D&D 5E Weapons Table

[Cap'n Kobold]

Yup, which is where the majority of damage will come from anyway.

I might end up switching it up such that modifiers are determined per weapon.

Personally, I've just houseruled that bows have finesse: in that they can use either Str or Dex mods to hit and damage. I've not seen a major issue with ranged combat.

However CapnZapp has discussed balance issues with ranged combat at length in other threads. I think that he decided to remove ability modifier from ranged weapon damage rather than adjusting die size. (Also removing Sharpshooter and adjusting Crossbow Expert feat.)

Bows, shurikens, and daggers have always suffered in D&D because of the weight of the weapon.

As in too heavy to carry a lot of? Bows seem pretty well supported in D&D.

In the hands of any teenager, these weapons can do as much or more damage in less time as any heay weapon.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here.

Are you talking about the infamous "dart fighter" that abused the weapon specialisation rules to deal more damage than using a sword in AD&D?

Otherwise I'm pretty sure that you give someone a handful of shuriken and a two-handed sword, they will be able to deal more damage with the sword in general.

In later additions, the writing for weapons got lax, less weapons were covered with each update and less thought went into the actual damage and damage type, as damage types became less and less important. Back then, a weapon's damage type was compared to the armor worn by the target to produce damage modifiers.

I don't think that rather notorious table is something most people want back in base 5e. D&D combat is a bit too abstracted to worry about that level of granularity.

Likewise the 5e weapon table doesn't really cover much less actual weapons than previous: they are simply in wider categories. There is always homebrew like this thread details for those who want thirty different polearm variants with different stats. Baseline 5e just covers almost all of them with Halberd, Glaive, Pike and Spear. Its not "lax", it was a deliberate design decision.

 

[nswanson27]

Haven't read all the posts, but in case it hasn't been suggested already... how about weapons with more than one damage type (e.g. slashing or piercing)?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Haven't read all the posts, but in case it hasn't been suggested already... how about weapons with more than one damage type (e.g. slashing or piercing)?

I generally just allow the wielder of a weapon to deal any of the damage types that the design of the weapon would allow. So daggers and most swords can deal either Piercing or Slashing damage. A warhammer with the spike I mentioned earlier could choose between Bludgeoning and Piercing etc.
I might reduce the damage dice size if it seemed necessary, such as a pommel bash with a sword, or butt-stroke with a polearm.

 

[staticdrifter]

Haven't read all the posts, but in case it hasn't been suggested already... how about weapons with more than one damage type (e.g. slashing or piercing)?

An excellent idea. Actually, off the top of my head I can think of the estoc, a french heavy rapier, for lack of a better term, which has a round, pointed blade for thrusting, therefore piercing damage, however, very effective slashing as well can be done with the weapon's tip, and since it has a fairly thick blade, you can actually bludgeon with the thing.

We use them in our milieu with the stats of a rapier with the next higher damage die, and give it finesse as well as heavy.

A non-heavy for a small race would effectively be a poignard, which would take the same role as a dagger.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using EN World mobile app

 

[Ganymede81]

Because that's the opposite of making them more diverse.

Weapons are already thematically diverse. There is a huge thematic difference between brandishing a rapier, a battleaxe, and a scythe.

How does making their rules more fiddly make them more diverse?

 

[Yunru]

Weapons are already thematically diverse. There is a huge thematic difference between brandishing a rapier, a battleaxe, and a scythe.

How does making their rules more fiddly make them more diverse?

To use that logic, why not just have "attack" and "spell"?
Why have nine levels of spells, multiple weapons, etc?

 

[Ganymede81]

I think you might have responded to the wrong person by accident.

 

[Yunru]

Nope. You asked how making them more fiddly would make them more diverse.
I proposed we look at the opposite: that making them less fiddly would make them more diverse, but it doesn't.

Making them "more fiddly" makes them more diverse, because they're mechanically diverse. Not only do two weapons look different, they play different.