D&D 5E Have you ever seen these weapons used regularly by PC's in a D&D 5e game?

[UngeheuerLich]

Yeah, but you can just as easily poison (the ammunition of) a ranged weapon that deals more than one damage on a hit…

But you can't use a bigger weapon while being stealthy in a crowd...

 

[Charlaquin]

But you can't use a bigger weapon while being stealthy in a crowd...

I suppose. I think a hand crossbow could probably be subtle enough, but that depends on how you conceptualize such a weapon.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, but you can just as easily poison (the ammunition of) a ranged weapon that deals more than one damage on a hit…

What can I say? The player got into the blowgun.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I suppose. I think a hand crossbow could probably be subtle enough, but that depends on how you conceptualize such a weapon.

Yes. Hand crossbow would work too in most cases. But blowgun is cheaper and more subtle depending on situation. I also don't know if there is a class with blowgun but not hand crossbow proficiency.

 

[James Gasik]

You should also make an exception for clubs and sickles in the hands of monks, since they don't care about the normal attribute or damage, and there are thematic reasons to want to use them (any silat, escrima, arnis, or similar practitioners might jump at the chance to get to 2wf using paired sticks, for example).

PAM seems to have drifted to PAM with spear as the primary usage, but also I think the whole PAM+GWM+sentinel combo with a halberd or the like sometimes ends up in the 'yes it is an optimal build, but people will roll their eyes if I bring one out' territory.

It's also a word that just sounds cool and I can imagine it might have been used even if, instead of a completely different weapon, it instead meant something else entirely.

Personally, I think trident should be rolled up into one-handable spears (and then they systematically decide what they want to do with spears in general*).
*1h spear with PAM and shield is a way to make what IRL was a perfectly good military weapon viable for a martial character to regularly use, but it seems like the most convoluted and unsatisfactory way of doing it.

I think that falls into what was meant by not a pc weapon -- not one you choose for your character when equipping yourself (once the various cost differences between the weapons becomes trivial), much less making a build around. All weapons and armor work well for the role of things you use when nothing else is available (same reason for padded armor and scale mail and such).

I mean, it certainly is true that back in TSR A/D&D days, clerics could only use a subset of weapons and people found ways to make that work. At the same time, 5e has so many workarounds (multiclassing, shillelagh, cantrips instead) that most of the people who might get squeezed into a narrow subset will instead simply not use weapons (or, like shillelagh, not use their normal stats). Add to this that most non-(life/war/tempest) cleric characters without martial proficiency will likely have a 8-10 str and as high a Dex as they can, and the incentivization structure again goes every which-way but where you intended.

You make a good point regarding Monk weapons. That's probably why those weapons are getting more votes than I expected. Oops. Shows you that I've yet to play a 5e Monk.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Light Hammer - thrown weapons instead of handaxe
Greataxe - very common
Scimitar - also pretty darn common (two players in my new game use them)
Whip - house-ruled to actually be useful
Flail - sometimes, house-rule of +1 vs. shields helps also

 

[Demetrios1453]

My current paladin uses a halberd with a PAM build. It's a lot of fun.

 

[Neonchameleon]

PAM seems to have drifted to PAM with spear as the primary usage, but also I think the whole PAM+GWM+sentinel combo with a halberd or the like sometimes ends up in the 'yes it is an optimal build, but people will roll their eyes if I bring one out' territory.

The problem with PAM + GWM + Sentinel is twofold: ASIs and Action Economy. In terms of ASIs it takes three feats - and you generally want two ASIs to reach STR 20. A normal character only gets 5 ASIs across their entire career - while PAM + Spear lets you get your ASIs and you can do it in reasonable time.

The action economy is that PAM's primary ability is that it lets you attack as a bonus action. GWM's secondary ability is that it lets you attack as a bonus action. PAM's secondary ability is that it lets you attack as a Reaction. Sentinel's secondary and tertiary abilities are that it lets you attack as a Reaction when you otherwise couldn't.

Then there's the issue that Great Weapon Fighter is terrible with polearms while duelist is awesome with PAM/spear so fighters and paladins by default take the spear - while barbarians don't care about this but bee-line for GWM thanks to reckless giving them advantage (and can't get bonus action attacks the turn they rage).

Personally, I think trident should be rolled up into one-handable spears (and then they systematically decide what they want to do with spears in general*).
*1h spear with PAM and shield is a way to make what IRL was a perfectly good military weapon viable for a martial character to regularly use, but it seems like the most convoluted and unsatisfactory way of doing it.

1h spear is a very good weapon in mass combat because it's simple. It's also a good expert weapon. These take different paths although both are a little clunky.

 

[tetrasodium]

I voted greataxe because halforc(?) has that +1 damage die on a crit & you see people choose them intentionally from time to time because dwarf=axe. Pretty much everything else on the list may as well not exist for any reason other than improvised weapons between losing their weapons & finding where their weapons were hidden.

edit: even then the target was "regularly". I largely only did that because there wasn't an "I'm voting but don't really see any of those"

 

[Haplo781]

No "none of the above" renders this poll meaningless