D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Horwath]

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

managing my gear HP is as fun as filling out tax returns for the dragon hoard we pillaged last week.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

If they are controlled they are out of the fight. That's offense. Removing hp is something that can be done at leisure. Doesn't matter if your weapons are broken since you can just slap them with a wet towel until they are dead.

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).

The thing about obvious conclusions is they are often wrong. It sounds like you have little understanding of the current fighter or weapon properties.

To borrow a quote from another thread:

One player I inherited their DM nerfed sneak attack. Basically said it wouldn't work as it was overpowered lol.

The moral being, you need to have a very through understanding of the existing mechanics before you start making changes.

 

[loverdrive]

managing my gear HP is as fun as filling out tax returns for the dragon hoard we pillaged last week.

What about managing spell slots? Or ki points?

 

[Retros_x]

But the constantly breaking weapon system was so amazingly terrible. I have literally considered jailbreaking a Switch just to replay the game with a hack that turns it off

You would've destroyed the gameplay loop and broke the intented design. Your experience would've been vastly different from anyone who plays as intented. I could never do such a thing, I prefer to just not play the games I don't like. There are enough out there anyway.

I don't think I would enjoy this in DnD though. The DM and adventure writers would need to increase loot by a large margin. Similar to Zelda you would need to dish out weapons like candy. On the upside: Similar to Zelda you could dish out exciting weapons pretty fast without making the players OP too fast. But that would definitely completely change the vibe of the game. Looting would become much more important and central to the gameplay loop than it is in contemporary 5e. Murder hobos would arise, heroes turn to thieves to get their hands on fresh weapons.

 

[Horwath]

What about managing spell slots? Or ki points?

not really helping with this kind of arguments, but I'll bite...

one is necessity because of game balance and what amount of power one character can conjure at an encounter/day.

other is similar to:
Did we bring Vitamin D strengthen hard cheese, because we are going into Underdark and lack of sunlight can cause muscle weakness and weaker bones over long time.

 

[Flying Toaster]

What about managing spell slots? Or ki points?

If I am playing a spellcaster or martial artist, spell slots and ki points represent daily powers my character can use. Keeping track of how much I have left does require some minor bookkeeping, but I know that if I can make it to the next long rest I will get all or most of that power back, which is reassuring.

Whereas fragile weapons would not recharge after any amount of time or rest. Warriors would start off with full power in the form of intact weapons and armor, only to begin an inevitable downward slide until the gear becomes unusable, at which point the only thing to do is go find new gear so the whole dreary cycle can repeat itself. It would be an inescapable loop of negative reinforcement, as opposed to the positive reinforcement that wizards or monks get after resting.

If weapons are extremely breakable, any slightly better weapons will likely be treated just like magic consumables. I think we have all seen players hoard potions for a rainy day that never comes. These items become dead weight and the DM might as well not even give them out. Lower quality weapons will be used up and thrown away, and play will likely devolve into a slog of endless scrounging for more weapons.

Early editions of D&D tried to nerf spellcasters with material components, which were usually consumed. Mages needed all kinds of weird, gross, or expensive stuff in order to cast most spells, and if the DM required the search for components to be played out I can see this wasting a fair amount of table time. Druids had to harvest mistletoe with a gold or silver sickle under the full moon if they wanted to cast at full efficacy. Lesser mistletoe or oak leaves could be used in a pinch, with spell power diminished in various ways, but in effect a druid player with a strict DM had to stay near oak woodlands infested with mistletoe or else risk losing spells altogether. No desert or polar adventures for 1E RAW druids, let alone plane-hopping! Material components are one of the most disregarded rules in all editions of D&D, and fragile weapons seem a lot like “spell components for fighters” to me.

I actually think that some form of weapon breakage is not necessarily a bad idea, but it should be rare and dramatic or else it would become a nuisance. Gear maintenance should be assumed as part of a warrior’s routine, not something to be played out at the table.

If the goal is to encourage tactical thinking, then giving weapons slight buffs and debuffs under various circumstances would be a much better way to do that. 1E had a crude version of this in the form of the weapon vs. armor table, another often-ignored rule which required constant reference to a huge table of all weapons. When I ran 2E I used the optional weapon type rule, which was a much simpler way to achieve the same result. Weapons were either slashing (S), piercing (P), or bludgeoning (B), with a minor plus or minus against various armors listed on a much smaller chart. Some monsters like skeletons were weak against some types and strong against others, which introduced a rock / paper / scissors dynamic that I found to be fairly intuitive. Some weapons might be too big to use in confined spaces, and I like having some way to determine when and where missile weapons can be used.

The heroic focus on special weapons has roots in mythology and medieval legends, with Arthur’s Excalibur or Roland’s Durendal being treated almost like characters in their own right. In early editions of D&D the use of magic swords appears to have been a stealth class ability for fighters (not actually pointed out or explained in the rules of course... ), which was only reinforced by EGG giving AD&D swords the almost unique ability to do more damage to Large size foes, instead of less. If we want to encourage players to switch up their weapon use then I would favor the carrot over the stick.

 

[loverdrive]

one is necessity because of game balance and what amount of power one character can conjure at an encounter/day.

Is it, really? I know multiple games that don't have any sort of resource management tied to magic.

Gameplay balance is meaningless if there's no gameplay to balance. Within RPGs, the most salient form of gameplay is resource management and valuation -- both of which aren't really a thing for martial characters.

 

[loverdrive]

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.

In design (including game design), subtracting something often leads to net increase in options and decision-making. There's a reason Akuma is banned in Hyper Fighting, and all that.

I don't know if it was you or someone else that voiced the idea that "just adding more weapon options" is a better solution -- and it isn't. Creating new weapons and perks for those weapons only adds choices during character creation -- which, while nice, will inevitably succumb to RPG equivalent of netdecking. It's also, frankly, boring. Meaningful choices should happen during the game, not before it.

Casters have to constantly juggle spells and consider which situation warrants spending a spell slot, and which isn't. Fighters just smack people with a stick, because their stick is infinite.

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.

Can =/= will. Sure, you have options! You can run sword&board, or a big two handed ungabunga stick, or two daggers, or...

Too bad this interesting choice is
a) Constrained to character creation
b) Ultimately meaningless, because there always will be just objectively best damage dealer

I don't know what the current meta is, but at the end of the day it's an inevitability -- something will always be the best, especially in an environment where counter-picking isn't a thing (like, say, RPGs...)

 

[GrimCo]

If the intended goal is for fighters to switch up, use different weapons and do more than just pick greatsword and go to town, you can do it in 2 ways. Positive and negative reinforcement

Weapon braking is negative one. You need to switch up or you suffer negative consequences , like loosing your favorite weapon.

Positive one is giving different weapons different advantages. Old weapon vs armor, right tool for the job thing. But do it in a way that it gives clear and significant advantage over using your default weapon. If you ignore it, it's just business as usual, no penalties.

Unrelated to above. I like FPS games. There are mindless arcade shooters and there are sims. UT is fast paced arcade shooter. Arma is simulation with balistics, breathing, stance, etc. D&D for last 25 years is more like arcade shooter.

 

[loverdrive]

If weapons are extremely breakable, any slightly better weapons will likely be treated just like magic consumables. I think we have all seen players hoard potions for a rainy day that never comes. These items become dead weight and the DM might as well not even give them out. Lower quality weapons will be used up and thrown away, and play will likely devolve into a slog of endless scrounging for more weapons.

There's a word for needlessly hoarding resources: being bad. Good player knows when a situation calls for expending resources. Bad players lose the match with full super meter. Or thousands of gold in their treasury. Or with an inventory full of powerful scrolls.