D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Paul Farquhar]

You can sheathe the sword and free up both hands

It's going to dangle a bit annoyingly, but nothing major, but with a spear I see no other way than to climb up and have someone else pass you the spear afterwards, but only if the climb is short enough for that

It would depend on the length of the spear. A rifle with a bayonet attachment is basically a spear, and that is manageable. But that takes me back to the ubiquitous ten foot pole from first edition.

I wouldn't want to climb with the weight of sword and shield. But the real difficulty would be armour - imagine trying to free climb in full plate! The boots alone would make it impossible to get a grip.

 

[GrimCo]

's going to dangle a bit annoyingly, but nothing major, but with a spear I see no other way than to climb up and have someone else pass you the spear afterwards, but only if the climb is short enough for that

You can always use rope, tie spear on both ends with some slack and carry it diagonal on your back. It's like improvise rifle sling.

As for ammo, I learned to handwave this years ago. There are far more interesting things for players to do than count arrows. And if there isn't, there is something wrong with your game.

Ammo counting has it's place. Mainly in survival type of games where resource management is part of the fun.

 

[loverdrive]

It would depend on the length of the spear. A rifle with a bayonet attachment is basically a spear, and that is manageable. But that takes me back to the ubiquitous ten foot pole from first edition.

I wouldn't want to climb with the weight of sword and shield. But the real difficulty would be armour - imagine trying to free climb in full plate! The boots alone would make it impossible to get a grip.

Oh, for sure. That game I'm playing isn't really classic dungeon-crawling, we don't even expect to find any monsters in the dungeon. Like, it's just some old ruins. Dangers are likely to be more environmental, and, sure, something can be improvised, but I'd prefer to just leave spear, shield and armor at the camp and go with a shortsword for self-defense instead. Medical supplies and stone-working tools would probably be more useful when exploring ruins.

I really like when such logistics downsides impact the game -- yeah, sure, polearms rule on the battlefield, but when you are not on a battlefield downsides kind of outweight downsides.

 

[Hussar]

You can sheathe the sword and free up both hands

It's going to dangle a bit annoyingly, but nothing major, but with a spear I see no other way than to climb up and have someone else pass you the spear afterwards, but only if the climb is short enough for that

You do realize you can have sheaths for spears right? Or straps on your back? How long do you think these spears are? Do you think a standard D&D spear is a pike? A spear is only about 5 feet long. It's not hard to carry and you certainly don't have to always carry one in your hand.

I mean, good grief, if the wizard can climb with a staff, I don't think the fighter isn't going to have too much of a struggle with a spear.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm reminded of a PF1e game where I played a character who used a Lucerne Hammer. We had entered a town, and the DM told us that we would have to peace tie our weapons. So when a combat broke out in town (imagine that!), as I started to move into battle, he said "wait, you have to use an action to untie your weapon.".

"Um, why? I'm carrying it around."

"You can't just carry around a weapon, it's against the town's laws!":

"This here is a polearm that's taller than I am. It's not like I can carry it in a sheathe!"

"...look either you use an action to ready it or you can't have it in town."

There wasn't much I could do about it at that point, lol. I mean sure, a sheathe for the hammer's spike? I can see that. Maybe some kind of padded dohickey to cushion the hammer itself? But either way, I'd still be carrying a 6' 6" pole around, right?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tell them it’s a walking stick?

Worked for Gandalf!

 

[loverdrive]

You do realize you can have sheaths for spears right? Or straps on your back? How long do you think these spears are? Do you think a standard D&D spear is a pike? A spear is only about 5 feet long. It's not hard to carry and you certainly don't have to always carry one in your hand.

I mean, good grief, if the wizard can climb with a staff, I don't think the fighter isn't going to have too much of a struggle with a spear.

There's a reason people didn't lug around spears most of the time. The one I own is 1.8m long, it's a big stick. Even on a sling, it's going to constantly snag on everything (and always threaten to poke someone nearby, not exactly fun) Do you want to walk (or sometimes even crawl) through confined spaces with a spear and a shield? Especially when there's no reason to expect any fighting (why would there be? -- it's just some old ruins, the worst thing that can happen is a bunch of vagrants hiding there, and diplomacy tends to work on those)

Can it all be hand-waived? Sure. But then spears/longer polearms either become utterly overpowered or have to be nerfed to make all other weapons viable, there's just no other way around it.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Verisimilitude if you care about sim, obstacles if you care about challenge, narrative circumstance to dramatically overcome if you care about storytelling.

It's win-win-win!

I have never seen a situation where running out of ammo did not result in annoyed player and an argument taking everyone out of the story. And it is hard not to take the player's side because while THEY may forget to track their arrows, the character they're playing would never do that and it directly ruins their whole fantasy by making their hero look incompetent as punishment for what, not wanting to do bookkeeping on your game time? This line of thinking leads to why D&D 3.5 felt more like doing taxes than playing.

Same benefit as any other restriction in a game: it adds to the game's challenge.

That a bishop in chess can only move on the diagonals is an intentionally annoying game mechanic that every chess player has to deal with. But would chess be a better game were that annoying restriction removed such that bishops could move anywhere? Not in the slightest.

Same goes for tracking ammo and other resources in D&D.

Chess and D&D are two very different game. So is D&D and Talisman, D&D and Unfanthomable, D&D and Stationfall, D&D and Monopoly or D&D and Magic: the Gathering. And adding a mechanic whose purpose is to directly make player's life more annoying and boring, without being a challenge to the character, as my friend put it, belongs in wargame, not an role-playing game

We are delving into a dungeon next session and I'm unsure if I'm going to take my spear and shield with me — yeah, combat effectiveness is great, but what the hell I'm supposed to do if I need to climb a wall?

Wasn't climbing a big deal for Spartans? Didn't they figure it out somehow?

 

[EthanSental]

Late to the game but I think many D&D players at some point think of adding “realism” to their game and come up with ideas like this. Our 2e game in the 90s had weapon and armor durability and pc sheets had tick marks for damage before they break based on whatever thing we were using back then to “add” to the game. Not something we carried over to 3e and beyond but if the table wants to try it, go for it as it might be fun or a while or a long while.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I have never seen a situation where running out of ammo did not result in annoyed player and an argument taking everyone out of the story. And it is hard not to take the player's side because while THEY may forget to track their arrows, the character they're playing would never do that and it directly ruins their whole fantasy by making their hero look incompetent as punishment for what, not wanting to do bookkeeping on your game time? This line of thinking leads to why D&D 3.5 felt more like doing taxes than playing

My observation was it was a chore without consequences. A standard D&D quiver holds 20 arrows. That’s enough to last at least 5 rounds, and a typical fight is over in 3. After that they can recover half and make more as they go about their usual business.

If a player wants to track ammo, and pipe up if they run out, that’s up to them. But I’m not going to police it.