D&D 5E New weapons damage table. Hopefully little more balanced.

[Ganymede81]

And what is wrong with that.

Remember, every time you drop a weapon you might not get the chance to pick it up again.

I thought I made it clear in my original post: the change means virtually everyone will want a crossbow for the first round of a combat, and have no use for it for the rest of combat. That is not good game design, and it definitely does not match with your vision with the rest of the list (the elimination of redundant and imbalanced weapon options).

 

[Horwath]

I thought I made it clear in my original post: the change means virtually everyone will want a crossbow for the first round of a combat, and have no use for it for the rest of combat. That is not good game design, and it definitely does not match with your vision with the rest of the list (the elimination of redundant and imbalanced weapon options).

They have the use. If you want to be ranged and you got only simple weapons, you will use it.

It's double damage over longbow is balanced by being usefull every other round. And even with feats you can fire it only once per round(except hand crossbow, but it has smaller damage).

For someone with extra attack feature they are very bad option, but for someone that wants to make range attack here and there they are good.

They are good ambush weapons. Fire them and then draw swords and go into melee.

 

[Horwath]

This is awesome!

. . . of course, my players may disagree, since now all the weapons their primary foes use do way more damage.

I'm not sure exactly how upping the damage for all the weapons makes things more "balanced." If anything, it just changed which specific weapons are the most effective and therefore most sensible to use.

It's more just for melee weapons based of strength. To give them edge over dexterity. And crossbows, but they come now with really slow fire rate due to loading them.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Be that as it may, the orcs/beastmen my PCs face regularly would become far more dangerous through your changes. Or was the new list intended for PCs only?

 

[Xeviat]

I agree with your methods, but not all of your assumptions.

Versatile is free: Yes, very.
Thrown 20/60 is free: Okay, I can get behind this, especially in 5E where "Weapon Focus" isn't quite a thing, but I'd rather have thrown be -1 step. But I also like magic thrown weapons to return, so the property might be worth a little more at my table.
Light reduces damage by one die: Definitely.
Finesse reduces damage by one die: I understand your thinking, but I want to disagree. I can almost get behind the desire to have rapiers deal less damage than longswords; they are lighter weapons after all.
Reach 10ft reduces damage by one die: I agree.
Heavy increases die by one step: I agree.
Twohanded adds two damage dice: I agree.

Simple melee weapons, base damage is 1d8, and Martial melee weapons, base damage 1d10: I'm on board with these.

I think the worst thing is going away from tradition. People like their tradition. D&D players like their tradition. There is something loved about 1d4 dagger, 1d6 shortsword, 1d8 longsword, 2d6 greatsword. A strong part of me wants to resist this. 1d8 damage is fine for one-handed martial weapons, but that makes it harder to balance the dagger as a simple weapon. In my own 3E weapon table rebalance, I priced throwing as a feature and simply took it away from the simple dagger. Darts were "throwing knives", standard knives weren't weighted for throwing. Martial weapon proficiency let you throw daggers, as they do take practice to learn the amount of turns and flick required.

I don't agree that 1d12 > 2d6 is a step, though. I'd rather balance "Great Weapon Fighter" another way.

 

[Xeviat]

I thought I made it clear in my original post: the change means virtually everyone will want a crossbow for the first round of a combat, and have no use for it for the rest of combat. That is not good game design, and it definitely does not match with your vision with the rest of the list (the elimination of redundant and imbalanced weapon options).

Perhaps take away the ability to walk around with a loaded crossbow? That can't be good on the cords, keeping that tension on them all the time. Not to mention the safety of shooting yourself in the foot.

If the game is truly balanced around 3 round combats like the DMG CR calculator suggests, crossbows shouldn't do double damage. They should do 3/2 damage, if you can keep them loaded. Round 1, fire, round 2, reload, round 3, fire: 3/2.

 

[Horwath]

Perhaps take away the ability to walk around with a loaded crossbow? That can't be good on the cords, keeping that tension on them all the time. Not to mention the safety of shooting yourself in the foot.

If the game is truly balanced around 3 round combats like the DMG CR calculator suggests, crossbows shouldn't do double damage. They should do 3/2 damage, if you can keep them loaded. Round 1, fire, round 2, reload, round 3, fire: 3/2.

This is true. But crossbow are meant to stay loaded for longer times.

Even bows should be unstrung when not used, like over a long rest to keep peak performance.

Also for crossbows there is double damage only at low levels.

And that is OK as crossbows were meant mor militia and bows for trained archers.

At lvl5 with 18 dex and extra attack a crossbow would deal 2d8+4, while longbow with 2 attacks would deal 2d8+8.

But even on 1st level with 3 rounds crossbow is marginaly better.

2 shots in 3 rounds for 4d8+6 damage, longbow 3 shot in 3 rounds for 3d8+9.

1,5 damage more and shorter range does not get crossbow very far ahead, if at all.

 

[Xeviat]

And that is OK as crossbows were meant mor militia and bows for trained archers.

At lvl5 with 18 dex and extra attack a crossbow would deal 2d8+4, while longbow with 2 attacks would deal 2d8+8.

But even on 1st level with 3 rounds crossbow is marginaly better.

2 shots in 3 rounds for 4d8+6 damage, longbow 3 shot in 3 rounds for 3d8+9.

1,5 damage more and shorter range does not get crossbow very far ahead, if at all.

I actually really hate the idea of players having an "inferior" weapon at low levels and switching to a better one at higher levels. The current PHB heavy crossbow, for instance, is better than a longbow before getting extra attack, when you want to switch to a longbow. That's bad. Yours avoids that, since you need an action to reload, but the opening crossbow salvo and then switching to other weapons is a possibility, and I think is an annoyingly unfun image.

Someone is going to cart around 3 loaded crossbows if you allow them to remain loaded.

 

[Horwath]

Heavy crossbow is 18lb a piece.

3 are 54lbs. that is almost an extra plate armor. And the dimmensions? Where are you gonna strap all those on yourself. 2 light crossbows...OK. 3 heavy? No sane DM is going to let that fly.

 

[Ganymede81]

Everything else on the list is streamlined using a simple and precise set of rules, and you change the crossbow based on thematics and depend on the DM to police it.

That's like getting dressed into a tuxedo then putting on a clown nose as the final touch.

But even on 1st level with 3 rounds crossbow is marginaly better.

2 shots in 3 rounds for 4d8+6 damage, longbow 3 shot in 3 rounds for 3d8+9.

1,5 damage more and shorter range does not get crossbow very far ahead, if at all.

Why would they do that when they could fire the crossbow on turn one, drop it, then fire a longbow on turns two and three?