D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[AlViking]

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.

But even those randomized spells would have different effects. It's more like casting burning hands and randomly picking which die and how many will be rolled for damage. Sometimes it's 3d6 fire, sometimes it's 2d8 cold. Woohoo.

 

[loverdrive]

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.

You don't have to decide anything, feats are built in -- whatever weapon you are holding, you always have all the feats related to it.

This also frees up feat slots for cool things unrelated to combat, be it Actor or Keen Mind or whatever.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

Please tell me what you think the "D&D General" tag means. And while you're at it, tell me if you think I should ignore any topic that has relevance to a wide variety of broadly similar games unless it's in the forum you think is specifically appropriate to it, and then only talk about that topic as it relates to that specific game. Is there any point in duplicating a topic in a different forum when it applies to more than one specific game? I don't see one, and what you're suggesting seems wildly unrealistic, not bringing up other games where the topic applies.

 

[AlViking]

You don't have to decide anything, feats are built in -- whatever weapon you are holding, you always have all the feats related to it.

This also frees up feat slots for cool things unrelated to combat, be it Actor or Keen Mind or whatever.

Several feats only work with specific weapons, unless you're now saying that if I pick up a crossbow I now have crossbow expertise, a quarterstaff and I have polearm master?

Because that just makes it significantly more complicated for minimal benefit.

 

[AlViking]

Please tell me what you think the "D&D General" tag means. And while you're at it, tell me if you think I should ignore any topic that has relevance to a wide variety of broadly similar games unless it's in the forum you think is specifically appropriate to it, and then only talk about that topic as it relates to that specific game. Is there any point in duplicating a topic in a different forum when it applies to more than one specific game? I don't see one, and what you're suggesting seems wildly unrealistic, not bringing up other games where the topic applies.

I don't care what rules you bring up. But if I'm discussing a house rule, a rule I got from a supplement, a different game or even an idea I got from a video game I will say where I got it from.

You aren't just bringing up other games though. You repeatedly call anything you've read or use "D&D" and then assume it applies to the topic at hand and that everyone agrees that it's D&D despite multiple people explaining that they disagree.

 

[loverdrive]

Please tell me what you think the "D&D General" tag means. And while you're at it, tell me if you think I should ignore any topic that has relevance to a wide variety of broadly similar games unless it's in the forum you think is specifically appropriate to it, and then only talk about that topic as it relates to that specific game. Is there any point in duplicating a topic in a different forum when it applies to more than one specific game? I don't see one, and what you're suggesting seems wildly unrealistic, not bringing up other games where the topic applies.

Agree 100%. "General" means general, not Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, version 2024, trademark Wizards of the Coast.

 

[Remathilis]

Several feats only work with specific weapons, unless you're now saying that if I pick up a crossbow I now have crossbow expertise, a quarterstaff and I have polearm master?

Because that just makes it significantly more complicated for minimal benefit.

That's what he's saying. Of course, grabbing a glaive would potentially give you polearm master, great weapon master, slasher, great weapon fighting and graze mastery in addition to heavy and reach.

 

[Maxperson]

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?

If it's not D&D in the strictest sense, then it's not 5e in the strictest sense since 5e is an edition of D&D. Further, sharing a lot of DNA with something doesn't mean much. Humans share roughly 98% of our DNA with chimps.

 

[Horwath]

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

attack bonus is expected to be the same as any other weapon, excluding archery style.
and there are no iterative attack penalties like in 3E.

 

[AlViking]

That's what he's saying. Of course, grabbing a glaive would potentially give you polearm master, great weapon master, slasher, great weapon fighting and graze mastery in addition to heavy and reach.

I can't imagine how much confusion, delay and page flipping that would cause in my game. Also, of course, along with the whole "there are always weapons lying around even when fighting a monster that doesn't use weapons" amongst others.