An Elegant, but powerful, blade [Exotic Weapon]

[Setra]

"This blade is the true gentleman's weapon, stronger than a rapier, but more elegant than a longsword" - Evan Harrington, Master Fighter

Schiavona
Exotic One-Handed Melee Weapon
Critical: 19–20/×2
Type: Slashing/Piercing
Hardness: 10

For Cost, Damage, Weight, HP, Enhancement Prices, and whatnot, the Schiavona is the same as the longsword.

This weapon can be used with Weapon Finesse.

~~~

Any thoughts? I know it's kind of silly but I just wanted to make stats for this.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

To tell the truth, i have no idea what this is. Do you happen to have a picture, or a physical description?

[Ceiling009]

Those are pretty much the same stats I use for a Jian, or a Chinese straight sword. I don't consider it exotic so much, but I've running a lot of Eastern themed games.

[Neftren]

I dunno, it seems just like a Finessable Longsword you have to waste a feat on, although you may as well take the penalty. I suggest just taking the two handed Elven Courtblade from Races of the Wild if you want a stylish but strong weapon. It's finessable, it's two handed for 1.5x Str Mod to your Weapon Damage and it costs about 150gp.

[Setra]

To tell the truth, i have no idea what this is. Do you happen to have a picture, or a physical description?

To be honest they;re kinda rare, even on the internet, but to quote wikipedia

"this war sword had a wider blade than its contemporary civilian rapiers. It was basket hilted (often with an imbedded quillon for an upper guard) and its blade was double edged. A surviving blade measures 93.2 cm × 3.4 cm × 0.45 cm and bears two fullers running about 1/4 the length of the blade. Weighing in at around 1.1 kg, this blade was useful for both cut and thrust."

Here is a google pic I randomly found

I dunno, it seems just like a Finessable Longsword you have to waste a feat on, although you may as well take the penalty. I suggest just taking the two handed Elven Courtblade from Races of the Wild if you want a stylish but strong weapon. It's finessable, it's two handed for 1.5x Str Mod to your Weapon Damage and it costs about 150gp.

I just made it on a whim, as it is my favorite sword, and a character I've been roleplaying as for years uses one but I've never seen one statted. I'm not really looking for a similar sword, I wanted this specific one statted.

[kentma57]

I own something that looks quite a bit like that, though it has a different hilt(A basket hild). We thought it was a spanish officers sword.

[elliott20]

it's basically a rapier that you pay an extra feat for to get the damage die to 1d8. the rest of the factors are quite negligible.

Personally, I would just use normal rapier stats but then give it a bit more fluff description, as I don't really see the usage of that sword to be TOO different from a rapier. Of course, I'm no swordsman, so I wouldn't really know.

That or you can simply just make it a masterwork rapier.

[Xenoti]

here ya go

[Matthew]

Rather than creating a whole new weapon, it seems like it would have been easier to just say: "Spend an Exotic Weapon Proficiency to use a Long Sword with Weapon Finesse (Oh, and by the way, Long Swords are Slashing and Piercing now, as they always should have been)."

I know it runs contrary to some of the stuff that's been printed of late, but the original idea with 3e Long Swords was that they would be able to encompass all types of Single Handed Swords of medium length. The Article has unfortunately disappeared off the Wizards Website, but it was a good read. Weapons glut was a pain in 2e and it has become a pain in 3e.

[elliott20]

yeah, I always felt that creating new weapon types was kind of redundant. It would have always been easier to use existing weapons and just change up the fluff as well as the name to match.

i.e. a Chinese Jian would pretty much be a rapier, a Guan Dao would be a glaive, etc.

[Matthew]

I should add that I have no balance issues with this, it's perfectly fine in my opinion.

[Yakk]

Change it to 18x2 instead of 19x2.

We are talking about an EWP feat burn.

So:
1d8 18x2 slash/pierce, can be used with weapon finess.

Over the LS: pierce damage, 1 crit pip, finess.
Over the Rapier: slash damage, 1 average damage.
Over the Scimitar: pierce damage, 1 average damage, finess.

[jindra34]

The descriptions of this sword sound remarkably like those of an epee and really close to those of a jitte... neither of which had the power of a longsword/broadsword/etc.

[Kenbert]

But an epee wouldn't be used for slashing; It seems midway between an arming sword and a rapier to me. Just a typical balanced "cut and thrust" sword. Even though I hate to use that term -- it's not exactly historically accurate.

[Manticorkscrew]

I looked this sword with my google-fu skills. The "complex hand protection" is quite important for this style of blade (the similar English "mortuary sword" was possibly given that name because of the its ornate hilt guard, which resembled a human rib cage).

Here's quite an interesting article on the blades:

http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spot_schia.html

It sounds as though the Schiavona was designed when metal gauntlets were going out of use, so some form of hand protection was needed- hence the complex hilt.

A shame it doesn't say what advantage the ornate hilts gave over less decorative basket hilts (apart from the decoration, of course). The Wikipedia article says that the Schiavona and the Mortuary sword were both "cut-and-thrust" weapons, much like a longsword. And the longsword article states that the basket hilt of the Schiavona (paraphrased): "may have positively affected its balance".

All in all, I'd be inclined to class it as a Masterwork Longsword, but your way is fine.