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

[I'm A Banana]

So they've made a weapon list where you can pretty clearly sort out the weapons that are "worth using" and those that aren't. It's clear that you are channeled to certain weapons.

The only question is why they would do that.

The reason doesn't seem obvious to me. Maybe they wanted certain weapons to be used more often than others? Maybe they wanted people choosing things for character reasons to be weaker than people choosing things for mechanical reasons? Maybe the classes that are expected to use the sub-par weapons get perks? Maybe "Tradition"?

At any rate, it's looking like something I'll module-out. I'm still fond of the idea I've used in FFZ, that your class dictates your damage dice and what weapon you use is largely a matter of what properties you want....

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Further thoughts:

1) This isn't a problem that Feats can solve, for a number of reasons:

A) Feats aren't in all 5E games at all.

B) You don't get ANY Feats in 5E until level 4/5 (I forget), which is literally half the career of most PCs in my experience, and quite likely months of play. Also you may well have a magic weapon by then, so if a weapon is kind of dodgy until you get a Feat, it's probably just going to get ignored.

C) Even when you do FINALLY get your first Feat, you probably have 16-18 in your primary stat (and you are a weapon-fighter of some kind for this discussion, not a finger-wiggler), so you are comparing Feat #1 to +1 to hit and damage all the time on everything you do. Even dim players can usually go "Well to hell with that Feat..." to that. For less-optimized PCs, Feat #2 is likely to get eaten the same way, because even dim players can see "I need to get my main stat to 20, then I can forget about it"-type logic (in fact they are most likely to do that, in some ways).

So yeah, if you need to be level 8 or 12 (seriously these are the levels for Feat #2 and #3) before you get your weapon working "properly", then damn, I don't expect to see Feat-reliant weapons being very popular.

2) Most players don't charop, but most can spot a dud weapon, due to instinctive maths and so on. Only deceptive weapons often fool them (lots of D4s and the like). So duds will get ignored.

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.

That you had to look this up shows that there is a problem here.

D&D will need to do a good job explaining what a quarterstaff is, because 99% of players, especially newer ones and people who aren't military history buffs, will indeed envision "a wizard's staff". The fact that wizards in D&D use them, and that there is no "staff" as separate weapon will reinforce this view.

Further, popular fantasy/quasi-fantasy like Robin Hood tends to show quarterstaffs as pretty much "big eff off walking sticks", not iron-bound weapons, so that's the only other likely image people have.

If D&D wants another perception, it is up to D&D to create that perception, and sneering at people who don't share it ("time to stop confusing...") is unhelpful, I would suggest, given their perception is not an unreasonable one for even a normal fantasy/medieval fan, let alone a normal member of the public.

 

[Mercurius]

Yes, and the game punishes that player for not mastering the system first.

Don't you think that's a little hyperbolic? The difference is a few gold pieces, a price worth paying if a player wants the pizazz of a greatsword.

Yes, but it also does minimum damage less often. And it never does 1 damage. You can't argue with the math.

Agreed - you can't argue with the math and the math says that d12 is three times more likely to score max damage than 2d6. I'm not saying d12 is better, but it has pros and cons over 2d6 and, in the end, they even out somewhat. Plus you get to roll a 12-sided die!

 

[Jan van Leyden]

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.

Sorry, but your "always mechanically better" argument sounds wrong to me. Let's ignore bonuses due to strength or other effects. You are fighting against an enemy with 10 HP. A successful hit with the axe puts him out of the fight with a probability of 25%. The sword offers you only 16.7%. I wouldn't exactly call a lower chance to drop an enemy with one blow "better".

 

[Nagol]

Sorry, but your "always mechanically better" argument sounds wrong to me. Let's ignore bonuses due to strength or other effects. You are fighting against an enemy with 10 HP. A successful hit with the axe puts him out of the fight with a probability of 25%. The sword offers you only 16.7%. I wouldn't exactly call a lower chance to drop an enemy with one blow "better".

But then you get the trident. Its use is more restricted than a spear (martial vs. simple), it costs more, is heavier, does exactly the same damage, and has exactly the same tricks!

I would say one is strictly inferior to the other.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sorry, but your "always mechanically better" argument sounds wrong to me. Let's ignore bonuses due to strength or other effects. You are fighting against an enemy with 10 HP. A successful hit with the axe puts him out of the fight with a probability of 25%. The sword offers you only 16.7%. I wouldn't exactly call a lower chance to drop an enemy with one blow "better".

That's a useless example because in D&D, enemy HP grows extremely rapidly, but weapon damage does not. In a lot of games, where enemy HP was static, that'd be a totally valid example, and I'd agree. Not D&D though. Not 5E. Enemy HP rapidly goes outside the range where your example makes any sense, because the way you get extra weapon-based damage in 5E is extra attacks or static modifiers, both of which push things towards averages. So yeah, no, try again.

 

[Halivar]

This is easily solved. All weapons do 1d8 damage, or 2d6 if you wield them two-handed. After all, if complete balance is the goal, then only complete homogenization will achieve it.

For myself, I'm happy with the list as-is.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is easily solved. All weapons do 1d8 damage, or 2d6 if you wield them two-handed. After all, if complete balance is the goal, then only complete homogenization will achieve it.

You say this almost as if you were unaware that D&D originally had all weapons do equal damage.

 

[Li Shenron]

The only question is why they would do that.

The reason doesn't seem obvious to me. Maybe they wanted certain weapons to be used more often than others? Maybe they wanted people choosing things for character reasons to be weaker than people choosing things for mechanical reasons? Maybe the classes that are expected to use the sub-par weapons get perks? Maybe "Tradition"?

None of these.

IMHO it's not an intended result, but a by-product of the playtesting process. Probably they assumed that when the majority doesn't say "change it", then it means it doesn't need to be changed. But the majority doesn't notice a problem until later, unless the problem is glaring or involves emotions. And even if the majority really doesn't have a problem with it, this doesn't mean it's not worth improving it (anyway, most of those who don't have a problem with it, won't have a problem with an adjusted version either).

This is why I used the not-so-nice expression "sloppy". It's the attitude of thinking your work is good enough when it's enough for the majority. And it's a trap, not for the company (they know they'll sell the product anyway) but for the customers, who get an iPhone full of bugs because the developers thought the customers didn't deserve more.

It's a pity, because 5e as a whole looks amazing to me. It has great ideas and is built on a good vision with good values. Mearls even talked about "design finesse" in a few articles, but anyway it's not Mike who designed the functional details of 5e, so I am not blaming him.

Considering that the PHB just went off to the printers (so the MM still have weeks and the DMG a few months), it means they had something like 3/4 of a year for fine-tuning the mechanics and relative numbers, but have they really done it? All I have heard is that they buffed all monsters' hit points, probably by the same proportional amount.

edit: I'm looking at the bigger picture, the weapon list is really a minimal problem here; it's just that all the little irritating details don't seem to have been addressed at all since the last playtest packet (at least from what I've seen so far in the previews)

Further thoughts:

1) This isn't a problem that Feats can solve, for a number of reasons:

Definitely. Not to mention that it's not really a good principle to keep problems in your design (instead of removing them) because anyway later there'll be something that will compensate... like in 3e where they used prestige classes to "fix" the problem with multiclass spellcasters

 

[Mercurius]

This is easily solved. All weapons do 1d8 damage, or 2d6 if you wield them two-handed. After all, if complete balance is the goal, then only complete homogenization will achieve it.

For myself, I'm happy with the list as-is.

Agreed. Complete balance is only achievable through homogenization, which I don't think is worth it. I'd rather see the game and DMs encourage players to build their characters based upon a concept rather than optimization.

Some balance is a good thing, but the rules as is seem to do that just fine.