D&D 5E "Can I Do That with a Turtle on my Head?"

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It's not gnomes that go in for turtle-hats. It's were-rabbits.

 

[Warbringer]

Yes, yes, and yes...

It's narrative authority, but gods help you if you lose it and try to influence other gnomes, or those with gnome-lore

 

[Nytmare]

At this point in my life, I am far happier with an equipment list that says "sword" over an equipment list that has 5 pages of swords with a million different subtle effects, spread across a dozen different books.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

In 3.5/Pathfinder each of these had different strengths and weaknesses and emphasize different styles of play. The long sword was the most common sword in the game because it was a good basic weapon. The bastard sword did more damage but required a feat to use it one handed. Few people used it for that reason. But I imagine that those that did use it remember that character well. They dealt out more damage than their long sword counterparts at the cost of a feat. So a fighter with feats to spare would find something like that useful. A great sword delivered even more damage but at the cost of a shield. This would work well for someone that cared more about offense than defense. Meanwhile the rapier dealt the lowest amount of damage, but had a higher crit range and worked with the Weapon Finesse feat. So you could make a fast-footed character and if you took the Improved Critical feat with it, you were threatening a critical attack once every four hits. That is pretty darn powerful. And none of that would be serious choices if they were all lumped together into "sword."

This is my preferred approach. I like _meaningful_ choices in every area of the game, including equipment.

 

[keterys]

The biggest problem I've seen with overemphasizing fiddly equipment mechanics is that they rarely actually serve the fiction well. Like they often try to make "brute" weapons deal more damage and/or have bigger crits, while "skill" weapons are more accurate and/or have more frequent crits.

The trick is that because actual brute characters have a much higher base damage, they're best off taking the higher accuracy / more frequent crits, because they lose more on a miss and blow-through more on a bigger crit.

Similarly, there have been mechanics which supported people with sneak attack / backstab using the biggest weapon or highest crit weapon they could find, because the damage got multiplied in some way.

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I don't want people wearing turtles on their heads because it gives them a +2 bonus to diplomacy with gnomes, and they'll swap it out for a duck on their heads with elves (+2), wear sponges on their feet (+1 sneak), etc.

I want someone to wear a turtle on their head because it's a choice they've made about their character to make the character more interesting. Done.

 

[Warbringer]

At this point in my life, I am far happier with an equipment list that says "sword" over an equipment list that has 5 pages of swords with a million different subtle effects, spread across a dozen different books.

Agreed. I have some differentiation in weapons, like Light Blade, Heavy Blade, Heavy Blade - Great, but that's all daggers, shortswords, longswords, rapiers, two handed swords, even poleaxes.

I'm also to the point were i do have weapon feats that make weapons better (yeah feat tax....) but the feat is "Weapon focus - Melee" another "Weapon Focus - Missile"...

 

[howandwhy99]

Campaign starting armor table:
-Leather
-Steel Chain weave
-Steel Plate

After customizing due to playing the campaign:
-Crocodile leather pants with boring beetle plate shirt and turtle shell helmet (local gnomes all trained in turtle shell helmets). Goat skin gloves, sure, but my "magic" items are the Displacer Beast boots and cape.

Love the gnome turtle helmet idea. These are aquatic gnomes?

 

[Nytmare]

I don't want people wearing turtles on their heads because it gives them a +2 bonus to diplomacy with gnomes, and they'll swap it out for a duck on their heads with elves (+2), wear sponges on their feet (+1 sneak), etc.

I want someone to wear a turtle on their head because it's a choice they've made about their character to make the character more interesting. Done.

This, this, and this again. All this. 100% this.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't want people wearing turtles on their heads because it gives them a +2 bonus to diplomacy with gnomes, and they'll swap it out for a duck on their heads with elves (+2), wear sponges on their feet (+1 sneak), etc.

I want someone to wear a turtle on their head because it's a choice they've made about their character to make the character more interesting. Done.

This, this, and this again. All this. 100% this.

Count me in on the agreement here. In the same vein, you can extend this to not wanting the overarching framework of the ruleset to mandate/reward (i) players excruciating over eeking out every possible + 1 and synergy such that a thematically coherent character is subordinate to that overwrought power-gaming end (and the inevitable monstrosity it produces) (ii) a punitive, ad-hoc stunting system (rulings system?) that swamps the risk:reward analysis with low probability for success and therefore contracts the whole thing into non-existence and (iii) hand-waved math embedded in stark, binary pass/fail results that, again, are so punitive such that strategic power plays (10 ft poles, flying rogues tethered by ropes or wands of summon monster as trap fodder, and "there's a spell for that") drown out engaging the resolution mechanics.

 

[Umbran]

The point I was trying to make is that if you make a one size fits all "sword," some people that would take a dex-based rapier are not going to go with "sword." They will make a strike from the shadows dagger wielder, who is different from a dashing swashbuckler fencing rapier wielder. Why, because mechanically, that will work better than being penalized for making a quick character that can't use dex to hit because "sword" doesn't allow that option.

If folks cannot be bothered to absorb the item description that tells them "sword" covers longswords, shortsowrds, broadswords, rapiers, sabers, et al., there's not much we can do to help them. That people don't read is not a suitable reason for expanding the equipment lists.