Weapons table issues

[JoeCrow]

Finesse and Heavy should be weapon properties, not weapon types. Divide weapons into Simple (stuff anybody with functioning hands can use, clubs, scythes, daggers, maces, spears, crossbows, and whatnot) and Martial (Stuff you've gotta have military training to use, swords, axes, bows, pikes and whatnot), and then list finesse or heavy under properties.

Otherwise you end up with halflings wielding greatclubs.

In other news, my pet D&D weapon peeve of all time remains in the new system: MASSIVE SPEAR MISUNDERSTANDING. The only folks who used spears with two hands were martial artist showoffs and folks too poor to buy shields. Any spear longer than 8 feet is a pike, a polearm used in formation, never one-to-one (because if you're not in a line of pikemen behind a line of shieldmen, some quick-footed jerk is gonna dodge around your 15 ft long pike and gut you with a butcher knife). The spear is the most universal weapon of war humans have created. It's lethal, simple to use, simple to make, simple to care for, and in combination with a shield ruled the battlefield for millenia.

Your basic spear should do 1d8, one handed. Anything smaller than that is a javelin doing 1d6, anything larger than that is a pike, doing 1d12 AT RANGE ONLY. Ain't nobody in the world going hand-to-hand with a pike. If you've got a pike and the other dude's got a club and you haven't stabbed him when he's more than 10 feet away, you drop your pike and you run, or you die.

(huff huff huff)

Ok, I'm cool, I'm cool. Just hadda get that outta my system.

So, yeah, I'm working on a revision of the weapon table, much like the one I posted in that armor thread that just dropped off the front page. I'll post it here when I'm done for y'all to tear into.

 

[Plane Sailing]

because if you're not in a line of pikemen behind a line of shieldmen, some quick-footed jerk is gonna dodge around your 15 ft long pike and gut you with a butcher knife)

behind some shieldmen?

IIRC pikes fought in blocks - and even a little block of 16 men in a 4x4 formation gave 16 pointy bits between them and an attacker. No quick footed jerk is going to dodge those to get in to you.

Completely with you about pikes not being single combat weapons though!

Personally I think that spears should be 1d8 damage and can automatically be set against charge (as a free action), in other words - don't charge someone with a spear... it is a really, really bad idea.

Cheers

 

[Kobold Stew]

Spears and Daggers seem to be consistently under-rated in rpgs, in my opinion, and I sympathize with what you say.

Maybe the solution, given the historical perspective you suggest, is to make spears a particularly Human weapon, and give them a larger die (d8), since we are clearly racially included to its optimal used.

(only slightly joking; no offence to any nonhumans intended).

 

[LostSoul]

Well, a dagger across the throat to the face is probably going to do more damage than a spear butt to the foot. So the dagger should do more damage. Or the same, since they can both kill with a single hit. And didn't I just describe slashing damage for the dagger and bludgeoning damage for the spear? Shouldn't you be able to cut someone's throat with a dagger or hit someone with the butt of your spear? And -

- wait, I just realised: this stuff doesn't make any sense.

 

[Grydan]

My little pet peeve with the weapons table at the moment is rapiers.

Compare the rapier to the short sword. They have the same damage die, same damage type, same weapon category. In fact, there are only two differences between the weapons at all: rapiers are 1 lb lighter, and cost 2.5 times as much.

Barring odd corner cases where your character needs to watch every last pound they carry, there's no reason to ever choose a rapier over a short sword except flavour.

Still, this is an improvement over the odd situation in the first playtest package. There, while costing half as much as the rapier and doing the exact same damage, the short sword was classed as Light, while the 1 lb lighter rapier was not.

---

Edited to add: More issues of a similar sort

Clubs cost 1 sp, but don't do any more damage than a one-handed improvised object... or an unarmed strike. Unless only the club gets your class Weapon Attack Bonus, there's no reason to use a club or a one-handed improvised weapon, ever.

Tridents cost 5 times as much as spears, while being otherwise completely identical.

 

[underfoot007ct]

In other news, my pet D&D weapon peeve of all time remains in the new system: MASSIVE SPEAR MISUNDERSTANDING. The only folks who used spears with two hands were martial artist showoffs and folks too poor to buy shields. Any spear longer than 8 feet is a pike, a polearm used in formation, never one-to-one (because if you're not in a line of pikemen behind a line of shieldmen, some quick-footed jerk is gonna dodge around your 15 ft long pike and gut you with a butcher knife).

What are your sources regarding spear combat? This YouTube vidio seems to go against your ideas. I'd like to see some info (links) to spear fighting, before I accept your ideas.


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544sCoHnhWI"]Medieval Spear - YouTube[/ame]

 

[triqui]

MASSIVE SPEAR MISUNDERSTANDING. The only folks who used spears with two hands were martial artist showoffs and folks too poor to buy shields.

Ashigaru used spears and no shield. So did several europeans.

 

[JoeCrow]

I think those dudes, like most of the folks in the fechtbuchs, qualify as martial artist showoffs for the purposes of my hyperbolic ranting.

As for my sources, I offer the entire human history of organized armed combat until about the 16th century. Sumerian phalanxes? Spear and shield. Greek hoplites? Spear and shield. Roman legions? Spear and shield. Feudal infantry? Spear and shield. Zulu impis? Spear and shield.

Yes, the spear CAN be used with two hands. So can the longsword. So can the battleaxe. I think the spear belongs in that class of basic warrior weaponry, with the rest of the 1d8 crowd.

 

[slobo777]

I think most martially-focused adventurers in D&D are going to qualify as the "show-offs" in the OP terminology.

However, I would like to see more depth to the weapons, and more mechanical differences for those of us that care (I include myself in the general sense). Where there is thematic accuracy to be had within easy reach of simple rules, I'm all for a it.

That could include some nods to how weapons were used historically in warfare and formation combat (but I don't count myself here).

 

[rjfTrebor]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOc9C-aPr4]A point about spears - YouTube[/ame]