weapon choice and fighting styles in D&D

[Username17]

A specialized weapon being weaker in corner cases, or forcing you to be weaker when you lose it is not really a problem.

Um.... yes. It really obviously is.

Basically, you're opened up the "monk problem" from the other end. Fundamentally, the assumption is that player characters have access to their gear as part and parcel of their power assessment. We take Pavel the Impaler with us on our raid because of how well he fights when he has his spear and armor, not for how he fights while naked in bed. When we assign "levels" to things, it is for them with sword in hand.

So now we introduce an edge case where the character performs noticeably better or worse than other characters. Let's say the "prison break scenario" where the characters have to use improvised equipment. And now we introduce two characters: the Monk and the Weapon Specialist. The Monk loses less when resorting to improvised equipment, and is thus at a relative advantage; while the Weapon Specialist loses more when resorting to improvised weaponry, and is thus at a relative disadvantage. This at least, seems intuitively obvious.

But how are these discrepancies to be paid for? The usual Monk plan is to make them noticeably weaker than the regular warrior generalists when everyone has access to their normal gear. And well, that obviously hasn't worked. And if you think about it for a moment, you realize that obviously it can't work, because the improvised weaponry prison break scenario, while reasonably classic, does not appear in every (or even most) campaigns. And similarly it won't work if you make the ranseur specialist better than a normal character when everyone has their kit.

Essentially then, the Ranseur Specialist is simply a shitty character. They are no better than a generalist warrior when everyone has access to their normal equipment, and they take it up the ass when for whatever reason they don't.

The player response to this is as obvious and simple as it is terrible for the game and the story: they simply limit their exposure to periods of time when they aren't using their specialist weapon. That's fucked. Hammer specialists in 4e don't carry bows. They don't even put them on their character sheet, because even if they are facing flying fire breathing enemies in dense muck, they are still better off just walking around and hitting shit with their hammers. And I reiterate: that is fucked.

-Username17

[MfA]

Seriously, the monk and 4e as counterpoints?

They are fucked because they were made by idiots ... not because of design constraints. Someone having a low double digit percentage of damage difference between weapon types doesn't make him useless without his signature weapon, neither does losing a few manoeuvres. Intra-party difference in effectiveness are far far greater than that in almost every group ever.

Take the war domain cleric, what are we bloody talking about when he loses his weapon and uses a simple weapon instead. 5% less chance to hit and a smaller damage dice ... oh well he might as well never try to hit something again ...

How do you balance the contextual strengths and weaknesses of spontaneous spellcasting with prepared spellcasting, how do you balance casters and non casters, how do you balance anything? You pick a couple of common challenges which classes have to be able to overcome a percentage of, make everything cool to play and then let the players and DM spin it into a game ... if a situation doesn't come up in every campaign, guess what ... it's irrelevant for balance, you just completely ignore it.

When did the 4e mentality invade this board? Losing a +1 is not the end of the world.

[MGuy]

A specialized weapon being weaker in corner cases, or forcing you to be weaker when you lose it is not really a problem.

Um.... yes. It really obviously is.

Basically, you're opened up the "monk problem" from the other end. Fundamentally, the assumption is that player characters have access to their gear as part and parcel of their power assessment. We take Pavel the Impaler with us on our raid because of how well he fights when he has his spear and armor, not for how he fights while naked in bed. When we assign "levels" to things, it is for them with sword in hand.

So now we introduce an edge case where the character performs noticeably better or worse than other characters. Let's say the "prison break scenario" where the characters have to use improvised equipment. And now we introduce two characters: the Monk and the Weapon Specialist. The Monk loses less when resorting to improvised equipment, and is thus at a relative advantage; while the Weapon Specialist loses more when resorting to improvised weaponry, and is thus at a relative disadvantage. This at least, seems intuitively obvious.

But how are these discrepancies to be paid for? The usual Monk plan is to make them noticeably weaker than the regular warrior generalists when everyone has access to their normal gear. And well, that obviously hasn't worked. And if you think about it for a moment, you realize that obviously it can't work, because the improvised weaponry prison break scenario, while reasonably classic, does not appear in every (or even most) campaigns. And similarly it won't work if you make the ranseur specialist better than a normal character when everyone has their kit.

Essentially then, the Ranseur Specialist is simply a shitty character. They are no better than a generalist warrior when everyone has access to their normal equipment, and they take it up the ass when for whatever reason they don't.

The player response to this is as obvious and simple as it is terrible for the game and the story: they simply limit their exposure to periods of time when they aren't using their specialist weapon. That's fucked. Hammer specialists in 4e don't carry bows. They don't even put them on their character sheet, because even if they are facing flying fire breathing enemies in dense muck, they are still better off just walking around and hitting shit with their hammers. And I reiterate: that is fucked.

-Username17

Isn't a good answer to this just to make using your fists and using a Ranseur comparable options by having them have their own strengths and weaknesses? Let's say that while an unarmed character who does know how to use their fists is at more of an advantage in a niche case like 'prison break scenario' or against 'Guisarmen the Disarming Duelist'. Even if that does put a boxer at an advantage why would you even need to force boxing to be weaker? You already don't have the reach of the guy using their reach weapon and already can't use your fists against flying or mounted archer scenarios and that's built right in.

A better thing to focus on would just be to make it so that punching and using a Ranseur are different options that generally work about as well as each other but promote different fighting styles. Someone using a reach weapon is gonna wanna take advantage of the reach someone doing boxing is going to want to be close so they can take advantage of multiple attacks. Dual wielding should do damage that is comparable to having a big weapon in my opinion.

[Username17]

Isn't a good answer to this just to make using your fists and using a Ranseur comparable options by having them have their own strengths and weaknesses?

That is a solution for the generalist warrior. It is not a solution for the weapon specialist. In fact, it makes the weapon specialist's situation much worse.

If it doesn't actually matter what weapon you are using most of the time, the fact that the weapon specialist is always swinging a ranseur doesn't much matter. So the fact that their character bonuses are provisional on them using a ranseur also doesn't matter. That is the 4e situation in a nutshell. The only difference between weapons is which of your abilities they trigger, so everyone chooses exclusively abilities that work with the one weapon they ever intend to carry and only ever carry one weapon. Roman soldiers they ain't.

But if there are in fact intrinsic benefits to using a glaive or a warhammer in any particular situation that are worth tracking or speaking about, then generalist warriors are going to do that and reap those benefits. And the ranseur specialist is going to do... what? Switch to a macuahuitl anyway when subduing Grimlocks? Keep the ranseur in all circumstances because his specialist bonus is larger than the situational benefits of using a pincer staff? Either way, the balance problems are, or at least should be, extremely obvious.

-Username17

[MGuy]

I'm actually fine with the Weapon Specialist being subpar in situations where their weapon of choice isn't the best option. I think it is (or should be) a general assumption that as a specialist you sacrifice some utility to be better at what you do. However I don't think that the specialist is particular screwed if the generalist doesn't just have general abilities that make them better at being, well, general. Ignoring 4E's decision, as far as I can think being a generalist doesn't really 'give' you anything so if a specialist just needed to pick up another weapon they could just DO that and be just as good as a generalist with it. The whole point of generalizing is to not put anything into any particular weapon right? So then there's nothing keeping the specialist from keeping up. Now there could be a situation where the generalist can pick up general abilities that give it comparable numbers to a specialist but if such things exist then that kind of makes specializing pointless and I couldn't then imagine that anyone would need to specialize since you could just get the same bonuses either way. So I'm going to assume that this wouldn't be the case and a generalist just wouldn't get anything special toward any weapon at all and thus the savvy specialist could just sheathe the rapier and pick up the warhammer to fight the skeletons and be just as effective as the generalist.

Because I don't know of any game off hand that does this let's use a hypothetical game. In this game let's say there was the option to specialize or not. Your specialized abilities would just give you horizontal instead of vertical power essentially just giving you more options/maneuvers with your weapon but options that aren't straight up necessary to keep your numbers up to snuff. So in this game, free of the burden of having to get taxed to stay on track, I 'think' things should work out. The Specialist gets to specialize in swording all day long and should they get into a shoot out they can pick up a bow (if sword specializing doesn't give them a ranged attack, which it should) and, while not having as many special options with it, they can still participate competently. The generalist, on the other hand, is free to collect all kinds of abilities that don't specifically center around a theme or specific function and be handy for more situations.

Now in this set up there will unavoidably be situations where swording just isn't going to cut it. In fact there should be quite a few. Skipping over out of combat shenanigans this is where the generalist should outdo the specialist as they don't bind themselves to swording they are more likely to have options that suit more situations outside of just picking up another weapon. I think that 'that' is how it should be.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think if you were interested in supporting weapon specialists as a thing, you might just set up abilities that had more synergy with however certain weapons were distinguished. To use D&D terms, Combat Reflexes grants more attacks of opportunity, and Reach weapons synergize with that, but it's not like the ability turns off if you're using a dagger for whatever reason. The Tome Samurai's auto-crit mechanism has them all drooling over the 20/x4 weapons, but it's still perfectly valid to use with less optimal gear.

So if somebody really liked glaives, they could take both of those abilities and would have a lot of nice glaive-synergy; but none of his abilities actually say 'glaive' on them. And if each weapon had its own distinct power-set, it'd be a lot easier to find synergy points than with the relatively bland D&D setup.

[MGuy]

I think if you were interested in supporting weapon specialists as a thing, you might just set up abilities that had more synergy with however certain weapons were distinguished. To use D&D terms, Combat Reflexes grants more attacks of opportunity, and Reach weapons synergize with that, but it's not like the ability turns off if you're using a dagger for whatever reason. The Tome Samurai's auto-crit mechanism has them all drooling over the 20/x4 weapons, but it's still perfectly valid to use with less optimal gear.

So if somebody really liked glaives, they could take both of those abilities and would have a lot of nice glaive-synergy; but none of his abilities actually say 'glaive' on them. And if each weapon had its own distinct power-set, it'd be a lot easier to find synergy points than with the relatively bland D&D setup.

My concern is more on different weapons 'feeling' different and fitting the themes that they should. I'm not particularly 'for' having abilities with specific weapons scribbled on them per se. I do imagine though that there is room to make abilities that fit weapon sets like the existence of rapid shot and many shot for various bows, or better yet weapon finesse for a big group of appropriate weapons.

[Omegonthesane]

I think if you were interested in supporting weapon specialists as a thing, you might just set up abilities that had more synergy with however certain weapons were distinguished. To use D&D terms, Combat Reflexes grants more attacks of opportunity, and Reach weapons synergize with that, but it's not like the ability turns off if you're using a dagger for whatever reason. The Tome Samurai's auto-crit mechanism has them all drooling over the 20/x4 weapons, but it's still perfectly valid to use with less optimal gear.

So if somebody really liked glaives, they could take both of those abilities and would have a lot of nice glaive-synergy; but none of his abilities actually say 'glaive' on them. And if each weapon had its own distinct power-set, it'd be a lot easier to find synergy points than with the relatively bland D&D setup.

My concern is more on different weapons 'feeling' different and fitting the themes that they should. I'm not particularly 'for' having abilities with specific weapons scribbled on them per se. I do imagine though that there is room to make abilities that fit weapon sets like the existence of rapid shot and many shot for various bows, or better yet weapon finesse for a big group of appropriate weapons.

You're going to feel different wielding a glaive and AoO-spamming to wielding a scythe and crit-scumming to wielding a dagger and... being shit unless you're stacking Sneak Attack bonuses or something, and even then doing incrementally less damage than someone with a bigger stick.

If I recall right Stone Soup gives big backstabbing bonuses to daggers, less big ones to other short blades, and only moderate ones to longswords and kittens felids compared to the base rate of "using anything else to backstab".

[MGuy]

I don't think you're going to switch from glaive, to scythe to dagger. There really is no reason to. If you've already decided to try and cheese out reach on the glaive there is no real reason to ever switch to the scythe. Ever. Even without the feats that you're basically forced to get to make that work out there is no situation in which you decided to concentrate on reach that you'll then switch to a scythe for. As you point out wielding a dagger is right out because there is no situation in which it is not better than just having a short sword (at the least). I would like a game where there is something to using your fists or a reason that rogues might like to use daggers to backstab (without absolutely requiring them to use a dagger).

[Omegonthesane]

I don't think you're going to switch from glaive, to scythe to dagger. There really is no reason to. If you've already decided to try and cheese out reach on the glaive there is no real reason to ever switch to the scythe. Ever. Even without the feats that you're basically forced to get to make that work out there is no situation in which you decided to concentrate on reach that you'll then switch to a scythe for. As you point out wielding a dagger is right out because there is no situation in which it is not better than just having a short sword (at the least). I would like a game where there is something to using your fists or a reason that rogues might like to use daggers to backstab (without absolutely requiring them to use a dagger).

If those are your absolutely only requirements Green Ronin's SIFRP may have you covered. Daggers and such are likely the preferred murderer's weapon as they do damage based on the stat that affects your Initiative, whereas many of the more conventionally powerful weapons have a less externally useful stat for their damage (and for the hardcore user, daggers have the best weapon-specialist feat-equivalent chain in the game). Meanwhile fists allow you the (much simpler than 3.5, though that's not saying much) grappling rules, and similar to daggers have a powerful specialist feat chain taking them from "weaksauce" to really quite powerful.

But you're wrong about the idea that people would never switch weapons.
"Boy oh boy, I wish my scythe could reach across that chasm, if only I had some kind of handheld tool that had that long a handle."
"Oh lobster nuts, he's now in my reach and I have a 1/day ability to scum for a high crit."
"Some guy called Waldo Frey wants me to pick a fight at a wedding."

[RadiantPhoenix]

My position on this matter is Swiss-Army Cudgel.

When you're even approaching mid-levels, you shouldn't be specialized in particular weapons or need to worry too hard about exactly which weapon you have.

Well, maybe at level 3 it might still be okay (Adventurer isn't the only class), but by level 6...

[Omegonthesane]

Scythe-napkin is acceptable in D&D in particular but MGuy did specifically desire weapons to feel different... for some reason.

[MGuy]

I don't think you're going to switch from glaive, to scythe to dagger. There really is no reason to. If you've already decided to try and cheese out reach on the glaive there is no real reason to ever switch to the scythe. Ever. Even without the feats that you're basically forced to get to make that work out there is no situation in which you decided to concentrate on reach that you'll then switch to a scythe for. As you point out wielding a dagger is right out because there is no situation in which it is not better than just having a short sword (at the least). I would like a game where there is something to using your fists or a reason that rogues might like to use daggers to backstab (without absolutely requiring them to use a dagger).

If those are your absolutely only requirements Green Ronin's SIFRP may have you covered. Daggers and such are likely the preferred murderer's weapon as they do damage based on the stat that affects your Initiative, whereas many of the more conventionally powerful weapons have a less externally useful stat for their damage (and for the hardcore user, daggers have the best weapon-specialist feat-equivalent chain in the game). Meanwhile fists allow you the (much simpler than 3.5, though that's not saying much) grappling rules, and similar to daggers have a powerful specialist feat chain taking them from "weaksauce" to really quite powerful.

But you're wrong about the idea that people would never switch weapons.
"Boy oh boy, I wish my scythe could reach across that chasm, if only I had some kind of handheld tool that had that long a handle."
"Oh lobster nuts, he's now in my reach and I have a 1/day ability to scum for a high crit."
"Some guy called Waldo Frey wants me to pick a fight at a wedding."

Thanks for the tip. Apparently they have a designers thing about the weapons online so it was easy to find.

However I still don't see someone using a ranseur in that situation. I can see someone who is a melee weapon users having a ranged weapon (like a bow) but I still wouldn't see them switching to a ranseur.

[OgreBattle]

How about armor styles?

Meaningful differences between light/med/heavy.

In Conan stories he goes from naked sneaking to chain n' plate warfighting from time to time.

[MGuy]

How about armor styles?

Meaningful differences between light/med/heavy.

In Conan stories he goes from naked sneaking to chain n' plate warfighting from time to time.

Well of course but I'm more hesitant to go into that territory because I don't really have any real good idea of what I would do for that that wouldn't end up far too fiddly for my tastes.


There should definitely be a trade off for wearing armor vs not. The only thing I have right now is the standard armor makes you slower and easier to hit but reduces all incoming damage. The heavier the armor the more the damage reduction but the easier it is to actually hit. This, I would assume, makes attacking a heavily armored person with small weapons bad, necessitating and encouraging attackers to use of larger, more damaging attacks which would trade accuracy for a bigger bang. This would also mean that heavily armored characters can take area damaging effects very well since area effects should do less damage over all.

The thing is that is a good set up for having heavy armor vs not, and you could even ignore some of the slowing effects by being mounted, but what about light and medium armor? Why not go for the gusto and go straight to heavy? What does lighter armor types protect against? I'm not too sure of a set up that would make going half or partial way more attractive.

[Parthenon]

How would the idea of heavy armour being a buff work? So putting on heavy plate armour is a huge hassle, stops you doing anything else useful, but makes you incredibly tough in battle.

So, most of the time you have light or medium armour for general adventuring around a dungeon, but you buff for an individual fight by putting on the plate.

[...You Lost Me]

A tangent to that tangent: Does medium armor need to exist? It feels like the unloved child amongst D&D armors.

[mlangsdorf]

Historically, the medium armor types are evolutionary stages between the light and heavy armor types. No one who needs heavy armor and can afford it is going to wear medium armor instead, and those armor types could just be dropped from the table (or only put on as a historical note).

If you use encumbrance/fatigue rules, light armor makes sense as concealable or daily wear armor where there's a low threat environment. If you're marching along the Amazon in 100F heat and you know that quilted cloth is lighter and less fatiguing than full plate and sufficiently protective against the wooden weapons of the local natives. Or if you expect to regularly being do acrobatics, climbing walls, and squeezing through tight spells while fighting foes with armed with only knives and thin swords, then light armor makes a lot more sense than heavy.

Even in fantasy combat, you can see some of the same effects. The rogue who plans to scout and parkour over obstacles is going to wear lighter armor than the soldier who is going to but his body between the thief and the monster in melee combat.

[Whipstitch]

Historically, the medium armor types are evolutionary stages between the light and heavy armor types. No one who needs heavy armor and can afford it is going to wear medium armor instead, and those armor types could just be dropped from the table (or only put on as a historical note).

Historical accuracy should sit and spin, but if people must insist on pointing to it as a factor then I'd like to point out that "transitional" is mostly a descriptive term that gets tagged to various armors in retrospect and even then people routinely slap fight over where plated mails and the like are supposed to fit in given that many cultures stood pat for quite some time. So while there is a trend towards obsolescence in play there are still plenty of wars and cultures in which "medium" armors were practically standard, with chainmail in particular getting a shout-out for being the iconic armor of Tolkien and the Crusades. More importantly, artistic depictions of fantasy armor often features all sorts of crazy bullshit and armor combinations. So while I'm OK with say, folding medium armors into heavy armors from a mechanical perspective, I'm not OK with just tossing brigandine, lamellar and chain into the bin. Make them interchangeable, if you want, but don't kill the visual interest.

[MGuy]

Historically, the medium armor types are evolutionary stages between the light and heavy armor types. No one who needs heavy armor and can afford it is going to wear medium armor instead, and those armor types could just be dropped from the table (or only put on as a historical note).

Historical accuracy should sit and spin, but if people must insist on pointing to it as a factor than I'd like to point out that "transitional" is mostly a descriptive term that gets tagged to various armors in retrospect and even then people routinely slap fight over where plated mails and the like are supposed to fit in given that many cultures stood pat for quite some time. So while there is a trend towards obsolescence in play there are still plenty of wars and cultures in which "medium" armors were practically standard, with chainmail in particular getting a shout-out for being the iconic armor of Tolkien and the Crusades. More importantly, artistic depictions of fantasy armor often features all sorts of crazy bullshit and armor combinations. So while I'm OK with say, folding medium armors into heavy armors from a mechanical perspective, I'm not OK with just tossing brigandine, lamellar and chain into the bin. Make them interchangeable, if you want, but don't kill the visual interest.

I honestly do not care about medium armor so I have no qualms with throwing it right the fuck out and just have varying degrees of light and heavy armor. I still have to ask what's the point of wearing light armor vs none? If you want to just be more resistant to damage you would just go heavy. If you're an agile character why wear any armor at all that'll penalize you even a little?

[RadiantPhoenix]

If I felt the need to make a distinction between medium and heavy armor, I'd go with this:

• Light armor is for people who need to act like they're not wearing armor
• Medium armor is for people who wear armor "for real", but need to move
• Heavy armor is for people who don't need to use their movement modes (i.e., cavalry, whether land-, sea-, air-, or teleport-)

[Omegonthesane]

Historically, the medium armor types are evolutionary stages between the light and heavy armor types. No one who needs heavy armor and can afford it is going to wear medium armor instead, and those armor types could just be dropped from the table (or only put on as a historical note).

Historical accuracy should sit and spin, but if people must insist on pointing to it as a factor than I'd like to point out that "transitional" is mostly a descriptive term that gets tagged to various armors in retrospect and even then people routinely slap fight over where plated mails and the like are supposed to fit in given that many cultures stood pat for quite some time. So while there is a trend towards obsolescence in play there are still plenty of wars and cultures in which "medium" armors were practically standard, with chainmail in particular getting a shout-out for being the iconic armor of Tolkien and the Crusades. More importantly, artistic depictions of fantasy armor often features all sorts of crazy bullshit and armor combinations. So while I'm OK with say, folding medium armors into heavy armors from a mechanical perspective, I'm not OK with just tossing brigandine, lamellar and chain into the bin. Make them interchangeable, if you want, but don't kill the visual interest.

I honestly do not care about medium armor so I have no qualms with throwing it right the fuck out and just have varying degrees of light and heavy armor. I still have to ask what's the point of wearing light armor vs none? If you want to just be more resistant to damage you would just go heavy. If you're an agile character why wear any armor at all that'll penalize you even a little?

Depends how good dodging is and how big the penalty is. If it's e.g. Stone Soup, then it's typically worth accepting a -1 to your evasion in return for having any guaranteed damage reduction to speak of whatsoever in the early game as you can't even evade three blows in every four let alone everything that comes your way. In general, it is trivially true that either an option will exist that is simply objectively good enough for the trade-off, or - more likely - one will exist that players think is good enough for the trade-off, which is much the same thing for stats purposes.

Also, light armour looks cooler than no armour whatsoever on some characters.

[K]

You know, in fantasy settings where people are bending time and space with six-second incantations and are expected to cut though the steel armor with non-magic weapons, I'm surprisingly OK with weapons and armor not having any granularity at all.

Weapons and armor being fiddly with slightly varying stats is just tradition. It doesn't have to be that way if you accept that fantasy characters are supposed to crush stone in their hands or murder monsters big enough to kill a normal person by falling on them, then this fact means that minor differences in weapons doesn't mean as much as they do in the scale of the real world.

[Username17]

You know, in fantasy settings where people are bending time and space with six-second incantations and are expected to cut though the steel armor with non-magic weapons, I'm surprisingly OK with weapons and armor not having any granularity at all.

Weapons and armor being fiddly with slightly varying stats is just tradition. It doesn't have to be that way if you accept that fantasy characters are supposed to crush stone in their hands or murder monsters big enough to kill a normal person by falling on them, then this fact means that minor differences in weapons doesn't mean as much as they do in the scale of the real world.

If you're giving weapon and armor granularity to try to scratch some kind of "realism" itch, I don't know what to tell you. That's just not a productive tree to bark up when you have ogres wielding clubs bigger than a man and shit.

Weapons and armor gets granularity so that people who are playing "warrior" characters can make choices. Either "build" choices when the weapons and armor are locked in (as they are in most wealth by level systems), or "mission" choices when they are not. If weapons are sufficiently accessible, characters can even plausibly switch weapons during combat, allowing them to make meaningful choices that way.

-Username17

[K]

Weapons and armor gets granularity so that people who are playing "warrior" characters can make choices. Either "build" choices when the weapons and armor are locked in (as they are in most wealth by level systems), or "mission" choices when they are not. If weapons are sufficiently accessible, characters can even plausibly switch weapons during combat, allowing them to make meaningful choices that way.

-Username17

My point is that it's merely tradition that weapons and armor are a source of tactical and strategic choices. In a fantasy RPG, you can literally have anything be the excuse/flavor for getting choices (build, tactical, strategic, whatever).

Weapons and armor are always going to be flavor choices, but so is red hair. You could just as easily provide build choices to a different flavor choice like red hair and make red hair people into the one's doing high damage and low accuracy attacks on the tactical field instead of the guy who invested at chargen in the high damage and low accuracy weapon of your system.

The only reason to make weapons and armor into something special is to scratch the simulationists who want combat to simulate fights between humans of roughly equal strength. In a world where giants are expected to fight and be fought, the difference in flavor between a hand ax and a battle ax is almost indistinguishable because it's still going to be PC mojo arbitrarium that makes that attack into a giant-killing attack from a flavor standpoint.

The golfbag of weapons as a flavor for having several choices isn't mechanically different from some other flavor like "knowing several styles" or "calling down the blessings of one of several gods" except for the actual golfbag.