D&D 5E Changes with Equipment, Weapons, Armor.

[Kobold Stew]

There are many updates to the equipment, including significant weapon revisions, etc. I'll start with four big things concerning equipment that I am pleased – even thrilled - to see incorporated into the rules.

1. Tools. There are now a wide variety of specialty tools requiring proficiency. Thieves’ tools are no longer an exception. While we can smirk at only professional soldiers getting advantage on card games, the integration of proficiency in both classes and backgrounds is a good development. A Professional gambler background is also easily devised. Opening locks and disabling traps is now purely a matter of training.

Suggested tweaks:
* allow characters with a Nobles to gain proficiency either in a musical instrument or some gaming equipment.
* grant (all? some?) Rogues proficiency in gaming equipment.

2. Holy symbol. The cleric’s holy symbol now has many functions, and is no longer decorative. This includes giving a bonus to spell DCs. The bonus even works with spells that don’t attack, like sacred flame. Hurrah!

3. Spiked shields are gone. Thank the Maker! Bucklers are in (though they need a description). Reference to wooden shields for druids is still there.

4. Weapon descriptions: the variables for "critical" and "versatile" weapons are really nice.

Suggested tweak: make Spears versatile (1d8).

I'm pretty pleased so far.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I like the options; I don't like the method of presentation that has ability/skill-type rules buried in equipment descriptions. Those rules should be addressed in the "ability check" sections and cross-referenced to the equipment. (It took me a while to figure out what "proficiency in riding" meant ... who would think to immediately look up equipment:horse? Same with opening locks, which I thought would be in the player ability section, but was in the DM ability section, and under equipment.)

Spear: Good option, otherwise shortspear (1d6/1H) and longspear (1d8/2H/reach).

I note that every longsword is now a bastard sword. While OK, I feel like we've lost something. The katana fanbois are going to freak with that equivalency, though.

 

[A'koss]

Still taking in the multitude of changes in this packet, but noticing a few oddities like 1d10 quarterstaves and 110lb(!) plate armor. Also noe that the Greataxe has a whopping crit advantage over a greatsword.
I don't mind rolling the bastard sword in with the longsword either. And the katana never really belonged on the "Euro" based list to begin with.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Yeah, the 1d10 quarterstaff and 110 lb platemail are definitely odd. Take a quarterstaff, put a tip on it to make it a spear, and you just downgraded its damage from 1d10 to 1d6.

The armor table still bugs me. Studded Leather is medium? So I take leather, put some metal studs on it, and suddenly its now medium armor and caps my dex bonus to 2? Bwuh? And chainmail is heavy armor? And what is even the point of ringmail? The thing I hate most about the armor is how it "progresses", with the next listed armor being better in every way than the one above it. I liked the armor much better in 3.x, where there were pros and cons to each type.

Acid, Alchemists Fire and Holy Water are still worthless. You're paying 25-50g to do something that's weaker than most regular weapon attacks. Yay!

 

[DogBackward]

The greatsword is now strictly inferior to the greataxe, with the longsword and battleaxe suffering the same problems (to a lesser extent). The greatsword deals 2d6 damage, which means it deals +1d6 damage on a critical hit, due to the new way that crits work (it specifically calls out that you only deal +1 die of the same size, and the example uses the same "if you roll 2d6 for damage, you add +1d6 on a crit"). The greataxe, however, deals 1d12 damage... which would be bad enough on its own, but the critical (2d8) ability means that unless you really, really want less variance in your damage rolls, the greataxe is flat-out better because it has the same damage maximum, with much better critical hits.

The longsword vs. battleaxe is slightly mitigated by the fact that the longsword at least has versatile... which isn't an especially useful ability: unless you're a sword-and-board or two-weapon combatant that's lost your off-hand item, versatile doesn't really help much. Which, again, puts the two weapons at about the same base damage, but with the axe coming out far ahead in critical hits.

There's also the problem that the greatsword's critical actually adds less bonus damage than the longsword's. The greatsword still deals slightly more damage on a crit than a longsword, but still.

Overall, I like the idea of the critical special weapon ability works, but the way critical hits themselves work, combined with the way they assigned weapon abilities... it was just poorly implemented overall.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Yeah, the 1d10 quarterstaff and 110 lb platemail are definitely odd. Take a quarterstaff, put a tip on it to make it a spear, and you just downgraded its damage from 1d10 to 1d6.

Ha! Great point.

 

[Ebon Shar]

The greatsword is now strictly inferior to the greataxe, with the longsword and battleaxe suffering the same problems (to a lesser extent). The greatsword deals 2d6 damage, which means it deals +1d6 damage on a critical hit, due to the new way that crits work (it specifically calls out that you only deal +1 die of the same size, and the example uses the same "if you roll 2d6 for damage, you add +1d6 on a crit"). The greataxe, however, deals 1d12 damage... which would be bad enough on its own, but the critical (2d8) ability means that unless you really, really want less variance in your damage rolls, the greataxe is flat-out better because it has the same damage maximum, with much better critical hits.

The longsword vs. battleaxe is slightly mitigated by the fact that the longsword at least has versatile... which isn't an especially useful ability: unless you're a sword-and-board or two-weapon combatant that's lost your off-hand item, versatile doesn't really help much. Which, again, puts the two weapons at about the same base damage, but with the axe coming out far ahead in critical hits.

There's also the problem that the greatsword's critical actually adds less bonus damage than the longsword's. The greatsword still deals slightly more damage on a crit than a longsword, but still.

Overall, I like the idea of the critical special weapon ability works, but the way critical hits themselves work, combined with the way they assigned weapon abilities... it was just poorly implemented overall.

Perhaps a quick way to balance out the weapons would be to increase the crit range of the swords to 19-20...or is that a can of worms best left unopened?

 

[DogBackward]

Perhaps a quick way to balance out the weapons would be to increase the crit range of the swords to 19-20...or is that a can of worms best left unopened?

Yeah, the Warrior's crit modifications are a pretty powerful ability set, I think it'd be best to leave crits alone for the most part. Actually, I'd like to see the greataxe with more base damage, and give crits to the swords. Greataxe 1d12, greatsword 1d10 with critical (2d8) or something. I see swords as weapons where skill is more important, while axes are better for people who just like to swing away for big damage.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Perhaps a quick way to balance out the weapons would be to increase the crit range of the swords to 19-20...or is that a can of worms best left unopened?

Probably best left unopened since 19s are not auto-hit, and we go down a slippery slope with expanding crit ranges.

Missed the quarterstaff damage -- that is odd. And only +2 Dex for studded leather? Huh? I though the armor and weapons tables had pretty much sorted themselves out last time around; sounds like we've taken a step back.

 

[JonWake]

They got rid of spiked shields and Finesse Katanas, thank god. I'm not too sad about the lack of a bastard sword. The lines between longsword, greatsword, and bastard sword aren't exactly clear. They're way too subtle for DnD.

There needs to be a reach Spear. Otherwise you can't do your hoplite tactics.

Studded leather armor is one of those completely made up DnD things. It was a mistaken view of brigandine, where iron plates are riveted to the inside of a leather jacket.