Fixing the Weapons Table, Part 2: Swords, Swords, Swords!

Quick! Think of the last D&D campaign you played where no one used a sword! I'm going to guess that, except for a few of you who have been in an all-wizard campaign or a party of greatclub enthusiasts, you all just went "huh?"  Because swords are damn-near ubiquitous in campaign worlds, just as they were in real life.  There are tons of different kinds of swords, and both D&D and Pathfinder do a fairly good job of representing them.  Fairly good, but not good enough.  That's why I'm here.

Now, I won't go into how later splatbooks tend to start raiding the thesaurus for new swords to stat up just to fill pages.

Actually, yes, I will go into that...

How Later Splatbooks Tend to Start Raiding the Thesaurus for New Swords to Stat Up Just to Fill Pages
For the most part, the swords listed in the PHB/Core Rulebook cover most of the swords you could want to wield.  There is a reason old editions used to have a table that told you that you could also call a scimitar a khopesh, saber, tulwar, shamshir, or what-have-you: there isn't enough of a difference between them all to make a difference in their stats.  Alright, I guess a khopesh is hooked to allow you to make disarm attempts (though according to Pathfinder, it's only good for trip attacks).  But you'll never convince me that a gladius has some special "performance" property that makes it different from a shortsword.  A gladius is a shortsword.  I don't need it taking up an extra line on my weapons chart, along with whatever a "dogslicer" is (answer: a crappier version of a shortsword wielded by goblins).  There are a lot of other examples of this, but I won't go into them now.  My philosophy in redesigning the weapons table is: if two weapons have different names but are basically the same, they are the same weapon.

Daggers are Small Shortswords are Small Longswords are Small Greatswords
This has been a philosophy of weapon design since 1st edition AD&D at least.  A halfling can use a man's dagger as a shortsword.  It's a principle shamelessly borrowed from Tolkein.  But, as things are right now in the Pathfinder weapons table, a small-sized longsword is fundamentally different from a shortsword or a large-sized dagger because they all do different types of damage.  Daggers do slashing or piercing, shortswords only do piercing, and longswords and greatswords only do slashing.  This is ridiculous: you're telling me I can slash with a dagger but not a shortsword?  That I can't stab a dragon with a longsword?  In my book, any standard, straight-bladed, pointy-ended sword can do both piercing and slashing damage.

Falchions
Falchions are wrong in 3.5/Pathfinder.  I really don't know where this mistake came from; falchions are a cavalry weapon.  As in, one-handed, not two-handed.

Source

A simple fix would be to just make falchions a one-handed martial weapon, but with a solid 2d4 damage and a 18-20 crit-range, that would make it far and away the best one-handed martial weapon.  Fortunately, there is a place to stick weapons that are a little too good: the exotic weapons tables.  So falchions are now one-handed exotic weapons.

At this point, we might as well create a two-handed falchion variant:
Great Falchion - Exotic Weapon
    Cost: 100 gp
    Dmg (S): 2d4
    Dmg (M): 2d6
    Critical: 18-20/x2
    Weight: 5 lb.
    Type: S
    Special: --

That should keep fans of the Grosse Messer happy.

Probably best to keep them happy.  (source)

Katanas
I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate Pathfinder on doing away with the "katanas are masterwork bastard swords" crap.  Bastard swords are way better than katanas.  The Pathfinder crew actually gave them the exact same fix that I did, which is to make them a slashing-only longsword with an 18-20 crit range, wieldable one-handed by those proficient with them.  Since form is so important in fighting with a katana (because they are really fragile), I also made them finesse-able with the Weapon Finesse feat.  (As a side note, I don't know what makes a katana warrant the "deadly" special quality.  I think most weapons are deadly by design.)

For fun, I made a daikatana as well, even though that's pretty much a made-up weapon.  If it's good enough for Morrowind, it's good enough for me!
[Edit: it turns out there actually were very long katanas called nodachi.  They were basically katanas with blades 4-5 feet long.  And, of course, these were statted up in Ultimate Combat along with a bunch of other eastern weapons.  Unfortunately, they statted them up badly.  They gave them slashing and piercing damage and the ability to brace against a charge.  This is dumb, as nodachi were no more capable of piercing than katanas were, and bracing them against a charge would just end in a broken nodachi.  Other than that, they were almost exactly like the daikatana I statted up below (except not finessable, and 10x less expensive).  So mine is better, and I'm changing the name from daikatana to nodachi.]
Nodachi - Exotic Weapon
   Cost: 600 gp
   Dmg (S): 1d8
   Dmg (M): 1d10
   Critical: 18-20/x2
   Weight: 2 lb.
   Type: S
   Special: Finesse


Broadsword
Sadly, the broadsword just didn't make it into Pathfinder.  I'm here to fix that.  To differentiate it from the longsword, I've had it do 2d4 damage with a x3 crit, representing of the heavier blade.
Broadsword - Martial Weapon
    Cost: 15 gp
    Dmg (S): 1d6
    Dmg (M): 2d4
    Critical: x3
    Weight: 2 lb.
    Type: P or S
    Special: --

Any weapons featured above in yellow text are available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2013 Jonah Bomgaars.
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Alright, that's good sword stuff for now.

-your cutting d20 despot

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Update: made the great falchion, daikatana, and broadsword OGL.