Weapons you wished you'd see sometimes.

[XO]

Rapier

Historically, this weapon came to the fore when people abandoned armor made useless by firearms. No sense in lugging around a scrapyard of steel when a 2 pound weapon (a pistol) can make you see your innards...

The rapier would have been useless against a heavily armored opponent.

And THAT is the problem with mixing up everything.

 

[The Edge]

I once decided I wanted to lessen the amount of swords in a longsword heavy party. So I threw in the classic rust monster and the lot was gone in no time. The previous room (which the rust monster couldn't get in) was an old armoury, and so had plenty to pick from. Except swords it seemed...

Caused an amuseing fight where they used practicaly the entire armoury a little at a time, to fight the rust monster. They passed weapons to the fighter who hit with it and then discarded it as it fell apart.

The result was that they all left with diferent weapons than before, and only the fighter actually went back to useing a sword.

 

[Eonthar]

I think my next character might us a double-sword for the flavor of it...

On that thought.... I've never heard of anyone using a double-sword.

We have a character in our group who uses a double-sword. He was built from the ground up with this weapon in mind. He can be VERY effective with it.

 

[Darklone]

Greataxes. Mauls. Big Bad Twohanded Weapons.

 

[Bardsandsages]

I think part of the problem is the game mechanics encourage certain weapons over others. As was mentioned, a rapier should be useless againat plate, yet the rapier has a better critical threat than other weapons that would be more practical (like a nice mace). Armor ratings should probably be classed differently. Like plate would have an AC X versus blunt weapons, but an AC Y versus slashing weapons. This would encourage people to use different weapons based on their opponent's defenses.

The other problem is that if you do want to use different weapons, you have to take "exotic weapon proficiency." Which means if you have a player that wants to use a unique weapon they have to spend a feat to do it.

 

[Mark Hope]

Why does this happen? Where's the love for the spears, or dual-wielding handaxes?

A couple of characters in my barbarian homebrew favour spears and hand/throwing axes over all other weapons. Mind you, a couple of the others are complete greataxe fetishists, so I guess the balance restores itself in the end...

 

[RFisher]

In previous editions, the problem was that some weapons were mechanically superior. Plus, the prices were usually set based on (someone's idea of) verisimilitude rather than on mechanical differences. There were optional (or de facto optional) rules to try to mix things up a bit, but they were seldom used.

The 3e designers made a good effort to make each weapon mechanically different & priced such that almost every weapon had something to offer. Unfortunately, there are still a few weapons that are--or at least seem to be--mechanically superior within their class. Or, perhaps, players find some of the trade-offs more attractive than the designers may have expected.

(Sometimes superior simply means you don't have to waste a feat on it. A bastard sword is mechanically superior to a long sword or two-handed sword unless you get proficiency with the other two for free.)

I think the answer (if you think this needs an answer) lies more in the other direction. More weapons should be mechanically identical with their particular shape being pure flavor. I always liked the Warhammer FRP "hand weapon".

There's also the fact that in the real world--in any time period--there's always been a handful of weapons that are the superior choice for their role & so are nearly universally choosen when available. There's nothing wrong with the game being the same way. It's just that with D&D being the melting pot that it is, the result can be kind of jarring for some of us. (Like the rapiers v. heavy armor thing mentioned previously.)

 

[Voadam]

The game I run face to face/email the PCs currently use longsword, warhammer, composite longbow, short sword, light mace, dagger, and natural weapons (druid). One of them used to have a rod of lordly might so we saw the longspear and battle axe as well.

I have no problems with their weapon choices or desire for them to use different ones.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

I have longed to play a character with a heavy pick.
Right now, I play a trident-wielding cleric.
In my group, I've heard the following reasoning for not picking a wierd weapon: When we find a magic weapon, it's almost always a long sword or a dagger, and we loose on the trade-in value.
I guess that makes sense for not varying your weapon selection.

 

[Pbartender]

The Bohemian ear spoon.