Weapon Equality

[nopantsyet]

Bah! For how much of the life of a campaign is a base, unimproved weapon in use? That includes all magical buffs that increase any aspect of weapon performance. Not very long in a normal D&D game. At some point, buffs and magic items account for a bigger part of performance than the weapon itself.

Point is, I think the need for balance in weapon stats is not so granular. Abilities, feats, and class all eventually stand to make more of a difference than base weapon type. I think that was probably what the designers were going for. Enough balance to make it 'realistic enough," but not so much that the wielder of a particular weapon would have an enormous, ongoing advantage over someone else. (Rules-mathemeticians need not refute. We all know 99% of all statistics are made up on the spot, and that's not what makes the game fun anyway.)

To make things interesting, I frequently come up with some weapon variants that are more interesting and perform better or differently than the norm. I find that the "drop one, raise another" method works fine. But also, a dagger made of special steel that grants it an exceptionally sharp edge (1d6) is a fun way to provide a PC with a nice boost that's different from the standard "+1."

Arms & Armor from Bastion Press is a nice supplement to provide some researched alternatives.

 

[Kemrain]

While some weapons are sub-par (they also tend to be cheap), the following system works pretty darned well.

[Lots of wonderful chrunchey rule-ness]

Much to my dismay, I discovered the Spiked Chain is indeed balanced. Who'd have thought?

Thank you! This is almost exactly what I was thinking, and done in almost exactly the same way I was thinking. You chose a different starting point, but it seems to work better that way. Awsome! Consiter this stolen, and to be modified. If you like, read: don't mind, I'll post what we come up with when I propose this to my group.

- Kemrain the Joyful.

Now all I need is a way to do some hard math... Yay.

As a point of order, I feel the need to state that I'm playing with Ken Hood's 3.3 Grim and Gritty system, and that under that system only the damage die of the weapon is multiplied when you crit. If you have a +1 sword, my GM lets the +1 get miltiplied (some of the time, for some weapons), but your strength bonus, favored enemy bonus, elemental damage, and whatnot, are added in only once. This should make it much easier to price boosts to Threat Range and Critical Multiplier in comparason to damage Die Size. Can anyone help me with this math-ey portion of my goal?

- Kemrain the Dismathed.

 

[Kemrain]

Being finessible does not cost anything, but is more of a role-playing issue

This is a point of contention between my GM and I. Reanjr, you are saying that all weapons might as well be finessable, and I like this. You pay for the privelage of using Dex to hit by taking the feat, so why should you have to pay again by wielding a weapon that deals 1d6 damage? The spiked chain deals 2d4, topping the finessable category, and it's exotic. My GM would like to see it kept this way, while I think taking the feat is a heavy enough price. What say you?

- Kemrain the Annoyed with the GM.

My GM even went so far as to suggest that all weapons that deal <=1d6 damage are automatically finessable, as an alternative. While it's a starting place, I don't think it's enough. What's wrong with finessing a Greataxe, says I!

- Kemrain the Crunchkin.

 

[RandomUsernamehmimo71]

As the GM in question, it's an issue of stopping Dex from becoming a Super-stat. It already has 1/4 of the skills, a saving throw, a requirement on a whole bunch of feats, and, with Weapon Finesse, it can help determine to-hit.
The only balance against weapon finesse, is that not all weapons are finessable.

Kemrain seems so Enamored with the idea, that I initally proposed making all weapons that deal <=1d6 finessable by default, but that seems hackish... The problem is, it doesn't care about the threatrange, or even handedness(!)


I do like reanjr's system very much, excluding the finessable issue, though. If anyone else here has a solution for that, it'd be appreciated.

Colin "Linguistic Finesse" Davis

 

[KerlanRayne]

I got a link to THIS from Edymnion's sig on WotC boards. Looks like it works pretty well. I think it was for 3.0 so it might need some tinkering.
KerlanRayne

 

[Squire James]

I'd say any Exotic weapon, one-handed or light Martial weapon, or light Simple weapon could be declared finesseable without cost. Otherwise, it costs 1 point.

 

[rbingham2000]

I had a similar idea along these lines: have every weapon deliver 1D6 damage when they hit, and then use special abilities to distinguish between weapons.

Stuff like:

• Daggers do double damage when you're using them up-close (like in a grappling situation).
• Lances do double damage on a mounted charge (already in the PHB)
• Spears and other polearms do double damage when set against a charge (also in the PHB)
• Axes do double damage against inanimate objects (though you have to beat the object's hardness) and triple damage on opponents on a crit.
• Heavy bludgeoning weapons (such as heavy maces and warhammers) have a chance of knocking down creatures up to one size category larger than you when you score a crit.
• Two-handed slashing weapons allow you to blow through multiple guys in one attack as per the Cleave feats.

And so on.

 

[reanjr]

Can I quote you on that? I've lost count of how many times I've had to argue that on these boards.

Go for it.

 

[reanjr]

This is a point of contention between my GM and I. Reanjr, you are saying that all weapons might as well be finessable, and I like this. You pay for the privelage of using Dex to hit by taking the feat, so why should you have to pay again by wielding a weapon that deals 1d6 damage? The spiked chain deals 2d4, topping the finessable category, and it's exotic. My GM would like to see it kept this way, while I think taking the feat is a heavy enough price. What say you?

- Kemrain the Annoyed with the GM.

My GM even went so far as to suggest that all weapons that deal <=1d6 damage are automatically finessable, as an alternative. While it's a starting place, I don't think it's enough. What's wrong with finessing a Greataxe, says I!

- Kemrain the Crunchkin.

Balance-wise, it's pretty easy to show that a finesse weapon is no more powerful than a non-finesse weapon, at least intuitively, if not mathematically. Your Dex is limited to pretty much the same number and in the same ways as Str, so using Dex bonus is not going to break through any barriers or hit potential. The only other argument I can see is that Dex is already a good skill and should not be able to be used for weapons as well, because this can allow you to drop all your stuff into Dex and ignore Strength. But this can be countered with the damage limitation of fighting with a low Str and the fact that it requires a feat to use a weapon with Dex.

I am personally of the opinion that one doesn't even need to have the feat to balance this, either, though I certainly can see the contention of requiring a feat.

I can see the logic in denying finessibility to two-handed weapons, but I think it's more of a role-playing issue; i.e., what do you view finesse as representing. I see it as accurate and local damage due to skilled use of a weapon. I personally lean towards some weapons being Dex only (rapier), others being Str only (greataxe) and some being able to be used wither way (shortsword).

 

[reanjr]

I do like reanjr's system very much, excluding the finessable issue, though. If anyone else here has a solution for that, it'd be appreciated.

Colin "Linguistic Finesse" Davis

Well, my suggestion would be to add an additional rule that a two-handed weapon can not be finessible or that a weapon that causes more than d6 damage can not be finessible. (without doing the math) I think this would bring the spiked chain up to power (but still not breaking the barrier), and would add a cost to finesse a weapon only to a group of weapons that currently aren't represented by the core finessible weapons and not the ones that are listed as finessible.