D&D 5E Magic Items: DMs Thoughts.

[The Human Target]

Kind of a catch 22 for the designers there though. On one hand, if you have a game where all of the weapons and items are balanced and useful all the way around, you'll sure make people who care about the game the most happy, but you'll make the simulation people unhappy. If you go the other way, you'll have the people who value realism happy, but gamers unhappy. Besides, there's a very simple reason a lot of the weapons are superior to others: that's the way they are in real life.

Except for all the nerd arguments I've read over the years debating exactly what weapons and armor trump other weapons and armor.l

Trying to make medieval weapon fans happy is a fools game.

 

[Zardnaar]

One house rule I've been considering is to give light weapons a +1 bonus to hit, to represent their ease of use and to give people a reason to use them instead of higher-damage weapons. I'd probably give the d4 damage weapons (such as daggers) a +2 to hit, so that they might actually be used. I think 4e did something similar to this, IIRC.

Rogues got a +1 bonus to hit with them and could bypass AC and hit the NADs so using daggers they were very accurate. You could make it a weapon style in 5E.

 

[Sunseeker]

People who optimize are going to optimize if the only weapon available to them was a wooden board with a nail in it.

Personally, I try to give out items that have interesting uses and effects and just avoid +X magic items entirely.

 

[Ahrimon]

I still lol at the concept of "trap options". If something isn't the best or tied for 2nd it's automatically a "trap option". We can't have flavor around here, no sir. Everything has to be the best or it's a trap.

 

[CapnZapp]

If you're worried about trap options among melee weapons, I once made a revised set of melee weapon stats to remove them.

Do you happen to have this in a textual format, not just a picture?

 

[The Human Target]

I still lol at the concept of "trap options". If something isn't the best or tied for 2nd it's automatically a "trap option". We can't have flavor around here, no sir. Everything has to be the best or it's a trap.

Why must flavor come at the cost of effectiveness?

Why would players in a game all about overcoming challenges want their characters to have anything less than the best?

How many PC Fighters have I ever seen use a quarter staff? None. Why? Cause its a terrible weapon for a Fighter in most editions. Choosing one is gimping yourself.

It is in fact either a trap for people who don't know better, and a choice to be less effective for flavor for people who do.

 

[SirAntoine]

Kind of a catch 22 for the designers there though. On one hand, if you have a game where all of the weapons and items are balanced and useful all the way around, you'll sure make people who care about the game the most happy, but you'll make the simulation people unhappy. If you go the other way, you'll have the people who value realism happy, but gamers unhappy. Besides, there's a very simple reason a lot of the weapons are superior to others: that's the way they are in real life.

Well, what is a trap option to you? To me, it's not one that just is less quality, it's one where knowing that will be hard for a new player. The description of the weapons should say how they are inferior or effective.

For those interested, the old 2nd Edition weapons, especially including the Arms and Equipment Guide, gave a lot of this information. There were pole-arms that were invented first, historically, which were crude and later improved upon, for example.

 

[SirAntoine]

I still lol at the concept of "trap options". If something isn't the best or tied for 2nd it's automatically a "trap option". We can't have flavor around here, no sir. Everything has to be the best or it's a trap.

Yes, that would be unfortunate. The descriptions in the game should explain relative choices, and the pro's and con's.

 

[Syntallah]

Yes, that would be unfortunate. The descriptions in the game should explain relative choices, and the pro's and con's.

And then we have hordes of angry players complaining that their favorite spell/weapon/feature/widget/whathaveyou was left out of the Game due to space constraints of the rule book...

 

[Ahrimon]

Why must flavor come at the cost of effectiveness?

Why would players in a game all about overcoming challenges want their characters to have anything less than the best?

How many PC Fighters have I ever seen use a quarter staff? None. Why? Cause its a terrible weapon for a Fighter in most editions. Choosing one is gimping yourself.

It is in fact either a trap for people who don't know better, and a choice to be less effective for flavor for people who do.

Truthfully flavor doesn't have to come at the cost of effectiveness, but part of the weapons flavor is it's mechanical difference.

The bolded part is the crux of the issue to me. It's a player issue and not a character issue. For a character the longsword may be the most effective, but mechanically a greatsword is better. Or perhaps they're from a culture that uses scimitars primarily, why would they be running around with a longsword? Perhaps they're from a more hunter based society where spears were very common. Why would that character be running around with a longsword? What if their background is peasant so mace is thematically correct? If a player insists on always having their character be mechanically at the tip of the spear then, as far as I'm concerned, they don't have a leg to stand on that there aren't enough options for them.

Weapons don't have to be mechanically similar. In many ways that takes away from the game for me, so I like having various mechanical options to reflect the choices I make. It goes along with having multiple class options.

Where do we draw the line? If every weapon should be mechanically indistinguishable from the others then why should every subclass be indistinguishable from another? Why do we need multiple fighter/paladin/etc subclasses when you can just use flavor? In my opinion it's because mechanics add flavor for the player and I'm ok with some being slightly more powerful than others because I like having options.