. And the game itself is more interesting when it can serve as a model for the real world.
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