One of my players has just generated a backup Saracen character to play (Zazamanc from BoKL) with scimitar as his primary weapon. This is listed as being identical to a sword, but I thought it would be good if it had *something* that set it apart as the different weapon +/- is one of the things I like about KAP. Nothing unbalancing just something.

Scimitars were good from horseback but as the rules already include the +5/-5 mod that's already covered. Effective +2 to DEX to withstand knockdowns (eg user is more balanced), erm slight plus vs chain but equal loss to skill? Any ideas?

I'm no expert but I always understood that the curvature of the blade improved the cutting effectiveness of a blade. At least for Japanese swords.

If this is true, I'd be tempted to make them better for armour penetration. Question is whether to make it a fixed -1 to armour, a bit more or random -1D6 same as Axe v shield?

Curved, razor-sharp blades indeed are better at *some* kinds of cutting, but at the price of being worse at others. All sword designs have such plusses and minuses – if any one design was the best, everybody would have used it. Think of a chef’s kitchen – different blades for different purposes.

Using that analogy, scimitars are steak knives (the non-serrated kind). They cut by being drawn *across* the target. Very effective against exposed meat, but against a harder target (say severing lobster tails) you want a chopping blade that penetrates by direct impact. Not quite as “ooh-aah” sharp as the steak knife, but the edge will stand up to hard impacts better.

So there are two ways to handle this. One is the “flavor text” approach, where the scimitar is functionally equal to the knightly swords but the PC is noted for using a very distinctive sword style (more dextrous movement and deeper footwork).

The other way is to give the scimitar plusses vs. less-armored targets but minuses vs. full-metal body (12-point or better) armor. This is historical – think of how the Knights Hospitaller were able to hold off vast numbers of Turks at Malta – but probably not fun for the PC.

You could re-roll 1s vs <12AP and re-roll 6s vs.>=12AP. This scales with the damage better than a straight +1 or +2. 4d6 avg is approx 14.18, 4d6 -rerolling 1s is approx 15.86. Not sure if I think re-rolling is very elegant though.

With Shortswords, I'm not keen on the -2 weapon mod as I don't think it meshes well with rules (daggers dont suffer this type of mod and they're shorter still). Instead I just use another coloured dice as one of the damage dice and count that as a D3, so more damage than a dagger but less than a full length sword. Perhaps something similar for Scimitars (+/-1d3) but I'm wary of increasing the "standard" sword damage.

You could re-roll 1s vs <12AP and re-roll 6s vs.>=12AP. This scales with the damage better than a straight +1 or +2. 4d6 avg is approx 14.18, 4d6 -rerolling 1s is approx 15.86. Not sure if I think re-rolling is very elegant though.

With Shortswords, I'm not keen on the -2 weapon mod as I don't think it meshes well with rules (daggers dont suffer this type of mod and they're shorter still). Instead I just use another coloured dice as one of the damage dice and count that as a D3, so more damage than a dagger but less than a full length sword. Perhaps something similar for Scimitars (+/-1d3) but I'm wary of increasing the "standard" sword damage.


I like the idea of this one, the range is the same, but the skew is towards one end or the other depending on the heaviness of armor.