The Who, What, Where, When, Why of Weapons!

[Heathen72]

How

You forgot how. Where gives you what and who, but it's not until you know how that you can work out when and why.

 

[Wycen]

You forgot how.

In my mind, I read that as, "you forgot hoe" which is much funnier said aloud.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What makes it on the list (and why if you like) and what gets chucked to the side right from the start?

1d4.
1d6.
1d8.
1d10.
1d12.

Whatever you want to call it, this is your weapon.

You could get fancy and add different traits (reach, two handed, light, ranged), but the upthrust is: I don't care if you use a medievally accurate hand-and-a-half sword, or if it is a portable canon that your hulking warrior lifts on his back, or if it is a pie. What matters is the effect it has on someone when you hit them with it.

Your pie can do 1d12 damage. I don't care. Have fun.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1d4.
1d6.
1d8.
1d10.
1d12.

FWIW, Palladium's Complete Weapons & Armor guide- or whatever it's called (its not in front of me)- does something like this for hundreds of weapons. It's not well illustrated- OK, its pretty amateurish on one level- but it does include weapon sizes & masses, and because of their formatting and breadth of coverage, it could be used as a a Rosetta Stone for importing weapons of all kinds across systems.

(It's all real stuff: no Mega-damage anywhere in sight.)

 

[KahnyaGnorc]

For melee, 3 basic sizes (Off-hand, 1h, 2h), 3 basic types (Axe, Sword, Hammer/Mace) to start with. That's 9.

• Handaxe
• Dagger
• Throwing Hammer
• Battleaxe
• Longsword
• Mace
• Greataxe
• Greatsword
• Maul

For ranged, the off-hand meleers work for thrown. However, for ammo-based ranged:

• Sling
• Crossbow
• Longbow

That's 12. For the remaining 8, I'd fill in some gaps:

• Unarmed Strike
• Half-Spear (for a 1h piercing)
• Spear (for a 2h piercing)
• Warhammer (redundant with maces a bit, but a standard)
• Short sword (another standard)
• Bastard Sword (ditto)
• Polearm (reach, baby)
• Staff (final standard)

 

[Stormonu]

Axe
1) Hand Axe
2) Bearded Axe
3) Battleaxe

Bladed:
4) Knife
5) Drusus (short sword)
6) Scimitar/Cutlass
7) Broadsword
8) Bastard Sword
9) Zwiehander/Claymore

Blunt:
10) Cestus/Gauntlet
11) Club
12) Warhammer
13) Mace
15) Flail

Ranged:
16) Sling
17) Shortbow
18) Longbow
19) Crossbow

Thrusting:
20) Spear

So, Mark - are you contemplating writing your own "basic" RPG or something?

 

[Hungry Like The Wolf]

I can pretty much distil my list down to:

Pike
Spear
Short Sword
Sabre
Zweihander
Arquebus
Crossbow
Pistol
Dagger
Bayonet
Axe
Mattock
Pitchfork

 

[Lanefan]

My K.I.S.S. list of weapons:

1. Short Blade
2. Long Blade
3. 2 Hand Blade
4. Hand/Throwing Axe
5. 2 Hand Axe
6. Club
7. 2 Hand Club
8. Mace/Hammer/Morningstar
9. 2 Hand Mace/Hammer/Morningstar
10. Flail
11. Whip
12. Net/Entangler
13. Hand Load/Kosh/Gauntlet
14. Staff
15. Javelin/Spear
16. Polearm
17. Lance
18. Bow
19. Crossbow
20. Sling
21. Sm. Thrown
22. Improvised

Good list except I'd lose Whip and Net (both are irrelevant in my experience); somehow combine Staff, Polearm, and Lance into two; and add Garotte, Dagger/Knife (distinct enough from Shortsword to warrant its own entry) and a catch-all entry for the various Monk-ish weapons e.g. jo stick, etc. I'd also add Fist to Hand Load, Sap to Club, and Goupilla to Flail just to note their existence.

There needs to be a place for Trident/Pitchfork, would they fall under polearms?

Lan-"my weapon list includes Hockey Stick"-efan

 

[Jhaelen]

Pendragon has a nice short list of weapon types (8) but that's because it focuses on weapons used by knight characters:
- dagger
- broadsword
- greatsword
- mace
- axe
- ball & chain
- spear
- lance

There also some unarmed attack types, most importantly
- fist
- kick

and the option to use a shield to attack
- shield

for a total of 11.

The nice thing about this list is that there is a specific advantage to using each of them.

to fill out missing weapons, here's some suggestions:
- polearm
- javelin
- rapier
- staff
- net
- sling
- shortbow
- longbow
- crossbow

for a total of 20.

 

[Razjah]

I think the list I would make would have:

1. dagger
2. short blade
3. long blade
4. 2h blade
5. axe
6. 2h axe
7. mace/hammer
8. 2h mace/hammer
9. crossbow
10. bow

Everything from this point is campaign specific fluff. In my experience polearms and the more exotic weapons are used very rarely. I think using these 10 and supplementing to get across cultures and racial variance in weapons would be the best method.

The alternative is d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, 2d6, melee d4, d6, d8 ,d10 ranged. Name the weapon yourself.