D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Remathilis]

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.

I see you are a fan of the "flurry of misses" style monk that made them such a beloved class in 3e...

 

[Micah Sweet]

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!

Agreed. 5e has plenty of room to differentiate weapons more than either of WotC's versions of the ruleset do.

 

[Maxperson]

Ahh, there's the trick. See, by the rules, if you leave melee for any reason, you are subject to attacks from everyone you left melee with. There's no such thing as "moving forward".

By the rules it only happens if you full on retreat. Retreat is defined as away from melee, so towards melee with others is not a retreat under that rule. The same applies to Withdraw, which also requires a retreat away the combat. So advancing on the wizard does not allow the PC in melee to follow for free.

To get the free attack, the NPC/Monster must be retreating away from the entire combat. If no retreat is happening, not attack can happen.

And every other thing you list has an intiative bonus so much higher than a spell that it's not even funny.

Your spell range was 1-3. My weapon range was 2-5. Toss the random d10 and even +1 vs. +5 will still lose initiative a good chunk of the time, and wizards soft, squishy, and prime targets for attacks. Nothing there is "is so much higher than a spell that it's not even funny."

And, frankly, how many enemy MU's were you using that they "prepare" to cast magic missile? A rule that isn't actually in 2e D&D BTW. Even if you have magic missile, you still have to beat my initiative. There's no rules for "holding a spell" like there is in 3e+

In 2e you had to declare your intentions for the round before initiative was rolled. You declared what you wanted to do for the following round. So the DM having his caster "declare"(in quotes since it wasn't out loud) magic missile is also preparation for the next round. So yes, "prepare"(in quotes, because prepare/declare/state intentions/decide/etc are all the same here) was a rule in 2e D&D.

Also, I don't understand your comment on holding a spell. If you won initiative and damaged the magic user before his turn came up, he lost his spell. There was never a time you would need to hold the magic missile.

 

[Hussar]

To get the free attack, the NPC/Monster must be retreating away from the entire combat. If no retreat is happening, not attack can happen.

I'm not even going to get into it with you on this. It's just not worth it. For example, no, damaging a caster before he started casting had no effect by the rules. You only interrupt spells if the caster is actually casting when hit. By RAW, the odds of you actually interrupting a spell were actually very small. Lastly, considering virtually no monsters could actually CAST magic missile, it was largely a moot point anyway.

Never minding that by the time we're talking about Cone of Cold, the MU has a pocket full of wands (each with up to 100 charges) that couldn't be interrupted anyway.

I'm just so tired of the "We walked uphill in the snow both ways" theme every time someone wants to talk about older versions of D&D. It's so cliche.

 

[Remathilis]

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!

Let's look at this from the other side of the game.

Imagine if as a spellcaster, you get to pick your cantrips, but every leveled spell you get is randomly determined per day. Not in the old "magic user randomly generated their spellbook" style, but more a "here is a deck with all the first level spells in the game. Draw four. Those are the spells you have until you finish a long rest." Maybe you get grease, burning hands, cure wounds and shield today and tomorrow you are stuck with detect magic, longstrider, animal friendship, and heroism. Make it work.

1. Would you want to build a caster who you have little or no control what your abilities are day to day? You might get useful spells or you might get useless ones?
2. What if you were interested in a theme (fire mage, healer, or like) and ended up with no spells dedicated to your theme?
3. How do you plan strategy or tactics if you cannot know what your character is capable of day to day or round to round?

To me, round robin weapons would be a lot like randomized spells. It might be fun if the goal is improvisation and quick thinking, but like how not everyone wants every meal to be an episode of Chopped, not everyone wants to be constantly switching from archer to shock trooper to duelist round to round.

 

[ezekielcroe9]

Let's look at this from the other side of the game.

Imagine if as a spellcaster, you get to pick your cantrips, but every leveled spell you get is randomly determined per day. Not in the old "magic user randomly generated their spellbook" style, but more a "here is a deck with all the first level spells in the game. Draw four. Those are the spells you have until you finish a long rest." Maybe you get grease, burning hands, cure wounds and shield today and tomorrow you are stuck with detect magic, longstrider, animal friendship, and heroism. Make it work.

1. Would you want to build a caster who you have little or no control what your abilities are day to day? You might get useful spells or you might get useless ones?
2. What if you were interested in a theme (fire mage, healer, or like) and ended up with no spells dedicated to your theme?
3. How do you plan strategy or tactics if you cannot know what your character is capable of day to day or round to round?

To me, round robin weapons would be a lot like randomized spells. It might be fun if the goal is improvisation and quick thinking, but like how not everyone wants every meal to be an episode of Chopped, not everyone wants to be constantly switching from archer to shock trooper to duelist round to round.

Not gonna lie, that kinda sounds like a hilarious Wild Sorcerer build and I can imagine a tuned version of this might appeal to a few players who want to play Casino Mage.

But also, it's not the strongest analogy for this. A weapon in D&D is always useful for a fighter in combat, even if certain abilities are not. Whereas spells are split between utility and combat. To make your analogy work, the random deck of spell cards should be combat-centric spells.

I do think that the need to constantly switch weapons will mainly be an issue for people who have heavily specialised into their weapons. So for them, these characters would be incentivised to make sure their weapons don't break, or that they carry a spare. I think there is an argument to be made that a table might find this make the weapon specialist class actually stand out more, because now they contrast against the brawler-type fighter.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not even going to get into it with you on this. It's just not worth it. For example, no, damaging a caster before he started casting had no effect by the rules. You only interrupt spells if the caster is actually casting when hit. By RAW, the odds of you actually interrupting a spell were actually very small. Lastly, considering virtually no monsters could actually CAST magic missile, it was largely a moot point anyway.

Never minding that by the time we're talking about Cone of Cold, the MU has a pocket full of wands (each with up to 100 charges) that couldn't be interrupted anyway.

I'm just so tired of the "We walked uphill in the snow both ways" theme every time someone wants to talk about older versions of D&D. It's so cliche.

No. I will show you the rule from the 2e DMG. It's very clear.

2e DMG page 56 shows the example of this exact thing.

"Delsenora is very unlucky and rolls a 9. Since she is casting a spell, she gains no benefit from the haste spell this round. She has a casting time of 1 for a total of 10 (9+1=10)"

"The order of attacks is: Rath (initiative 0), strikes with his hammer. Rupert and the two trolls (attacking Rath and Delsenora, all initiative 7) attack immediately after. Rupert hits. the troll attacking Rath misses, but Delsenora is hit. Delenora's spell (Initiative 10) would normally happen next, but instead it fizzles, her concentration ruined by the blow from the troll."

So the troll attacking on 7 hits before Delsenora's roll of 9+1. It hits before she even begins casting her spell, and yet the spell still fizzles. In 2e to cast a spell you could not receive ANY damage prior to the spell going off on your initiative number. If you weren't playing it that way, it's no wonder you guys rarely had Magic Users lose any spells.

 

[loverdrive]

To me, round robin weapons would be a lot like randomized spells. It might be fun if the goal is improvisation and quick thinking, but like how not everyone wants every meal to be an episode of Chopped, not everyone wants to be constantly switching from archer to shock trooper to duelist round to round.

Do you kill enemies every round?

But, okay, fine.

Mighty strike
Uses: once per Short Rest

When you miss a melee weapon attack with a weapon, you can activate this ability to make the attack hit instead. If you do, your weapons shatters into pieces and is destroyed. You immediately equip fallen enemy's weapon and gain all the relevant feats.

You are in control now!

 

[AlViking]

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!

With 2024 they added weapon mastery. Which means that depending on the situation my barbarian may want to use a greatsword because it does damage even on a miss or my warhammer because I want to push people around the battlefield. If I didn't care about carrying multiple large weapons I'd add a maul for knocking people prone and a greataxe for cleaving when I'm fighting multiple lower level monsters. Maybe I'd throw in a war pick which means the target's next attack has disadvantage because they're targeting the squishy wizard. I'd be switching because the different weapons have different properties that make those weapons useful.

But just grabbing a different weapon? Why? Now I have to decide if any of my feats apply and look up the damage. Other than that? I'm just swinging a different weapon. Still doing an attack and damage roll and all that's been accomplished is that I have to pull out different dice for damage. It would get old after a few combats. If I wanted to be an improvised weapon fighter that used whatever was handy I'd take the Tavern Brawler feat. Except that the feat doesn't really buy enough to justify the cost for anyone I've ever played with - there would still have to be agreement from the DM that if I pick up a chair to attack someone with not only would I do a bit of damage I could also use it to push the enemy up against a wall and restrain them. That might make it worthwhile at least now and then depending on the player. But it's a carrot, not a stick that doesn't really change what my character does other than add complexity.

 

[AlViking]

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?

There's a pinned post at the start of this forum.

Variants of D&D such as Shadowdark, 13th Age, ToV, etc. now go in the D&D Older Editions & Variants forum.

Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Level Up: A5E have their own forums.

Thanks folks