Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7849526" data-attributes="member: 87792">Pish. Back in the day if you were a fighter playing the rules as written you specialised in either longswords or greatswords because they were clearly the best weapons mechanically for several reasons:<ol>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol">A mace might do d6+1 damage vs a longsword's d8 against medium sized targets, but the longsword was doing d12 as against d6 against large targets.</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol">The magic items tables dictated that there were more longswords than magic weapons of all other types combined (oD&amp;D), 40% of all magic weapons were swords (1e), or they were three times as common as spears, four and a half times as common as scimitars or daggers, and at least nine times as common as everything else (2e) and they had better abilities.</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol">The fighter types (and thief) effectively had &quot;ability to wield longswords and greatswords&quot; as a class feature - or more accurately clerics were banned from edged weapons as a balance feature to prevent them using swords. It was subtle and kicked in more at high levels both as magic weapons became more common and you became more likely to face big foes.</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ol">Polearms real advantages came when you were acting as part of a large unit - which was something you mostly did at low levels, hirelings being about as effective as tissue paper at high level.</li>
</ol>It was only one of the D&amp;D 3.0 failed attempts at balance that didn't take the entire system into account that tore out this system entirely and made weapons mechanically equivalent, while making them equal in terms of what magical abilities they were likely to get.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 7849526, member: 87792"] Pish. Back in the day if you were a fighter playing the rules as written you specialised in either longswords or greatswords because they were clearly the best weapons mechanically for several reasons: [LIST=1] [*]A mace might do d6+1 damage vs a longsword's d8 against medium sized targets, but the longsword was doing d12 as against d6 against large targets. [*]The magic items tables dictated that there were more longswords than magic weapons of all other types combined (oD&D), 40% of all magic weapons were swords (1e), or they were three times as common as spears, four and a half times as common as scimitars or daggers, and at least nine times as common as everything else (2e) and they had better abilities. [*]The fighter types (and thief) effectively had "ability to wield longswords and greatswords" as a class feature - or more accurately clerics were banned from edged weapons as a balance feature to prevent them using swords. It was subtle and kicked in more at high levels both as magic weapons became more common and you became more likely to face big foes. [*]Polearms real advantages came when you were acting as part of a large unit - which was something you mostly did at low levels, hirelings being about as effective as tissue paper at high level. [/LIST] It was only one of the D&D 3.0 failed attempts at balance that didn't take the entire system into account that tore out this system entirely and made weapons mechanically equivalent, while making them equal in terms of what magical abilities they were likely to get. [/QUOTE]

Verification