D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[cbwjm]

Damage resistance/immunities that can't be easily bypassed with magic. If skeletons took less damage from piercing weapons regardless of whether those weapons were magical or not, folks would start carrying around maces and clubs again. Ditto for werewolves and vampires: silver will make a big comeback if you no longer allow any magic weapon to work just as well as a silver weapon.

In addition to resistance/immunities, vulnerabilities that are impacted by weapon type. If skeletons take double damage from bludgeoning weapons then you might also seem some more weapon swapping.

 

[CleverNickName]

In addition to resistance/immunities, vulnerabilities that are impacted by weapon type. If skeletons take double damage from bludgeoning weapons then you might also seem some more weapon swapping.

Yep, that's true also. Now...I'm not saying I would prefer it this way, just that it would accomplish the desired result.

 

[Maxperson]

I think there are "genres" to complexity.

The kind of complexity that we often imagine when talking about, well, complexity is the book-keepy annoying kind of one. Many people don't like it — I'm among them.

If anything, my proposal can be a simplification — now, "I don't want to read the rules, give me a simple class" kind of people can skip on reading or thinking about different weapon types. "Uhhhh is a longsword better than a shortsword? What should I pick? What? Feats? Girlie I'm just here to smack people with a stick, give me something simple!" (pretty much a verbatim thing I've said myself) is excised entirely: you only read one weapon at a time. You don't have a million options, you only have one, maybe two.

You inflict a critical hit so strong your sword itself snaps from the impact! You grab another weapon and it's.... [roll on a weapon table] a spear! GM hands you a piece of paper that says:


And you get to do something new without being overloaded with complexity. You get to protect people for a while, then deliver another crit (and break your spear), roll, say, a pile of daggers (and, idk, get to do a lot of attacks? one attack, one attack from Nick property, bonus action attack for two-weapon fighting? Something like that?)

So a "smack people with a stick" player gets to play around with different (yet still simple) playstyles without delving deep into the rules and reading different feats and whatnot.

Yes. That's true about your proposal simplifying choice. The complexity discussion I've been having is with regard to the fighter base class.

Your idea is interesting, but I still think it would be best done by making the weapons good/bad in various situations so that the players will choose to change up weaponry, rather than breaking. In my experience most people don't like things taken away, but are fine with additions or changes to rules.

My idea adds complexity, but I think it would be better accepted despite that.

 

[Maxperson]

I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread yet (apologies if it was - longish thread) but:

I always chafe a bit at calling the fighter "simple" vs the caster "complicated."

In reality, especially in the beginning generation stage, the fighter's player is faced with much more complex and difficult choices than the caster's player - and they have much broader ramifications going forward.

Let's start with stat generation:

The wizard puts his highest stat in INT (unless there's a roleplaying reason he doesn't want to, but that's outside this scope) - boom done - the rest is preference and window dressing. INT will allow the wizard to be the best wizard he can be.

The fighter has to FIRST decide: Best stat in STR or DEX - this will have ramifications for the rest of the build.

If DEX then do you dump STR? you can, but Athletics is the fighters most obvious way to interact with many exploration challenges, so that's tricky. If STR, dumping DEX has serious consequences too (you can't supplement weaknesses with spells like the wizard can). And unlike the wizard, you have to concern yourself dumping WIS and CHA too because stats are the easiest way you get bonuses in a pillar other than combat. And god forbid you don't prioritize CON, low CON for a martial is dangerous (more so than for a caster, even with concentration).

Then the fighter has to make the choice of melee or ranged. Very difficult to be fully competent at both, even with a DEX build. Again choices matter here and will have ramifications for the long haul. The wizard doesn't really have to worry about this choice.

Then skills. The fighter has to pick carefully as they can't supplement without help. Pick a "fun" skill - it's at the expense of something else. Sure the wizard has this problem, but they can supplement with magic (need to descend a cliff and are lousy at athletics - you probably have room for feather fall on your list).

And it goes on. and that's just to 1st level!

Further if the fighter picks poorly, he's stuck unless the DM is kind and lets him redo (there are now SOME options to swap out styles and maneuvers, but it's still a wait). The mage may be stuck with some subpar spells, but they can fix at every level and I've never been in a campaign where the DM has been all that stingy with spell acquisition (I'm sure they exist, but I haven't see it!)

So I'd say, in many of the ways that matter, the "simple" fighter is actually more complex than the wizard.

And the OP wants to add easy weapon breakage to force the fighter to have even more difficult choices?

You make some good points, but you are also leaving out 99% of the wizard's complexity at character creation.

The player of the wizard as part of character creation has to go through 16 cantrips and select which 3 he wants, then he has to go through 30 1st level spells and select which 6 he wants. And that's only the PHB. Those numbers go way up if the DM is using non-core books.

Everything you listed above for the fighter, even when added together, doesn't come close to having to do that.

After character creation the 1st level fighter has to.................hit things. That's almost his choice. Except for every once in a while he has to choose to second wind to heal so that he can................keep hitting things.

The 1st level wizard on the other hand has to prepare 3-5 of his 6 picked 1st level spells, depending on starting intelligence, so he doesn't have all of his spells memorized. Then he has to choose from those 3-5 prepared spells which 2 he is going to use with his spell slots. Or is he going to save a slot and use a cantrip instead. Then has arcane recover to get 1 slot back to cast one of his 3-5 1st level spells.

The 1st wizard blows the 1st level fighter away for complexity.

 

[Staffan]

Damage resistance/immunities that can't be easily bypassed with magic. If skeletons took less damage from piercing weapons and more damage from bludgeoning ones, regardless of whether those weapons were magical or not, folks would start carrying around maces and clubs again. Ditto for werewolves and vampires: silver will make a big comeback if you no longer allow any magic weapon to work just as well as a silver weapon.

I remember people absolutely loving* that back in 3.5e, and how people fondly remember the days of having golfbags full of weapons for different situations.

* This may not be completely accurate.

 

[Maxperson]

Or use a fighter that is complex already. I can think of a few.

5e doesn't have one. This is the base class we are talking about. 3rd party products aren't really a part of this scenario.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Fair enough. Good thing I've never cared much about what's popular.

 

[Micah Sweet]

5e doesn't have one. This is the base class we are talking about. 3rd party products aren't really a part of this scenario.

5e is everything using the 5e rules. You're thinking about WotC current version of 5e, which isn't what's been tagged in this thread.

 

[Maxperson]

5e is everything using the 5e rules. You're thinking about WotC current version of 5e, which isn't what's been tagged in this thread.

5e is the official stuff only. The rest is 3rd party 5e compatible stuff.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Specific blades done at specific moments for dramatic effect under very unusual circumstances.

Cool art. Someone can definitely depict all those artifacts breaking.

I read the entire Elric series and Stormbringer never broke.

My attempt at levity failed miserably. My point was wouldn't it be funny if our heroes' swords routinely broke in combat. I probably shouldn't have included two swords which actually did break.