D&D 5E Weapon oddities

[Morty]

Here's the thing: the weapons table is more or less a relic, and pretends small differences in dice size and damage type actually matter. Those oddities are a sort of by-product of that. They could have boiled it down to a couple lines of text for simplicity's sake in the Basic Set, and retained the same amount of diversity and choice. But the halberd and glaive being identical, as the OP pointed out, gives me the impression nobody has really thought about it for too long.

 

[Dausuul]

Also, all things being equal, some weapons ARE better. Just a fact. Bringing a dagger to a fight with a man in full plate with a shield and longsword, unless you are just that much better you are going to be at a disadvantage, and probably dead.

That doesn't mean the longsword is "better." It just means you're using the dagger in a way it's not meant for. Daggers are excellent weapons and saw plenty of use on the battlefield. They're ideally suited to close combat; if you're grappling with an enemy, and he's got a longsword and you've got a dagger, he's the one at a potentially lethal disadvantage, especially if both of you are in heavy armor. They're also light, portable, concealable, and double as tools out of combat.

There were a lot of weapons used on the medieval battlefield, each with its own function. The problem is that D&D's combat model is fairly quick and abstract, and doesn't capture those nuances well. (Though 1E took a stab at it, pun intended, with the Weapons vs. Armor table.) Rather than get into those details, D&D defaults to giving all weapons "balanced" stats, so you can pick whichever suits your character and not worry about it.

But, again, while weapons in 5E are not one hundred percent balanced against each other, they are balanced in the important details: Damage die size and number of hands required. Slight differences in weight or expense are hardly likely to matter.

 

[Pentegarn]

In the past, I preferred seeing weapons that were mechanically different, much like the OP mentioned. But since playing Numenera and other RPGs, I've shifted to favor simpler choices.

Having most all weapons mechanically different gives the illusion of having more choices. But in reality, it restricts optimizing players to choosing certain weapons that are mechanically superior, while it punishes non-optimizing players who suffer the consequences of basing their choice on role play. This leads to a few mechanically superior weapons becoming commonplace while the rest are hardly seen or used unless it's by NPCs. By using simpler mechanics and choices, you see more variety, and players can feel more free to use the weapons they "see" their characters using when they envision them.

Same can be said for armor. I'd be happy with a system that only separates them as light, medium, and heavy. This would allow players to look as they wish without punishing role play choices with bad or less optimized mechanics.

You can argue both sides. Just go with what you prefer. If you wish to see more mechanical diversity, house rule it in. More simplicity? Again, house rules. Or just leave it as it is if it doesn't matter that much. After all, that'd be the simplest solution.

 

[Zelc]

For those of you interested in a revised weapons table, I made one here. I addressed some but not all issues in this thread. I was primarily concerned with making Strength-based weapons a bit better and removing strictly-inferior weapons.

 

[Morty]

Having most all weapons mechanically different gives the illusion of having more choices. But in reality, it restricts optimizing players to choosing certain weapons that are mechanically superior, while it punishes non-optimizing players who suffer the consequences of basing their choice on role play. This leads to a few mechanically superior weapons becoming commonplace while the rest are hardly seen or used unless it's by NPCs. By using simpler mechanics and choices, you see more variety, and players can feel more free to use the weapons they "see" their characters using when they envision them.

While "illusion of choice" describes the 5e weapons table perfectly, I wouldn't really call any weapons superior or inferior, simply because there's so little difference between different weapons in the same category. Some will be slightly better or worse, technically, but it doesn't matter that much in the long run. 3e had some vague sense of choice because of the critical hit mechanics. That's gone from 5e, so all that remains is a list which is frankly way too long.

 

[Pentegarn]

While "illusion of choice" describes the 5e weapons table perfectly, I wouldn't really call any weapons superior or inferior, simply because there's so little difference between different weapons in the same category. Some will be slightly better or worse, technically, but it doesn't matter that much in the long run. 3e had some vague sense of choice because of the critical hit mechanics. That's gone from 5e, so all that remains is a list which is frankly way too long.

Mine was just a general observation on weapon/armor mechanics in rpgs. I've not specifically looked at the list of 5e weapons and armor beyond the play tests. I flipped through a copy at my local hobby store earlier today, but was generally checking out the quality, art, and presentation. Nothing really specific. The observations were more based on 3e/Pathfinder systems where, like you said, there were favorable statistics on a few weapons that set them above others of their class.

 

[Morty]

I see. I generally think that it's probably better to differentiate weapons through what you can do with them, than just numbers, although some number-crunching is probably unavoidable. It's easier to make sure they're all interesting choices this way.