D&D 5E Balance Query Re: Homebrew Weapons

[Charlaquin]

And yeah, I am pretty much set now, thanks to the replies in this thread. I’ll figure out the axe someday.

I may even decide that a “superior” weapon that is campaign setting specific and only normally available to a single race that is itself kinda underpowered (Dragonborn), is fine.

That’s... kind of a brilliant idea. Since the axe you want is a cut above any martial 1-handed weapon, you could just create a higher category of weapon to put it in, give proficiency with it to dwarves or whatever (seems like the race most likely to really want a dual-wieldable finesse axe to me), and then other races could gain proficiency in it via the downtime training rules if they want to.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That’s... kind of a brilliant idea. Since the axe you want is a cut above any martial 1-handed weapon, you could just create a higher category of weapon to put it in, give proficiency with it to dwarves or whatever (seems like the race most likely to really want a dual-wieldable finesse axe to me), and then other races could gain proficiency in it via the downtime training rules if they want to.

Thank you!

I may go with it, yeah. In this case, both weapons in question are Dragonborn weapons brought over from old Tymanchabar, unknown in The Realms before then. In another game, a longer but better weighted light axe that can be thrown well and is light in quick in the hand could definitely be a dwarf weapon, or a Gnomish one, or in one world I’m working on could be a Halfling or elf weapon, but then we are getting into races that are already strong.

I might also qualify that you cannot make them out of basic steel, so superior smithing knowledge is required, and they are costly weapons.

My buddy’s Dragonborn Fighter/Bard (was warlord with some bardic Mc and rituals in 4e) just got a magical “kvolok” sword from a half-dragon he defeated in a duel, that will use the sword stats. The axe is called a tlatavak, IIRC.

He fights with a shield that gives a +1 to AC and leaves the hand free, called a tselidt.

And yes, those words are awkward in the mouth on purpose, because that is how I present Draconic in my games.

 

[Horwath]

Finesse and Versatile are pretty much ribbon tags to any weapon. You can add one or both to any item and it wouldn't break anything past Tier 1.

finesse is not a ribbon trait to the weapon.

as abilities are in 5E, finesse if one of defining traits of a weapon.
Versatile is a ribbon.

generally, finesse should always be one damage die lower category.
Versatile should be "free" for any 1Handed non-light, non-finesse, non-throwing weapon.

That is; if rapier is 1d8 finesse, lonsgsword is 1d10(versatile 1d12) in my book.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

finesse is not a ribbon trait to the weapon.

as abilities are in 5E, finesse if one of defining traits of a weapon.
Versatile is a ribbon.

generally, finesse should always be one damage die lower category.
Versatile should be "free" for any 1Handed non-light, non-finesse, non-throwing weapon.

That is; if rapier is 1d8 finesse, lonsgsword is 1d10(versatile 1d12) in my book.

The longsword and rapier are already balanced. The rapier can be used by more characters, but it doesn’t make any given character more powerful than a character with a longsword.
The longsword works because it can either be the same as a rapier but for fewer characters, or it can be higher damage with lower defense.