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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8975840" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Sure, but the actual difference between one weapon and another is...what die of damage it rolls?  I know that's oversimplifying; there are weapon qualities, but generally there is a "best" weapon for whatever you are doing, and maybe a few variants that inflict a different damage type, which rarely matters in 5e, as that's design space WotC dipped their toe in, and then backed away from pretty quick.So if I build my Fighter to be an archer, I want to use a longbow.  I can use a shortbow or a crossbow, but there's not much advantage for me to do so, and definitely disadvantages.  If I build my Fighter to use a big two hander and deal high base damage, it comes down to reach/no reach, 1d12 or 2d6.  If I'm a Dex build, the Rapier is the superior choice.  If I use one handed weapons, it mostly comes down to which flavor of d8 I want.Now with cantrips, while you can run into problems with creatures being resistant or immune to say, fire, overall, energy damage is superior to b/p/s since it bypasses resistant to "non-magical b/p/s" right off the bat.  Plus there's the occasional upside of vulnerability to fire/cold/etc.; I don't remember seeing any enemies vulnerable to b/p/s.  And then, by taking a slight reduction in damage to a d8, instead of fire bolt for boring damage, we could use say, ray of frost, which has a slight slowing effect every time it is used, something no martial weapon can do.And that's not even getting into things like Eldritch Blast; force is rarely a bad damage type.Now if/when weapons get more interesting, the Fighter's ability to use whatever weapon improves, but it's worth noting that every class can get access to at least some martial weapons and generally has access to quite a few simple weapons, so it's not like it's weapons or cantrips.  These things are not exactly analogous to one another.</blockquote>

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