Macquahuitl (Weapon)

[Rainspattered]

Finding nothing in any of my D&D sourcebooks on this Aztec club/blade, I thought I'd come up with a set of statistics of my own. It's based around historical accounts of the blade being able to chop off the head of a conquistador's horse more easily than a sword could, so I gave it the same damage as a bastard sword. Since it was a club with embedded blades, I gave it either bludgeoning or slashing damage, as one could hit with the non-bladed sides easily to bludgeon.

Exotic Weapon
One Handed
1d10 Bludgeoning or Slashing
x3 critical
7 lbs
120 gp (obsidian is expensive and rare in most places, one found in a native setting would be much less expensive, probably)

I can't think of any other basic weapo ndetails needed, if you have any, please submit them here.

[Fax Celestis]

Obsidian is fragile. Perhaps on a natural 1 part of the obsidian shatters, and the weapon deals 1 less damage until repaired, which is cumulative. Perhaps Craft (Weaponsmithing) at DC 15 + number of repairs needed.

[TheOOB]

The problum here is that without a drawback of some kind this weapon is essentially a directly better dwarven waraxe. It's deals the same damage, has the same crit, but has two damage types where as the axe has one.

I'd suggest making a change, perhaps lowering the crit to x2, to make it more balanced.

[XtheYeti]

Obsidian is fragile. Perhaps on a natural 1 part of the obsidian shatters, and the weapon deals 1 less damage until repaired, which is cumulative.

And make it have a -1 to the attack to since it would become unbalanced

[Fax Celestis]

No, I wouldn't go that far. Obsidian is merely very sharp volcanic glass, so there's no reason that breaking a few bits of it should change the significant weight of the item. It would, however, cut down on its damage potential.

[XtheYeti]

How many times could the wepon be broken before it would become unusable? (probly 10 but who knows.)

[Fax Celestis]

That's what I'd say, really.

[Rainspattered]

10 would be sensible to me, since 1d10-10 can never be more than 0, so the weapon would be considered broken. Also, such a drawback would be accurate (although Macquahuitl are essentially axes that can be used as bludgeons, in terms of their technique and effectiveness, so that would be accurate, if unbalanced) and solve the Dwarven Waraxe balance issue. Thanks, I didn't even think of the obsidian blades breaking.

[kakkerlak]

i fail to see why anyone would want to buy one of these. a dwarven war axe would be cheaper and it wouldn't break, also it wouldn't be that hard to lug a great club around too to handle blugeoning (i know i can't spell worth crap leave me alone!) damage. i believe that if you are going add this in you would either need to make it alot cheaper or take away the avalibility of dwarvean war axes in cirtian areas of your world. sorry if i seem to be playing devils advocate but to me it seems about as useful as the blackpowder pistol is over the heavy cross bow.

[Rainspattered]

Not all of character is bout mechanics, kakkerlak. Second, weapon familiarities would be different for different people, third, its price depends on its area. It's hard to find in many areas, but in the jungles it's native to, the price owuld be much lower. Second, having one weapon with both damage types is unbelievably useful. You don't have to switch weapons for a new damage type and save precious weight for more treasure.
It would mainly be a stylistic choice. Honestly, I don't know anybody who chooses between axe and sword based on crit differences. It's what their character would weild.

[TheOOB]

Couldn't you just make one with steel (or mithral if steel is too heavy) to offset the disadvantage?

[Fax Celestis]

Except obsidian is much much sharper than steel. They use it in surgery (particulary ocular surgery) because it's one of the few substances known to man that are very easy to get to ~1 micron of thickness: you can do it with obsidian by chipping at it. Stainless steel scalpels are ~2 microns, for comparison, so a obsidian blade would be twice as sharp as a scalpel.

[Rainspattered]

Precisely, Fax. Also, if you think of many Aztec and Mayan flavoured classes, they could be banned from using metal weapons or armour, which this would stil lallow them to use.

[LordOfNarf]

Except obsidian is much much sharper than steel. They use it in surgery (particulary ocular surgery) because it's one of the few substances known to man that are very easy to get to ~1 micron of thickness: you can do it with obsidian by chipping at it. Stainless steel scalpels are ~2 microns, for comparison, so a obsidian blade would be twice as sharp as a scalpel.

On an interesting side note, a lab recently worked at sharpening a peice of obsidian for a very long time, and now they have a blade with a with of one molecule. Its pretty cool.

[KazilDarkeye]

You know there are already stats for the maquahuital in MM4

[Fualkner Asiniti]

You know there are already stats for the maquahuital in MM4

You mean this exact weapon, or a creature?

[grinner666]

Actually this was covered in one of the earlier editions ... I think 2e, but I'm not sure ... and certainly obsidian weapons are thoroughly covered in the Dark Sun setting. But that's really no help for THIS edition.

Here's the problem I see: the obsidian-bladed sword might have been able to whack off a horse's head ... if the horse in question wasn't wearing metal armor. Against steel armor, however, the weapon was at a decided disadvantage. Chips of obsidian, though sharp, are fragile as all get-out. They break, just like those very sharp, very fragile ceramic knives currently in vogue in kitchens across the world.

Here's what I would do: Use the stats for the weapon size in question. A one-handed sword would do 1d8, a light sword would do 1d6, etc. Add one to the threat range ... but on a very low natural roll (say 1 or 2) against any hard or steel armor, the weapon breaks. First time it does so, it loses it's bonus to threat range. Second time it becomes a club.

[The_Pope]

KazilDarkeye is right. It is listed in the MM4, as a weapon mainly used by Dark Talon Lizardfolk. Its stats are:

Dmg (S): 1d8
Dmg (M): 1d10
Critical: x2
Weight: 10lbs
Type: Bludgeoning and piercing

[Khantalas]

For rules on obsidian, check Oriental Adventures.

It is highly unrealistic, but at least they're official.

[Rainspattered]

Piercing? That's the most inane thing I've seen wizards do since giving Nunchaku such low damage. They were blades, designed to sever limbs, not poke holes.
Spanish horses frequently wore armour, and both the Spanish and Aztecs noted it happening. A few of the blades probably broke, but the whole idea is that it has so many of them it can keep cutting when a few break.

[The_Pope]

Yeah, it is a bit strange, as instead of it being obsidian like they actually were, the book says that the weapon is a club studded with teeth and sharp pieces of metal jutting out. Which.....is kinda dumb.

[Rainspattered]

Well, at least they didn't ignore it quite so much as I had thought, I guess. They just got it totally wrong. Oh, well, it wouldn't be wizards if they hadn't, I guess. =P

[Piedmon_Sama]

Yeah, I wrote rules for that once upon a time. The macahuitl, and its two-handed cousin, the macana.

Macahuitl
One-handed martial weapon
Damage: 1d6 (S) 1d8 (M)
Critical: x2
Weight: 2 lb.
Type: Bludgeoning & Slashing

Macana
Two-handed martial weapon
Damage: 1d8 (S) 1d12 (M)
Critical: x2
Weight: 6 lb.
Type: Bludgeoning & Slashing

Obsidian-edged weapons: When whittled to an edge, obsidian can be sharper than steel. However, it is stone and brittler than metal. Treat an obsidian blade that is fresh as keen (lowers crit threat by 2) for the first 1d4 rounds of combat. After that, the effect is gone and the weapon takes a -1 penalty for attack and damage.