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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9765702" data-attributes="member: 907">I don't know if that's "a thing fighter players like" or just a consequence of specialization being how a fighter makes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXZX_HAmbTU" target="_blank">number go up</a>. At low levels in 2e (and presumably 1e), weapon specialization basically doubles the fighter's damage output (I haven't done the math at higher levels, but presumably the advantage levels off somewhat simply because it's a bigger jump going from 1 to 1.5 attacks than from 1.5 to 2 or 2 to 2.5, and the numerical bonuses get less noticeable when you have good magic weapons and possibly magically roided Strength). Combat & Tactics added Mastery and Grand Mastery on top of that. 3e offered fighters a lot of customization, but that was mostly a breadth thing – fighters got a lot more feats than other classes, but the only feats that were exclusive were Weapon Specialization and, in 3.5e, Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization. PF1 continued the tradition and gave fighters a scaling attack/damage buff to a chosen category of weapons.4e stepped back somewhat from the weapon specialist idea for fighters. Instead, you had to choose between a +1 bonus to one- or to two-handed weapons. But what it did was to provide extra benefits with various powers to use particular weapons. For example, the 3rd level exploit Armor-Piercing Thrust gave a damage bonus equal to your Dex bonus if you used a light blade or a spear, and Dance of Steel would slow the target for a turn if you used a polearm or heavy blade. This is, I think, a more interesting way of handling fighters with different weapons. Of course, in 4e you were utterly dependent on having a weapon magiced out to the max, so it's not like you'd use different weapons in different situations.And finally 5e steps away entirely from fighters focusing on specific weapons, and instead offers fighting styles: great weapon, archery, duelist, and so on. I believe this was part of early 5e's "Back to basics" approach and removing (at least as a default) the ability to buy magic weapons. Instead you'd use whatever you found in The Dungeon with the biggest plus and coolest ability. I kind of like this, myself – as a DM it hurts inside when PCs find a cool magic weapon like a dwarven thrower and go "Nah, I'm specced into longsword so I don't care."</blockquote>

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