D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Maxperson]

I disagree, as I do not find any of these things to be anywhere near as complex as running say, a Druid, argurably most compelx class in the game. I think an average person can handle it easily and withotu much problem.

I didn't say it was as complex as a druid. I said those of us who can play druids, wizards and clerics will feel like the fighter is simple, when it's really not. Simple to us =/= simple.

It's also not a matter of whether or not the average person can handle the complexity of a complex fighter like the Battle Master, but whether folks want to have to track as much as a Battle Master has going on.

A not insignificant percentage of players want a simple class like the current fighter to be there to play, and it can and should remain that way. As I pointed out, we have eleven other classes that are more complex than the fighter. Let the folks who want a simple class have ONE.

 

[Umbran]

I urge everyone navel gazing about semantics to read the updated OP.

Mod Note:
Hey there.

Retroactively changing the discussion because you didn't think of some things others might, and insulting people in the process, looks a lot like you want to get removed from the discussion you started.

All in all - starting a thread doesn't mean you own it, or get to control what folks consider, especially 30+ pages after the fact. Please update your own expectations of how threads work on these boards.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

This all sounds just fine to me. Where do I sign up?

 

[Lanefan]

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.

While I agree with this in principle, complexity then rears its ugly head. Weapon-vs-armour and similar add a lot of complexity for not all that much return; having weapons break now and then (though perhaps a bit less often than the OP might imply) seems far simpler in the long run and would still in theory tend to force a bit of variety in weapon use.

The player-side move, however, would then be to carry multiples of the "best weapon" so when one breaks they just pull out the next.

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.

The last 17 years, for sure. Before that there was kind of a messy mix of the two.

 

[CleverNickName]

Several years ago, when 5E was brand-new, I created a new magic item. It was a longsword whose blade had been forged from strange blue glass...it functioned in combat like a longsword +2, and on a nat-20 it would deal critical damage plus some extra force damage. However, on a nat-1, it also scored a critical hit, and also dealt the extra radiant damage...but then it shattered.

The fighter in the group loved that sword. So when she finally rolled a nat-1 with it and it broke, she was understandably sad. The wizard tried to help. "Um, I have the mending cantrip," he said hopefully. "And the fabricate spell. Can one of those fix it?" The fighter piped up, "I can help! This is the moment I've been waiting for...I have glassblowing tools!" And everyone at the table looked across the battlemat at me with puppy-dog eyes.

Now (1) I had intended for this sword to be a temporary item and it was going to be replaced later with a different weapon, and (2) spells don't restore magic items. But I changed my mind because (1) the replacement wasn't better, just different for no reason, and (2) magic items aren't supposed to shatter on a nat-1 either.

So I allowed it. "Sure. It'll have to be done over a long rest, though." Cheers and high-fives all around.

It turned out to be a pretty interesting mechanic. The sword worked great in combat but there was always a chance of it going AWOL for the rest of the day on a bad roll. To help counter this, the character took the Lucky feat at the first opportunity, and Cutting Words was always at the ready. But even with these precautions in place, the possibility of having to resort to using one's sidearm to finish a battle was still there. It still broke from time to time, and there was always an interesting story about it.

So my advice? If you're thinking about adding weapons that break to your game, drop this glass sword into your next dungeon and see what your players think of it first. A little test-drive, if you will.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

On average (though admittedly I've never tracked the numbers closely) I'd say there's on average about one PC-side spell interrupted per combat in my game, including all caster types. Which is significant, in that having a spell interrupted can trigger a wild magic surge...

 

[Stormonu]

While I agree with this in principle, complexity then rears its ugly head. Weapon-vs-armour and similar add a lot of complexity for not all that much return; having weapons break now and then (though perhaps a bit less often than the OP might imply) seems far simpler in the long run and would still in theory tend to force a bit of variety in weapon use.

The player-side move, however, would then be to carry multiples of the "best weapon" so when one breaks they just pull out the next.

The last 17 years, for sure. Before that there was kind of a messy mix of the two.

I was just writing up a post about Weapons-vs-Armor from 1E (and the 2E simplified version). I used that for my 1E run, but it was never popular with the players.

In the end, I think encouraging/forcing a weapon swap mechanic for the majority of D&D play should be the result of a deliberate encounter meant to goad the players into some tactical play. Used sparingly. But I don't think having the threat ever-looming would be good for play, unless the players are willing to buy into it at the start (again, something like the conceit in Dark Sun with primitive weapons breaking).

 

[Lanefan]

This will just cause people to refuse to use anything but weakest magic weapons because "we may need them later". We have decades of video games to prove that Your solution effectively just transplants an issue from another medium.

Weapons can occasionally break in my game - confirmed fumbles are a thing, after all - and yet IME that never stops players from having their characters use the best they have at all times.

 

[Umbran]

So what? Our opinions matter just as much as anyone else's.

Yes, but the statistics suck. There are only relative handful of people here, and we self-select for particular discussions. Listening to us talk doesn't tell you anything about the greater gaming world.

Forgetting that is a good way to come to very incorrect conclusions, and getting into a lot of needless arguments.

 

[Lanefan]

So now every hero comes packaged with a horse, a mule and a porter, not to mention an entire chart full of weapons.

Every warrior might.

Heroism has nothing to do with it.