I have those. They benefit from Rose Tinted Spectacle syndrome. By modern standards they aren't very good. The first one is a monster zoo in a cave, the second one is a mass bundle of humanoid monsters at the entrance to the dungeon. Seem more like something that Goodman Games have on the backburner than something WotC would want to do.
The justification was the book was written by a medieval weaponry enthusiast.
They are not needed. 1st edition was complication without justification, and therefore poor design. Excusable back then, before game design theory was a thing. Less excusable in 5e, which doesn't actually need a halberd and a glaive.
On the other hand, Curse of Strahd and Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
Do we need a sickle? Not not really. But we go one. A trident? No, but we got one. There would be no harm from adding a few more polearm options. We have tons of options for ordinary one handed weapons, tons for ordinary light weapons, tons for ordinary two handed weapons, tons for ordinary ranged weapons, but very few for ordinary polearms. The polearm section should see some more support. It's very sparse compared to the other categories. The only other category I think could use additional support other than polearms is probably thrown weapons.
No, we don't need it, but it is the signature weapon of the druid class, so I guess that is why it was included.
A blade on a stick is a blade on a stick.
The trident may be a bit of a special case given that there were some well-known trident magic items back in earlier editions. That may be one of the reasons they included it when the stats are nearly identical to the spear.
And a blade on a handle is a sword, but we have short swords, long swords, scimitars, two handed, swords, etc...
Daggers, shortsword, longswords, and greatswords are differentiated by length. Scimitars are differentiated by damage type.
So are polearms...
So, how would you mechanically differentiate between a blade on a 5 foot stick, a 6 foot stick, and a 7 foot stick?So are polearms...
