D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[James Gasik]

You'd like the...roughly 85% finished custom weapon rules I've written up.

They were designed to work with 4e rules, but should be compatible with 5.0 and 5.5e as well*, and they include Simple, Martial, and Superior weapons (including double weapons). The greatest difficulties with the system were that some weapons were just massively underpowered relative to others of their same category, which made it a lot harder to see the underlying pattern. Simple weapons and double weapons had the most outlier cases. Martial and Superior were, by comparison, almost perfectly uniform once I had worked out some early issues. The only remaining thing was the rather late realization that some properties would be free as a rider on top of some other valuable property.

I was pretty pleased with the end result, I just want to add like two or three more interesting properties (in part inspired by BG3!) before I "publish" so to speak.

*As always, testing, testing, testing. You must test to see if it will truly work out or not. It almost certainly wouldn't be a problem in 4e, but in 5e (and particularly 5.5e with its new weapon masteries and such) I cannot guarantee that there isn't some weird charop nightmare that becomes stupid if this is permitted...but I find it somewhat unlikely.

I'd be happy to help, unfortunately my game is on hiatus at the moment, and even when we get back to it, dropping custom weapons on the game probably won't help much- the party consists of a ranged Cleric, a spellcasting Druid, a ranged Fighter (sometimes), and a Sorcerer/Warlock who has a magic sickle that bears a curse preventing them from unattuning it. I'm hoping to recruit a fourth player, maybe they'll be interested in melee combat.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I use a much larger selection of weapons and weapon properties in my homebrew, drawn from many sources and adjusted as needed to suit my and my table's preferences.

Would you be willing to share at least the conceptual ideas for these? As noted above, I've been hoping to find just a handful more ideas to flesh out the system (ideally, at least one more property that would cost 2 "points", since those are pretty thin on the ground) before I "publish". Any sourced from your work would be credited to you.

I'd be happy to help, unfortunately my game is on hiatus at the moment, and even when we get back to it, dropping custom weapons on the game probably won't help much- the party consists of a ranged Cleric, a spellcasting Druid, a ranged Fighter (sometimes), and a Sorcerer/Warlock who has a magic sickle that bears a curse preventing them from unattuning it. I'm hoping to recruit a fourth player, maybe they'll be interested in melee combat.

Oh, to be clear I wasn't even thinking of it as an asking-for-help thing. Just my standard "game design is effort, testing is required, design-by-intuition is highly unreliable" disclaimer.

If you'd like to look at the mostly-but-not-entirely finished rules, I'm happy to share though...or I might just actually post it finally.

 

[James Gasik]

Would you be willing to share at least the conceptual ideas for these? As noted above, I've been hoping to find just a handful more ideas to flesh out the system (ideally, at least one more property that would cost 2 "points", since those are pretty thin on the ground) before I "publish". Any sourced from your work would be credited to you.


Oh, to be clear I wasn't even thinking of it as an asking-for-help thing. Just my standard "game design is effort, testing is required, design-by-intuition is highly unreliable" disclaimer.

If you'd like to look at the mostly-but-not-entirely finished rules, I'm happy to share though...or I might just actually post it finally.

I'm interested, either way!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Would you be willing to share at least the conceptual ideas for these? As noted above, I've been hoping to find just a handful more ideas to flesh out the system (ideally, at least one more property that would cost 2 "points", since those are pretty thin on the ground) before I "publish". Any sourced from your work would be credited to you.


Oh, to be clear I wasn't even thinking of it as an asking-for-help thing. Just my standard "game design is effort, testing is required, design-by-intuition is highly unreliable" disclaimer.

If you'd like to look at the mostly-but-not-entirely finished rules, I'm happy to share though...or I might just actually post it finally.

Sure. I'll IM you.

 

[pawsplay]

the hobgoblin longsword issue just tells me that 5e/5.5e needs a larger selection of weapons and/or weapon traits and properties, i'd be down for an 'expert' tier of weapons above the current martial category.

Pathfinder 2e introduced the striking rune, which is a ham-fisted but seamless way to scale damage at higher levels.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Pathfinder 2e introduced the striking rune, which is a ham-fisted but seamless way to scale damage at higher levels.

my desire is less about scaling damage(although that does contribute) and more about establishing another distinct 'grade' of weaponry, i feel that the current weapon options are all a bit, well, there's not a ton of diversity in the weapons used (i've seen a flowchart meme for what weapon you're going to pick based on your stats and build), both in the sense of the damage dealt and how characters fight with them.

 

[James Gasik]

my desire is less about scaling damage(although that does contribute) and more about establishing another distinct 'grade' of weaponry, i feel that the current weapon options are all a bit, well, there's not a ton of diversity in the weapons used (i've seen a flowchart meme for what weapon you're going to pick based on your stats and build), both in the sense of the damage dealt and how characters fight with them.

The same goes for armor, in my opinion. There's a flowchart for that as well, and it basically boils down to "there are four suits of armor worth wearing, three if you don't care about Stealth". In a recent adventure I was running, there was a Chain Shirt +1 in treasure, and I felt obligated to change it because there wasn't much point for it's existence.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The same goes for armor, in my opinion. There's a flowchart for that as well, and it basically boils down to "there are four suits of armor worth wearing, three if you don't care about Stealth". In a recent adventure I was running, there was a Chain Shirt +1 in treasure, and I felt obligated to change it because there wasn't much point for it's existence.

The fact that gear choice can become so, quite literally derivative, is such a failure to me.

I feel all equipment should have SOME some sort of niche to fill where there’s a reason to pick it over anything else.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The fact that gear choice can become so, quite literally derivative, is such a failure to me.

I feel all equipment should have SOME some sort of niche to fill where there’s a reason to pick it over anything else.

My homebrew includes a lot more stuff about armor as well.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The same goes for armor, in my opinion. There's a flowchart for that as well, and it basically boils down to "there are four suits of armor worth wearing, three if you don't care about Stealth". In a recent adventure I was running, there was a Chain Shirt +1 in treasure, and I felt obligated to change it because there wasn't much point for it's existence.

out of curiosity, what did you end up swapping it for?

honestly i think if the armour tables had been distributed differently chain shirt could've actually 'served a purpose', so if we'd had:

Medium Armour	AC	Strength	Stealth
Hide	12+DEX(+2)	-	-
Ring Mail	14	STR 11	Disadvantage
Chain Shirt	13+DEX(+2)	-	-
Scale Mail	14+DEX(+2)	-	Disadvantage
Chain Mail	16	STR 14	Disadvantage

then shirt would've been 'the best' available medium armour that doesn't impose stealth disadvantage, while the other four armours provide STR and DEX options for medium starter armour and later progression, each armour in this table has it's own 'niche', and then maybe for heavy armour...

Heavy Armour	AC	Strength	Stealth
Spiked Armour	13+DEX(+3)	-	Disadvantage
Breastplate	14+DEX(+2)	-	-
Splint	17	STR 13	-
Half Plate	15+DEX(+3)	-	Disadvantage
Full Plate	18	STR 15	Disadvantage

now here's where i've made a few minor tweaks, i bumped spiked's base AC down one but increased it's and half plate's DEX bonuses which can now go up to +3, and i've removed splint's disadvantage on stealth, again providing an array of options for STR and DEX builds and if you prioritize stealth, then to round it off my shield table.

Shields	AC	Strength	Stealth
Buckler	+1, Hands Free*	-	-
Shield	+2	-	-
Tower Shield	+3, Versatile(+4)	STR 14	Disadvantage

*if you have shield proficiency you can equip bucklers, they do not take up a hand slot so are a passive AC boost but they do prevent you from equipping other shields while worn, they count as having a shield equipped for any feature that requires that.