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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8520338" data-attributes="member: 907">Thinking about this a little more, I think there are three reasonable versions of weapon damage one can work with.1. Fully static, every weapon does d6 (or whatever). Ideally, weapons should then either not come with additional baggage at all (no reach etc.) or all weapons should have balanced traits.2. Rough categories (13th age). You get some balance stuff like choosing between shield + onehander for defense or a two-hander for moar dakka, but having a sword or an axe is mainly cosmetic.3. Lots of detail (Pathfinder 2). For this category, you should seek to balance weapons against one another. and ideally each weapon should have something special about it. In Pathfinder 2 for example, both a battle axe, a longsword, and a warhammer are one-handed martial weapons dealing 1d8 damage, but the battleaxe has Sweep (giving you bonuses when attacking different foes), the longsword has Versatile P (allowing it to deal piercing damage instead of slashing), and the warhammer has Shove (letting you use the Shove maneuver without a hand free, and to apply its item bonus to Shove maneuvers). A flail only deals 1d6, but has three traits instead of one: Sweep, Disarm, and Trip (as Shove but for Disarm and Trip maneuvers). This is at least superficially balanced, but as we know not all traits are created equal (Sweep is a bit stronger than versatile P on a slashing weapon, for example – there are very few situations where the game cares whether you deal piercing or slashing damage)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8520338, member: 907"] Thinking about this a little more, I think there are three reasonable versions of weapon damage one can work with. 1. Fully static, every weapon does d6 (or whatever). Ideally, weapons should then either not come with additional baggage at all (no reach etc.) or all weapons should have balanced traits. 2. Rough categories (13th age). You get some balance stuff like choosing between shield + onehander for defense or a two-hander for moar dakka, but having a sword or an axe is mainly cosmetic. 3. Lots of detail (Pathfinder 2). For this category, you should seek to balance weapons against one another. and ideally each weapon should have something special about it. In Pathfinder 2 for example, both a battle axe, a longsword, and a warhammer are one-handed martial weapons dealing 1d8 damage, but the battleaxe has Sweep (giving you bonuses when attacking different foes), the longsword has Versatile P (allowing it to deal piercing damage instead of slashing), and the warhammer has Shove (letting you use the Shove maneuver without a hand free, and to apply its item bonus to Shove maneuvers). A flail only deals 1d6, but has three traits instead of one: Sweep, Disarm, and Trip (as Shove but for Disarm and Trip maneuvers). This is at least superficially balanced, but as we know not all traits are created equal (Sweep is a bit stronger than versatile P on a slashing weapon, for example – there are [B]very[/B] few situations where the game cares whether you deal piercing or slashing damage) [/QUOTE]

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