D&D 5E Renaming +1, +2, +3

[S'mon]

I don't name the pluses, I name the weapon.

That's my preferred approach - not in 4e where +1 weapons are too common to be notable, but certainly in 5e every magic weapon should have a name - the Dwarven Axe of Thunderhold (+1 battleaxe), the Sword of the Sorcerer (+2 greatsword), etc.

 

[Cernor]

Does 5E have any rules for one weapon being more effective than another, on any basis other than magical enchantment?

I don't recall, in 5E, "masterwork" or the distinction between an iron blade vs. a steel blade vs. a mithral blade.

There isn't masterwork equipment anymore: adamantine and mithral armours are magic items, whereas mithral weapons aren't mentioned and adamantine weapons are only mentioned as a means to non-magically bypass some creatures' resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage (somewhat like silvered weapons).

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Magic, Magicer, Magicest

 

[Riley37]

I might house-rule that iron weapons are default, and that steel weapons get +1 to hit and damage.

Soldiers in any well-equipped army carry steel weapons; Roman soldiers (at least some of them, that is) carried weapons made with Noric steel. (Ovid Metamorphoses, 14.712: "...durior [...] ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis...")

But ill-equipped goblin tribal warriors might carry weapons made with lesser (non-steel) iron, and a farmer's knife might be a +0 dagger, and so forth, thus making +0 common among non-military-grade weapons, +1 common among military-grade weapons, and +a 2 sword is either masterwork steel, or "average" steel which was then given a +1 enchantment.

Of course, taking the time and trouble to lay a +1 enchantment on an iron or low-grade-steel sword is kinda silly, when you could instead start with a masterwork steel weapon and THEN enchant it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Of course, taking the time and trouble to lay a +1 enchantment on an iron or low-grade-steel sword is kinda silly, when you could instead start with a masterwork steel weapon and THEN enchant it.

The game is full of that, though. In any situation where Armor A is strictly worse than Armor B, the charts will indicate that Armor A (+1) will be more common than Armor B (+1).

I think it's supposed to be a way for them to keep less-effective equipment still relevant once the minor price differences stop mattering, but it seems ridiculous from an in-game perspective.

 

[Riley37]

Leather armor and studded leather are the example which I notice most. Leather armor and hide armor should drop off the set of PC-relevant options quickly, and when you see an NPCs equipping either of those, it's because that NPC cannot buy or make better armor.

Keeping in mind, of course, that many Middle Ages Europe humans didn't own any armor, not even a set of hide or boiled-leather armor. Sometimes the top percentile on the "armed and dangerous" scale gets a distorted perspective of the lower 90%.

Also, it seems silly to me, that the margin between being completely unarmored and having any armor at all, is equal to the margin between plain leather and studded leather; but that's beyond my expertise.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Also, it seems silly to me, that the margin between being completely unarmored and having any armor at all, is equal to the margin between plain leather and studded leather; but that's beyond my expertise.

That's just a matter of legacy game design. Back in the day, they wanted an unarmored target (with no bonus) to be hit ~50% of the time by someone making an attack (also with no bonus), but then they needed to fit in eight or nine degrees of armor without also making it so the no-bonus attacker would be entirely incapable of hitting.

Something I do, which is mostly a matter of narration, is to describe a hit differently depending on whether or not the target is armored. If you're entirely unarmored (AC 10), then a roll of 1-9 is a clean miss; if you're wearing leather armor (AC 11), then a roll of 1-5 is a clean miss and a roll 6-10 was absorbed by the armor. That way, even though the actually benefit is still only 5%, you also don't get as tired from having to dodge everything. (Which is something that the game doesn't track, but is still nice.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Generic (weapon or armor):
+1: Good
+2: Plusgood
+3: Doubleplusgood

 

[Riley37]

+3: Doubleplusgood

Such items also give -10 to INT and +10 to STR, because under Ingsoc, Ignorance is Strength.

Who, however, tests swords sold as "plusgood" or "magicer" or "peerless", to verify that they're actually any sharper and/or stronger than the pig-iron junk wielded by the poorest kobolds and bullywugs?

If you're about to buy a "plusgood magicer peerless" sword, check whether the vendor also sells armor made with "the finest Corinthian leather", and high-priced "military grade" watches, and flash drives with 100 KB storage but only if you define KB as 1000 bytes rather than 1024 bytes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_leather

 

[MechaPilot]

Magic, Magicer, Magicest

That would be interesting given potential language differences. There are some languages where they do not have the comparative or superlative adjective. Instead, they simply repeat the adjective. So, you could have someone asking for a "magic, magic, magic sword" instead of a "magicest sword."