Level Up (A5E) Should AD&D5E remove simple/martial weapon category as exotic weapons were removed from 5E?

[ThatGuySteve]

it's worthless right now.

It was a joke.

 

[ThatGuySteve]

On a serious note, I think having differentiation is important and would be happy to have more not less. I don't understand why every class gets weapon proficiencies though?

I don't remember Harry Potter going to his knife fighting class in any of the books. Why does a Scholar Wizard know how to fight proficiently with five very different weapons?

Give more martial characters proficiency as a class feature, but other characters can pick up proficiency through their background or culture.

 

[Zaukrie]

I think the biggest issue with me on weapons is their useless properties. Most monsters don't care if you use silver or iron or whatever. A lot of the HIGH FANTASY of the game seems missing in this simplification.

 

[Cadence]

On a serious note, I think having differentiation is important and would be happy to have more not less. I don't understand why every class gets weapon proficiencies though?

I don't remember Harry Potter going to his knife fighting class in any of the books. Why does a Scholar Wizard know how to fight proficiently with five very different weapons?

It feels like I don't want to send strictly scholar wizards into the field without at least some extra training. I'm not sure why those five weapons in particular though except because of inertia from the past.

 

[akr71]

Nope. I feel strongly that Advanced 5E should make more tiers of weapon proficiency.

 

[Horwath]

On a serious note, I think having differentiation is important and would be happy to have more not less. I don't understand why every class gets weapon proficiencies though?

I don't remember Harry Potter going to his knife fighting class in any of the books. Why does a Scholar Wizard know how to fight proficiently with five very different weapons?

Give more martial characters proficiency as a class feature, but other characters can pick up proficiency through their background or culture.

so dagger is simple and shortsword is martial? soooo much difference.

and shortbow is simple, but longbow is martial. Completely same mechanics in the weapon. except for strength required.

not to mention light and heavy crossbow.

and of course you need years of training to graduate from mace to hammer...

battle axe is also highly more complicated than throwing axe.


it's an archaic rule than tries to define some illusory power limit.

 

[tetrasodium]

It feels like I don't want to send strictly scholar wizards into the field without at least some extra training. I'm not sure why those five weapons in particular though except because of inertia from the past.

That's a 5eism, traditionally wizards did not even have simple weapons. Classes that had simple but not martial weapons were bard cleric rogue & sorcerer. It used to look like this for wizards

and you had the following tables

Spoiler: simple weapons

Spoiler: Martial Weapons

Spoiler: exotic weapons

I went over what classes had what in another discussion about ranged weapons the other day here that might be useful. for comparison to 5e

 

[Minigiant]

Nope. I feel strongly that Advanced 5E should make more tiers of weapon proficiency.

I agree.
I would go with 4-5 weapon proficiencies.

• Basic
• Simple
• Martial
• Exotic
• Advanced

Wizards don't even get simple weapons. They just get clubs, staves, daggers, darts,and the basic crossbow. Commoner weapons.

 

[Horwath]

I agree.
I would go with 4-5 weapon proficiencies.

• Basic
• Simple
• Martial
• Exotic
• Advanced

Wizards don't even get simple weapons. They just get clubs, staves, daggers, darts,and the basic crossbow. Commoner weapons.

• Basic - d4 sword
• Simple - d6 sword
• Martial - d8 sword
• Exotic - d10 sword
• Advanced - d12 sword

 

[Phoebasss]

I think there's kind of two ways we can go about changing this. Either accept that 5e has made weapon choice basically irrelevant, and remove the rest of the miniscule distinctions by eliminating the simple/martial distinction. We could then basically just have a 13th age system where there are 6 kinds of weapons, d4, d6, d8 one handed-weapons, and d6, d8, d10 two handed weapons. (Adjust the numbers as needed for 5e).

Or we could go in the other direction and create a tag system to make weapons an interesting part of your character. Then we could have weapons with real distinctions between them, and keep the simple/martial distinction as a way of limiting certain tags from classes you don't want having access to more powerful melee weapons.

In between these are keeping it as is (a pretend choice you make during chargen), or maybe adding strength or dex requirements for certain weapons.

Personally I like the idea of making weapons matter again by creating a tag system, both because it provides an actual weapon balancing mechanic and can help to balance ranged vs melee as discussed in another thread.
I know tag systems are anathema to some people, but honestly I think that's silly. DnD's weapon lists have always had weird idiosyncrasies that didn't do them any favors, and we should try to fix that.