Expanding the Weapon List

[Dylan Wight]

I've long been a little disappointed with how restricted the 5E weapon list is. It's fine for most scenarios, but what about when you just want to swing a good ol' wood axe into an orc's face? For that matter, why isn't there an actual hatchet or tomahawk equivalent/ The 1d6 Handaxe feels more like a short-handled wood axe than a hatchet. Whether this is what the devs intended, I have no idea.
So toying around with the basic premise of equipment a commoner would most likely have access to, I've come up with a couple of developments of the basic list -- specifically Hatchet and Wood Axe because the given Handaxe is sort of a sloppy design in my mind.

A Hatchet would be functionally identical to the Handaxe, though it would be a 1d4 die coupled with the Light trait so you can offhand it if you wanted to.
A Wood Axe would simply be a long-handled Handaxe, trading in the Thrown trait for Versatile allowing it to be used as a two-handed 1d8 weapon.
Another idea I thought interesting was the historical Cane Knife or Machete, similar to the Sickle but also possessing the Finesse trait in addition to Light.

These might seem a little obvious, and that's the point. While the Player's Handbook gives a great indication of what type of weapon has what traits, the list itself isn't anywhere close to being exhaustive. After all, we also lack a 1d8 Slashing Finesse weapon while we have two 1d8 Slashing Versatile weapons in the Longsword and Battleaxe. Such a weapon might be a Cutlass or Saber, which would logically follow on from the Scimitar which itself is more a representation of the genre of lightweight swords made for cutting rather than thrusts.

Are there any other weapon types which would be reasonable to expand the PHB list with? I'm somewhat partial to also including a Sledgehammer because I can imagine a number of situations where that would be hilarious with an appropriate character.

 

[Eltab]

The PH Weapon List is not supposed to be exhaustive. It's supposed to give you a framework so you can figure out how / where to fit in the weapons you like best.

There is no Tratnyr (my son's 4e Warlord's favorite weapon) nor is there a kukri (Auppenser's holy weapon in 3e) listed, but by looking at the fluff and the crunch from the older rules, I can find a 5e mechanical equivalent and use that.

5e deliberately invites players - including DMs - to bring their imaginations to the table; the rules provide a framework not a straightjacket. Go ahead and add the weapons for which you see a need.

 

[jaelis]

I've also thought about the hatchet and knife. In my weapon thread, Winterthorn suggested a scythe.

Some other ideas are brass knuckles, spiked gauntlets and spiked shield. There are many many different types of polearm, but I don't know how much design space there is for them. There are also all the oriental weapons, like katana, kusarigama, and nunchuks.

For simple things, you could have a "throwing rock" which is shaped and balanced so you can add proficiency. The lasso, like a net but scaled down somehow?

In general you can get ideas from older edition weapons tables. Dnd has seen a lot of weapons in its history!

 

[mrpopstar]

5e deliberately invites players - including DMs - to bring their imaginations to the table; the rules provide a framework not a straightjacket. Go ahead and add the weapons for which you see a need.

I agree with the premise of bringing your imagination to the table, but the DMG could have included a formula for creating weapons (e.g. choosing a "balanced" suite of damage and property options from a table) in order to address the needs of our creative imaginations.

 

[77IM]

I've never felt good about reflavoring a club as nunchuks; I'd rather see a "light flail" as a martial d6 light bludgeoning weapon (a combination that is currently unfilled). Monks would be proficient in it, and count it as a monk weapon. I think monks should get scimitar also, as it resembles a tai-chi sword and several other well-known Asian weapons.

I think there's room for a spiked chain as basically a 1d8 whip that requires two hands.

Also, bludgeoning polearms were a thing, so a martial heavy d10 reach weapon should be available. (Remember when half the D&D weapons list was polearms? Good times.) We could debate whether such weapons were actually more piercing than bludgeoning, but I think if we're considering warhammers and maces to be bludgeoning, then that ship has sailed.

I'd like to see chakram as an option. I think I'd call it a martial d6 slashing finesse thrown weapon -- basically a martial finesse handaxe, or throwable non-light scimitar. A boomerang could be a martial d4 ranged throwing weapon with a special rule for returning if it misses its target (and, of course, a magical version that returns regardless).

Finally, and I'm just throwing this out there... gnomish war yo-yo.

 

[Oofta]

I think there's less room for weapons in 5E than in many previous editions which is why we don't have all niches represented.

It's easy enough to reskin weapons or add your own. I'm sure there's probably something out there on the DmsGuild, but I don't think there's enough of a need for it to see anything official.

 

[Shiroiken]

I agree with the premise of bringing your imagination to the table, but the DMG could have included a formula for creating weapons (e.g. choosing a "balanced" suite of damage and property options from a table) in order to address the needs of our creative imaginations.

They didn't use a formula to design balanced weapons for the PHB, so I'm not really surprised they didn't have one in the DMG to create new ones.

 

[mrpopstar]

They didn't use a formula to design balanced weapons for the PHB, so I'm not really surprised they didn't have one in the DMG to create new ones.

They offered a formula for spell damage despite deviating in the design PHB spells.

 

[mrpopstar]

I've never felt good about reflavoring a club as nunchuks; I'd rather see a "light flail" as a martial d6 light bludgeoning weapon (a combination that is currently unfilled). Monks would be proficient in it, and count it as a monk weapon. I think monks should get scimitar also, as it resembles a tai-chi sword and several other well-known Asian weapons.

Yes to light flail!

 

[Dylan Wight]

Okay, a the gnomish war yo-yo would be incredible. For flavour, it could be a tinker option. You spends a few minutes every dawn constructing and repairing your yo-yo and gain the aforementioned bludgeon-whip template.