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<blockquote data-quote="TwoSix" data-source="post: 9591655" data-attributes="member: 205">Outside of preference, I can think of a few reasons that tie together in the case of &quot;humanoids with weapons&quot; stat blocks.-&quot;Weapons use a specific polyhedral for damage&quot; is an identifying characteristic of D&amp;D as a system.&nbsp; Making weapon damage be a function of character, rather than the equipment, has been done in other systems, but is generally rejected for D&amp;D-type games.&nbsp; Heck, even 4e wasn't willing to jettison that, even though a fixed die for powers would have been much easier than the [W] damage notation.-Weapons are fungible, even in the context of one encounter.&nbsp; Weapons get dropped, weapons get thrown, and new weapons get swapped to and picked up.Thus, it's nowhere close to a white room scenario to imagine a PC getting disarmed of their greatsword +1, and it being picked up by a hobgoblin with a &quot;2d10 with a longsword&quot; damage expression, and the rules being entirely unclear as to what damage expression the hobgoblin could use.&nbsp; Not that I couldn't adjust to that scenario as a DM, but in a game where so much of a monster's capabilities seem to be determined by algorithm, I don't love the fact that basic stat blocks don't have outputs that are derivable and thus allow for extrapolation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TwoSix, post: 9591655, member: 205"] Outside of preference, I can think of a few reasons that tie together in the case of "humanoids with weapons" stat blocks. -"Weapons use a specific polyhedral for damage" is an identifying characteristic of D&D as a system. Making weapon damage be a function of character, rather than the equipment, has been done in other systems, but is generally rejected for D&D-type games. Heck, even 4e wasn't willing to jettison that, even though a fixed die for powers would have been much easier than the [W] damage notation. -Weapons are fungible, even in the context of one encounter. Weapons get dropped, weapons get thrown, and new weapons get swapped to and picked up. Thus, it's nowhere close to a white room scenario to imagine a PC getting disarmed of their [I]greatsword +1[/I], and it being picked up by a hobgoblin with a "2d10 with a longsword" damage expression, and the rules being entirely unclear as to what damage expression the hobgoblin could use. Not that I couldn't adjust to that scenario as a DM, but in a game where so much of a monster's capabilities seem to be determined by algorithm, I don't love the fact that basic stat blocks don't have outputs that are derivable and thus allow for extrapolation. [/QUOTE]

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