Top 10 odd D&D weapons

[Agent Oracle]

Okay, i can work with that... Mind if I add a point?

In real life, an object can be both lightweight and bulky. for instance, despite their meager weight, i could only carry a few empty shipping boxes before i ran out of hands.

 

[Orius]

Swords are great weapons- useful against any foe- but axes and flails and similar weapons are actually more useful against heavy armor than swords. Their mass, all concentrated at the point of impact, can dent or penetrate armor or shields that would turn a sword blow- that is one of the reasons they were so popular on the later day battlefields.

A mercurial sword would be an example of "thinking outside of the box"- attempting to combine the best aspects of the flail and the sword.

But see, that's one of the reasons I (and probably others) think it's stupid. A sword is not a heavy impact weapon, and trying to use a sword like one will probably just end up breaking it.

As far as armor spikes go, there are numerous entertainers who routinely wear them as part of their stage costumes, like the guys in GWAR and Slayer. Yes, the ones in GWAR are merely rubber, but Kerry King's are indeed 6" metal spikes...and he hasn't impaled himself yet. Plays some mean guitar while wearing them.

How does this make spkied armor sensible? These guys are playing music, not battling to the death.

 

[Agent Oracle]

How does this make spkied armor sensible? These guys are playing music, not battling to the death.

You wouldn't know it from the amount of blood at a GWAR concert.
granted, it's all menstral

 

[Uder]

Regarding mercurial weapons: Regardless of if it is physically possible to make a weapon like this, I think having a weight that sloshes around in the weapon would be a severe detriment, not an advantage. Particularly a liquid weight, that would be extremely fluid and dynamic; I doubt anyone could control its position in a fight, and it just breaks my willing suspense of disbelief.

If a feat can allow you to brew magic potions, I'll believe a feat can allow you to wield an unlikely weapon.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I give spiked armor a pass because it's got legendary precedent. Witness the tale of the Lambton Worm....

That. is. awesome.

No, it's mundane, just down the road. I used to play on Worm Hill.

Wouldn't fancy spiked armour for any other reason.

 

[lukelightning]

If a feat can allow you to brew magic potions, I'll believe a feat can allow you to wield an unlikely weapon.

Different strokes for different folks (see my comments above about swallowing big "lies" but choking on small ones).

That being said, no matter what you believe about the existance of or use of mercurial weapons, they are pretty darn silly.

A more D&Dish approach would be a magical effect that increases the weapon's mass when it strikes, or somethiing like that.

 

[Orius]

if you are a girl, you will basically be wearing no armor at all on your torso except some kind of armored bra... apparently in D&D the breasts and groin are the only vulnerable parts of any female

You saying there's something wrong with the chainmail bikini?

 

[Orius]

I'm just rather tired of Joe Fighterguy using a longsword. Ten years of 2e and every bloody fighter using one has somewhat soured me on the idea. We have all these other weapons that almost never see the light of day. I'd like to see them be considered viable options.

Hmm, in my 2e experiences most fighters went for the bastard sword rather than the longsword. And let's not forget that magical weapons had a tendancy to skew towards longswords on the random tables, so there was a lot of metagaming involved there.

 

[jeffh]

And let's not forget the spear... with the backward-pointing spearheads! Stab someone ten feet away in the chest... then stab someone five feet away in the back!

-Hyp.

Nothing weird about that. Those really existed. And you'd more often use the butt spike (that sounds really bad) to give an opponent in front of you a surprise (D&D players often seriously underestimate how fast these weapons are, I think partially because the weights in the Player's Handbook are so inflated - most of them are too high by a factor of at least three, in some cases as much as 10). [EDIT: I misread you as talking about spears that are sharp at both ends. But having backward-pointing heads in addition to normal ones isn't wholly ridiculous either. Some polearms had similar things, mostly for dismounting riders.]

As far as ludicrous weapons, while I agree with most of the comments here except the one above, I think the lowly warhammer deserves a mention. Yes, a weapon called the warhammer really existed, but it resembled the one in the Player's Handbook only in name. The one-handed maul traditionally shown in D&D is simply preposterous - that's a weapon that really would weigh what the PH says it would, if not more. You would a) likely pull your arm out of its socket trying to swing it one-handed, b) require so much recovery time (a second or more, I would wager, which is way too long) that you'd be skewered by people using weapons that can actually, y'know, MOVE the way they need to in battle right after your first swing.

 

[big dummy]

I'm just rather tired of Joe Fighterguy using a longsword. Ten years of 2e and every bloody fighter using one has somewhat soured me on the idea. We have all these other weapons that almost never see the light of day. I'd like to see them be considered viable options.

As far as ludicrous weapons, while I agree with most of the comments here except the one above, I think the lowly warhammer deserves a mention. Yes, a weapon called the warhammer really existed, but it resembled the one in the Player's Handbook only in name. The one-handed maul traditionally shown in D&D is simply preposterous - that's a weapon that really would weigh what the PH says it would, if not more. You would a) likely pull your arm out of its socket trying to swing it one-handed, b) require so much recovery time (a second or more, I would wager, which is way too long) that you'd be skewered by people using weapons that can actually, y'know, MOVE the way they need to in battle right after your first swing.

Yeah the striking head on a real warhammer was usually not much bigger than that on a regular carpenters hammer. It's the haft that is longer, plus a back-spike, and other optional features like a roundel, some reinforcement to the haft, a pokey-point out of the top etc. etc.


The way to bring some of these weapons to life in D&D would be to enhance some of their characteristics in combat. The sword ends up being the be-all end-all because you can only really measure a weapon by damage and critical hits.

Add a defensive bonus and you suddenly will find weapons like a quarterstaff or a poll-hammer extra appealing for their ability to displace attacks.

Add an armor piercing bonus and war hammers, awl-pikes, military picks etc. suddenly get to be a lot more viable.

Add a reach bonus (to Initiative or To Hit, or both) and spears, staves, and every kind of pole arm will suddenly become real trendy.

Add a close-fighting bonus for fighting in grapple, (and fix the damage back to realistic levels) and daggers will gain a great deal of popularity.

Add a more effective knock out system and every kind of bludgeoning weapon from a sap to a mace will become more interesting.

Just a thought. Of course, if you like this kind of thing it is being done to a greater or lesser degree in a lot of the OGL and D20 games out there, or so I've heard.

BD