D&D 5E Are Heavy Weapons really their own category?

[GameDoc]

It seems like the main impetus for this category was to denote weapons too big for halflings and other small creatures to wield. It's not exclusive to 2-handed weapons, as the great club, quarterstaff, and bastard sword aren't considered heavy weapons.

However, they are listed as a seperate group in the weapons table and as written, fighters are the only ones that can use all weapons. The war cleric and dragon sorcerer gain proficiency with martial weapons (and the greatsword is suggested as the sorcerer's starting weapon).

So, for purposes of proficiency, are longbows, greatswords, greataxes, mauls, and pole arms still martial weapons?

Are heavy crossbows still basic missile weapons?

I'm building a war cleric and want to use a greatsword. My buddy is building a wood elf rogue with the archer specialty. Can he use a longbow?

Has anyone seen any comments from Mearls or WotC that speaks to this?

 

[slobo777]

I read it as a separate category at the same level as Basic, Finesse, Martial, with all that implies for lack of access to certain classes.

The wording in the playtest doc for Heavy weapons says: "Characters who choose to wield heavy weapons must practice with these weapons to master their use."

. . . along with the clear labelling, this says to me that it is a proficiency group in its own right.

 

[Minigiant]

Heavy should be a weapon property, not a proficiency.

 

[slobo777]

Heavy should be a weapon property, not a proficiency.

For what reasons? I mean, independently of particular classes having or not having access: You could always fix Clerics (or War domain) by granting additional proficiency with Heavy Weapons. There seem to be a few mismatches like this in the current play test (my favourite so far is requiring Read Magic to read scrolls, when there is no Read Magic, therefore no-one can use scrolls!)

The weapon proficiency groups are a character ability management tool. They only vaguely relate to transferable skills, or a sense of realism on what constitute "easy" versus "difficult" weapons to master.

Proficiencies are mainly a game resource handed out to control access to amounts of damage and other weapon properties.

I'm not a particular fan of how proficiency groups have been split. But I'm OK with some classes and races being locked out of "best" items by default, provided they have some other good things (e.g. spells).

 

[Gorgoroth]

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I dunno, I'm personally ok with heavy weapons being a proficiency, like heavy armor, so long as you can gain that proficiency in other ways than just by spending a feat. Like a background or specialty. Otherwise lots of iconic builds won't work out of the box, and require contortions.

But even better than a proficiency requirement, I'd propose making "heavy" weapons require a minimum strength to wield instead of extra proficiency, like composite longbows to draw and use your str-bonus to damage.

But I'm biased towards realism - e.g. the weights of virtually all the weapons need to be cut in half -- or more -- to approximate their historical counterparts. If you really want to wield William Wallace's sword or a huge battle axe, it should at least have the actual historical weight in the PHB (for both weapon types, it's around 6 lbs == source, and source).

Even a 6 pound sword is going to require an ENORMOUS strength to wield in battle for hours at a time without completely wrecking your shoulder and leaving you drained and your defenses wide open.

I like that Elven chain allows wizards to cast spells in them without a proficiency slot or penalty (but no dex bonus on top of that, would keep it manageable and less AC than plate). Good stuff in there. I hope Wotc reads these forums and tweaks the weapon/armor weights. There is NO reason not to.

If you want to model some giant's axe weighing 15 pounds, go ahead, but normal humans would NEVER use that, even for chopping wood all day. Forget battle. Pretty much the only weapons that weighed more than 6 pounds were museum pieces and for parades.

 

[Minigiant]

Heavy weapons should be a property because it currently exists as a property. Heavy weapons in now just 2 handed martial weapons. The only damage difference is from bastard sword to great sword. That's the only difference between the 2 groups.

Now if there were actually 2 handed weapons to choose from in the martial category then heavy weapons could have a point of existing.

 

[Steely_Dan]

And there are two-handed finesse weapons (which I really dig).

 

[GreyICE]

Hmmm, a group of weapons based around more size and strength than skill and finesse.

Very interesting.

P.S. My super-strong adventurer who is in the top 0.1% of humanity can wield an 8 lb. sword all day.

P.P.S. We could also assume the weight include sheath and accessories for most blades and it'd be about right. Sword+Sheath should weigh somewhere around 8 lbs.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Heavy weapons? Sure! I mean, ATGMs, HMGs, and heavy mortars all need special training to employ ...

 

[MoonSong]

There is a big hole on the rules so far, not only we don't know if a War domain cleric or a Domain sorcerer are proficient with Heavy weapons (and this is hilarious since the default package for Draconic sorcerers gives them a Heavy Weapon, that is right, the default weapon of a draconic sorcerer could be one they aren't proficient with) but we don't know yet what is the meaning of proficiency!

Class files waste no time on saying which class has which proficiencies, but never ever bother to tell what are the effects of weapon proficiency, or lack of it. This is something that demands clarification. If Heavy weapons are their own proficiency group, then why did they gave the sorcerer a weapon he isn't proficient with, and what are the effects of using a weapon you don't have the proficiency?