Broken and balanced

[J_D]

Axe-vs-sword is relatively minor, but a much larger issue in 2E was the two-weapon style versus any other style. If you weren't using two weapons, you weren't keeping up with the rest of the party and you could quite well be the reason why the party loses a battle. So 2-weapon style became The Best Option and no intelligent PC did without it. Boring.

I've played D&D for about 23 years now: OD&D (the blue box set), AD&D 1 and 2, now D&D 3, and believe it or not, not once in all that time have I ever been in a group in which more than two characters used 2-weapon style. The majority of the time there was only one character that used it, and I've been in a couple games where no-one used 2-weapon!

I guess your gaming experience and your experience of players in general is just vastly different than mine.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

I've played D&D for about 23 years now: OD&D (the blue box set), AD&D 1 and 2, now D&D 3, and believe it or not, not once in all that time have I ever been in a group in which more than two characters used 2-weapon style. The majority of the time there was only one character that used it, and I've been in a couple games where no-one used 2-weapon!

I guess your gaming experience and your experience of players in general is just vastly different than mine.

I've been playing for a mere 21 years myself. Started with red book D&D (the one-book set), never played 1E. But once 2E came out with "The Complete Book of Fighters," both groups I was in (one as DM, one as player) saw a proliferation of 2-weapon fighters. Did NOT see it in other editions, because it wasn't as overpowering. And once 3E came out, I didn't see it reappear. The dominance of 2-weapon style came and went, thankfully, because they fixed the balance. FWIW, I do consider "you must be desperate for fun" to be an insult. Keep that in mind next time.

"Cultural" reasons in prefering one weapon over another might include "short bow requires less time to train troops than longbow," "axes are cheaper/easier to make than swords," "our tribe doesn't have the know-how to make composite bows," "katana good against unarmored foes" or "firearms would hurt the interests of the ruling class." These are not "just because" - they are actual justifications based on some sort of logic. That's what I was trying to do with my examples - give the justifications behind the cultural decisions. "It's tradition" alone was not the sole reason in most cases.

To a great extent, I agree with you. I like fantasy cultures to have customs and taboos that are illogical, because that reflects history. Superstitions, practices that people think are magic but really aren't, useless charms and trinkets, etc. But I think military applications are one instance where humanity has spent countless hours tweaking, refining, and adopting improvements to get really good at killing each other. And when life and death are on the line, anything that is clearly sub-par would be dropped. The Japanese quickly tossed culture overboard for pragmatism once they had to fight other powerful nations armed with guns. Therefore... because I like my dwarves to be able to use axes without appearing stupid for compromising their effectiveness... I favor making axes equally effective to swords (and, really, against large foes with thick hides such as giants or dragons, one would think the weight and concentrated penetrating power of an axe should be very useful, and a pick even moreso).

 

[woodelf]

I do agree that "doing less damage" should not normally feel like a punishment or penalty if there really is a valid in-character reason for accepting such a disadvantage. That said, there are times when the difference is so huge that it really will feel that way - the entire party could die because you fail to drop the BBEG when you have your chance. Axe-vs-sword is relatively minor, but a much larger issue in 2E was the two-weapon style versus any other style. If you weren't using two weapons, you weren't keeping up with the rest of the party and you could quite well be the reason why the party loses a battle. So 2-weapon style became The Best Option and no intelligent PC did without it. Boring.

Yep. Similar situation in the games i ran. But it was easily fixed not by making axes unlike real-world axes (in comparison to swords), or by changing two-weapon fighting (i didn't know it at the time, but it probably should've been changed to be more realistic), but rather by making shields more like real-world shields. Specifically, i changed them to improve AC by 1 (buckler) to 4 (tower shield) points, rather than just 1, and shields became important, much like in RL. In short, since the various weapon choices had strengths and weaknesses in RL, i think it's better to try and mimic those, rather than introduce artificial balancing mechanisms. Frex, back to the ax-vs-sword thing: in RL, one of the big advantages of the ax is in armor penetration. AD&D2 had a mechanism for this, with the modifications to AC based on piercing/slashing/bludgeoning, and, IME, their use was trivially easy in practice:
GM: she charges at you and swings with her pick. what's your AC?
player: <knows a pick is piercing, so looks at the pre-calced "Piercing" blank for AC> 4

I'm really disappointed that bit was dropped in D&D3E, because it added a lot of verisimillitude, at the cost of almost zero effort. And it was easily ignored without breaking or skewing the system, if you didn't want the extra detail--just use the "normal" AC (ditto for attacks that had nothing to do with weapon type, like ranged energy spells)

I'm NOT saying that all weapons or tactics should be equal. I haven't argued for making the club or short sword do more damage. But, my opinion is that the longsword should not be automatically superior to the axe, the flail, or the warhammer - all of these weapons continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages and so were presumably NOT visibly inferior to the sword. Granted, some had strengths against mail, plate, or shields, but I think 3E has done a very good job of balancing these options while keeping things simple. Better than 2E did.

Can you articulate how it is better? Do you mean more realistic, or simpler mechanics? Because it seems like at least one axis of comparison (difference of piercing/bludgeoning/slashing vs. armors) was tossed out, and the only thing added in (different crits) addresses a distinctly different issue, and isn't necessarily any simpler. From my POV, they're different, with neither one doing a better job, overall, of modeling weapons--2nd ed is missing the fact that a good blow with a piercing weapon is devastating, while 3E is missing the fact that a sword kinda bounces off plate armor.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Well, besides the previous reason about not being a jack-of-all-trades,

She's a wizard for goodness sake. And a cleric. If that doesn't count as jack of all trades, I don't know what does. The level of magic she has access too really obviates her need of low level party members. If a trap could kill or seriously threaten her, then the rogue can't find it. If a creature is not findable by her, then the ranger can't help.

there's also the in-character reason of wanting her children to improve their skills through experience.

Or die. One of those two. Most likely die.

So for you fighting is the only fun in the game? I suppose all you're interested in playing is dungeon crawls to kill monsters and steal their stuff? To each his own, I suppose. I like that too, but I also like characters who have lives and interact with other characters and the setting.

Yeah, but I don't need a game system for character and world interaction if it's non-opposed stuff . If I want to fight monsters and take their stuff, I want to be able to do it. If the game system says "no, you decided to be an X, and they suck", then that's a flaw.

Choosing a battleaxe over a kukri is not common sense if you're playing a Ghurka soldier. As a matter of pride and heritage, a Ghurka will not leave home without his kukri. A dwarf choosing a longsword over a battleaxe based on statistics and in disregard to centuries of culture and tradition is not common sense, unless you're specifically playing your dwarf as someone who consciously rejects tradition (which in most dwarven cultures pretty much means rejecting family and being an outcast).

Sure ghurka's carry a kukri. Sure they use it on occasion (when they'd have occasion to use a knife at all). But do you see them refusing to use firearms in favour of it? Nope.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Can you articulate how it is better? Do you mean more realistic, or simpler mechanics?

Good point. The various 2E campaigns I was in didn't use the Armor vs. Weapon mechanics, so I wasn't considering that. I think that rule does add verisimillitude. At the time there were so many new rules that we all felt we'd leave out most of the various "optional" rules. This is one that all of the DMs (including me) should have brought into the games after a year or two of getting familiar with the system.

As has been noted, major drawbacks to the axe relative to the sword are *not* that its wounds are less grevious or that its penetrating power is inferior, but rather that it is slower to swing and harder to parry with. The lack of "assumed" parrying makes it hard to properly model the inferior defensive characteristics. Perhaps you could say that wielding a light or 1-handed swords offers a +1 AC bonus, and a staff or halberd offers a +2 bonus, or something like that. I'd probably drop swords down to crit 20/x2, with the tradeoff of defensive value for offensive value (barbarians and dwarves, confident in their ability to take a hit, could content themselves with the offensive-minded weapons such as axes). This rather resembles the way Might and Magic 7 modeled swords and axes.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

I am going to get blasted here I am sure but I am going to say it anyway.

I don't care about balance. I'm sorry if that caused some heartattacks or something, but I really don't.

I don't design any of my stuff with "is this balanced" foremost in my mind. I *may* compare it to other things but that is more to compare flavor. I state very openly before I run anything and before I put anything up for the masses that my game is for *mature* players and then go on to explain that this isn't about age but about the ability to tell a story without having to rely on A = B = C. Some of my classes are more powerful than others as are some of my races. They are there to appeal to people as *roles* and roles are never equal in reality. Look at any good story and see that there are just some characters that are better than others in general. Does this mean I don't love certain weak characters and really want to play them? Everyone can clamber on about you need thigns to be balanced to have fun or to keep powergamers in check. Frankly I give powergamers what they deserve.. if they are the biggest baddest guy in the party and all tweeked out they get hit first by *everything* and the weaker fellows get ignored for a major part of the combat and are allowed to hary the bad guys undaunted as the bad guys attack the *obvious* threat. You do not need to have balanced rules to have fun, heck, you don't even need rules if everyone is mature and are enjoying themselves but rules help tie things together consistently *note I did not say balanced* and allow the story to progress with some destination. I have only had two players complain about my games over the years and those two gamers were *power munchkins* and didn't like the fact that their characters got picked on. I have consistently bent rules, broken rules, let player break rules and anything else you can imagine if everyone at the table agreed that it would be cool or make a neat image. I have run over 100 different campaigns and have probably had over 300 players. Two out of 300 is a pretty good track record, heck, even if 50 people just didn't tell me, it's still a good record. I think the reason most people enjoy my games is because they know they will have a direct effect on what happens and if there's something cool they want and the rules for some reason say no, I may very well say to heck witht he rules.

Let the flames begin

 

[Drifter Bob]

G
As has been noted, major drawbacks to the axe relative to the sword are *not* that its wounds are less grevious or that its penetrating power is inferior, but rather that it is slower to swing and harder to parry with. The lack of "assumed" parrying makes it hard to properly model the inferior defensive characteristics. Perhaps you could say that wielding a light or 1-handed swords offers a +1 AC bonus, and a staff or halberd offers a +2 bonus, or something like that.

Now y'all are starting to make some sense. If a shield gives a combattant an active defense bonus, then so should a weapon. It boggles my mind that so few RPG's take this obvious fact into account.

On the other hand, a weapon's reach and speed also factor in to how easy it is to hit your opponent. If you are weilding a short sword and facing somebody who is armed with a spear, they are going to have a fairly easy time hitting you, and hitting you first.

I have a house rule which confers a reach bonus to hit and a defensive bonus to defense for each weapon type (we seperate the defensive roll from the effects of armor. Armor confers damage reduction)

It works quite well in practice. The only overhead is in setup when you are first creating your character or writing up monsters. This and a few other small innovations make combat have a much more realistic feel.

We also use slightly modified grapple rules which make the short weapons more useful in a clinch.

I'd probably drop swords down to crit 20/x2, with the tradeoff of defensive value for offensive value (barbarians and dwarves, confident in their ability to take a hit, could content themselves with the offensive-minded weapons such as axes).

Nobody should be 'confident in their ability to take a hit' unless they are wearing heavy armor. People who bore axes historically either used a shield for defense, wore heavy armor, and / or mounted their axe on a very long shaft, hence poll-axes and halberds.

Perhaps not surprisngly, we have another house rule which limits hit points to 3x CON.

DB

 

[Saeviomagy]

Frankly I give powergamers what they deserve.. if they are the biggest baddest guy in the party and all tweeked out they get hit first by *everything* and the weaker fellows get ignored for a major part of the combat and are allowed to hary the bad guys undaunted as the bad guys attack the *obvious* threat.

If they're an obvious threat, fine. If they're not obviously a threat until they've taken an action, and the monsters STILL preferentially target them, not fine. You're punishing people for their playstyle, not portraying a reaction to the character.

100 campaigns makes 3 a year since the inception of D&D. Interesting.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I have a house rule which confers a reach bonus to hit and a defensive bonus to defense for each weapon type (we seperate the defensive roll from the effects of armor. Armor confers damage reduction)

It works quite well in practice. The only overhead is in setup when you are first creating your character or writing up monsters. This and a few other small innovations make combat have a much more realistic feel.

We also use slightly modified grapple rules which make the short weapons more useful in a clinch.

Drifter Bob,

I really like your two posts in this thread, informative and interesting. Any chance you could post (or send me copies) of those house rules, they are something that I'm interested in doing myself.

Regards,

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

If they're an obvious threat, fine. If they're not obviously a threat until they've taken an action, and the monsters STILL preferentially target them, not fine. You're punishing people for their playstyle, not portraying a reaction to the character.

100 campaigns makes 3 a year since the inception of D&D. Interesting.

i tend to run five - six campaigns at least a year. We do not like taking characters over about 10th level and like to change settings too often. I also play three consecutive gmaes at a time right now and have five going a week during college. On top of that I ran a 3 year long white wolf campaign online. in college my campaigns tended to last 6 weeks on the average, that's playing two to three times a week, usually from between 5 to 10 hours a sessions at least one of those nights. I really didn't do much in college except go to class play video games and roleplay. My girlfriend lived almost 600 miles away which kinda of put a damper on the social life. now, with that in consideration rethink those numbers and you will find they are not at all unbelievable.

Also, of course people who are not an obvious threat are not attacked first, luckily most of my munchkin players were of the variety of wanting to play this rare race or that rare race or be large in size or wiled a giant evil sword. I have been lucky that most of the powergamers in my campaigns have either worked with me or been the "conan crossed with eric crossed with drizzt" fanboys whose character was always easy to spot in a group, so easy in fact that the other players started telling one guy to go one way and they would go another, figuring ahe'd attract all the bad attention (didn't work, since they had a spy in their midst) and he was the type who enjoyed it. I don't mind powergamers as long as they are willing to compromise at times and let the other players shine. You want to be Billy Bada$$, cool, most books have one, but they are not the sole attention.