Bored with the same-ness of weapons? You won't believe these seven options to spice up combat!

[akr71]

@Capn Charlie I like what I see - I was mulling over something similar in my head, but I have a few questions.

Are weapon proficiencies handled as normal (simple vs martial)? Are these weapon properties that are meant to be applied to all weapons all the time or do only martial characters get to apply these properties to the weapons they carry?

 

[TwoSix]

Defining a case for monsters having heavy armor or light armor solves my first issue. My only other issue is that swords are still better than axes.

Advantage gives about a bonus of about 1.3 to sword damage (1.0 for short swords). Brutal is only about 0.5 bonus damage. While I agree that the burst potential of axes requires some kind of trade-off, I think losing about 0.8 points of damage to swords is a little much, when greatswords are already somewhat better than greataxes.

I'm definitely going to be borrowing this for my own game, but I'll probably changes axes to getting a bonus die on (maximum and maximum-1) or (maximum and 1). Not sure if I want to make the axe more reliable by adding a die to 1s, or extra bursty by making the top two results add a die.

 

[LordEntrails]

Or make the brutal for axes reroll on 1 and maybe 2's. Or reroll on 1's and explode on max damage or...

 

[Capn Charlie]

Well, swords being strictly superior is subjective. A little more reliable but with the same ceiling, while axes can be truly brutal, especially on critical hits.

In my home game it is balanced a bit further by axes being cheaper than swords. A non trivial factor with my rules.

With a battle axe you get a mini critical 12.5% of the time. A bit less on greataxes and a bit more on handaxes. My only fear is that if you push it much farther it would outshine the other types, not just pace with swords.

Sent from my MT2L03 using EN World mobile app

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Love the Darkest Age rules. Well done!

 

[guachi]

Defining a case for monsters having heavy armor or light armor solves my first issue. My only other issue is that swords are still better than axes.

Advantage gives about a bonus of about 1.3 to sword damage (1.0 for short swords). Brutal is only about 0.5 bonus damage. While I agree that the burst potential of axes requires some kind of trade-off, I think losing about 0.8 points of damage to swords is a little much, when greatswords are already somewhat better than greataxes.

I'm definitely going to be borrowing this for my own game, but I'll probably changes axes to getting a bonus die on (maximum and maximum-1) or (maximum and 1). Not sure if I want to make the axe more reliable by adding a die to 1s, or extra bursty by making the top two results add a die.

I just did the math for a 1d8 sword with, instead of rolling 2d8 and choosing the die you want, you roll 1d8 and 1d8-1 and choose the die you want.

This gives an average of 5.375 compared to 4.5, a difference of +0.875.

A 1d6 weapon would roll 1d6 and 1d6-1 and choose the highest. This gives an average of 4.056 compared to 3.5, a difference of +0.56.

A 1d10 weapon would average 6.7 compared to 5.5.

A 2d6 weapon (rolling 2d6 and 2d6-1) would average 7.93 compared to 7.0.

You might find this more useful for swords.

 

[Capn Charlie]

I just did the math for a 1d8 sword with, instead of rolling 2d8 and choosing the die you want, you roll 1d8 and 1d8-1 and choose the die you want.

This gives an average of 5.375 compared to 4.5, a difference of +0.875.

A 1d6 weapon would roll 1d6 and 1d6-1 and choose the highest. This gives an average of 4.056 compared to 3.5, a difference of +0.56.

A 1d10 weapon would average 6.7 compared to 5.5.

A 2d6 weapon (rolling 2d6 and 2d6-1) would average 7.93 compared to 7.0.

You might find this more useful for swords.

I dunno, seems pretty fiddly, but it does put the numbers in the right places...

 

[guachi]

It is fiddly. But it's the least fiddly I could come up with and get the numbers in a better place.

All you have to do is pick two dice of different colors and say "red die is the minus one" and toss them and I'm sure everyone can scan the dice, subtract one from the appropriate die, and compare the two results in the same time it would take to just throw two d8s (or whatever) and compare the dice.