D&D 5E Fighter Weapon Choice

[FormerlyHemlock]

You just considered about two-thirds of the heroes in heroic fiction insane and/or idiots.

Like Riddick?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16RdEtQL9EQ

 

[n00b f00]

Well, Riddick is arguably less than a well adjusted individual. But he IS effective with a wide variety of non optimized weapons, and is mostly successful in his adventures.

I think an important distinction that may be lost, is the if a player chooses a suboptimal weapon for his character for story or aesthetic reasons. That's not the same as the character choosing that weapon due to it looking cool. The character might be using a shortsword because he was a professional with a dwarven army for 20 years, and in this setting they use shield walls and short swords to dominate the cramped tunnel fighting they normally engage in. Maybe this character uses longsword because it's a religious artifact handed from one champion of the faith to the next. Or maybe they use a trident+ net combo because she grew up in the fighting pits. Or maybe using anything bigger than a dagger for this smallish gnome makes them feel uncomfortable.

In real life those would all be the shorts of reasons where many of us would go, "Okay sure, if they can fight I don't care." But there's few mechanics in the game to adequately express that while a character may be familiar with other weapons, that character has a specific favored one. So how would you react to mechanically inferior decision that in real life wouldn't ping your radar at all? Would you say "Well you're not a REAL person, this is just an excuse to use an inferior weapon. Stop being an idiot, and pick up a greatsword,"? To me at that point it feels disingenuous, it feels like the characters can see damage values and hitpoints floating over weapons and objects, and have no desires or feelings that aren't directly related to a goal their player wants to accomplish.

Different strokes right, but that's just not for me personally. Actually a meta campaign like that might be fun for comedic purposes, but that's besides the point. And again, if I was the GM I'd offer a reskin or if I was the player I'd ask for one. Which renders this all moot, but that's not what we're discussing.

 

[Jester David]

It's the character who cares about winning the fight. The character is the one whose life is on the line. If you're roleplaying a character who is sane - a character who wants to live - then that character will choose the weapon which gives the best chance of staying alive.

You can go ahead and play a character who chooses a short sword over a rapier, purely for the aesthetic, but my character is going to assume your character is an imbecile unless your character gives my character some good reason to believe otherwise.

Yes and no.
There are better and worse weapons, but that doesn't make weapons less lethal. I'm not going to consider someone walking around with a Walther PPK "suicidally incompetent" because they're wielding that rather than, oh, a FN P90, because they still have a gun. Just like if someone has a knife I'm going to be wary despite a greatsword having higher DPS.
Plus, when you're adding your ability score to the damage anyway, an extra 1 or 2 points means little.

 

[thalmin]

There is a strong correlation between roleplaying and optimization if you want to play a character who isn't suicidally incompetent. Winning and losing the game, or however the player feels about that, is irrelevant to roleplaying. The player doesn't exist within the game world.

It's the character who cares about winning the fight. The character is the one whose life is on the line. If you're roleplaying a character who is sane - a character who wants to live - then that character will choose the weapon which gives the best chance of staying alive.

You can go ahead and play a character who chooses a short sword over a rapier, purely for the aesthetic, but my character is going to assume your character is an imbecile unless your character gives my character some good reason to believe otherwise.

But the weapons don't come with efficiency ratings stickered onto the blades, so how does ones character know that the long thin-bladed rapier does more damage than the short wide-bladed short sword? And remember, all we have to go on is our own experiences, and what anyone else talks about. We all know how reliable anecdotal evidence is. And of course, if it was a quick kill, it was because I was good. If it took a long time, it's because my opponent was tough. Either way, if I won the fight, my trusty weapon didn't let me down.

The "best" blade for most people would be the one that they are most familiar with, which would be the one most common for their region. Until some hotshot comes into town who makes a name for himself with something different. Then many of the folk will foolishly think the strange weapon is what makes the difference, rather than the person's skill and extensive training.

We are not talking about weapons that are doing twice as much damage here. Yet the rapier does more than cost twice as much as the short sword.

My character would look at Conan, and wouldn't care if he was wielding a greataxe, great sword, great hammer, or great club. They are all big dangerous looking weapons. (I might smirk a bit if Conan was wielding a fencing foil, but not while he was looking towards me).

Since most of us in real life don't need to carry weapons,

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There are better and worse weapons, but that doesn't make weapons less lethal. I'm not going to consider someone walking around with a Walther PPK "suicidally incompetent" because they're wielding that rather than, oh, a FN P90, because they still have a gun.

There are a lot more aspects of a weapon that need to be taken into consideration in real life than there are in the game world. In real life, you need to worry about ease of use and availability and concealability and legality and any number of things. Moreover, in the real world, a small pistol or a dagger has a good chance of taking someone down with one hit - and the primary use for such weapons is in defending yourself against others who will be armed with the same type of weapon, or who might even be unarmed.

But even in the real world, when comparing guns, stopping power is a real thing that can be measured and discussed and taken into consideration. If you're going out to hunt grizzly bears, or hippos, then the guy with the PPK is a liability who is going to get everyone else killed, and the professional hunters who are organizing this expedition aren't going to invite that guy along.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But even in the real world, when comparing guns, stopping power is a real thing that can be measured and discussed and taken into consideration. If you're going out to hunt grizzly bears, or hippos, then the guy with the PPK is a liability who is going to get everyone else killed, and the professional hunters who are organizing this expedition aren't going to invite that guy along.

It must be acknowledged, on the other hand, that not everyone roleplays professional monster hunters.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But the weapons don't come with efficiency ratings stickered onto the blades, so how does ones character know that the long thin-bladed rapier does more damage than the short wide-bladed short sword?

Characters in the game world are aware of much more than we give them credit for. They can see the length of the blade, and its sharpness, and everything else about it. The only thing we can see are its weight, and damage, and special properties. We only see the number, but they see the reality which corresponds to that number.

The "best" blade for most people would be the one that they are most familiar with, which would be the one most common for their region.

That's not a thing, in 5E. You're either familiar enough with a weapon to use it to its full effect, or you aren't. A fighter who spends countless hours fighting with a short sword can always apply that experience perfectly for use with a rapier.

Granted, if you're in a historical setting where rapiers haven't been invented, then those fighters aren't going to be familiar with the rapier, so they will lack proficiency in it. In that case, familiarity trumps power.

 

[CM]

It's reasons like this that I generally just let the players describe what their weapons look like, within reason. If someone wants the stats of a rapier but visualizes it as a short sword, or a light pick, who really cares?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's reasons like this that I generally just let the players describe what their weapons look like, within reason. If someone wants the stats of a rapier but visualizes it as a short sword, or a light pick, who really cares?

Today I allowed a barbarian PC to convert a Sword of Life Stealing into a Glaive of Life Stealing constructing a heavy wooden shaft for it. That way he can use it with GWM. Mordenkainen's Sword is now Mordenkainen's Glaive and he loves it.

(This is an application of the Rule of Yes in action: the first time in a campaign that you want to do something crazy, it works. The second time I'll come up with actual rules for it. So the players know that they can't necessarily freely convert magic weapons into other types of weapons going forward.)

 

[thalmin]

Characters in the game world are aware of much more than we give them credit for. They can see the length of the blade, and its sharpness, and everything else about it. The only thing we can see are its weight, and damage, and special properties. We only see the number, but they see the reality which corresponds to that number.

They also see the width of the blade. A longer blade can make a deeper hole, but a thicker, wider blade can make a bigger hole. Which does more damage? Depends on what you hit and where, even more so how well. And nothing anywhere indicates which blade is sharper, or will keep its effective edge longer during combat.

That's not a thing, in 5E. You're either familiar enough with a weapon to use it to its full effect, or you aren't. A fighter who spends countless hours fighting with a short sword can always apply that experience perfectly for use with a rapier.

Not even close in real life, and not perfectly in my games. If I pick up a new weapon, it could be "this will take some getting used to" or "I could get used to this" or even "now that's more like it." Whatever seems right.

Now your character can be biased against certain weapons. Just as somebody else's character can be biased for those same weapons. Both positions have equal validity. And you should feel free to walk away from a game where the other players don't hold your desire for optimized characters, just as I have walked away from games where the other players expected optimization. There is no point spending much time in a game you don't enjoy.