D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Paul Farquhar]

It's just like how ammunition in video games forces you to constantly change weapons and change your play style.

The most successful D&D video game ever - does not even bother to track ammo.

As for Doom, that has the ridiculous magic pockets trope, where the protagonist lugs around about 8 huge weapons, without being burdened by them. Sorry, that breaks my suspension of disbelief more than infinite ammo does. Then you have Halo, where practically everything you fight drops a weapon you can use - even if it was anatomically very different or you blew it to pieces. Owlbears dropping usable weapons is also too ridiculous for me. Real world soldiers try to keep what they have to carry to a minimum, because one thing that will get you killed is being over-encumbered. Wagons, horses, hirelings aren't going to be willing are able to crawl through caves, and will die in the first monster encounter anyway.

Reasonably, characters should carry two to four weapons, no more than that. Fighters should be distinguished by being able to use those weapons better than the other classes. Not by crawling through a dungeon with a dozen different types of polearm strapped to their back.

 

[Clint_L]

Unless you're ruling that magic weapons can also break, how much use would you even get out of having rules for breaking weapons? And if you are ruling that magic items can break, I hope that you also have rules for repairing them, or make them very common, because otherwise I think that would suck.

And what about monks? Would the same rule apply when they are fighting with unarmed strikes? Do they have a chance of breaking a hand or a foot (broken hands are a pretty common injury amongst fighters IRL).

I dunno - for me, broken weapons just seems kind of complicated, arbitrary, punitive, and not very fun.

 

[loverdrive]

Wut? What GM is this? I adjust monster stat blocks between sessions, but during a game all I track is their position and remaining hit points. Any "juggling" during play would slow the game to a crawl.

You need to have those statblocks ready, keep track which statblock applies to what creature on the battlefield, actions, reactions, legendary actions, recharge special abilities, at will special abilities... I do that constantly.

I don't see how pulling up a statblock for a weapon is any slower or more complicated than that.

 

[loverdrive]

Unless you're ruling that magic weapons can also break, how much use would you even get out of having rules for breaking weapons? And if you are ruling that magic items can break, I hope that you also have rules for repairing them, or make them very common, because otherwise I think that would suck.

And what about monks? Would the same rule apply when they are fighting with unarmed strikes? Do they have a chance of breaking a hand or a foot (broken hands are a pretty common injury amongst fighters IRL).

I dunno - for me, broken weapons just seems kind of complicated, arbitrary, punitive, and not very fun.

Upon further thinking: the way I see it as a fighter-exclusive thing, where the class identity is "hand me literally anything and I will turn it into a deadly weapon".

Basically, buff:
+ Fighter starts with every single weapon-related feat in the game and can use any weapon (including casting spells if he gets his hands on a staff or a scroll or whatnot)

Nerf:
- He must often discard his weapons and grab something else

It might also trivially be put into players hand, where breaking/throwing away current weapon is a cost for some special ability. Idk, action surge: take another action, but your weapon breaks afterwards.

 

[GrimCo]

There is just one small problem. People build fighters with specific fighting style in mind. Sure, having all feats help. But, if you built nimble duelist (pumped dex, dumped str, took dueling fighting style), switching to two weapon fighting or ranged might be cool and you don't loose on efficiency. But if you take great sword, your to hit and damage drops significantly (and probably AC since you opted for lighter armor to accommodate high dex). Works vice versa, heavy armor two handed wielder dumps dex, so his ranged performance sucks.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You need to have those statblocks ready, keep track which statblock applies to what creature on the battlefield, actions, reactions, legendary actions, recharge special abilities, at will special abilities... I do that constantly.

How many different types of monster do you have in a fight? Since, for simplicity, 5e has monsters of the same type share stat blocks and initiative, I wouldn’t need more than three at a time, hardly “juggling”. Everything else is designed to keep tracking to a minimum. Legendary actions refresh each round, recharge abilities don’t need to be tracked, you just roll when the monster might want to use them.

I don't see how pulling up a statblock for a weapon is any slower or more complicated than that.

However much work managing the monsters is, you are adding to it by managing their weapons too, so the game gets slower. That’s the trade off - the more bells and whistles you add, the slower the game gets. That’s why 3e was so glacially slow and boring compared to the simpler earlier editions.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Upon further thinking: the way I see it as a fighter-exclusive thing, where the class identity is "hand me literally anything and I will turn it into a deadly weapon

Now, I would see that as being far more the barbarian’s shtick. Your fighter is formally trained, and knows the proper way to use weapons. If he has a rapier he knows several different forms of fencing (and isn’t left handed either). Your barbarian, he doesn’t know how to fence, but he can still throw a rapier across a room to pierce a bad guy’s eye socket.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is just one small problem. People build fighters with specific fighting style in mind. Sure, having all feats help. But, if you built nimble duelist (pumped dex, dumped str, took dueling fighting style), switching to two weapon fighting or ranged might be cool and you don't loose on efficiency. But if you take great sword, your to hit and damage drops significantly (and probably AC since you opted for lighter armor to accommodate high dex). Works vice versa, heavy armor two handed wielder dumps dex, so his ranged performance sucks.

I was talking about this earlier - fighters, as a class, are traditionally designed to specialise, not to be a generalist.

 

[loverdrive]

Now, I would see that as being far more the barbarian’s shtick. Your fighter is formally trained, and knows the proper way to use weapons. If he has a rapier he knows several different forms of fencing (and isn’t left handed either). Your barbarian, he doesn’t know how to fence, but he can still throw a rapier across a room to piece a bad guy’s eye socket.

Training with one type of weapon tends to bleed into others. Anatomy remains mostly constant, and there's a limited amount of ways a body can move, and even less ways for it to move in a structurally sound way. There are very few historical martial art treatises focused on one specific weapons, they all cover a variety of them.

This also can be sort of witnessed in a simulacra of an action, Seki Sensei, a kenjutsu master with no exposure to european martial arts, "figured out" longsword and halberd instantly and displayed techniques straight from the manuals.

That's what, I think, a fighter should be: someone who has breadth and depth of knowledge about martial arts and can apply and modify techniques on the fly to suit the specifics of their weapon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Training with one type of weapon tends to bleed into others

Which is why D&D fighters have martial weapon proficiency as well as being specialists. There is a big difference between knowing how to use something and being expert at it.

This also can be sort of witnessed in a simulacra of an action, Seki Sensei, a kenjutsu master with no exposure to european martial arts, "figured out" longsword and halberd instantly and displayed techniques straight from the manuals.

That's what, I think, a fighter should be: someone who has breadth and depth of knowledge about martial arts and can apply and modify techniques on the fly to suit the specifics of their weapon.

You are describing a D&D monk, not a D&D fighter.