Semi-Historical Arms and Armor 0.7:

The following are some notes about the weapons and armor tables in D&D 5th edition, as they pertain to their relationship to modern academic understandings of historical arms and armor. (Don’t hurt me, I’ve only a minor in anthropology.)

In general, 5th edition is far more accurate to ancient and medieval sources regarding these topics than prior editions, but for the sake of balance and ease of play without the onerous restrictions of reality, there are still some expected incongruences.

This article attempts to explain some particular facets about the use of arms and armor throughout our long, shared history, and to offer some suggestions (imbalanced as they may be) on how such items would have been used in particular times and places. tl;dr points: - In the interest of compatibility and minimal interference, most of the changes below are either fluff explanations or minor additions (rather than substitutions) of rules. - Arms and armor are all too heavy. Reduce by 30-50% if anyone cares about counting encumbrance. - Spears and polearms are underrepresented in vanilla. - War-archery takes a lot of strength; conversely, swinging around a sword emphasizes dexterity. Balance is an extremely important part of melee fighting. Falling prone is an invitation to be quickly stabbed to death. - Studded leather is stupid.

Armor: We rename armor to fit with the general gist of the fluff descriptions of each armor on p. 142 of the PHB.

Rename Studded Leather to Brigandine. Studded leather is an erroneous modern reference to the way the inside of Brigandine looked; steel or iron platelets were studded to the inside of the leather jack and were not generally visible from the outside. It is those metal platelets, and not the studs, that offer the improved protection of that armor over just leather. More extensive forms of armor made from cured, thick leather (cuir bouilli) would also be roughly in this category.

Chain Shirt can be referred to as Byrnie/Hauberk, or more generally as a Mail Shirt. It’s a bit ahistorical, but most people know what a chain shirt refers to, and so cultural osmosis wins this time round.

Rename Scale Mail to Scale Armor. In general, “scale” armors, with the scale plates attached to a leather or linen back and not (usually) punched together, predate or are concurrent with early mail, and, especially in its earlier usages during the Bronze Age, did not include mail. Mail with scale-shaped iron or steel plates either sandwiched between or attached on top are a much later invention and are not this category of armor.

This is amongst the heaviest type of armor used by bronze age infantry. Muscle cuirass, if it was ever used in actual battle, is roughly of this type. Roman Republic-era lorica squamata is of this type of armor. This armor is better suited to warm climes (because it ‘breathes’) compared to more encompassing metal armors and thus continued to be in production well after the introduction and proliferation of mail armor.

Rename and replace Ring Mail with Transitional Armor. Ring Mail is ahistorical and only attested to by artistic license, mostly on triumphal arches. Transitional armor is representative of “heavy” armor prior to the rediscovery of trip hammer technology allowing large steel plates to be readily formed. Transitional plate armors show a wide variety of experimentation with plate placement. What separates this armor from later armors is that the plates tended to be smaller and cover fewer areas.

Chain Mail. This category also includes Plated Mail or, more generally, Lamellar (but not splint mail, which is ahistorical). Mail as the sole armor (with no plates over it) tends to be quite heavy and thick. Comfortable to wear for long periods of time and quite resilient to rust (due to the constant rubbing of the chains against one another), full suits of mail were so disproportionately common as armor throughout the migration and medieval periods that many contemporary writers simply refer to this equipment as ‘armor’.

Plated mail or Lamellar is head-to-toe mail in conjunction with some steel plating, usually along the chest or abdomen as a single set of armor. The type of mail used in this armor is typically somewhat finer and lighter than mail armor used as the primary form of armor. Plates or platelets could be fitted within the layer of mail (as opposed to worn above mail). This armor was common throughout Western and Southern Asia and Eastern Europe throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, up until the modern era. The mail and plate armor was typically worn over some form of padded armor, either linen (in the West) or cotton (in the East).

Replace Splint with Splinted Plate, Laminar or Four Mirror Armor. In this armor, steel plates or strips were worn over a full set of mail armor. Often at least two to four large metal plates were used to protect the wearer’s torso/abdomen, sides, and back. The heaviest of high medieval and crusader-era armor is typically of this type. Although the Lorica Segmentata is technically of this category, the lack of full-body mail and armor across joints may bump its protection down a bit.

Rename Plate as Late-Medieval Plate, Gothic Plate, Renaissance Plate, or, generically, Heavy Plate. Many depictions of fantasy ‘medieval’ plate armor are inspired by renaissance-period armors.

Almost all the armors presented in the PHB are too heavy and are on the high end of spectrum of weights of surviving pieces of armor. Historical armors would typically be in a range from 50% PHB weights up to PHB weights for basically every armor type.

Arms: We begin with some player choices that emphasize various historical points, chief among which is the dichotomy between battlefield and personal fighting. There is also the sort of odd melee-strength, ranged- dexterity dichotomy which is also fairly ahistorical.

Fighting Style: There are a number of fighting techniques or styles that are not covered in the PHB for various reasons. For instance, many historical martial styles focused on the use of a single-handed weapon in one hand and an open hand in the other without a shield. As depicted in numerous medieval treatises, an open hand would be quite useful, particularly in grappling or deflecting an opposing polearm. In core 5e, this is an objectively poor choice (you’d always take a shield), so some rules are added here to amend that.

Fighting Style: Baroque: The following feature can be selected by classes that have the Fighting Style class feature.

While you have a melee weapon in one hand and no shield or weapon in the other, that weapon counts as a finesse weapon and you gain +1 AC.

Fighting Style: Tempo/Flourish: (this is the late medieval German school of fencing emphasizing unarmored and armored longsword techniques, following 14th century master Johannes Liechtenauer) The following feature can be selected by classes that have the Fighting Style class feature.

You are trained to measure the rhythm of battle and counter foes by beating an adversary’s attack. You may treat the following weapons as finesse weapons: quarterstaff, longsword, great sword, estoc, partisan and short spear.

If you are not wearing heavy armor, you also gain +1 to attack rolls you make with all melee weapons.

Fighting Style: Ward: (again, following Liechtenauer) The following feature can be selected by classes that have the Fighting Style class feature.

You have trained extensively in using two-handed weapon stances to counter and deflect enemy attacks. While any warrior has trained in some of these stances, you are a master of them. These stances are particularly formulated for longsword combat, but similar varieties abound for other two-handed weapons.

Choose one of the following stances. At 5th, 10th, and 15th level, you may choose an additional stance. Only one stance may be active at a given time. You can switch to a known stance on your turn as a bonus action. At 5th level you can change your stance as a free action on your turn.

German Guards: Close/Plow Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands you gain +1 to AC.

Low/Fool’s Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands you deal +2 damage on all Opportunity Attacks. You also gain a +2 bonus to initiative.

Roof/Day Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands and you roll a critical hit, roll an additional die of damage equal to the weapon’s damage die and add it to the total damage.

Ox/Unicorn Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands you have reach (5ft).

Near/Tail/Iron Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands, you deal +1 damage.

Wrath Guard: While you are wielding a weapon, after a successful melee hit you may immediately use your bonus action to force the hit target to take a Strength saving throw (DC = 8+ proficiency bonus + str or dex mod (your choice)) or be pushed 10ft directly away from you.

Italian Guards: Boar’s Tooth Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands and are hit by a melee attack, you may use your reaction to add ½ your proficiency bonus to AC, potentially causing that attack to miss.

Crown Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands you gain advantage on strength (athletics) checks to disarm an opponent.

Extended Tail Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands, when you make a successful attack, one creature within 5ft of the original target takes str mod or dex mod damage (whichever is highest).

Long Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands and an opponent misses a melee attack against you, you gain +2 to your next melee attack roll against that opponent.

Proud Woman’s Guard: While you are wielding a weapon in two hands, creatures that gain bonuses (including advantage) on attacks against you due to the presence of allies within 5ft (such as pack tactics) do not gain that bonus.

Feats: The UA weapon mastery feats (2016) are rather hit or miss with regards to historical authenticity. Here’s some additional suggestions to patch things up, as well as some weapon mastery feats for weapons not covered in the UA: (feats for mounted archery, renaissance hammer usage, and shortbow battlefield techniques coming soon ™)

Close Encounters: Shock tactics, such as those used by Roman legionnaires, are highly effective in a wide variety of situations, from breaking infantry formations to fighting in the enclosed space below deck of a ship. You are particularly adept or trained at getting past an opponent’s spear-wall or shield-wall, and engaging the enemy in very close quarters where compact formations and reach weapons become a liability.

You gain the following benefits while wielding a dagger, hand-axe, javelin, light hammer, net, scimitar, sickle, short sword, or war-pick: - +1 bonus to attack with the weapon. (for consistency with UA feats). - You may interact with any number of the above weapons carried on your character as a free action on your turn. (PHB p.190) - Whenever you take the Dash action, you may make a single free attack at any point along the movement. This attack must be thrown (and, by definition, the weapon must have the Thrown property) as a ranged attack. If this attack hits, you have Advantage on your next melee attack against that target until the end of your next turn. - Whenever you are adjacent to a target that has Reach and you have Advantage on your attack roll, the critical range for your weapon is +1.

Mail-splitter: Axes, particularly war-axes with large, thin heads, of which the Danes famously used during the 12th century, were exceptionally noted for their ability to cause massive structural failure of mail armor, the most typical armor worn by ‘heavy’ infantry of the time. The Danes’ fierce reputation as warriors (see: the Varangian Guard or the legendary warrior at Stamford Bridge) cemented the legacy of axes as the weapon of choice for wintery warriors of the North.

You gain the following benefits while wielding the hand-axe, battle-axe, great-axe, or any polearm with an axe-head: - +1 bonus to attack with the weapon. - ignore up to 5 points of damage reduction (from the Heavy Armor Master feat, for example) when dealing damage with this weapon. - Whenever you have advantage and both die would have hit, the target’s AC is reduced by 2 for the remainder of the encounter. This effect can only apply to a foe once (but may affect multiple creatures if each are hit with the above circumstances) during the encounter. - your critical range with the weapon is +1. - on a critical hit with this weapon you deal an additional weapon damage die in bonus damage.

Phalanx: The use of long, two-handed polearms has a storied history, from Macedonian phalanxes to Renaissance-era pike-men. The use of these two-handed weapons precludes the use of a shield, so dense formations and/or significant body armor is typical.

You gain the following benefits when using a glaive, halberd, pike, or polearm in two-hands: - +1 bonus to attack with the weapon. - Whenever you have advantage on a melee attack roll, if the lower of your two d20 rolls would have also hit, you push or pull the opponent by 5ft if the new space is unoccupied. As per p. 195 of the PHB, this movement does not provoke Opportunity Attacks. - you may set the weapon for a charge, as per UA feats p. 3 - for each ally within 5ft who is also wielding a two-handed polearm/glaive/halberd/pike, you gain +1 AC, up to a maximum of +3. - You may make an opportunity attack against an enemy within reach who spends movement to stand up from being prone. The target has the Prone condition for this attack (the attack has Advantage if within 5ft, Disadvantage if from further than 5ft)

Shield and Spear: Shield and (short) Spear is an effective, age-old combination that was extremely common on ancient and medieval battlefields. A shield protected one self as well as nearby allies, and a spear offered range while minimizing the risk of exposing oneself. This feat is differentiated from the use of two-handed spears, which is described in Phalanx.

You gain the following benefits when using a one-handed spear, javelin, partisan, falx or similar weapon, with or without a shield, or with a two-handed polearm (including halberd, glaive, and pike): - +1 bonus to attack with the weapon - you provide +1 AC to one ally within 5ft of you, batting aside attacks with shield or weapon. You may choose a different ally within 5ft each round on your turn as a free action. If you use your action to Help an Ally, in addition to the normal benefits (ally gains AD, p. 192), the ally gains +3 to AC instead of +1. - if a creature within reach makes an attack against the target in which you provided the AC bonus as described above, you may use your reaction to make a melee attack against that creature. - you may set the weapon for a charge, as per UA feats p. 3 - if an ally knocks an enemy prone within range, you may immediately use your reaction to attack that enemy, as if making an Opportunity Attack. You have an additional +1 bonus to this attack as long as the enemy is prone.

War-Archery: Bows made for war are of an entirely different nature than ones used for hunting. A bow with a 60lb. draw weight is sufficient to kill most game, up to and including wild boar. A longbow with a 120 or even 130lb. draw, on the other hand, is very specifically designed to pierce armor (though typically this meant mail armor, as even these monstrous draw weights would not penetrate plate). Now, arrows made for war-bows are thicker and more robust than arrows used for lighter bows, simply to resist shattering. Extensive training, strength, and discipline was required to accurately lay a consistent rate of fire upon the enemy.

You gain the following benefits while wielding any bow with the heavy and two-handed keywords: - +1 bonus attack with the weapon - when making a ranged attack with this bow, instead of the rules on p. 194 of the PHB, you may use Strength attribute modifier as your ranged attack modifier (and thus, as per p. 196, to damage as well). - you may attack a target up to twice the maximum range of your bow. This attack suffers disadvantage just as if it were an attack between normal and maximum range, and furthermore deals only the base damage die of the weapon and does not benefit from any bonuses to damage from ability score modifiers. This represents a long shot on a ballistic trajectory.

New Arms Name Cost Damage Damage Weight Properties (gp) Type Simple Melee Spear, short 1 1d6 Piercing 2 lbs. Thrown (20/60), versatile (1d8) (Hasta/Angon/Assegai/ Falarica)

Martial Melee Estoc 20 1d10 Piercing 4.5 lbs. Two-handed Partisan/Falx 1d6 Piercing or 4 lbs. Reach, thrown (10/30), versatile Slashing (1d8) Polearm (specialized) 20 1d10 Special 5 lbs. Heavy, reach, two-handed, polearm** Martial Ranged Repeating Crossbow ** polearms have polearm modifications (see below)

New Rules: Polearm: polearms may take polearm modifications.

General Changes: As with armors, the PHB weights for Arms are too heavy by about 30-50%.

New Arms: Estoc: An estoc looks quite like a thin longsword but it has blunt edges and usually a diamond cross-section that ends in a sharp, stout point. This makes the Estoc quite useful for piercing mail, which was its primary function.

Spear, Short: spears varying in length up to the height of the wielder are variously useful because their shorter length allows them to stab quickly and accurately, and also allows them to be thrown if necessary. This entry is here in contrast with the Partisan/Falx below.

Partisan/Falx: If you want to build a spear with the intention of keeping your enemies away from you, you will make a long shaft with a small, light metal spearhead; a heavier or longer spearhead just makes the end away from your grip heavier, and due to the increased torque, would make the end less precisely maneuverable and more tiring to use. A light, small spearhead, however, means that the weapon is mostly restricted to thrusting motions. That describes most spears.

By contrast, a larger bladed spearhead could be used for parrying or slashing, as is the case with a Partisan or Falx. Weapons of this type can be found as far back as bronze-age Scotland but became popular again in the late medieval period (though possibly less as a battlefield weapon and more for ceremony). This weapon is typically shorter and lighter than the two-handed polearms described below.

Polearms: Polearms are often highly specialized weapons with modifications for different tasks. A polearm will typically have two or three different bits or heads at one or both ends of a long wooden stick. At the price indicated in the table, a polearm is equipped with one (1) of the following heads at no extra cost or weight. Additional heads increase cost and weight. Generally, a polearm can be fitted with up to 3 heads per end (though very few weapons outside of ceremonial or judicial trial weapons have heads at both ends).

- Axe head (slashing damage, +1 gp, +1 lbs) - Blade head (slashing damage, +1 gp, +1 lbs) - Greataxe head (this head deals 1d12 slashing damage, +10 gp, +2 lbs) - Great blade head (this head deals 1d12 slashing damage, +15 gp, +1.5 lbs) - Spear point/Spike (piercing damage, +1 gp, +1 lbs) - Curved Hook/Thorn or Crow’s beak (Bec de Corbin) (piercing damage, +5 gp, +1 lbs, double proficiency on trip/disarm attempts) - Hammer head (bludgeoning damage, +5 gp, +1 lbs) - Maul/Great hammer head (this head deals 1d12 bludgeoning damage, +15 gp, +5 lbs)

The following are examples of polearms with varying heads:

Danish Axe, Sparth Axe, or Bardiche: polearm with a heavy, crescent-shaped Axe or Greataxe head.

Fauchard, Glaive, Voulge, Naginata, Svärdstav: polearm with Blade or Greatblade head in either concave (Fauchard) or convex (Glaive) positions. Later Fauchards also add a Spear point as a second head. Polearms with secondary concave-edged blades are sometimes given names with –Fauchard attached afterwards.

Guisarmes: polearms designed for dismounting horsemen, with a Curved Hook. Bladed polearms with hooks are often given names with –Guisarme attached afterwards, such as a Voulge-Guisarmes.

Corseque or Ranseur: polearms with three-bladed head, typically a Spear point and two blade heads.

Halberd or Poleaxe: polearm with an Axe/Great-Axe head, a Spike, and a Hook. Note that historically a halberd is much longer than a poleaxe with a much stouter spike, and its axe-head is typically pointed towards the user, rather than perpendicularly to the haft.

Bec de corbin or Lucerne Hammer: polearm with Hook, Hammer head, and Spear point; which name the weapon is given depends on which head was the primary implement.

Some words: Legal, Cultural, and Practical Issues (Messing around with a Messer): A Messer is a long-bladed (~20 inches), single edge weapon often with a short concave edge on the blunted end toward the tip and a flaring Nagel perpendicular to the cross guard. To the modern viewer it looks like a sword, but because of the construction of its tang it was, by Germanic law, a “knife”, and thus, unlike a sword, legal for the common peasant to wear.

For our purposes, the point of the Messer is that the considerations for what weapon to have is not simply down to “how much damage it does” or how well it works with a given class feature. Historically, legal and cultural traditions played a huge role, as did how heavy and comfortable a weapon was to wear. People didn’t walk around everyday wielding halberds unless they wanted to attract a good deal of unwanted attention.

For instance, take the famous Hispanic Gladius. Gladius have a prominent curvature to the distal point of the blade, the famous characteristic of the weapon. What was interesting was the later development of triangle- shaped bits towards the cross-guard of the weapon. What were they for? Greater integrity? Better weight distribution?

Well, as it turns out, your scabbard has to be as wide as the widest edge of the blade, and if the blade closer to the hilt is thinner than the tip, then it rattles around in the scabbard a lot. And as any modern soldier will tell you, loose gear is extraordinarily annoying. So this is fixed by making the hilt end a bit wider.

Wearability and comfort is actually an important consideration, as the vast majority of militia and drawn up soldiers in the ancient and medieval world (apart from career soldiers, of course) would likely never get into a single battlefield fight in their entire lives.

(Sidenote: this is why spiked armor didn’t exist historically.)