D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Paul Farquhar]

we asked for BM to be core part of the class, and in playtest they said that they even tried that option, but decided against it.
I guess WotC thinks that all D&D players are idiots.

No, but some players just want to hit stuff in combat.

They may well be very good improv actors, or really into other aspects of the game. D&D isn’t only combat, and not being interested in optimum combat performance no more makes you an idiot than being bad at acting does.

 

[TiQuinn]

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

In a game designed with that goal in mind, yes. In a heroic game that is openly about playing a character with cool abilities, this feels incongruous.

 

[Horwath]

No, but some players just want to hit stuff in combat.

They may well be very good improv actors, or really into other aspects of the game. D&D isn’t only combat, and not being interested in optimum combat performance no more makes you an idiot than being bad at acting does.

guess what you can do with BM maneuvers?
Hit more and better.

if there is a need for a "simple" class, it should be the barbarian.
1 button: Rage.

 

[Eubani]

If a simple class is what is required why not Mage that fires energy bolt that fires more often as you level up and gets a bit stronger. Instead of "I attack", you "I blast". That Fighter does not have to always suffer for the um....simple, lazy and new players.

 

[TiQuinn]

That was the problem in 2e. People talk about interupting casters, but, that was incredibly difficult to do in 2e. Your initiative was modified by the casting time of the spell, typically 1-3. A medium creature started at a +3 mod for initiative. The wizard beat the monster almost every time. A large monster was +6. Let's each roll d10's. I roll a d10+1- my Dex bonus, you roll a d10 +6 . Guess who wins pretty much every time?

The whole, "Oh, well casters lost their spells all the time" thing is such an overblown myth of early edition play. Never minding any reasonably tactically minded group had the casters in the back line where they simply couldn't be attacked at all most of the time. That was the point. You lined up your three fighters and the cleric on the front line, the rogue and whatever sixth character you had was in the next line and the wizard was in the back safe as banks. Virtually no monsters had ranged attacks and, as soon as the fighters engaged in melee, even those that did have ranged attacks could no long use them.

I've never understood this myth of wizards always losing spells. Sure, it happened once in a blue moon, but, otherwise? It almost never happened.

Casting time was the spell level usually, so yes you could more reliably cast magic missile, but cone of cold got a lot more dodgy. Also virtually no monsters had ranged attacks? What about all the goblins, orcs, gnolls, kobolds and the like that could wield missile weapons? What about giants who were pretty skilled at throwing boulders? There were a lot of very common monsters with missile weapons, not to mention human opponents.

I can’t say why it didn’t happen in your game, but in my game, it definitely happened.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

If you want to micro manage every weapon (which lots of people don’t - some people don’t even like tracking ammo),
Every weapon can have a durability stat. Every time you miss or roll a 1 or whatever, durability goes down. At certain thresholds, the damage dice goes down by one. When the damage dice goes below 1d4, it breaks.

So you need to use a skill like smithing or pay to repair it to bring it back to full damage.

 

[AlViking]

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.

It doesn't change anything. The fighter's thing is still going to be using a weapon to attack the enemy most rounds, it's just not going to be a sword that actually makes their class choice, build and actions worthwhile. If you really want to add creativity encourage maneuvers like shoving enemies into pits, grappling them so they can't get to the lever of doom, make it worthwhile to throw down caltrops or ball bearings to control the battlefield. Or ... you could accept that some people have no issue swinging their sword most rounds.

All this would do is cause people to play other classes.

 

[AlViking]

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?

Just as important, why on earth would anyone choose to create a character that was so incredibly nerfed? Play a monk or a wizard so you don't have to rely on weapons.

 

[GrimCo]

You triggered a sleeper agent activation phrase.

So.......

Big part of UT (against an opponent of equal skill, at least) is controlling space, reading your opponent and, yes, managing resources (ammo and health). It's not mindless by any stretch, at least in competitive play, despite all the fast pace (and a player with better reflexes will almost always lose to a player with better game sense)

Yea, i'm not talking about PvP. I'm talking about single player UT/Q. Get biggest gun, run from spawn point to spawn point. Resource management is after thought. Same as CoD, MoH or any other arcade FPS.

If anything, in ArmA the whole fun is larping as a soldier, with player skill not contributing to much -- you can be the greatest FPS player to walk the earth, you will die to redfor rocket artillery on the other side of the map.

Again, single player PVE. You need to factor in stuff like recoil, breathing, range and all other stuff. Loadout matters.

 

[AlViking]

we asked for BM to be core part of the class, and in playtest they said that they even tried that option, but decided against it.
I guess WotC thinks that all D&D players are idiots.

No, just the Fighter players.

I don't care for the battle master mechanics for multiple reasons and sometimes I really enjoy playing a BDF. With the stress of real life, being half brain-dead from a challenging workweek on those occasions when I get to play instead of DMing? Playing a simple fighter and not having to think too hard is wonderful.

If I don't want to do that I have plenty of other options out there ... like playing a battle master fighter. I was one of those people who didn't ask for your option of choice so please stop telling us that we're wrong or idiots to have a different preference. Besides, I want options for every type of player including those that would be better off playing a champion fighter.