Does D&D need that many weapons?

[shadzar]

Awl pike
Bardiche
Bec de corbin
Bill-guisarme
Fauchard
Fauchard-fork
Glaive
Glaive-guisarme
Guisarme
Guisarme-voulge
Halberd
Hook fauchard
Lucern hammer
Military fork
Partisan
Ranseur
Spetum
Voulge

this is just a small list of polearms...


and hwo about them swords!

Bastard sword
One-handed
Two-handed
Broad sword
Claymore
Cutlass
Drusus
Falchion
Khopesh
Long sword
Rapier
Sabre
Scimitar
Short sword
Two-handed sword

does each and every strange weapon need to have specific stats for everything? can a sharp stick just be a sword and a long one jsut be a polearm?

why does D&D, the game itself not the players of it, need so many weapons really?

if you had less choices in weapon "type" then you could just have flavor amongst them.

with Magic Mart and Wall-to-wall Weapons-and-Armor Mart, when does it become excessive?

when you remove the weapon types (PSB) and things like weapon speeds, then you really have little need for so many types of weapons so the list can be greatly shortened right?

as far as that goes, do we need that much armor? how many games really have people buying piece-mail sets of armor?

sure it is fun if you want to get into all those little bits, but for the majority does it ever all come into play? how many types of armor does the game need to be playable?

imagine you are new to the game and coming into 2nd edition where ALL books are allowed and you have printout lists of all the available weapons and armors. do you really need that much to pick from?

[Plague of Hats]

Shadzar, the Hitler of D&D weapons.

[Stinktopus]

Shadzar was raped by a player with a guisarme-voulge.

[shadzar]

can't quite understand either of you cause you are mumbling. try removing a few barrels of cocks from your mouth then try again.

[deaddmwalking]

In truth, you don't really need different damage for each individual weapon. But people who like D&D tend to like medieval style weapons and will demand differences. A fair number will insist that a katana has to be totally badass and can't be represented as a bastard sword and what have you.

But even if you could replace all of the weapons with the same stats, you'd still actually want all (or most) of the weapons. In the imagination, a character swinging a morningstar will create a different image than that same character swinging a sword. Having a large variety of weapons allows us to more easily distinguish characters - since the game is one that takes place in the imagination, this is more important than it seems.

Making every character feel 'samey' is anathema to the sense of wonder that an RPG SHOULD be.

[virgil]

Don't forget that different stats for a weapon create different strategies/designs, and you might as well tie those differences to specific weapons to create a kind of verisimilitude.

[radthemad4]

Little stuff like whether something is bludgeoning, slashing or piercing, more varied accuracy, damage output, critical ranges, etc. make for interesting decisions. Do I want to double the possibility of a critical, or do 3 times as much damage on a critical? Do I want something I can throw as well? Do I want something that I can use as a double weapon sometimes? etc. It makes things interesting for people who are into it, and the rest can just pick something quickly.

[OgreBattle]

You can take a look at Weapon choice & fighting styles for a 4 page discussion on this topic.

Here's some choice quotes that stood out:

I literally do not know how you can do it. Even if there's no Improved Disarm feat or Disarm skill to pump up, because if a Swordbreaker is actively worse than other weapon options in return for bonuses to Disarm then the act of choosing the Swordbreaker over other weapons is specializing in Disarm.

Because you can put down a swordbreaker and draw a longsword. It's equivalent to like a disarming stance rather than like actually specializing your character. If the character with the main gauche fights a giant crab he is not boned, because he can grab a battle ax when enemies don't have weapons to disarm. This is a huge contrast with spending feats or weapon proficiencies or something into the main gauche, which you can't "get back" when the hook horrors come over the hill.

-Username17

The only DnD weapons that feel different are the ones that have a special ability. The actual stats bit is tough to remember and tends to be meaningless because people always pick the best stats (when is the last time you saw a club or warhammer fighter?).

But the Spiked Chain gets remembered and used.

Forcing or allowing people to specialize in a weapon leads to so many conceptual and mechanical problems, it feels like an iconic 1970s RPG mechanic.

It's like forcing different sexes use different stat lines. It may be flavorful, but its a really primitive and lame idea that is not worth the cost of the flavor.

What about weapon styles? And where do you draw the line? If there's no difference in wielding a longspear and a dagger then things become boring. Also, where does specializing begin and where does it end: does it only include specific stuff like Weapon Focus and Specialization or is it considered specializing when you go for flask rogue or a stormtrooping, leap attacking barbarian?

The instant that you start to fetishize certain weapons, the stupid happens.

Players will pick the obviously good choice regardless of how stupid it is. Adding splashing mechanics that interact with sneak attacks means that 3.X created a new archetype of the flask rogue, but that's only because players will gravitate to the best mechanics regardless of how silly they are.

If phoenix feathers were weapons that used the touch attack mechanic, were cheap, and allowed sneak attacks, then "feather rogues" would be a thing instead.

Allowing any kind of weapon or style specialization means that players feel picked on the instant the DM puts them in a situation that is not catered to that weapon. The sword and board fighter is annoyed at the DM when fighting the flying manticore who shoots spines at range and feels personally slighted when magic bows show up in the treasure.

Even tactical specialization works that way. The trip-tastic tripper feels like the DM is going out his way to make the game less fun whenever legless monsters make an appearance.

Both of these things happen because specialization means that you don't have generalization. If you only have one good attack because that's the one that uses your +4 sword, the game stops working for you when you don't get to attack with that sword.

Generalization has to be the way. Players need multiple tactics both for their own variety, but so the DM can throw variety at them in a fair way. The 3.X Rogue is a lot more fun to play when he has a way to meaningfully fight undead and constructs because undead and constructs are awesome. He's even more fun to play when he doesn't have to be a flask rogue in order to meaningfully contribute in combat.

It's fine to have weapons that have minor bonuses and penalties, but those have to be trade-offs. A swordbreaker can just be a better weapon for disarming people, but it needs to be worse at something else so that the obvious choice is not to always take the swordbreaker and force the Swordbreaker archtype into the game.

DnD has sold a lot of books by catering to the Build Culture where people are constantly scouring sources for an extra +1 or feat to make some tactic better, but no one has noticed that it tends to make less fun games for everyone because it leads to people using the same tactic for every problem and being useless and unhappy in every other problem.

For weapon types, there needs to be some meaningful diffference between them if they are to have mechanical differences, here's my shot at it:

There's three main properties of a weapon
-Speed: how quick it is on the attack and defense, affects accuracy and parrying
-Damage: how hurty it is
-Reach: yep

Having better reach means you can attack someone from a 5ft increment further, and you get a bonus to your defense against shorter reach weapons (until they close the distance by landing a hit)

Distributing some consistent amount of points across those 3 attributes then generates your weapon types:

Sword, well balanced for battle
Spd: **
Dmg: *
Rch: *

Axe/mace/cleaver, top heavy impact weapon
Spd:*
Dmg: **
Rch: *

Spear/rapier, a quick thrusting weapon with good reach
Spd: *
Dmg: *
Rch: **


So the sword lands the most hits, the axe hits the hardest but lower accuracy/defense, the rapier lets you poke the dudes as they try to slash you.


If you have a two handed version of a sword, axe, or spear you add
Reach: +*
Damage: +*

If it's a super heavy weapon then it's
Damage:+*
Spd: -*

If it's a really really long weapon then it's
Reach: +*
Spd: -*

Fighting with an offhand weapon (such as a buckler) gives you
Spd: +**

Fighting with an offhand medium shield gives you
Spd:+*
Armor: +*

and then you got the dagger as a concealable stabby thing
Spd:*
Damage:*
Reach:-


So the weapons you'd have are...
1h dagger/katar
1h sword/katana
1h axe/mace/cleaver
1h rapier/spear/jian

2h greatsword/nodachi
2h axe/bardich
2h spear/estoc

2h Pike
2h halberd/polearms in general
2h zweihander/deathscythe

Then there's stuff like ninja chains that get its own special stuff.

[JonSetanta]

I'm still waiting for you to write an RPG, Shad.

[Koumei]

That certainly is a very noteworthy problem of current D&D - many comics and such have made jokes about this, in fact. If only there were another edition that cut down on that crap, like some kind of third edition of D&D!

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I did an elementary school social studies project on weaponry using a friend's older brother's 1e's Unearthed Arcana's polearm charts as a resource. It was in that halycon era where a kid could get away with bringing a crossbow to school for effectively show and tell.

[Koumei]

Pretty sure that's how lame comedy-drama films start.

[hogarth]

Making every character feel 'samey' is anathema to the sense of wonder that an RPG SHOULD be.

I'll stick with the opinion I stated in the thread OgreBattle linked to:

The idea of having a class with whose only ability is "you hit stuff with weapons" is stupid, but if you're going to have that class you sure as hell better have rules that differentiate one weapon from another.

[TheFlatline]

In 2nd edition you had weapon speed as a thing that mattered to help offer more differentiation in picking weapons. The 3rd ed weapons list is a holdover from that, but having ditched weapon speed and dumping weapon proficiency into simple, martial, and ranged (I'm excluding exotic) you simplified things probably too much and made "winning" weapons.

[shadzar]

Making every character feel 'samey' is anathema to the sense of wonder that an RPG SHOULD be.

a character is more than just his weapon though it is also in how you play it. unlike 4th where the fighter plays just like the wizard, other editions didnt have such similarity in play because you played them differently. no two fighters have to play the same, since i know that is what you are driving at.

some of the "simulationism" needs to be removed to get rid of the wargame mentality.

isnt the whole talk about fighting style the point of being able to pay differently than another fighter? so one using a long sword in one fashion and style would not be the same as using a long sword in another. it may be the same sword that does the same damage, but then the style changes how often or well you do that damage.

or is the idea of fighting style something other than this? or are you saying a fighters bit should be he is good at ALL style while others are not?

[shadzar]

I'm still waiting for you to write an RPG, Shad.

why? there is no new RPG to be written, only gimmicks on existing ideas. and RPG is either a giant MTP like storyteller games, or some dice rolling competition like 4th; or something in between.

or worse Weis's SAGA system nonsense where you use cards instead of dice and the cards tell you what you do and the player doesn't even really get a choice in the matter.

i pretty much said before what i would do. take the good stuff from AD&D and put it back to OD&D simplicity.

[Cyberzombie]

In 2nd edition you had weapon speed as a thing that mattered to help offer more differentiation in picking weapons. The 3rd ed weapons list is a holdover from that, but having ditched weapon speed and dumping weapon proficiency into simple, martial, and ranged (I'm excluding exotic) you simplified things probably too much and made "winning" weapons.

3E offered more weapon variety than 2E ever did. In 2E, everyone was going to be using a longsword, greatsword or bastard sword. Yeah maybe you'd toss a dagger to disrupt a caster and take advantage of the weapon speed, but everything else was crap.

3E actually introduced a lot of mechanics like reach AoOs and critical threat/multiplier, which made the weapons a lot more competitive. It actually gave you incentive to play a guy who used a polearm, and even made them feel very different from a standard fighter.

[deaddmwalking]

Making every character feel 'samey' is anathema to the sense of wonder that an RPG SHOULD be.

a character is more than just his weapon though it is also in how you play it. unlike 4th where the fighter plays just like the wizard, other editions didnt have such similarity in play because you played them differently. no two fighters have to play the same, since i know that is what you are driving at.

You can play two Fighters both using identical weapons differently (like one can be smart and one can be dumb), so I don't think you need unique weapons to make characters different, but I also think it helps. And differences in weapons can and do reinforce differences between characters. A 'Fighter' that wears heavy armor, uses a shield and stands in the front rank will particpate in combat differently than a more lightly armored, pole-arm wielding character from the second rank. In part because they fight differently, they'll have different strengths and weaknesses. The 'front line' character will need to be harder to hit and capable of absorbing more damage. The character that isn't in the front line will be able to survive without being a defensive-minded.

some of the "simulationism" needs to be removed to get rid of the wargame mentality.

Simulation, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing. Additional abstraction can make it feel 'gamey'. I imagine that there isn't really that much difference between stabbing someone with a knife, a spear, a sword, or shooting them with a bullet - in all cases the physiological damage is going to be similar - so you could probably make them all the same and be more simulationist rather than less. In this case, even though reinforcing differences in weapons might actually be less simulationist, it actually makes the world feel 'more real'. Even if these differences are 'imaginary', positing them to exist helps create the illusion that these things are really different from each other.

But there really is a thing called 'gun porn'. It's not 'porn', but people are really interested in differences between weapons. There are the same things with cars (gearheads) and computers. For people that care about these differences, reflecting differences between them is important - if you posit that Yugo has the same performance characteristics as a Lamborghini, you will offend people that know and care about the performance of these vehicles.

While interest in medieval weaponry is NOT necessary to enjoy RPGs, the group that likes weaponry overlaps with the group that plays RPGs significantly enough that further abstraction is probably not worthwhile. If you have a sense of what you hope to gain, you might consider it, but ultimately, I don't think that 'wargaming' is reinforced by different weapon values.

[Voss]

In 2nd edition you had weapon speed as a thing that mattered to help offer more differentiation in picking weapons. The 3rd ed weapons list is a holdover from that, but having ditched weapon speed and dumping weapon proficiency into simple, martial, and ranged (I'm excluding exotic) you simplified things probably too much and made "winning" weapons.

3E offered more weapon variety than 2E ever did. In 2E, everyone was going to be using a longsword, greatsword or bastard sword. Yeah maybe you'd toss a dagger to disrupt a caster and take advantage of the weapon speed, but everything else was crap.

3e did have more use variety (and has the least bad weapon list), but it also shrank that horrible list of shitty weapons that shadzar posted (even accounting for his randomly repeating various sword types, and including ones that the even the 1e and 2e PHs never bothered with).

But... there is still a fair amount of shit that no one bothers to use in the 3e weapon list unless special versions pop up.

On the other hand, I believe 4e has the shortest and simultaneously worst weapon list, because there is exactly zero reason to use anything that isn't the best, and the 4e weapon list can be unmistakenly ranked from best to worst no matter what the criteria is.

[hogarth]

3e did have more use variety (and has the least bad weapon list), but it also shrank that horrible list of shitty weapons that shadzar posted (even accounting for his randomly repeating various sword types, and including ones that the even the 1e and 2e PHs never bothered with).

Sadly, Pathfinder has stats for all of the swords shadzar mentioned except for the drusus and the "one-handed sword", plus quite a few more (e.g. flambard, falcata, shotel, katana, nodachi, butterfly sword, etc., etc.).

Edit: Actually, they don't have the claymore either.

[Voss]

Eh. Not in the main rules. If you want to go that route, the stupid equipment guides in 2nd edition stretch the list beyond sanity itself.

[shadzar]

this is the list from 2E AEG.... taken right off the Master Weapon List...

[Voss]

So, the self evident answer to your question is no, D&D doesn't need a bunch of garbage drawn off a shitty expansion list. It doesn't even need all the shit in the various Players Handbooks.

[shadzar]

with the seeming except being 4th edition... WotC editions have MORE weapons listed as does PF... so why keep adding more and more thn if the game doesnt need them?

[deaddmwalking]

Why keep adding classes? Why keep adding Feats? Why keep adding spells? Why keep adding races? Why keep adding anything?

People like these things. They are popular. New options get people excited and keep the game from getting stale.