So how come the staff is never seen as a respectable weapon for a fighter...

That's pretty dumb. You are a weak person who has never done manual labor or worked out. You do not understand what it feels like to lift and swing a metal bar. You are not aware that maces and bludgeons were not solid metal. You are a silly little man.

Too bad GURPS is terrible though.

You kidding? I prefer them. Even in modern settings. Especially when they have optional extending and chained segments that can be separated to alter one's attacks mid-battle.

I want to make a quarterstaff Fighter, but, well, mai waifu uses one.
And everyone at the table knows how much I love those games.
So they'd probably call me out on it.

Similar in RuneQuest/Mythras. It has the reach of a longsword and just as good damage with a defense bonus and non-lethal combat options.

Wrap a leather strap around the end and you have a sling-staff which has a short range but can crush shields and limbs alike.

Unique/underused weapons general?

I'm surprised Tonfa arn't more of a thing, especially in modern settings. An extendable tonfa, maybe have blades if you're feeling like a cheeky bitch, or a three section staff like

Runequest is also pretty bad, if RQ6 can be called the standard.

Is it a running theme for bad games to have good staffs?

I remember a 4e or maybe 5e fighter option that used staffs.

Can't remember the effect.

>The joke
I do happen to be a scrawny fuck, but come on.

Why use a staff when you attach a blade to one end and have a spear?

Your waifu a great.

Polearm fighter works with staves in 5e, though I feel like they're subpar at it

In 3.5 I think there were like 4 quarterstaff feats that all together could make it straight up nasty

>I'm surprised Tonfa arn't more of a thing, especially in modern settings
But they are.
They're called PR-24 "control batons", cops all over use them. Only one at a time, though. Even come in a collapsible version.

>Roll20 street-level M&M game
>copycat powers hero with acrobatics and tonfa
>never really use copycat powers all that much because GM only gives us super powered villains to fight
>just beat the shit out of anyone with my tonfa
good stuff

But are you a killer?

This may come as a shock to you, but metal is both heavy and dense. I own a 6-foot railway crowbar that's wrought iron, and it's over 50 pounds. It's not what you'd call an efficient weapon. Not only does making your entire staff out of metal make it far heavier than it needs to be, it actually decreases its angular force when swung compared to just having iron-shod endcaps.

>iron-shod endcaps.
Is steel-shod better than iron, or...?

As a primary weapon most fighters are going to want to put a spearhead on it for a little extra damage and a more useful damage type.

Still gets plenty of play, though, since a dirt-cheap walking stick that's always to hand comes in handy quite often while traveling, including the occasional bandit-thumping

And I take it that you complain whenever someone says 'go Buster Sword or go home'?
I have no idea what the balance on He-man's sword actually is, but I'm guessing it's not good.
It was a joke about weapons made of solid unobtainum being over-the-top and therefore 'effective'.
I wouldn't fight with a nine-foot long sword no matter how cool it looked because that would be retarded, but it doesn't stop Guts from carrying a six-foot tall slab of fuck you into battle.

Is it more logical to have your town guards/sheriffs wielding staves and clubs to keep the peasants down?

Or do we simply prefer lethal swords and axes?

Personally I'm a fan of cudgels for less-lethal and swords for lethal.
Fantasy counterpart to real life's taser and pistol duo.

The Buster Sword is shit and everyone knows it. Unless you're fighting with Excalibur-still-lodged-in-the-Stone, go home.

Small planetoids also accepted.

Why not have manhandlers to hold them down?

>Excalibur-still-lodged-in-the-Stone
Excalibur wasn't the sword in the stone, it's the one he got from the Lady of the Lake.

So long as, after the fact, he dramatically throws us all off his body.

>Find Sword in the Stone
>Remove Sword
>Get Excalibur
>Put Excalibur in Stone where Sword was
>Wield
>Profit(?!?)

This level of autism.

Because you can unleash blunt force trauma from both ends.
Because it looks inocuous enough, while a spear is obviously a weapon.
Because it's more balla than a spear.
And I know she is.

People typically associate it with Monk archetypes because quarterstaves always wind up in kung fu movies.

Fighters are typically meant to emulate the Western Fantasy Hero, so people depict them using swords.

Not saying I don't like the idea of playing a staff fighter; just saying what's what.

It's a spear without a tip, and spears aren't exactly hard to come by.

why would you want to use a staff since you can use a morningstar?

More specifically, the reason why fighters are depicted with swords rather than spears or maces or any other weapon is because they're meant to represent officers within a larger military unit (which is also why most lower ranking soldiers are listed having the "warrior" class instead of also being fighters).

I know, though it's dumb that Fighter can't use his fist. It's not like he has to have spiritual powers or anything like the monk and even using kungfu movies as a base I wouldn't call all of those guys "monks" it's just they can fight hand to hand as well as use weapons.

Superior reach and parrying ability, I'd think.

>strike foe with enormous metal bar
>intense metal-on-bone vibrations cause you to drop the bar on your foot every time you strike
>wrists begin to deteriorate after 30 or so strikes

How to make a guard into a corrupt guard
>give him a blackjack

And viola! He's immediately suspicious and thuglike

What? No it wouldn't. It's extremely strong and flexible. You know not all bamboo is the same right? It's not all the kind that splits into shards when it hits anything.

Spears and one-bladed axes work well enough, since it can be assumed you can use the blunt parts of them for non-lethal damage.

The problem with staves and clubs is that it will make your PCs think they can get uppity. "If I cause trouble, no one will be able to hurt me!"

I can't remember the name for the weapon but it looks like a Sai but only has one sided guard upturned. It's a japanese weapon designed to deal with guys with swords by authorities.

Basically I would have that but with a longer shaft so you can fight and take down would be adventurer's in a non-leather manner. Worst case scenario, you pull out your pistol and shoot them.

There's a reason I put those things in my fantasy settings.

it's because i think they look cool

>The problem with staves and clubs is that it will make your PCs think they can get uppity. "If I cause trouble, no one will be able to hurt me!"
The natural thing to do there is to beat them into submission with a club. Or perhaps many clubs.

Tonfas and staves don't look obviously threatening like bladed weapons or oversized hammers, so a lot of people tend to write them off despite them being extremely dangerous in the right hands.

I was writing wound tables earlier today for a horror game and it made me realise something.

The human body doesn't really have many expendable bits.

Someone cracks you in the collarbone with a baton, the bruise is going to ache every time you turn your neck for at least a few days. Minimum.

I mean if you're playing a system like D&D where you quickly get so powerful that regular weapons just don't harm you anymore, then you have problems.

If your players don't have nigh infalliable passive defensive rolls for no cost, then any weapon can be a threat.

Play GURPS. A quarterstaff's a surprisingly effective and versatile weapon that has reach and defense, while being able to hit hard enough to break limbs.

Well, the main reason why humans started hitting each other with hard objects is because the body reacts really badly to being hit with hard objects. We wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't work.

You're thinking of a jitte.

It's because swords are associated with heroes and nobility, so they're the standard.
A berserker gets an axe. A villain probably gets a spiked mace or something equally menacing.
A run of the mill guardsmen gets a spear or halberd.
In japanese media the katana takes the place of the sword. (Noble) women generally use polearms like a naginata.

Staves are associated with wise men, spellcasters, old people and monks. Not warriors.
Those are the common archetypes. It has little to do with their respective effectiveness as a weapon, more what images are generally associated with them.

It's called a jutte or jitte.
They developed it because carrying swords was forbidden in the palace, even for the guards.
Also because hitting people with a heavy stick is less likely to get blood on your expensive carpets i assume.

Being correct and using common sense is autistic now? Standards are slipping.

4e tried really hard to make staff fighting a thing for fighters, but the best it got is monks using staff of ruin.

In 5e staves are one of the two most optimal weapons for monks (the other being spears), useful for druids who can cast Shillelagh on it and make it temporarily magical and attack with their Wis score, and any martial who wants to take the Polearm Mastery feat and get its benefits in a 5 ft range/with a one handed weapon.

Dude, in case you didn't pick it up before, the original post in this chain () was a jest, and not to be taken seriously.
Yes, a metal bar doesn't make sense as a weapon for a human, but that was THE POINT. The faulty 'logic' used to pick a metal bar:
>Weapon = Good
>Stronger Weapon = Better
>When you hit wood with steel, the wood breaks
>Steel is stronger than wood
>Therefore a bar made out of steel must be a better weapon than a bar made out of wood
>I am better at picking weapons than someone picking a wood weapon
>Out of the way, casual
Except that's not how weapons work, which is the goddamned point because it was an irony gag (the expectation that a metal bar is better is met with the truth of it being unwieldy and heavy). I asked if you were serious because I didn't think you thought I actually meant it seriously.
In fact, stick another layer of irony on for my autistic post in response to your response to being called autistic.

Why a staff when a glaive can do everything it does but better?

caue you could just stick something on it and bam its infinitely more useful

>it was an irony gag
Iron irony?

The "it's just a walking stick" excuse doesn't work as well with glaives. A staff is a lot less conspicuous, and you can also more easily incapacitate without killing.

>"it's just a walking stick"

Next time someone says 'It's just a walking stick, I'm going to have the oldest, most grizzled, most PTSD-stricken guard in the setting come out of the woodwork and demand the staff be inspected because whenever someone says that it never is.

> HURR DURR I WAS ONLY PRETENDING TO BE RETARDED DURRRRR

So apart from the capability to incapacitated more effectively, is there any ways a staff can outshine a glaive?

Excellent taste user

You know I actually never put a lot of thought into it, but I've never really seen something like that since that one fight in WoT.

Using a glaive against good armour is likely to fuck up the weapon, but a solidly made staff won't take as much damage. They're very tough things that don't require much maintenance.

Staves are also very well balanced, which makes them work better when an enemy is closer. That blade on the end of a glaive makes it relatively top-heavy and unbalanced, though not as much as something like a halberd or bec de corbin.

You might want to try GURPS. Even powerful characters can be seriously hurt by common weapons and getting hit in the arm with a warhammer can leave it badly bruised, broken or crushed to the point it will have to be removed.

Excalibur is just a shiny sword that you still have to maintain, the scabbard is what you want.