Super Simple Weapons

mrpopstar · Jun 25, 2018

Yaarel said:
Weapon size
• agile (finesse)
• one-hand (medium)
• hand-and-half (versatile)
• two-hand (heavy, reach)

Technically, modern archeological nomenclature for the type of grip. But works better for the size of blade (or other cold weapon), since the same hand-and-half sword blade can be made with either or a one-hand grip or a two-hand grip, depending on the preferred fighting style of the user.

Interesting! Hand-and-half is useful to know.

Initially, I labeled the simple small weapon "finesse weapon."

fjw70 said:
For my stripped down D&D I play with the kids I have simplified weapons even further.

Thrown weapons 1d6 damage, light, finesse, thrown
Light melee weapons 1d8 damage, finesse
Heavy melee weapons 1d10 damage, heavy, versatile
Two handed weapons 1d12 damage, two-handed

When using a two-handed or versatile weapons with two hands then you get a +1 added to damage (so yes, two handed weapons always get this).

One-handed ranged 1d6 damage
Light two-handed ranged 1d8
Heavy two-handed ranged 1d10

Super simple! I like it.

Yaarel said:
I googled across this website describing different kinds of fighting knives.

The analysis is too granular for the goal of elegant simplicity here, but interesting.

It distinguishes between ‘thrust’ (piercing), ‘slash’, and ‘hack’. It suggests the thrust of a knife with a dagger blade deals more damage but with a disadvantage on attack. Thus the dagger is better for an unsuspecting target.

Meanwhile, a knife designed for slash, such as a point-clip or scimitar blade, is better for a fight.

I'd love for there to be features associated with weapon choice (e.g. axes are brutal so reroll 1s, swords are precise so critical on 19-20, etc.). Right now, a lot of that is tied up in features elsewhere, but I think it would make weapon choice far more meaningful.

Grainger said:
For my money, 5e is great, but still has a lot of unnecessary complication. What we need is a tactically rich game without meaningless nuts and bolts. I'd say players agonising over weapons tables is a relatively pointless aspect of character creation, especially as most characters really have only a couple of viable weapon choices.

I'm all for 6th edition having Class-based damage - so, basically the Hit Die idea discussed so far. The player can just pick what goes thematically with their character. As it stands, there are only some sensible weapon choices for any given character, so you're kind of forced into that. Perhaps we would need to give a bonus to two-handed weapons so that there's a meaningful choice between two hand/dual wield and sword/shield.

It would also fix the problem I've seen of newbie players picking terrible weapon choices because they didn't understand the game (and cut down on the advice they need to get from more seasoned players - there's enough for them to learn at the start), and it would reward (or at least, avoid penalising) players who go with specific weapons for RP reasons. Want to have a Rogue that uses daggers? No problem - you're not nudged towards dual-wielding swords to do better damage.

In short, I don't think having lots of different weapon damages adds much meaningful choice to the game, so it should go.

Agreed!

Yaarel said:
Even if switching to class hitdice for weapon damage, I would still want to see things like downsize the hitdice for finesse, reach, and similar. Upsize for two-handed.

So the simplification/systemization in the original post is still useful.

I want some kind of verisimilitude − even if I want an elegant minimalism.

Boiling everything down really does help you see how everything works.

I'd also like to see a downsize in weapon damage dice when two-weapon fighting, and an upsize when two-handed fighting. If you use the fighter's hit dice: two-weapon 1d8/1d8, one-handed 1d10, two-handed 1d12. And if you use the rogue's hit dice: two-weapon 1d6/1d6, one-handed 1d8, two-handed 1d10. There would actually be an increase in damage output for fighters when two-weapon fighting, and an increase in damage output for rogues when fighting two-handed. (If you decreased the barbarian's hit dice to 1d10 and instead offered some other HP booster as a class feature it would all work out.)

GlassJaw · Jun 25, 2018

I was skeptical coming into this thread but a lot of the ideas are well thought-out. I'm certainly surprised how much I like them.

The 5E weapon chart is sort of in a weird place. In general, they simplified, but it feels like they didn't go far enough. And because of that, it still has holes and balance issues that could use expanding. It also kept a lot of the traditional weapons but simplified the mechanics so it ends up feeling very homogenized.

I'm of the mind that 5E simplified the weapon chart too much. But if it was simplified along the lines described in this thread, I wonder if I would have felt the same way...

mrpopstar · Jun 25, 2018

GlassJaw said:
I was skeptical coming into this thread but a lot of the ideas are well thought-out. I'm certainly surprised how much I like them.

The 5E weapon chart is sort of in a weird place. In general, they simplified, but it feels like they didn't go far enough. And because of that, it still has holes and balance issues that could use expanding. It also kept a lot of the traditional weapons but simplified the mechanics so it ends up feeling very homogenized.

I'm of the mind that 5E simplified the weapon chart too much. But if it was simplified along the lines described in this thread, I wonder if I would have felt the same way...

This is high praise! Thank you for the kind words.

I think that 5th Edition is a fantastic game. As D&D moves forward, I'd love to see more of the math get out of our way. Give me idiot simple, intuitive tools to work with; rich enough to give us the feels where appropriate, but reduced to the essentials.

mrpopstar · Jun 25, 2018

In terms of melee weapons, we could squash further if we really really wanted to...

Name	Damage	Properties
Simple Melee Weapons
- Small weapon	1d4	Finesse, light, thrown (range 20/60)
- Medium weapon	1d6	Finesse, light, thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)
Martial Melee Weapons
- Large Weapon	1d8	Versatile (1d10)
- Huge Weapon	1d10	Heavy, reach, two-handed
- Gargantuan Weapon	1d12	Heavy, two-handed

EDIT: I actually like this much better because it reduces the need to differentiate between simple large weapons and martial large weapons. Now, saying "large weapon" always means one-hand 1d8 and we all know that requires martial training.

EDIT EDIT: Ack! No! How'd that finessed 1d8 sneak back in!? A two-handed rapier you can throw!? NEVER!

Riley37 · Jun 25, 2018

Blue said:
That sounds like a DM who thinks there is nothing but mechanics.

Did you notice that the OP reduced all weapons to their mechanics?

Using the PHB, as written: "Six gnolls cackle at you, some drawing swords, others brandishing axes or banging spears against shields, their insane laughter echoing in the cavern."
The PHB has rules for swords, axes and spears. They have mechanics, such as damage dice and damage type; they also have costs and weights; they have illustrations.

If you replace the weapons in the PHB, with the table in the OP, does that *increase* or *decrease* the relationship between crunch and fluff?

Grainger · Jun 25, 2018

Another advantage of having a simplified chart... for slightly more historically accurate campaigns like mine (and yes, I know I am in a tiny minority), it makes it easier to get rid of anomalous weapons. I don't want my game-world full of every type of weapon and armour from the ancient world to the renaissance, and if the individual weapons in D&D were essentially labels, rather than distinct choices, then it would be much easier.

TLDR: a simplified weapons chart would make re-skinning easier (for a particular historical period or cultural setting).

Blue · Jun 25, 2018

Riley37 said:
Did you notice that the OP reduced all weapons to their mechanics?

Actually, I noticed nothing of the sort. I noticed that the OP reduced all weapons mechanics to their mechanics. I don't see anywhere where they also said that all fluff must change and that weapons couldn't or shouldn't be described. Since they call out specific weapons by name that are changed by this, I fully believe that the original poster still expected weapons to be able to be named and described in-world.

Riley37 said:
If you replace the weapons in the PHB, with the table in the OP, does that *increase* or *decrease* the relationship between crunch and fluff?

Thankfully it decreases it. Right now there are a few "best" weapons, and any character that wants something else because it fits their theme has to eitehr compromise on their flavor or on their efficiency.

Being able to describe this martial medium weapon as an arming sword, and this martial medium weapon as a tribal weapon of a stick with shark-teeth making up an edge, and this martial medium weapon as a dwarven waraxe - having that freedom to have the right narrative weapon fo my character and have the rules support (and not penalize for not picking "the best") is a huge advantage.

mrpopstar · Jun 25, 2018

Riley37 said:
Did you notice that the OP reduced all weapons to their mechanics?

Using the PHB, as written: "Six gnolls cackle at you, some drawing swords, others brandishing axes or banging spears against shields, their insane laughter echoing in the cavern."
The PHB has rules for swords, axes and spears. They have mechanics, such as damage dice and damage type; they also have costs and weights; they have illustrations.

If you replace the weapons in the PHB, with the table in the OP, does that *increase* or *decrease* the relationship between crunch and fluff?

Using the table in the OP clearly *decreases* the relationship between crunch and fluff!

(If I do say so, myself.)

Grainger said:
Another advantage of having a simplified chart... for slightly more historically accurate campaigns like mine (and yes, I know I am in a tiny minority), it makes it easier to get rid of anomalous weapons. I don't want my game-world full of every type of weapon and armour from the ancient world to the renaissance, and if the individual weapons in D&D were essentially labels, rather than distinct choices, then it would be much easier.

TLDR: a simplified weapons chart would make re-skinning easier (for a particular historical period or cultural setting).

This is exactly the sort of thing I seek to empower!

Blue said:
Actually, I noticed nothing of the sort. I noticed that the OP reduced all weapons mechanics to their mechanics. I don't see anywhere where they also said that all fluff must change and that weapons couldn't or shouldn't be described. Since they call out specific weapons by name that are changed by this, I fully believe that the original poster still expected weapons to be able to be named and described in-world.

Thankfully it decreases it. Right now there are a few "best" weapons, and any character that wants something else because it fits their theme has to eitehr compromise on their flavor or on their efficiency.

Being able to describe this martial medium weapon as an arming sword, and this martial medium weapon as a tribal weapon of a stick with shark-teeth making up an edge, and this martial medium weapon as a dwarven waraxe - having that freedom to have the right narrative weapon fo my character and have the rules support (and not penalize for not picking "the best") is a huge advantage.

YES YES YES No more "best" weapons. Describe your character exactly how you want. Everybody WINS!

Yaarel · Jun 25, 2018

Possible to go simpler?

Remove the distinction between simple and martial. Moreover, part of the goal is to use a simple weapon effectively, such as a dagger. All the more reason to remove the distinction between martial and simple.

Tiny 1d4 (light, finesse, throw)
Small 1d6 (light, finesse)
Medium 1d8 (versatile)
Large 1d10 (heavy, two-hand, reach)
Huge 1d12 (heavy, two-hand)

Smarmot · Jun 25, 2018

I'm trying to understand the motivation for simplifying all things martial in your games. Weapons and armor are already quite simplified compared to past editions but are different enough from each other to have roles. Maybe spears did get the shaft a little but it's a tiny difference in damage between a sword and a spear and certainly that difference wouldn't stop any one at my table from taking a spear as an conceptual choice. Also there are good reasons to sometimes use a shortsword or dagger instead of a rapier. I'm surprised you are finding so much homogeneity.

Making things so bland for weapon users when they are already bland compared to spell casters just baffles me. Spellcasting is significantly more complicated than weapon use . You are putting racing tires on an ice cream truck.

It sounds like you have a couple of juvenile players trying to outdo each other in DPR or one berating the other for choosing a hand axe over a javelin or something.

Super Simple Weapons

mrpopstar

Sparkly Dude

GlassJaw

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mrpopstar

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mrpopstar

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Riley37

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Grainger

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mrpopstar

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Yaarel

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Smarmot

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