you know, this survivor thread is really highlighting to me how awful the decision making opportunities in picking your weapons offers, like ignoring the fact that there are a small pile of duplicate weapons with the only difference being the damage types most of the high teir weapons are heavy and/or two handed,
i guess there's a small cluster of choice in the uppermost weapons, do you want to deal d12 or 2d6?
if you want reach do you want d10 or d12+disavantage within 5ft? (or the underwhelming d4 finesse whip)
there's no 'lesser' heavy weapons meaning you can't use the GWM feat with anything one-handed, the small species disadvantage thing is just awful(make heavy a STR requirement instead) but why wouldn't something like the warhammer, mace or greatclub not be heavy? it'd provide options for non martial weapon proficient characters to use the feat
there are 5 finesse weapons all of which are one-handed, three are light, one has reach and one has thrown, like i said upthread, they're all so similar it's no wonder so many people choose rapiers if they have proficiency: there's no worthwhile alternatives to consider, shortsword and scimitar are just plain worse unless you need light for offhand/TWF, you don't want d4 for your main weapon's damage with dagger or whip, if there was a d10, two-handed, finesse weapon it would at least offer the decsision between 'do i want more damage or a free hand?' rather than the current choice of 'do i intentionally want to be doing less damage than i could be?'
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...i kinda ended up rewriting this post half a dozen times and lost my point/steam i started with, but it's just so frustrating how little the 5e weapon table offers players in meaningful choices.
EDIT: like look at the three polearms, glaive, pike and halberd, is there really a point in having all three of these as d10, reach, heavy, two-handed weapons, instead we could have
one stays the same only now doing it's own thing being unique: d10, reach, heavy, 2-H
two is specifically tuned as a 1 handed option, less damage potential without heavy/GWM and a smaller die but more accesible and can still be used as d10 with versatile: d8, reach, versatile
three is a finesse alternative to rapier, but balances it's range with 2-H and the lance's special disadvantage within 5ft meaning it's difficult if foes get close up: d8, finesse, reach, 2-H, special(disadvantage<5ft)