D&D 5E Magic Items: DMs Thoughts.

[Bayonet]

The only thing that riles up my inner pedant is the idea that some weapons use STR, while others use DEX... realistically, any fighting is a combination of both. A professional fighter would be both dexterous enough to hit their opponent, and strong enough to make that blow sting.

Would it be doable to trigger the attack roll off someone's DEX mod, and the damage roll off their Strength? Maybe add some strength requirements for certain weapons... The idea of a soldier or warrior with max strength and 0 dexterity just boggles my mind.

In the interest of encouraging non-optimal weapon use, I think that enforcing (or house ruling) damage resistance could be a way to overcome it. The zombie doesn't seem to be damaged too much by the rogues daggers, but is noticeable hurt by any blunt object attack. The heavily armoured/carapaced monster is ignoring that halberd slashing damage, but perhaps a piercing weapons could slip past it's scales..


I also like the idea of throwing in magic weapons randomly, as opposed to a 'Christmas list' style. Your party kills an evil cleric and gains his magic weapon, a black mace that casts 'blindness' on crits... Does the Champ fighter give up his mundane Greatsword to use it, and become a sword and boarder with a 'sub optimal' weapon?

 

[Gadget]

I think I would take issue with the original post in that the only degree of variety in TSR era weapons was due to the more strictly enforced weapon restrictions. Clerics were forbidden edged weapons, therefore maces and hammers became common; Druids had similar restrictions on armor and weapons; darts and daggers were about the only weapons magic users were allowed. Monks had limitations as well that made the dagger, staff, dart and crossbow slightly more prominent; there was no rapier (the game was more strictly medieval then), and no 'weapon finesse' to make dex more uber than it already was; thieves seemed to migrate to short sword and short bow due to the restrictions, but there was the occasional dagger in play.

However, any class that had access to all, or almost all, weapons (like fighter and the like) tended to go with long sword. This despite weapon speed factors (which few used), and weapon vs armor tables (which even fewer used, IME, it rarely applied to monsters anyway). It just offered more all around utility and damage with fewer trade-offs. Sure, you were at a slight disadvantage if you ran into skeletons, you could set poll-arms against a charge, and some weapons did better on the weapon damage vs large creatures table (remember this, some weapons did better damage against large or greater size creatures, mostly larger weapons, but I'm not sure how extensively this was used either), but the long sword ended up as an all around better choice. Not to mention it seemed to be the most common type of magic weapon found.

Modern D&D, with the loosening of restrictions on weapon types useable by whichever class, was bound to have everything winnow down to a couple of 'best' weapons depending on character abilities. The only reason why long sword is not still the uber weapon (if indeed it is not) is the rise of weapon finesse and uber dex weapons like the rapier, and the dominance of two handed super damage fighting styles, along with feats that lock one into, or hyper-optimize, a particular weapon combo. I sometimes wonder if AD&D had it kind of right and if a more streamlined version of class weapon restrictions, weapon speed, weapon vs armor and weapon vs creature size table would help with diversity of weapon choice. I know many times we like to have a simulationist (or at least semi-realistic) combat and weapon statistics, but I've come to find that and simulationist implementation of weapon representation in D&D fails to capture the nuance and granularity of what made the trade-offs between weapons a real choice, unless it goes so far into creating its own subsystems as to be overly complex and 'not D&D' anymore.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The only thing that riles up my inner pedant is the idea that some weapons use STR, while others use DEX... realistically, any fighting is a combination of both. A professional fighter would be both dexterous enough to hit their opponent, and strong enough to make that blow sting.

Would it be doable to trigger the attack roll off someone's DEX mod, and the damage roll off their Strength? Maybe add some strength requirements for certain weapons... The idea of a soldier or warrior with max strength and 0 dexterity just boggles my mind.

In the interest of encouraging non-optimal weapon use, I think that enforcing (or house ruling) damage resistance could be a way to overcome it. The zombie doesn't seem to be damaged too much by the rogues daggers, but is noticeable hurt by any blunt object attack. The heavily armoured/carapaced monster is ignoring that halberd slashing damage, but perhaps a piercing weapons could slip past it's scales..


I also like the idea of throwing in magic weapons randomly, as opposed to a 'Christmas list' style. Your party kills an evil cleric and gains his magic weapon, a black mace that casts 'blindness' on crits... Does the Champ fighter give up his mundane Greatsword to use it, and become a sword and boarder with a 'sub optimal' weapon?

That's why I never really liked weapon specialization systems. Players are locked into a specific weapon and feel "screwed" if they find something else.

 

[procproc]

Before 5e came out I got rid of damage by weapon type and did damage by class instead. No matter what weapon a character used, they would roll whatever their classes hit die was for damage.

Barbarians tend to use a big weapon that hits hard, so it makes sense they to a d12.

Fighters roll a d10. No matter what weapon they use, they are deadly with it. A fighter should do more damage with a dagger than a wizard, and not just because of higher strength. His combat knowledge makes him more deadly.

The rogue in my game always used daggers and knives. Small, concealable and able to carry a couple hidden around their person. Not using short swords because they are the "better" option.

In fact, most of the characters in my game used "different" weapons. The dagger carrying rogue, spear and shield fighter. The dwarf fighter that dual wielded hand axes. They made these choices not because of what was the "best" option, but because of what they thought best fit the character, or what they thought was "cool".

When I started 5e, I wanted to start with RAW, but this conversation has me going back to the idea of damage as class.

This is basically what 13th Age does, and I kind of love it. Each class has its own list of weapons and damage outputs, so a Rogue does a d8 with a dagger or a short sword.

 

[Bupp]

This is basically what 13th Age does, and I kind of love it. Each class has its own list of weapons and damage outputs, so a Rogue does a d8 with a dagger or a short sword.

That's where I got the idea from originally, but I just simplified it to class hit die instead of the chart.

 

[Staffan]

The only thing that riles up my inner pedant is the idea that some weapons use STR, while others use DEX... realistically, any fighting is a combination of both. A professional fighter would be both dexterous enough to hit their opponent, and strong enough to make that blow sting.

Keep in mind that the difficulty to hit someone in D&D is called their Armor Class. Wearing more armor makes you harder to hit. In light of that, it kind of makes sense to key hitting to Strength, because it helps you punch through their armor. Well, if you squint a little it does, anyway

 

[Leatherhead]

I also like the idea of throwing in magic weapons randomly, as opposed to a 'Christmas list' style. Your party kills an evil cleric and gains his magic weapon, a black mace that casts 'blindness' on crits... Does the Champ fighter give up his mundane Greatsword to use it, and become a sword and boarder with a 'sub optimal' weapon?

In my experience, no.

A fighter going from a greatsword to a greataxe is sub-optimal. A warrior of any kind going from any greatweapon to a one handed weapon is beyond sub-optimal, it's an active hindrance to them. You have to factor in class features (and feats, if you allow them*) for weapon groups when you consider such things.
The only way they will even consider such a thing is if you have no other magic items of any kind (attunement is a huge albatross in this respect), and you are constantly making the party fight mundane resistant monsters. At which point the fighter will probably not be having much fun with the game.

*Mind you, banning feats is not a good idea to counter this behavior, they actually make otherwise under-performing weapon groups desirable.