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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gadget" data-source="post: 6584784" data-attributes="member: 23716">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.</blockquote>

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