D&D 5E No love for the hand axe?

For the record, I've always leaned towards archetype and visual themes over metagame factors when creating and playing PCs. I.e., I typically will chose the 1d6 weapon over the 1d8 weapon if I feel the 1d6 weapon is cooler or fits the theme better. However, I think it's natural human behavior to do the opposite. When you're looking at building and playing your PC, you naturally lean towards the most effective.

That being said, one thing I've noticed is that no one ever uses a hand axe except maybe as a back up ranged weapon for fighters. As someone who has done bushcraft and a lot of outdoors activities, the one tool I have over anything else is a forest axe (about the size of a large hand axe). It's the tool of choice over even a knife if I had to choose only one. But when we think of barbarians or rangers (two classes that would represent the woodsman/mountainman), it's either a battle axe (which is pretty crappy for day to day bushcraft) or long sword as primary weapons. The hand axe often gets left behind despite it clearly being the superior item in real life representation.

I'm guessing this is probably because in the game, we spend little, if any time on that part of the exploration pillar. We just assume that PCs get the fire going with firewood, ignoring the fact that the worst thing you can do with a sword is try to chop down a tree or split a log. And most of us probably ignore encumbrance as well, so PCs never have to make that decision of limiting themselves to only a few tools and weapons.

Hmmm...maybe I'll give hand axes the versatile feature in my games.

I used to play characters who would do things like dual wield hand axes, but that was under 3/3.5 where a hand axe had a larger critical damage modifier (x3). For, my current character I chose to have a couple of hand axes in order to take advantage of Strength bonus for ranged attacks, but once I got EK spells and chose Firebolt, I haven't used the axe once. Still I have kept them on my character sheet for just the reasons you mentioned. A small axe is an incredibly versatile tool.

Two weapons which are really undervalued in the D&D systems beyond OD&D are the hand axe and the spear.

ExploderWizard said:

Two weapons which are really undervalued in the D&D systems beyond OD&D are the hand axe and the spear.

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Don't worry. WFRP1e more than made up the difference for the spear.

Hand axes suck for PCs.

But swap hand axes on a monster and remove their big honking stick or javelins. Dual thrown handaxes is 2 chances for DC 10 concentration checks per kobold.

Eventually the mage will roll a 1.

I am a big fan of cool magic abilities on suboptimal weapons. I have had vorpal (heart piercers) spears, hand axes of speed (extra attack as a bonus), defender whips (free parry feat ability), tridents of the elements (3d4 elemental damage each d4 different) and a constricting net ( d8 damage to those caught in it). If a weapon is suboptimal give it a cool special ability through magic or feats.

Can't monks use hand axes in their primary attack?

In AD&D, the list of weapons you could use in your off-hand was very short, just the dagger & hand axe, in 1e, IIRC, and not expanded much in 2e. Once weapon double-specialization came around, a pair of hand axes made your fighter into the cuisinart of doom. AD&D also featured a reasonably cool magical throwing ax, FWIW.

Now there're more off-hand weapons to choose from, and specialization + TWFing (or Archery) isn't the only way for a fighter to get high DPR.

Sacrosanct said:

That being said, one thing I've noticed is that no one ever uses a hand axe except maybe as a back up ranged weapon for fighters. As someone who has done bushcraft and a lot of outdoors activities, the one tool I have over anything else is a forest axe (about the size of a large hand axe). It's the tool of choice over even a knife if I had to choose only one. But when we think of barbarians or rangers (two classes that would represent the woodsman/mountainman), it's either a battle axe (which is pretty crappy for day to day bushcraft) or long sword as primary weapons. The hand axe often gets left behind despite it clearly being the superior item in real life representation.

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Are we talking about weapons or tools? They're two different things. An axe is a great tool, but not exactly the perfect weapon.

Agamon said:

Are we talking about weapons or tools? They're two different things. An axe is a great tool, but not exactly the perfect weapon.

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Even as a tool, I would take a good survival knife over a hand axe every time.