D&D 5E Why do guns do so much damage?

[Willie the Duck]

Tangentially (and do tangents really matter in a necro thread?) what bothers me in dnd weapons is the trident.

That one seems really strange. Particularly since there are rules in the core books about re-imaging extraneous other weapons into things on the chart (the example given having nunchaku that act mechanically the same as a club). They could have included trident as an alternate take on a spear (certainly well within the level of similarity as nunchaku->club) right there in that text field. I mean, I get why they don't do that with something like a blowgun (what is that going to be a re-imaged version of?), and also why they want rules for tridents (predominantly because of a few iconic magic items and any character with a Poseidon/Poseidon-worshiper motif). That would have saved them tons of people griping about the trident being mechanically a spear, but worse.

 

[Bill Zebub]

That one seems really strange. Particularly since there are rules in the core books about re-imaging extraneous other weapons into things on the chart (the example given having nunchaku that act mechanically the same as a club). They could have included trident as an alternate take on a spear (certainly well within the level of similarity as nunchaku->club) right there in that text field. I mean, I get why they don't do that with something like a blowgun (what is that going to be a re-imaged version of?), and also why they want rules for tridents (predominantly because of a few iconic magic items and any character with a Poseidon/Poseidon-worshiper motif). That would have saved them tons of people griping about the trident being mechanically a spear, but worse.

What I find most strange about the trident is that it doesn’t do 1d8: when two weapons are identical except one is simple and one is martial, the martial one should have a damage die one step higher.

 

[jmartkdr2]

What I find most strange about the trident is that it doesn’t do 1d8: when two weapons are identical except one is simple and one is martial, the martial one should have a damage die one step higher.

Not true! Tridents are also heavier, more expensive, and have less feat support!

I'm on a tangent, aren't I?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That one seems really strange. Particularly since there are rules in the core books about re-imaging extraneous other weapons into things on the chart (the example given having nunchaku that act mechanically the same as a club). They could have included trident as an alternate take on a spear (certainly well within the level of similarity as nunchaku->club) right there in that text field. I mean, I get why they don't do that with something like a blowgun (what is that going to be a re-imaged version of?), and also why they want rules for tridents (predominantly because of a few iconic magic items and any character with a Poseidon/Poseidon-worshiper motif). That would have saved them tons of people griping about the trident being mechanically a spear, but worse.

Yeah it think the only way around them just being a spear in 5e would have been to make them have some sort of special property or something.