One thing I don't think you mentioned about Trident vs. Spear is that spears work with Polearm Master while tridents don't. So, ultimately, spears are better With the new PHB, they get different mastery properties and the trident does more damage. I think it will work nicely
Replicate the effect of its multiple spikes inflicting multiple wounds by splitting your damage roll into 3 separate instances of damage. That way it breaks concentration easier and is more effective when poisoned or imbued with oil of sharpness than other melee weapons.
You mention the dangpo and I know you have mentioned the mandarin duck formation before, yet you say that it was never used on the battlefield. 😮😢 But the Muyedobotongji is a military instructional manual and was very much intended for also field use and improving the average soldiers martial skills. They were used against the Wokou troops that required the Ming dynasty to innovate just to deal with the threat. (It's like saying that the vikings were only pirates and never posed much of a threat! The English and French of the time would like to disagree) Dangpa were also used for tiger hunting. 😊
The problem with the Trident is that it is either just a spear or a fishing tool. Despite their superficial resemblance to the trident, many of the listed forms like the ranseur or partisan (with the latter being closer to a double-edged halberd in practice) draw most of their provenance from the earlier "Boar spear," which featured protruding lugs for pining a skewered animal down and were later found to be well suited to parrying and blocking enemy weapons. On the subject of increased damage, the reality could arguably be the opposite. A conventional spear focuses all of the pressure of the thrust into a single point, allowing it to pierce more deeply into a target. When you have multiple tines, the force is actually distributed between each point, resulting in potentially shallower wounds that would theoretically be less harmful overall. The more likely benefit of three tines is that you are more likely to hit a target in the first place. Since smaller fish are usually much faster than bigger humans in the water, the trident was better able to fill space that a darting fish was likely to occupy and the barbs made it so that, once skewered, a fish was unlikely to get away when the spear was retracted. To that end, I would consider making the Trident a simple weapon with the reach property. However, as I have also suggested making the spear a d8, Reach weapon, I would also consider adding a way to improve the weapon's hit probability. In this case, I imagine this would translate to a linear increase in Attack Rolls, probable +2 or +3 for novelties sake. On top of that, I imagine that when a trident deals damage, the target can be grappled. ----- Also, bit of a bugbear, but the Sai is in no way "Dagger-like." Historical examples are always blunt and they were traditionally carried by police as riot batons or clubs. ----- Edited to be less repetitive...
"and posters of Aquaman" this line killed me
This is video 3000 on my House Rule playlist 🎉
One thing I don't think you mentioned about Trident vs. Spear is that spears work with Polearm Master while tridents don't. So, ultimately, spears are better
With the new PHB, they get different mastery properties and the trident does more damage. I think it will work nicely
Replicate the effect of its multiple spikes inflicting multiple wounds by splitting your damage roll into 3 separate instances of damage.
That way it breaks concentration easier and is more effective when poisoned or imbued with oil of sharpness than other melee weapons.
How about a special defense or Disarm? You could conceivably trap a weapon thrust at you between two of the tines.
You mention the dangpo and I know you have mentioned the mandarin duck formation before, yet you say that it was never used on the battlefield. 😮😢 But the Muyedobotongji is a military instructional manual and was very much intended for also field use and improving the average soldiers martial skills. They were used against the Wokou troops that required the Ming dynasty to innovate just to deal with the threat. (It's like saying that the vikings were only pirates and never posed much of a threat! The English and French of the time would like to disagree) Dangpa were also used for tiger hunting. 😊
The problem with the Trident is that it is either just a spear or a fishing tool. Despite their superficial resemblance to the trident, many of the listed forms like the ranseur or partisan (with the latter being closer to a double-edged halberd in practice) draw most of their provenance from the earlier "Boar spear," which featured protruding lugs for pining a skewered animal down and were later found to be well suited to parrying and blocking enemy weapons.
On the subject of increased damage, the reality could arguably be the opposite. A conventional spear focuses all of the pressure of the thrust into a single point, allowing it to pierce more deeply into a target. When you have multiple tines, the force is actually distributed between each point, resulting in potentially shallower wounds that would theoretically be less harmful overall.
The more likely benefit of three tines is that you are more likely to hit a target in the first place. Since smaller fish are usually much faster than bigger humans in the water, the trident was better able to fill space that a darting fish was likely to occupy and the barbs made it so that, once skewered, a fish was unlikely to get away when the spear was retracted.
To that end, I would consider making the Trident a simple weapon with the reach property. However, as I have also suggested making the spear a d8, Reach weapon, I would also consider adding a way to improve the weapon's hit probability. In this case, I imagine this would translate to a linear increase in Attack Rolls, probable +2 or +3 for novelties sake. On top of that, I imagine that when a trident deals damage, the target can be grappled.
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Also, bit of a bugbear, but the Sai is in no way "Dagger-like." Historical examples are always blunt and they were traditionally carried by police as riot batons or clubs.
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Edited to be less repetitive...