D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[DrJawaPhD]

I'm just waiting for the flood of players to rush in here with a deep sigh of relief, finally able to say how much they've wished that their weapons and armor would break every session.

Don't encourage them, there's a fairly large number of players in here who would take any chance they can get to make the game less fun in the name of "realism"

 

[Azzy]

Don't encourage them, there's a fairly large number of players in here who would take any chance they can get to make the game less fun in the name of "realism"

This doesn't seem particularly realistic, though.

 

[loverdrive]

and i must ask, and i apologize if you have already stated this in the thread already and i missed it, but what is your definition/threshold to qualify for an encounter 'being approached differently'? would a fighter with a pike, halberd and quarterstaff to switch between which all qualify for polearm master and their respective masteries be enough to qualify for you? would they need a pike for reach, a flail and shield for 'sword' and board and a pair of scimitars for dual wielding? or would they need to go further?

I probably made a mistake of presuming that weapons are actually different, gameplay-wise and aren't just different damage dice.
The game I'm playing right now is very sim-y and has very nicely modeled weapons, and it kind of slipped my mind that in 5e most weapons are the exact same thing.

 

[loverdrive]

Don't encourage them, there's a fairly large number of players in here who would take any chance they can get to make the game less fun in the name of "realism"

I do not understand where anything about realism came from in this thread. I never mentioned it once. It was never the stated goal, yet large swaths of posters are arguing against something they imagined rather than something actually said.

The whole point is to make the game more fun! So each encounter is different, because your main offensive tool is different, necessitating a new approach as opposed to calcinizing into the same tried-and-true tactic over and over again.

 

[loverdrive]

I think everyone who played any vudeo game with breakable weapons disagrees. There is nothing about dnd and fantasy that is evoked by image of heroes dragging chart of weapons behind or keeping best weapons for "special occasion" that never comes

The way I see it there should be a limit for carried weapons, with main source being the battlefield itself rather than your backpack.

 

[loverdrive]

That's a very strange wording you have for Doom...or the Doom series of games.

I don't recall the weapons breaking all the time in Doom though you can run out of ammo...

Or maybe you meant Counter-Strike or Half-Life...same principle as Doom though with weapons and ammo.

DooM, where you famously punch pinkies and try to cause enemy infighting to conserve ammo?

Melee weapons breaking is the equivalent of a gun running out of ammo. They are, for all intents and purposes, the exact same mechanic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Don't encourage them, there's a fairly large number of players in here who would take any chance they can get to make the game less fun in the name of "realism"

I thought I was already here. And it being less fun is very relative.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do not understand where anything about realism came from in this thread. I never mentioned it once. It was never the stated goal, yet large swaths of posters are arguing against something they imagined rather than something actually said.

The whole point is to make the game more fun! So each encounter is different, because your main offensive tool is different, necessitating a new approach as opposed to calcinizing into the same tried-and-true tactic over and over again.

Turns out other people like the basic kernel of your idea for other reasons.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I do not understand where anything about realism came from in this thread. I never mentioned it once. It was never the stated goal, yet large swaths of posters are arguing against something they imagined rather than something actually said.

The whole point is to make the game more fun! So each encounter is different, because your main offensive tool is different, necessitating a new approach as opposed to calcinizing into the same tried-and-true tactic over and over again.

I wasn't entirely sure what your goal was - you didn't mention realism but you also never mentioned fun either. "Realism" is the only possible argument I could see even a tiny bit in favor of this design, because yeah it is admittedly not 100% realistic that weapons and armor in DnD never break (assuming 5e Rules As Written). I definitely don't see anything fun in the idea, no matter how many angles I try to look at it from

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Why are you assuming the OP wants to force this idea on everyone? How could they even do that? It's either a rule you're using in your game at your table, or it isn't. Just like all the other rules.

Because that's how the words read to me. Things like...

But what if players were forced to constantly use whatever they have lying around? Taking weapons from the enemy? What if their weapons broke a couple times per encounter?

The way I see it: in Grimwild there's a resource pool system. Basically, for anything consumable, the diceroll is dual purpose, both determining success and resource depletion. Within D&D, you can have, say, a 4d8 longsword, which when rolling for damage with, you take one d8 from this pool. If you roll less than 4, welp, it goes away. Otherwise it stays. When the whole pool dwindles, your sword breaks and you now need another weapon.

In this case, the situation is a little different: the suboptimal play is enforced externally, but I think the larger concept still applies.

It seemed quite clear to me that this proposal was "This is what D&D should be doing for everyone". If the intent was purely opt-in alternative, words like "what if players were forced" and "enforced externally" were not, in my opinion, a good choice for communicating that intent.