D&D 5E Random Starter Set Teaser from Google+

[Kobold Stew]

Se with quarterstaff. I think we should stop thinking of it like an old man's walking staff (treat that as a club rather) but a monk's iron-clad battle staff.

That's not the mental image that I get when I think of a default weapon for druids and wizards.

 

[ren1999]

Each weapon should have one single unique reason for being chosen.
A crossbow will be more accurate.
A bow can be loaded faster.
Etc.

 

[Bluenose]

I mean, I knew it wasn't going to happen with this edition.

But I was still hoping for all weapons being different but equal.

I'm sure we'll have full blades and executioner's axes back soon enough as well.

I had hopes for a simple "create your own" system. Light weapons, 1d6; medium weapons, 1d8; heavy weapons, 2d6. Add Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning as desired. Pay the cost of the different qualities. Describe it the way you want. So my heavy slashing and piercing weapon is a poleaxe and yours is a zweihander, but their effect, cost and weight are the same. Do something similar with armour.

Instead we got this fake precision. And will no doubt get more in various sets, as more sets come out with the ultra-special-super-weapon of the latest fancy supplement. It's just all so predictable, and wrong-headed, and utterly inaccurate, and sure to be argued about anyway as people want their favourite weapon to be different and special.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I was kind of hoping for a modular system of a really simple basic system (unarmed attacks 1dmg, improvised weapons 1d4, light 1d6, etc) with most of the heavy lifting of customization handled by feats and class features or some kind of optional simulationist module (this is how medieval weapons really stack up, kinda) in the dmg or a supplement. What I am seeing here seems overly fiddly, unbalanced and a bit too 3E for my tastes.

That said, I can live with it. I would have preferred to have a feat that was "Fencing Master" that let me apply all kinds of bonuses, flavor and tactical considerations to using rapiers and similar weapons. I am just guessing a lot of folks weren't really on board in having all that crunch handled by an optional part of the system.

My biggest concern is that the math might be off, but until I can see how this works in actual play, I will probably not make too many judgements. It just seems overly finicky for a basic product when I think something simpler would have sufficed.

It is nothing that takes away any enthusiasm I have for 5E. I realize compromises have to be made to fit a bunch of playstyles and preferences while honoring "tradition" over many iterations of the game.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I may not care much about the math, but that doesn't mean the designers shouldn't care, because clearly lots of other gamers do!

If they make a math-sloppy game, those who don't care are happy and those who care are sad.

If they make a math-reliable game, those who care are happy, and those who don't care... well they don't care so clearly they are happy too!

But which axioms should the use to build a math-reliable game on? All weapons shall have the same average DPR output? We already had this in Moldvay Basic: each and every weapon did 1d6 damage. Different damage values were an optional rule.

And why do you call the other version "math-sloppy"? Different damage ranges and DPR-values are not a sign of sloppy design. The only effect is that charopers may not have much choice in which weapon they use. But by looking at DPR exclusively, they already make a choice: damage values are more important to them than visuals or style. The rest are consequences determined by the decision.

I find the complaint that they want to use weapon xyz but is has to have the same mechanical values as klm strange. If it's so important to you that your character's great sword looks like a greataxe, just call it so.

 

[Li Shenron]

But which axioms should the use to build a math-reliable game on? All weapons shall have the same average DPR output? We already had this in Moldvay Basic: each and every weapon did 1d6 damage. Different damage values were an optional rule.

...

If it's so important to you that your character's great sword looks like a greataxe, just call it so.

There is only one simple axiom to follow: there shouldn't be two alternatives in the game where one of them is always mechanically better than the other so that it is the "right" choice by default. Because that means there are "wrong" choices by default as well, and something which is always "wrong" is probably better removed from the game entirely.

There has to be a trade-off, a circumstantial difference, or at least something that differentiate between the two. If weapon #1 is totally identical to weapon #2 but has +1 damage, then #2 is functionally useless in the game. And that's exactly because (as you say yourself) you can easily change the "look", so you don't even need #2 narratively.

Having weapon #2 in the game only serves the purpose of making some player feel stupid after noticing they picked the wrong weapon, and then the whole group just stops using that weapon forever. Why would I want to have something in the game that has no use after you figure it out?

 

[zlorf]

Because my characters background says he uses a greataxe...for flavor and reputation.
Your kidding right?
Change it to 3d4 after you purchase the book...we wont tell.

Cheers
Z

Ugh, the weapon list.

Okay, so, Real Talk for a second. I'm an alpha tester. The weapon list is the only part of the game that I ever thought was legitimately, objectively broken. I told them it was broken as often as I was allowed to. And it's still broken in the release version of the game.

First of all, similar weapons have different costs. Why in the world would anyone buy a greatsword when they could get a maul for cheaper?

Second of all, the greataxe is useless. Look at it. 1d12. The maul and greatsword (which are otherwise similar to the greataxe) have 2d6. Just think about that for a second. The greataxe can deal 1-12 damage. The maul can deal 2-12 damage. In fact, if you do the math, 2d6 averages one point higher than 1d12. So why in the world would anyone use the greataxe?

 

[Phaezen]

Doublepost

 

[Phaezen]

That's not the mental image that I get when I think of a default weapon for druids and wizards.

ACCORDING to Chambers's "Encyclopaedia," the quarter-staff was "formerly a favourite weapon with the English for hand-to-hand encounters." It was "a stout pole of heavy wood, about six and a half feet long, shod with iron at both ends. It was grasped in the middle by one hand, and the attack was made by giving it a rapid circular motion, which brought the loaded ends on the opponent at unexpected points."

Some more info from wikipedia Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterstaff

Time to stop confusing a recognised weapon with a walking stick. Stylisticly a druids quaterstaff might not be ironbound but will be hardened and weighted on the end to make it as effective.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You roll one die of the base damage for the crit damage. So if it's a 2d6 base damage, the crit die is 1d6. If it's a 1d12 base, the crit die is 1d12.

Yep. The GS averages better, but if you can get an 18-20 crit range (and a Fighter can), they're virtually indistinguishable, DPR-wise. Plus as noted, swing-y damage is an attraction in and of itself to many players! And the difference is just never that huge (0.35 DPR even at 20-only crit, assuming one attack).

So I think the GS/GA example is actually kind of okay, even decent.

However, I do think this is the least exciting weapon list I have ever seen in a modern edition of D&D (and actually, 1E and 2E also had way more exciting weapon lists). It's problem isn't so much the mechanical questionable-ness of some of the weapons (yes, it is me saying that, good lord!), it's more that they're really boring. Like whoa boring. They're same-y, and almost none of them have cool properties or tricks of things that make players enthusiastic about them.

You were dead right earlier when you said most players don't CharOp. What they do, in my experience, is peruse weapon tables looking for stuff that looks/sounds cool (both 3E and 4E had pretty weak illustrations for the weapons, hope they do better with 5E), or which does special things, and this list doesn't really offer that.

Personally, and I know many may recoil in horror from this, but I am beginning to miss 2E's "different damage on size L+ targets", which helped differentiate a lot of weapons (I wouldn't emulate it precisely, of course).

Also it is just really odd that a 1h Quarterstaff does 1d6 and a club does 1d4 and the club isn't even versatile, which just makes less than zero sense. Why is a club not versatile? I'm seriously trying to come up with an explanation here. Virtually all combat-clubs except those used by modern police can be easily gripped with two hands - it's an ICONIC image, the club raised in two hands.

The presence of the greatclub confuses matters even further - so we have, like, a club so small you cna only wield it 1h, and a club so big it can only be wielded 2h, but we don't have, like, a normal size club? Where's Goldilocks when you need her? Presumably being hit by a medium-sized bear armed with a medium-sized club or something...

Also quarterstaffs are versatile but don't have reach and aren't double-weapons? Huh? Seems like the quarterstaff stats are, in fact, the "medium club" stats, and that an actual quarterstaff should have different stats.

Bored and confused by this table.