Sword-staff in 5E

[Ainsworth]

Would it be possible to create a sword staff similar in design to a glaive but instead of a d10 for damage you reduce it to that of a d6 or d8 take away the reach and give it finesse or versatile? So basically you can have an arcane assassin style character who uses a modified arcane focus quarter staff with a short sword on one end of the staff?

[GalacticAxekick]

Would it be possible to create a sword staff similar in design to a glaive but instead of a d10 for damage you reduce it to that of a d6 or d8 take away the reach and give it finesse or versatile?If your sword-staff is 1d6 slashing, reach, finesse, two-handed, it's underpowered. The whip has all of that without the two-handed penalty. So either treat it as a refluffed whip or raise the die to 1d8.

If it's 1d8 slashing, finesse, it's a slashing version of the rapier and totally fine.

If it's 1d8 slashing, versatile (1d10), it's a refluffed longsword and totally fine.

I personally think that treating the sword-staff as an ordinary glaive is ideal, because a glaive is literally a staff with a cutting blade at the end.


So basically you can have an arcane assassin style character who uses a modified arcane focus quarter staff with a short sword on one end of the staff? I guess? I don't see how this sword-staff would be particular to your arcane assassin concept, so I'm not sure why you'd bring it up, but yeah, your arcane assassin could wield such a weapon.

[johnkzin]

Great timing. I've been researching variations of the swordstaff (Swedish svardstav, Chinese pudao, Japanese nagamaki) lately, and was wondering about it in 5e as well.

My personal thoughts are:

The Swedish Svardstav is not widely known about, but was supposedly a longsword or arming-sword mounted on a staff. Straight blade (unlike the glaive and halberd). Basically, a longsword you could use for reach. For D&D purposes, that's basically a glaive or halberd (which are mechanically identical in D&D 5e anyway).

The pudao and the nagmaki are shorter (54" overall, half curved blade and half handle). The Pudao also has an iron ring at the butt-end. They're just short halberds, really. Use Halberd stats, minus reach and heavy.