D&D 5E Weapon Specialization?

[Magil]

In a nutshell: It seems logical, but it turns out to not be more fun for anyone.

On one hand, yes, it seems to make sense that my young would-be-Robin-Hood PC might practice much more with longbows (or perhaps just plain bows) more than swords. On the other hand, it tended to remove more fun to the game than it added, and it opened up class balance questions without an easy answer.

Specifically, the option to specialize must be balanced between Fighters who go that path and Fighters who do not, or Specialized Fighters becomes synonymous with Fighters Who Do Not Suck. Not only is this a hard design problem simply within the Fighter class, it becomes even harder once we consider other classes.

Well, speak for yourself. I'm perfectly fine with having a fighter who wields nothing but axes (let's say the greataxe with the occasional throwing axe thrown in for a ranged option) for the entirely of his adventuring career. I think that is a "fun" achetype for play because I don't necessarily care about weapon-swapping for my version of the fighter.

I do understand the concern of balance. However, a reasonable compromise emerged in the ToB for 3.5 that I recall: could the warblade not concentrate for a period to swap the effects of his feats that worked on a particular weapon for those of another weapon? In a similar vein, 4th edition had the arena fighter, who could pick two different weapons and apply certain bonuses that applied to one weapon type to the other. If we took that concept and expanded it, perhaps we could come up with something that worked. Perhaps "weapon specialization" could be changed with a short rest spent practicing with the new weapon.

Or, if we want to keep weapon specialization specifically separate, simply have a specialization fighter as a separate build. Or make it a specialty. To be honest I find a lot of the current specializations that are viable for fighters to be rather dry, only the guardian one appears the slightest bit engaging but it has some problems with stacking too many effects on "reactions" when the protector fighter already wants to use his reactions for other things, and you only get one reaction per round! Making specialties that focused on particular weapon groups could be interesting as long as other feats were just as powerful.

 

[Leatherhead]

Well, speak for yourself. I'm perfectly fine with having a fighter who wields nothing but axes (let's say the greataxe with the occasional throwing axe thrown in for a ranged option) for the entirely of his adventuring career. I think that is a "fun" achetype for play because I don't necessarily care about weapon-swapping for my version of the fighter.

You could use nothing but axes just fine without specialization. It would simply be an in-character preference instead of a metagame "penalty" to everything else. Specialization in D&D tends to go way overboard. To the point where, say switching from a Great Axe to a throwing axe, significantly hinders people by denying them access to permanent character resources. Such as feats, powers, and/or class features.

 

[Magil]

You could use nothing but axes just fine without specialization. It would simply be an in-character preference instead of a metagame "penalty" to everything else. Specialization in D&D tends to go way overboard. To the point where, say switching from a Great Axe to a throwing axe, significantly hinders people by denying them access to permanent character resources. Such as feats, powers, and/or class features.

Well, I like the mechanical tricks that are tired to particular weapons, from a flavor perspective. They're neat. As for weapon-swapping from a greataxe to a throwing axe, there's not necessarily any more penalty than normal if you have the specialization apply to weapon groups rather than specific weapons (4E used weapon groups for this kind of thing and Next seems to have weapon groups for the same purpose).

I don't see them like you do, as "penalizing" everyone else. As long as it requires investment of resources, then those who choose not to specialize are allowed to invest their resources elsewhere (and should be rewarded just as much for doing so). For example, as long as the weapon specialization feats are on par with other feats, then it seems perfectly reasonable for me to have them in the system and I would like them (I use feats as an example but it could be class features as well).

If there are still then complaints that weapon specialization is "mandatory," then it seems to me it's not a problem with the concept of weapon specialization in particular, but rather a problem with the power return on investment.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I'd like to see some sort of broad weapon specialisation. To say that a character is equally good with all weapons, be they swords, axes or hammers, is a rather unrealistic state of affairs to me. The mistake made previously was to have highly specific specialisation and to make the cost high - if you look at how it used to work with Weapon Proficiencies in 2E, the Fighter would quickly be specialised in mutiple weapons, though not all, even when playing with the mastery rules you would be specialised in something else eventually. Any effects you get for being specialised should also be carefully chosen. A bonus to hit might be considered too critical, whereas extra damage or a benefit when using a particular maneuver might not. Finally, don't allow specialisation to extend too deeply - if there are 15 benefits you can gain for becoming more and more specialised then you will regret using anything but that weapon.

So, I'd like to see it, but it needs to be easy to obtain in multiple weapons, have minor but interesting effects and not dominate the Fighter's playbook.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Maybe that belongs to "specialities"...

Maybe there are now "Axe specialists", "Shield specialists" etc... In my opinion, that is where they belong.
You may make your fighter best at using an axe, but now you are no specialist with your shield... (so you may use any one or two handed axe with a greater effect)
The shield specialist on the other hand does not care if it is an axe or a sword, but won´t use a two handed weapon...
And the last fighter will be a magic specialist. Beeing able to fight with all weapons, and a little bit magic on top of it.

So you may specialize in a weapon, but if you don´t, you have different advantages.

 

[Connorsrpg]

We always had fun with Weapon Specialisation, but we never worried about all this 'wasted resources' either. I can't remember it ever really having an impact.

However, I agree with the notion of it limiting a class that should be good with all weapons to select a specific one. I would prefer to see it apply to groups and definitely not add attack or damage bonuses (or tread on the toes of Combat Superiority). I would much prefer it open up options with particular weapon groups. As suggested, each specialty group could even be an optional choice for Combat Superiority, just like Sword and Board and Dual-Wielding are.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If there are still then complaints that weapon specialization is "mandatory," then it seems to me it's not a problem with the concept of weapon specialization in particular, but rather a problem with the power return on investment.

No, it really is not a problem with power return on investment. If the potential power gain is large the investment becomes mandatory, regardless of whether the price paid in personal resources is high or low.

It so happens that in 3e the price is commensurately high (many feats stacked together), but that just means that it is mandatory for Fighters, and thus Fighters themselves are tone down in power because the designers must assume they are specialists. Ta da! Every Fighter who does not want to suck must be that one trick pony -- no exceptions.

If the price were low, then it is just a different kind of balance headache, not necessarily worse or better. (If, say, the Paladin can go this route, too, maybe it is not a balance problem at all.)

As a practical matter, it is the stacks that are the problem. It is kind of neat to have Weapon Focus (+1 to hit) OR Improved Critical OR Quickdraw as a fun shtick for my Young Robin Hood PC as he climbs his way up to greatness. One or even two bonuses are fine. Bigger stacks are inevitably mandatory.

Now, that might be okay for one particular PC you have in mind. But it converts the Fighter class into a One Trick Pony for everyone always. Keep in mind that "hitting people with metal pointy things" is already is very narrow scope, within the greater context of D&D (so much so that some would argue it is a major design problem). Is building a Core class for "hitting people with one and only one kind of pointy thing" such a great design idea?

As I said, specialization as seen in 1e/2e/3e seems pretty logical. It just does not work out so well in practice.

 

[Magil]

No, it really is not a problem with power return on investment. If the potential power gain is large the investment becomes mandatory, regardless of whether the price paid in personal resources is high or low.

It so happens that in 3e the price is commensurately high (many feats stacked together), but that just means that it is mandatory for Fighters, and thus Fighters themselves are tone down in power because the designers must assume they are specialists. Ta da! Every Fighter who does not want to suck must be that one trick pony -- no exceptions.

If the price were low, then it is just a different kind of balance headache, not necessarily worse or better. (If, say, the Paladin can go this route, too, maybe it is not a balance problem at all.)

As a practical matter, it is the stacks that are the problem. It is kind of neat to have Weapon Focus (+1 to hit) OR Improved Critical OR Quickdraw as a fun shtick for my Young Robin Hood PC as he climbs his way up to greatness. One or even two bonuses are fine. Bigger stacks are inevitably mandatory.

Now, that might be okay for one particular PC you have in mind. But it converts the Fighter class into a One Trick Pony for everyone always. Keep in mind that "hitting people with metal pointy things" is already is very narrow scope, within the greater context of D&D (so much so that some would argue it is a major design problem). Is building a Core class for "hitting people with one and only one kind of pointy thing" such a great design idea?

As I said, specialization as seen in 1e/2e/3e seems pretty logical. It just does not work out so well in practice.

Having played in at least 3E/4E's takes on this I must say I don't buy it, really. There's no reason why the potential power gain should become mandatory. I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, but I think it is perfectly possible to make there be a legitimate trade-off that could or could not be worth it, depending on what play style you desire. If they stuck weapon specializations into "specialties," and made plenty of good specialties, then I don't think the fighter would be "forced" to pick weapon specialization feats. It might be a very attractive option, but optimally there would be other attractive ones as well. That's the power of a legitimate choice rather than a fake one.

 

[Leatherhead]

Well, it doesn't have to be mandatory to balance on specialization. But you wouldn't like the alternative.

Consider this:
You are a sword specialist, when fighting alongside a generalist fighter under favorable situations, you are even. But if you can't use your swords (say you are fighting something outside of melee range, or a monster resistant to metal or swords), suddenly you are worse off because all of sword tricks aren't useable, but the generalist has all of their tricks lined up on a bow or a club just fine. In this case, the generalist is clearly better.

The "obvious" fix to this is to make the specialist perform better when they have their sword, as an attempt to balance things over time. But that just inverts the situation. Suddenly you are outperforming the generalist fighter under favorable situations, and then you have to figure out which benchmark is the one you are going to use for inter-class balance, and total party VS monster balance. But the specialist is going to come out on top most of the time regardless of the pick.

Really, there is just no way to make the options equal.

 

[Magil]

Well, it doesn't have to be mandatory to balance on specialization. But you wouldn't like the alternative.

Consider this:
You are a sword specialist, when fighting alongside a generalist fighter under favorable situations, you are even. But if you can't use your swords (say you are fighting something outside of melee range, or a monster resistant to metal or swords), suddenly you are worse off because all of sword tricks aren't useable, but the generalist has all of their tricks lined up on a bow or a club just fine. In this case, the generalist is clearly better.

The "obvious" fix to this is to make the specialist perform better when they have their sword, as an attempt to balance things over time. But that just inverts the situation. Suddenly you are outperforming the generalist fighter under favorable situations, and then you have to figure out which benchmark is the one you are going to use for inter-class balance, and total party VS monster balance. But the specialist is going to come out on top most of the time regardless of the pick.

Really, there is just no way to make the options equal.

Once again, I completely disagree. There are ways to deal with these. Obviously a sword specialist shouldn't be equal to a generalist if he can't use a sword. However, the sword specialist should be able to use a sword in just about any situation you can imagine, because he's so good with swords. For the ranged situation, let's say the sword specialist can use a magic sword as a throwing weapon. Heck, this complaint is almost alien to me because in 4E DnD you could pretty much turn any melee weapon into a thrown weapon with the right enchantment (farbond spellblade for light/heavy blades, dwarven thrower for hammers/axes, hungry spear for spears). Even if they didn't do it with a magical weapon enchantment it'd be possible to do in some other manner, just make more throwing weapons for each category--they already have daggers, throwing axes, and throwing hammers when I last checked. Maybe the sword specialist can overcome damage reduction against bladed weapons because he's so good with swords too, that's how they solved the problem of fire resistances for fire-based builds in 4th edition. Either that or improvise--the sword fighter smacks the opponent with the flat of the blade, simulating a bludgeoning attack, or makes a straight jab to simulate a piercing attack. As for metal resistance, if such a thing even exists, an obsidian sword should work just fine.

Really, it seems to me that you're trying to say that it's impossible to balance situational advantages, but DnD has always been filled with situational advantages. I don't see any legitimate reason why weapon specializations shouldn't exist in Next. Make them specialties and be done with it, as long as feats remain powerful then they should be possible to balance.