D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Hussar]

I don’t know what to say - we were encountering various goblinoid monsters throughout campaigns, even if they were minions. Eventually that’d become stuff like Drow, or Sahuagin, Duergar, and the like.

Cone of Cold was a fifth level spell so casting time was 5, but regardless, it’s not like you were always winning initiative. You declared at the start of the round if you were casting, so it’s not like you could know for sure that you were safe in advance.

Note, just to be clear, I'm not saying it never happened. Of course it happens. I get that. But regularly? @Lanefan claims that it happens EVERY combat? I mean, even Cone of Cold, with a Casting time of 5 (minus any Dex bonus that the MU has, and, let's be honest, by 9th level that MU has at least a +1 on initiative), whereas the ranged enemies have +8 or so. Again, why are we wasting this on orcs? Fireball is 9d6 by this point and is instant death to anything 4 HD or less (most of the time).

I get that is happened. Sure. But, I'm thinking there's a tiny bit of confirmation bias going on here where people start talking about it happening all the time. I just can't see how. If I've got that much of an advantage, but you are going first (and note, you only interrupted spells if you were hit DURING casting, not before, which meant if you played RAW, the window was vanishingly small) most of the time, there's something seriously wrong there.

 

[Hussar]

Do you need to know by heart every card in a boardgame to play it?

Like, sure, it's better if you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, but when you just roll on a table and get handed a new weapon you can learn one thing at a time as you are playing.

I've handed out magic items in the middle of a fight and had no problems with it whatsoever.

Oh, that must be nice.

I've got a player who has been playing a battlemaster fighter from 1st to 5th level in my current campaign who STILL needs to be instructed how to use his character EVERY SINGLE SESSION. Thank god I talked him out of playing a wizard.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, I have to wonder, how?

The MU nearly always has 30-50% speed advantage on any weapon. Longswords are +5 speed. Most weapons are even higher. Any medium or larger creature starts at a +3 initiative and then climbs. And that's not taking into account that a PC MU gets Dex bonus to initiative. A +1 Dex bonus to initiative is not exactly hard to have. Meaning that any 1st level spell casts at speed 0.

Dex bonus also applied to enemies and there was the d10 roll. Lots of enemies also use short swords, starting at a 3 weapon speed. Magic weapons reduced speed as well. Come across someone with a +2 short sword(not hard) and he was swinging at +1 total. The variable die roll meant that the magic used was losing initiative to someone in the opposing group of monsters/NPCs a lot of the time.

Most of the time the magic user gets the spell off, but a significant minority of the time he loses the spell. All he has to do is lose initiative and get hit, which with his crappy AC is really likely.

Look, I'm not denying people's experience, but, I have to wonder how in the heck it was happening. You rolled initiative every round. I've got +0-+2 on my initiative and you have +5-+10 (depending on what spell and what weapons are being used). Sure, I'm going to lose from time to time, but, "a lot"? How?

+2(dagger) to +5(longsword) are by far the most common numbers. A few will be higher, but with several rolls on the DM side of the screen, unless the wizard rolls really low every single time he casts spells, he is losing a good number of them.

 

[TiQuinn]

Note, just to be clear, I'm not saying it never happened. Of course it happens. I get that. But regularly? @Lanefan claims that it happens EVERY combat? I mean, even Cone of Cold, with a Casting time of 5 (minus any Dex bonus that the MU has, and, let's be honest, by 9th level that MU has at least a +1 on initiative), whereas the ranged enemies have +8 or so. Again, why are we wasting this on orcs? Fireball is 9d6 by this point and is instant death to anything 4 HD or less (most of the time).

I get that is happened. Sure. But, I'm thinking there's a tiny bit of confirmation bias going on here where people start talking about it happening all the time. I just can't see how. If I've got that much of an advantage, but you are going first (and note, you only interrupted spells if you were hit DURING casting, not before, which meant if you played RAW, the window was vanishingly small) most of the time, there's something seriously wrong there.

Okay, I “think” the problem here is that we are throwing around words like a lot, and regularly, and almost always, and once in a blue moon and maybe those words and phrases conjure up different things for you than they do for me.

In the games I played in, they happened and they were a consideration for anyone playing a spellcaster. If that was a negligible issue for players in your experience, cool.

 

[Remathilis]

The trick is to hit that balance where replenishment is likely but not guaranteed, such that using (or breaking) an item carries some risk that it won't easily be replaced and yet the possibility or even probability of replacement still exists to the point where using the resource instead of hoarding it is seen as a viable option.

A fine balance to be sure. There is a lot of antagonism towards the idea of high magic/bountiful magic items in D&D (the Monty Haul scenario) which is hilarious since one of the hallmarks of D&D is be up to your eyeballs in +1 swords. You'd have to create an expectation that while you won't be swimming in magical backups, if something happened to your magical blade, a new one could be just around the corner.

Of course, you could solve the issue by likewise removing magical items and thus the desire to hoard. If every sword is just a normal sword, no one cares how many you find and break.

 

[loverdrive]

Oh, that must be nice.

I've got a player who has been playing a battlemaster fighter from 1st to 5th level in my current campaign who STILL needs to be instructed how to use his character EVERY SINGLE SESSION. Thank god I talked him out of playing a wizard.

I believe there's an enormous difference between reading and remembering some thing in the rulebook (like, say, your class description) and reading and remembering a thing that is right in front of you (like, say, a printed handout describing what a spear does)

Granted, my perspective on how much attention players are willing to pay during a session is probably warped -- people who paid fifty to a hundred bucks for a four hour long session are probably not going to scroll memes during it -- but I believe presentation significantly influences how people interact with complex rulesets.

 

[loverdrive]

How much damage do you think they should do? Because that runs into the hit point issue.

Indeed. I would probably tune numbers with the assumption that a fighter should have a decent chance to oneshot what is considered to be a "mook" enemy for their level.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, I'm utterly baffled as to how? Oh, wait, you aren't playing 2e D&D are you? You're using the 1e initiative rules IIRC. That makes it somewhat easier, true. But, even then, so long as the MU stays out of melee, no one can engage him because you cannot leave melee without everyone on the side getting a free shot. Which typically means instant death to any NPC.

I just can't see how it would be even remotely possible to interrupt a spell every session, let alone every combat.

Bows. Thrown daggers. Thrown axes. Spells. A favorite is to prep magic missile to disrupt the PC with an auto hit against low hit points. Odds are a shield spell hasn't been cast yet and Brooches of Shielding aren't exactly common. Melee from a direction that isn't blocked by an PC. A weapon with reach.

Also, there are no attacks of opportunity for moving past an enemy. If you fled and showed your back as you ran away, the enemy got an attack. If you withdraw, there is no attack, but the attacker can follow. If you move forward to attack the wizard, you are neither withdrawing nor retreating.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I never had any problem with it, for the same reason mentioned above. Different creatures have (or should have IMO) different weaknesses.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

No, 5e is the ruleset. WotC makes a game called D&D that uses a version of that ruleset.