D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[loverdrive]

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

You are building a fighter. You take a look at weapon table, crunch some numbers, come to the obvious conclusion: greatsword is the best weapon (I don't know how accurate it is to modern state of 5.5e, but if it isn't: replace greatsword with whatever other best weapon there is).

You've built your fighter. Grabbed a greatsword and GWM feat. You are in an encounter. You have next no reason to ever do anything other than swing your sword, regardless of the enemy composition and whatnot. "I HIT HIM WITH MY SWORD!", over and over and over again.

Now, imagine your great sword has a limited use. Each high-damage swing is more valuable, and you better consider your options carefully: should you ignore mooks to not waste limited "ammo" on them and spend high damage on a tanky target? Should you switch to a sidearm to deal with them? Should you shove and grapple to get them out of the way? Should you try to form a gameplan around clearing out the mooks, each in one-two hits, wrench another big weapon from enemy's hands to "reload"? I don't know. Depends on the situation.

Does it make fighters weaker? Yeah, sure. Does it increase amount of thought playing a fighter requires? Also yes.

 

[Mort]

Does it make fighters weaker? Yeah, sure. Does it increase amount of thought playing a fighter requires? Also yes.

How exactly is this a good design goal?

You're making them weaker AND you're making them more complicated in play.

When one of the main draws of fighters is that they are supposed to be less complicated in play (I'm not sure how true this actually is, but it's an often stated design goal). So you're taking away the big draw and decreasing power - pretty big lose, lose.

Plus you're making the DMs job harder by giving yet another thing to keep track of, both during play and in encounter/ adventure design.

And the annoying thing is, what you're really doing is just creating more trap options for fighters. Those in the know will know how to design around this, newbies that don't will get caught in the trap and feel like the character choice they wanted stinks.

 

[Staffan]

You've built your fighter. Grabbed a greatsword and GWM feat. You are in an encounter. You have next no reason to ever do anything other than swing your sword, regardless of the enemy composition and whatnot. "I HIT HIM WITH MY SWORD!", over and over and over again.

I can appreciate the thought, but I'd rather see the fighter have inherent abilities beyond "I hit him with my sword" to mix things up. For example, look at Draw Steel where characters mostly have two Signature abilities they can use at will, two Heroic abilities costing different amounts of a class-based resource, as well as a variety of maneuvers they can do in addition to attacking and triggered abilities to use off-turn.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

This doesn't come up that often, but when it does it's usually in the name of realism. You're probably getting lumped into that category because folks are assuming you are doing the same, like @Ulorian - Agent of Chaos did earlier.

In the OP you said weapons would break a couple of time during an encounter. If weapons are breaking that often, what prevents fights from devolving into a punch of fist fighting as all the weapons on both sides shatter?

 

[loverdrive]

How exactly is this a good design goal?

You're making them weaker AND you're making them more complicated in play.

I think making martial characters not totally brain-dead to play is a worthwhile goal. Like, thinking is fun. Managing resources is fun.

In the OP you said weapons would break a couple of time during an encounter. If weapons are breaking that often, what prevents fights from devolving into a punch of fist fighting as all the weapons on both sides shatter?

Well, either fistfighting would need to be revamped and made stronger, or there can be unbreakable back up weapons that are better than nothing, but worse than temporary breakable ones.

 

[Deset Gled]

You've built your fighter. Grabbed a greatsword and GWM feat. You are in an encounter. You have next no reason to ever do anything other than swing your sword, regardless of the enemy composition and whatnot. "I HIT HIM WITH MY SWORD!", over and over and over again.

Now, imagine your great sword has a limited use....

Does it make fighters weaker? Yeah, sure. Does it increase amount of thought playing a fighter requires? Also yes.

To repeat myself a little, the problem is that players who want to put increased amount of thought into playing a fighter already have that option. There's absolutely nothing forcing the fighter to HIT HIM WITH MY SWORD. Every edition of D&D has options for tactics, cooperation, intelligence, and variation for those that choose it. Some more than others, of course. But switching weapons is already available to anyone who wants it.

But your weapon breaking mechanic does not add any new options or any new choices for the fighter. It only punishes and limits choices based on your personal preference. You have not added anything to the game, only taken things away.

That doesn't make people put more thought into being a fighter. It makes people put thought into not being a fighter.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

your main offensive tool is different

Your main offensive tool is the wizard.

 

[loverdrive]

Your main offensive tool is the wizard.

What? No, a good wizard is focused on control/disable spells. Damage is a pretty bad way to spend spell slots most of the time.

 

[Lanefan]

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

The formula for how many weapons you can have on hand is [X * H] + X where X is the average number of weapons a person can carry and H is the number of henches and hirelings you can afford to bring into the field.

The trailing "+ X" is, of course, the weapons you're actually carrying yourself.

 

[Lanefan]

I think making martial characters not totally brain-dead to play is a worthwhile goal. Like, thinking is fun. Managing resources is fun.

Agreed, though sometimes not thinking can also be fun.

Well, either fistfighting would need to be revamped and made stronger, or there can be unbreakable back up weapons that are better than nothing, but worse than temporary breakable ones.

Or - and I could really get behind this - "indestructible" becomes a costly yet highly sought-after enchantment on any weapon.