D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[ezekielcroe9]

I sort of agree with the general concept, in that breaking weapons is an elegant way to introduce resource attrition into the game, which could encourage more interesting choices for players and GMs...

However!

It'll need to be tuned to actually trigger interesting decision-making; I think just forcing players to constantly scramble for weapons will get old very quick. I think too many homebrew rules out there build this as a stressor or punishment, rather than a high-reward, high-risk feature.

In D&D, You can sort of manage this by running a Monk-esque "Unarmed Strike" or "Brawler"-esque Feat, giving the character a flat d10 for attacks when they hold any weapon, but their weapon breaks whenever they roll below a certain number (maybe 10), or whenever they down a creature. This should give the same feeling of needing to swap weapons but now the flat d10 gives players a reason to want to take this feat.

Alternatively, we could imagine a system where the weapons that break are super strong but fragile, while the default weapons are normal but weaker. Maybe step the default die size down by one, while the more powerful variants are stepped up by one die size, but they need to be maintained during a rest after two encounters. If not, the weapon might break after the end of the third encounter.

 

[Hussar]

Back in the early days of the D&D Next era, they had a fighter option where your damage depended on the fighter, not the weapon. Sort of how like monk damage just scales by level. Bring that back and then let fighters use whatever weapons they find along the way. If you divorce all the fighter damage bonuses from the actual weapon and just make them straight up bonuses, then most of these issues vanish and you can break weapons to your hearts content.

Unfortunately, the sim-brigade will never, ever allow something like this in D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

WOTC made 5e, other companies created what amounts to professionally made home-brew rules. Those rules may be amazing and better than 5E for some people, but they are still supplements. I don't have any problem with that, I think it's a great thing and I use Tome of Beasts and a few other books now and then. But I don't call Monty Cook's Strongholds and Followers D&D 5e, it's a D&D 5e supplement.

Level Up and TotV are not supplements for D&D (though they certainly can be used that way). They are separate games using the 5e ruleset first developed by WotC and now available to other designers. To describe every 5e product not made by WotC as "professionally made homebrew" is insulting to those designers and puts WotC on a pedestal.

And no one here is calling these books and other games D&D in the legal sense being hyper-focused on. Certainly not me. But they are 5e books and games, because D&D is an example (a very prominent one!) Of a game using the 5e ruleset.

 

[Horwath]

Back in the early days of the D&D Next era, they had a fighter option where your damage depended on the fighter, not the weapon. Sort of how like monk damage just scales by level. Bring that back and then let fighters use whatever weapons they find along the way. If you divorce all the fighter damage bonuses from the actual weapon and just make them straight up bonuses, then most of these issues vanish and you can break weapons to your hearts content.

Unfortunately, the sim-brigade will never, ever allow something like this in D&D.

honestly, I would remove scaling unarmed damage from monk, and d6 starter is already very generous.
What I would do is give ability to monks that they can during Attack actions make multiple unarmed strikes instead of single weapon attack.

IE: 1 at 1st level it would be 2 attacks for 1, instead of Bonus action attack.
1 ki pt would add 1 additional attack to Attack action
at 5th level 1 ki pt would add 2 attacks to Attack action
at 10th level 1 ki pt would add 3 attacks to Attack action
at 11th level you could make 3 unarmed attacks instead of 1 attack during Attack action
at 17th level you could make 4 unarmed attacks instead of 1 attack during Attack action

so if using only unarmed attacks for Attack action
1st level: 2 attacks
2nd level: 2 attacks +1 attack for ki pt
5th level: 4 attacks +2 attacks for ki pt
10th level: 4 attacks +3 attacks for ki pt
11th level: 6 attacks +3 attacks for ki pt
17th level: 8 attacks +3 attack for ki pt

maybe drop unarmed damage back to d4.

 

[loverdrive]

I sort of agree with the general concept, in that breaking weapons is an elegant way to introduce resource attrition into the game, which could encourage more interesting choices for players and GMs...

However!

It'll need to be tuned to actually trigger interesting decision-making; I think just forcing players to constantly scramble for weapons will get old very quick. I think too many homebrew rules out there build this as a stressor or punishment, rather than a high-reward, high-risk feature.

In D&D, You can sort of manage this by running a Monk-esque "Unarmed Strike" or "Brawler"-esque Feat, giving the character a flat d10 for attacks when they hold any weapon, but their weapon breaks whenever they roll below a certain number (maybe 10), or whenever they down a creature. This should give the same feeling of needing to swap weapons but now the flat d10 gives players a reason to want to take this feat.

Alternatively, we could imagine a system where the weapons that break are super strong but fragile, while the default weapons are normal but weaker. Maybe step the default die size down by one, while the more powerful variants are stepped up by one die size, but they need to be maintained during a rest after two encounters. If not, the weapon might break after the end of the third encounter.

I imagine it's sort of like Call of Duty Gungame, where scoring a kill with a weapon switches you to another one. You kill an Undead Spearman, your sword breaks from the force of your blow! You instantly grab his spear and keep fighting.

It's not really punishment per se, more like a mode change. A shake up.

 

[AlViking]

Level Up and TotV are not supplements for D&D (though they certainly can be used that way). They are separate games using the 5e ruleset first developed by WotC and now available to other designers. To describe every 5e product not made by WotC as "professionally made homebrew" is insulting to those designers and puts WotC on a pedestal.

And no one here is calling these books and other games D&D in the legal sense being hyper-focused on. Certainly not me. But they are 5e books and games, because D&D is an example (a very prominent one!) Of a game using the 5e ruleset.

If they use the core mechanics of D&D 5e, they are supplements. If they are their own standalone games they are not D&D. I don't care about the "legal sense", I'm not putting anything on a pedestal, people like all sorts of different games and many of the supplements are very high quality. I'm calling this out because you regularly state things about D&D without clarifying that you are discussing supplements not the rules of the game this forum is dedicated to.

 

[AlViking]

I imagine it's sort of like Call of Duty Gungame, where scoring a kill with a weapon switches you to another one. You kill an Undead Spearman, your sword breaks from the force of your blow! You instantly grab his spear and keep fighting.

It's not really punishment per se, more like a mode change. A shake up.

It's a shake up that provides no real benefit and has no significant justification. The fighter is still going to pick up a weapon and roll to hit, all that's changing is that you've added overhead, complexity, made fighters less effecting and assumed that there is always a weapon handy.

 

[ezekielcroe9]

I imagine it's sort of like Call of Duty Gungame, where scoring a kill with a weapon switches you to another one. You kill an Undead Spearman, your sword breaks from the force of your blow! You instantly grab his spear and keep fighting.

It's not really punishment per se, more like a mode change. A shake up.

Love this idea. Flavourful and gives a very "Slayers" vibe. Definitely an interesting design space for anyone interested in developing it for their own tables.

 

[loverdrive]

It's a shake up that provides no real benefit and has no significant justification. The fighter is still going to pick up a weapon and roll to hit, all that's changing is that you've added overhead, complexity, made fighters less effecting and assumed that there is always a weapon handy.

You are assuming D&D as it exists, where a greatsword and a two-handed mace are functionally the same weapon. I've heard in 5.5e they all are different, and even if they aren't -- then make them.

Let's say weapons just give all the relevant feats. Fighting with a spear? Polearm master + Sentinel, you can zone people. Holding a shield? Shield master, you can push people around. Rapier? Idk, some sort of cool extra range lunges.

Still no real benefit?

Actually, you know what? Not only weapons. You kill an enemy wizard, you grab his staff and get to both show'em bastards your Meyer's techniques and also sling a couple fireballs. Until you kill someone and switch to their weapon.

In a fight in a knee-deep water where enemy warriors are supported by a mage casting Freedom of Movement, fighter grabs mage's staff and gets to turn enemy's dastardly plan against them!

 

[Micah Sweet]

If they use the core mechanics of D&D 5e, they are supplements. If they are their own standalone games they are not D&D. I don't care about the "legal sense", I'm not putting anything on a pedestal, people like all sorts of different games and many of the supplements are very high quality. I'm calling this out because you regularly state things about D&D without clarifying that you are discussing supplements not the rules of the game this forum is dedicated to.

Level Up and TotV are not D&D in the strictest sense, but they absolutely are 5e and they share a lot of DNA with other D&D-like games with varying rulesets.

And exactly what game do you think this forum, or this thread, is dedicated to?