D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Paul Farquhar]

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

It sure helps.

 

[GrimCo]

Yea, but we are talking about D&D and it's current edition, 5.x.

As someone mentioned, still remember 3.x days and golf club for weapons. That's why morning stars and other weapons with 2 damage types were popular. You took morning star, not cause you like it, but cause it was B/P weapon. One reason why my 2 handed characters usually used maul was cause it was bludgeoning weapon and more monsters had DR/B than DR/S. Even then, there was meta with weapons and some weapons were just more useful than others. And then there was DR/material. So, you need at least one silver and one cold iron weapon. Thank good, PF1 made it so enchantments also pierce DR/material.

Personally, just give monster weakness to specific stuff. If you have it, nice, you have easier fight. If you don't, it's business as usual.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing I have noticed about fighter players, at least as far back as 2nd edition, is that they like to play as a specialist in a particular weapon. The more they can specialise the better.

Hitting things with whatever is at hand is more the sort of thing barbarian players enjoy.

 

[Lanefan]

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'm using a homebrew initiative system, individual rather than side, and leaving melee only gives your direct foes a free attack at you and even that's not guaranteed*.

Most of the lost spells are due to either enemy missile fire, an enemy spellcaster or similar, or friendly fire due to a fumble or similar.

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

15 minutes ago I finished playing in a session that involved a messy combat vs some goo-chucking tentacled beasties, and it was only by sheer luck that there weren't any spell interruptions; there easily could have been three or four and probably should have been one (the DM was being nice: one PC got webbed, made her save vs being completely stuck, and was able to keep casting).

Only afterwards did we realize the tentacled beasties had also been throwing spells, I've no idea whether we interrupted any of theirs or not; we probably did but if so there weren't any obvious wild-surge effects.


* - I use the surprise mechanics to determine if your foe is caught off guard by your sudden fleeing; if yes, then said foe doesn't react in time to get a free attack before you're out of reach.

 

[GrimCo]

The thing I have noticed about fighter players, at least as far back as 2nd edition, is that they like to play as a specialist in a particular weapon. The more they can specialise the better.

Hitting things with whatever is at hand is more the sort of thing barbarian players enjoy.

Like Bruce Lee said: Fear not man who practiced 1000 punches once. Fear man who practiced one punch 1000 times.

Same with fighters and specialization. You pick weapon you like and invest resources into getting good with it. Be it old weapon proficiency slots in 2ed, or feat chains in 3e or feats in 5e.

 

[loverdrive]

The thing I have noticed about fighter players, at least as far back as 2nd edition, is that they like to play as a specialist in a particular weapon. The more they can specialise the better.

Hitting things with whatever is at hand is more the sort of thing barbarian players enjoy.

Which is interesting, given how proficiency in all and any weapons is, to me, a big part of fighter class identity

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Or just have it that if you're carrying all those magical backups they too are at risk every time you fail a save vs AoE damage. IME that tends to be something of an equalizer over time, if somewhat random.

Also, part of the reason for having more than one magic weapon - assuming you can find them - is that some of them might be for specific foes only. A fully kitted-out high-level warrior type might for example have a good basic high-plus weapon for most situations, a Giant-slayer for Giants, a Dragon-slayer for Dragons, a Mace of Disruption for undead, and so on.

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.

As both player and DM the bolded would make me a very sad bunny.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Which is interesting, given how proficiency in all and any weapons is, to me, a big part of fighter class identity

Given that a whole bunch of other classes also have that, not really.

 

[Staffan]

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.

Dexterity does not affect initiative in 2e. Reaction adjustment affects surprise, but not initiative.

What does affect individual initiative (if you're using that) are magic weapons: every plus reduces the speed factor by 1. So as wizards become slower at high levels due to casting higher-level spells, fighters become faster because of better weapons.

 

[GrimCo]

Which is interesting, given how proficiency in all and any weapons is, to me, a big part of fighter class identity

At least since 2ed, big part of fighter class identity is ability to specialize in one weapon. Weapon specialization was domain of fighters. Jack of all weapons, but master of one. In 2ed, specialization was available only to single class fighter and gave them +1 to hit, +2 damage. Which was big bump. In 3e, also, weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization (req - fighter 12) and in the end Weapon supremacy. Fighter was only class with enough feats to take that chain ( WF-GWF, WS-GWS) and meet prereqs for GWS.

As a fighter, your main goal is to dish out damage. Specialization is one of 3 ways that bumps that damage (others are raising stat and getting magic weapon). But they are all synergistic. Anyone can pick up magic weapon or invest in stat. But fighter is the one who will invest in feat (since other classes get less ASI/feats and have better things to spend than on weapon related feats).