Piercing vs. Slashing Swords

[Jharviss]

There are a huge variety of swords in our lovely real world, some stabbing weapons (epee, rapier) and some slashing (saber, longsword, cutlass).  Historically I have said that one could use a saber as the exact same statistics as a rapier except that it is a slashing weapon.  Hence, a saber is a 1d6 weapon, 18-20/x2 critical, and deals slashing damage.  On the flipside, an epee, which was one of the most deadly swords around, would be the same as a longsword with the exception that it deals piercing damage.

I'm curious to know if there is anything I should be aware of in having these variations.  I realize they're small, but D&D has really taught me that small changes have huge ripple effects.  

[Johnny Wraith]

Well, the only thing that comes to mind about this that would alter the game in a big way would be DR of certain monsters... I guess you could check if there are too many monsters with DR x/slashing or something along those lines that would create a problem (Since piercing weapons do less damage than slashing weapons, usually). The only one that I can think of right now is the skeleton... but his DR works against both piercing and slashing. Overall, though, I don't think there'd be a problem.

[Hibou]

Though this isn't exactly what you're looking for, might I suggest  Jaerom Darkwind's Weapons Fix. It's really well-done and though it changes the way weapons are looked at, it's much more realistic.

[f_hayek]

Also, keep in mind the rapier has a special status as a rogue weapon - it gets singled out for inclusion in the weapon finesse feat. Might want to think through ahead of time whether weapons with the same stats as the rapier will be included in the weapon finesse feat.

[Xeviat]

The rapier's weapon finesse feat extra has lead some to believe that piercing is somehow a less effective damage type. But since this isn't explicit in the rules, I don't buy it, and I think the weapon finesse inclusion of the rapier is mostly flavor. It would probably be fine for weapon finesse to work with any weapon (and be automatic for light weapons).

[So-Keher]

I think the argument there would be that many monster types have DR to piercing (like skeletons i believe)
but that would also apply to slashing too
i always liked that large wavy rapier weapon but idk what it was called.
ah the flamberge!
i believe the weapons are initially dumbed down as well due to the fact that there can only be so much variation
for example the tulwar and scimitar
very similar but not represented as different in the game, just by name depending on setting
so its really a fault (if you can call that) of the d20 system