Exotic Weapons don't serve much of a purpose

[mearls]

I think that, in many ways, it took years for designers to really understand what feats can do. Right now, exotic weapons are either there for flavor or to give fighters +1 damage compared to martial weapons. A few are really good (hello spiked chain - oddly enough, I just finished painting a Reaper mini with a spiked chain)

Right now, you take an exotic weapon and then... that's it. OTOH, you could make exotic weapons a lot more interesting simply by supporting them more. Take double weapons as an example. You could add feats like this:

Double Weapon Leverage: You Str bonus to damage is 1.5 * Str bonus with both ends of your double weapons.

Double Weapon Defense: If you fight with only one end of your double weapon, you gain a +2 bonus to AC until your next turn.

Double Weapon Cleave: When you use your cleave attack, make an additional attack with a -5 penalty.

Double Weapon Flurry: Make an extra attack at your full base attack bonus when using a standard or full attack action.

Gnome Battle Tactics: When fighting with a gnome hooked hammer, you may make one free trip attempt once per round against a foe you hit with both the hammer and hook ends.

Gnome Leverage: When making a trip attack with a gnome hooked hammer, your foe loses any size bonus to his check to resist the trip.

These are all back of the envelope feats, so don't look for balance, but they illustrate what you could do to make weapons different. Right now, D&D doesn't really do much to differentiate weapons via feats. I think that's what hurts exotics. They're set up to be really weird and interesting, but just like every weapon there isn't much there to make them different aside from their base stats.

Now, making lots of feats for weapons sounds interesting, but it does pose some issues. For example, how do you separate stuff? You don't want the guy with the axe to look at the sword feats and see lots of stuff that he wishes he could do AND things that look like they'd be possible with an axe.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

And an elven thinblade is not even as good as a longsword with Improved Critical (longsword).

Except that you can use weapon finesse with it.
And the better crit range is available at level 1, not 8 (for improved crit, when you'll get a +1 keen longsword depends on your campaign).
And you can increase the crit range to 15-20, something a longsword just can't do.

 

[FireLance]

Granted, not all of them fit the profile, either being a bit too good (spiked chain, the flail would like to have a word with you) or a bit too crappy (siangham, shuriken, I'm looking at you), but the idea's there.

Well, comparing the spiked chain with the heavy flail, you get:

The same: two-handed, crit multiplier, can use to trip, +2 disarm bonus
Disadvantages: needs a feat, lower threat range, slightly less than one step lower damage (2d4 vs 1d10), cannot sunder
Advantages: threaten at reach and adjacent, finesseable

The cannot sunder disadvantage and the finesseable advantage seem to cancel each other (compare rapier vs scimitar, for example).

Hence, the question is whether the ability to threaten at reach and adjacent advantage is worth the feat, and the lower threat range, and slightly less than one step lower damage disadvantages.

Given that Short Haft (PHB2) allows you to change a polearm from a reach weapon to one that threatens adjacent squares as a swift action (and back again with another swift action), it then boils down to whether the simultaneous threatening is worth the lower threat range, and slightly less than one step lower damage.

Overall, the spiked chain doesn't look overpowered to me.

 

[FireLance]

Back on-topic:

Sometimes, I think some exotic weapon proficiencies could be replaced by feats that grant you a damage die increase, a threat range increase (that stacks with improved critical), a threat multiplier increase, or add some other special ability to a base martial weapon.

 

[Gold Roger]

When you can make only one attack in a round and wield a double weapon, you can easily use one end two handed.

Also, I think what mearls says should be true for all weapons. Right now there's a bunch of martial weapons (trident, greatclub) that make no sense taking compared to other martial weapons (Longsword, greatsword) and a bunch of simple weapons that imho should still be viable for full combatants.

If every weapon had a few feats supporting it, that would make all weapons viable, but yet different.

 

[delericho]

In general, I'm not fond of the idea that EWP only gives access to one weapon. I generally prefer the two groupings of exotic weapons from Arcana Evolved, or better still the weapon group proficiencies in Unearthed Arcana.

It's also the case that I've only ever seen a player select the EWP feat once, when his character found the magic bastard sword in "Forge of Fury". So, the only exotic weapons that regularly appear in my game are Dwarven Waraxes (have I mentioned that I hate weapon familiarity? Well, I do).

That said, I'm not convinced that my players have quite the grasp over the system as they like to think. While it's true that EWP generally represents an increase of +1 damage on an attack, it also represents a fairly small investment for a Fighter, and stands at what amounts to the start of a feat chain for the class (Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Improved Crit...). It's not a 'must take' feat, but neither is it so lame that no-one would ever take it (you'd think), which suggests it's well-designed.

And, as regards the "one weapon" thing - how many weapons does your character actually use in the course of his career? Consider this: if your Fighter gained proficiency with all Simple Weapons, plus any five Martial Weapons of his choice, with the condition that he could declare what those weapons were at any time, would he actually be any weaker? I suspect, for most campaigns, the answer would be 'no'.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

... a bit too crappy (siangham, shuriken, I'm looking at you) ...

I seem to remember the point of shuriken in D&D 3e is that you can throw several of them at once and they can deliver poison. If you hit multiple times in one turn it triggers the need for multiple saves.
... but then again, I might not be remembering it right!

 

[Dr Simon]

Delericho mentions the groupings in Arcana Evolved - basically there are three groups of Exotic Weapons: Heavy, Agile and Ranged. There are two access feats, Heavy, and Agile/Ranged (gets you two groups for the price o' one). I think the selection is slightly smaller than D&D (and there's no spiked chain!), but it doesn't harm balance one jot. There are two templates that can be applied to all weapons that shift them into Exotic categories. 'Dire' adds spiky bits, gives a +2 damage bonus and makes it Heavy, whereas Devanian is a techniques using lighter materials, makes the weapon effectively one category lighter and Exotic Agile.

I notice Mearls doesn't mention that he's done weapon specific feats in Iron Heroes (which makes it worth using a trident, for example). He adds in another weapon type descriptor which, offhand, I don't recall, but it is similar to the weapon type proficiencies of UA - also done many years before by RuneQuest )

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Man I hate the two bladed sword.

 

[Kaodi]

Of course, there is always NWN2, when weapon proficiency feats net you every weapon in that group, hehehe...