How should weapon types (sword, axe, spear, etc.) be in D&D?

[JigokuBosatsu]

I always assumed adventurers with halberds were just operating in the same wuxia space as monks.

[SlyJohnny]

Other than making it shorter, what's the polearm of choice for someone that isn't going to fight in a large formation or from horseback?

[Username17]

Other than making it shorter, what's the polearm of choice for someone that isn't going to fight in a large formation or from horseback?

Depends on the expected targets. A world of really heavy armor led to the development of the Lucerne Hammer - essentially a weighted spike on the end of a pole. Or basically an enormous can opener if you want to think of it like that. On the other hand, loose formations that have gone against cavalry have generally gone for some kind of Mancatcher or Guisarme - basically a big hook that you can use to dismount horsemen. skirmishers who have the task of taking down pike formations have tended to favor various Halberds and Glaives - essentially big pole axes that you can use to smash up the enemy pikes and then move in to start chopping up the people on the inside. Against armorless foes, something similar to the Naginata has been come up with repeatedly - basically exactly a sword, but at the end of a 1.8 meter pole so that you have reach on any other fuckers trying to sword you in return. Note that this last one is basically the concept of the Bayonet, and for much the same reason.

Basically polearms have evolved tremendously over the last three thousand years. They've been used by every culture in every time period, and the dimensions and tips and weights have been adjusted massively to deal with every type of war and skirmish that humans have ever encountered and some that haven't been.

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, D&D kitchen sink fantasy in particular doesn't hit me as having a single right answer, since it starts out as a fairly low powered but eventually both your equipment and your opponents are going to be weird magical shit. Sun Wukong doesn't give a shit about any of this because his staff weighs 8 tons and does what he wills.

[OgreBattle]

General thoughts on weapon categories....


First, size:

Sleeve- Weapons you can hide in your sleeve or boot.

Waist- weapon you hang off of your belt.

Back/Shoulder- weapon too large for waist, wear on back strap (not historic)

Formation- Too cumbersome for 1 on 1

Then 'type'

Sword-
bonus accuracy

Mass- Axes, hammers
bonus damage/ap

Reach- pokey rapiers and spears
bonus reach

Shield-
Bonus to defense

So...

Waist-
-sword: katana, longsword
-mass: 1.5h axe/hammer
-reach: Rapier
-shield: 1h and buckler
-ranged: short bow, light crossbow, carbine/heavy pistol

Shoulder-
-sword: Greatsword
-Mass: Polleaxe, flail
-Reach: Spear
-Shield: Tower shield & 1h
-Ranged: longbow, arbalest, musket

[Username17]

Of course, none of that can be assessed in a vacuum. If people are basically super heroes or expected to become such within the scope of the game, who gives a shit? Samson uses the jawbone of a donkey because he has magic dreadlocks that give him super strength and it doesn't fucking matter what he's using to smash people. When he strikes a group of soldiers you get one of those explosions from Lord of the Rings when Sauron is fucking shit up, and the nominal weapon qualities of whatever is in his hand are largely or completely irrelevant. Further, such characters can and do use weapons that would be too large or heavy or simply impractical for normal people to use. Sun Wukong's staff weighs several tons and there's no particular reason to expect a weapon system to even have stats for "fifty foot iron column," but that is factually what that character brings to a fight.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could easily imagine a game where fencing is pretty much the entire game, and minor differences between weapons and armors was pretty much all you cared about. In such a game you'd want to keep track of weapon lengths and give a modest advantage for having a weapon slightly longer or substantially shorter than what your enemy is bringing to the table.

Now marrying those two concepts is difficult, but imaginable. You could imagine a character giving a shit whether his rapier or his battle ax was a better weapon for a specific encounter and then leveling up and eventually he's just using a fucking buster sword and no longer gives a shit. You could do something involving "battle auras" where badass people just gradually get bigger and bigger auras and are allowed to blank weapon lengths that are smaller than their aura size. So when you have a big enough battle aura both pikes and machetes are basically equivalent because weapon length just doesn't matter anymore.

Another issue is that regardless of the power of the player characters, there's still the environment they interact with. I would never take a pike to a one on one battle with a human being, but it seems like a fairly reasonable thing to bring against a dragon, giant, or fire demon. Such creatures could have size such that only characters with big as weapons or giant battle auras can meaningfully threaten them.

-Username17

[tussock]

Sneak Attack!

I feel like "weapons matter for a start, and later they don't" has been solved a while. All the designers seem to miss that the one thing that works nicely as a level-related bonus is damage. Hell, Gygax said later on he intended to put one in 2nd Edition, for monsters and PCs alike.

As a basic concept, if you have longer weapon strikes first on engagement, and much shorter weapon gets bonuses on the inside, that also matters less at levels where everything takes a few more hits to knock over, and intuitively at least, should work fine by just giving monsters a certain amount of reach.

So you do get first strike on a wolf with your sword, but if it gets inside and latches on you need to pummel it or pull out a dagger, where the fire demon out-reaches you so you get hit first and then get inside for bonus stuff and also being on fire.

And two weapon fighting is just the real thing where you have a rapier and a dagger, so no one gets bonuses against you with street-legal weapons.

--

Which in 3e D&D, is reach weapons where you need room to keep backing up, normal weapons where you close through the reach, and light weapons that work in a grapple. Which if grappling was less of a nightmare rule would probably be enough for a game.

Having more steps of reach is, not bad, but eh, do you even have rules for wrist strength on that extra-long rapier, are people paying for longer arms? Feels like a lot of potentially fiddly stuff to make it work right and there's not that much pay off. Gotta be somewhat abstract.

[Username17]

As a basic concept, if you have longer weapon strikes first on engagement, and much shorter weapon gets bonuses on the inside, that also matters less at levels where everything takes a few more hits to knock over, and intuitively at least, should work fine by just giving monsters a certain amount of reach.

How do you dress yourself in the morning?

Giving longer weapons a bonus to striking first and shorter weapons a bonus on the inside makes longer weapons better the closer things are to rocket tag and shorter weapons better the closer things are to padded sumo. Giving things more hit points doesn't make weapon length matter less, it makes shorter weapons better. FFS.

-Username17

[tussock]

Are you after some film? I could maybe set something up?

But, yeah, I see your logic and that's not what people do in games where only small weapons work in grapples, like 3e.

I guess because grappling is terrible and the monsters don't play fair, and carrying a spare short weapon was bad economics? Probably. And people did stick with reach a bit, because you needed it more, and if you put the feats in it sort of kept up.

[Thaluikhain]

In the Inquisitor game, every weapon had a single digit reach statistic, and for every point yours was higher than your opponent's you got an extra 10% chance to hit (or parry), and you needed reach 4 or more to hit when you are "at arms length" (which is the distance you can use a pistol in close combat as well). I'm sure there was some rule about getting in close where the reverse was the case, but can't find it.

Weapons had a reach stat, a damage stat, and a parry penalty, and anything I'd actually want to use had special abilities. Notably if there is a successful parry involving a power weapon, unless the other weapon is power, shock, daemon or force, it has a 75% chance of being destroyed.

But the stats tended to be all over the place.