Weapon-specific fighting styles

[Geeknamese]

You want to play a generalist fighter who can wield every weapon with skill. I want to play a specialist fighter who is rewarded for their dedication to one type of weapon with specific benefits. There needs to be a way we can coexist.

Gavin O., bruh, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or give yourself an aneurysm trying to “win” an argument in an RPG forum. Just get yourself Kobold Press’ Beyond Damage Dice by James Haeck.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Gavin O., bruh, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or give yourself an aneurysm trying to “win” an argument in an RPG forum. Just get yourself Kobold Press’ Beyond Damage Dice by James Haeck.

That is an awesome product.

 

[BookBarbarian]

A Melee ranger should play a different class.

This is the only Ranger I would want to play: An Aragorn with Anduril or Geralt of Rivia type.

I might be alone in that regard, but then again, why does the class have the option of Melee styles?

 

[Satyrn]

So what do you think? Would these be fun and/or balanced? Have you ever used or had your players use strictly outclassed weapons like the flail or war pick?

They are particularly narrow in their use - as intended - so they stray from the broadness of those in the book.

Because of that, as a fighter fan who likes to be able to use a broad selection of weapons based on the situation, I'd hope I get to choose a couple of these styles if I played at your table.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Terrible analogy.

It's actually a really solid analogy.

Because D&D uses such an abstract model, you can have many different things within the game world which all use the exact same mechanical model. There are many complexities which all simplify down to the same basics, if you simplify them enough.

That a longsword is fundamentally identical to a battleaxe or katana in every way we care to model is the same sort of principle as knights and vikings and samurai all sharing the same mechanics. The only difference is that they bothered to write out longsword and battleaxe on two different lines in the equipment table, where all of those class concepts are just rolled into the fighter class. The longsword is as different from the battleaxe as a knight is from a viking.

 

[SkidAce]

With Dueling Style, a thrown Javelin will outdamage a longbow, 1d6+2 averages to 5.5 while 1d8 averages to 4.5 (note that a thrown melee weapon still counts as melee for the purposes of dueling style)

I am sure your math is correct, but the example I quoted said I found a +1 bow, not a javelin.

If I had found a +1 javelin, I would also find a use for it, and keep it.