Is there any particular reason that elemental effects seem to be restricted to certain weapon types? Flame Tongue seems to be the equivalent to the Flaming effect in prior editions, but is now available to swords only, and someone who wants a burning battleaxe is out of luck. Does anything break mechanically if I open those effects up to other weapons?
Very likely thematic reasons. The only thing I can think of is that such enchantments are relatively more effective the smaller the damage dice of the weapon is...however I don't think re-skinning it will pose any problems.
The limitations of various magical weapons in 5th edition is to match the nostalgic way that things worked back in the days before 3rd edition (which took a completely different approach to magical items than anything which came before it).
Flametongue is limited to swords because back in the day it was a specific magic item, rather than a template of powers that any weapon could have.
So no, there isn't anything that actually breaks by dropping those limitations, except for adherence to legacy.
I like to take an approach that falls somewhere between the "back in the day" way of swords arbitrarily being the coolest, and the 3rd edition way of a list of parts to build your custom items from, in which there are a lot of finite sets of capabilities that you can pick one (and only one) of and put it on whatever sort of weapon, armor, whatever, that you want to.
I can think of two reasons why 5e did away with generic magic item properties. The first is that the designers want magic items to really feel special. The other is that 5e has two rules that are keyed off magic item names: Combining Game Effects and the attunement rules. The mix-and-match approach to creating magic items clashes with both.
There's no reason why a fiery battleaxe can't exist, but a unique item fits better into 5e's design than cloning an existing item. For example, it could deal less fire damage than a Flame Tongue, but once per day you can swing it to cast Burning Hands, or maybe throw it to cast Aganazzar's Scorcher. Ideally the DM would give it a bit of history that ties it to their world as well: it might've been used by an elemental evil cult, created by efreeti or given as a gift from a forge deity to their cleric.
That's fair, I suppose. I guess I'm just a little miffed that most of the cool enchantments seem to be swords only, while other weapons get a bit neglected, the Flame Tongue/Flaming example was just the first example that came to mind. Especially since I rarely make characters that use swords as their weapon of choice.
Though I suppose I can't complain too much, as I like 5E better than either of the previous editions in every other way.
You can see this all over the D&D materials. The adventures throw longswords after you all day long. Real annoying if you use something else. I randomize weapon type personally. Just reskin it, it's no problem.
There's absolutely a bias towards swords in D&D. There's also a couple axes and hammers, usually dwarf themed for obvious reasons, so that's at least cool. And there's a number of maces designed for clerics to use.
Only three polearms, one of which is basically Posidon's legendary trident, and one of which is meant for throwing; no glaives. Well, there's also magic staves, but I'm not counting those since those are generally for spellcasters. Heaven forbid we get more bows than just the Oathbow and basic +1/2/3. Or arrows of slaying. Anyone else find it odd that both the bow and arrows are basically variations of Favored Enemy? Daggers are kinda weird, but at least they get some love. You get a +1 poison dagger, a +1 acid dagger, and then a couple legendary daggers, with little between.
Heaven forbid you from having a PC that uses a whip. The closest thing to magic whips are Quaal's Feather Token, the Tentacle Rod (drow snake-whip) and the Rope of Entanglement, none of which actually using a whip yourself. There's also the Thorn Whip and Lightning Lure cantrips, along with the Element Monk's water whip, all spells. There's not even a magic equivalent for using a sling or a crossbow.
I guess the moral of the story? Stick to the cliches.
It helps to remember that when the Player's Handbook came out, the DMG wouldn't be out for another 4 months. That put some people off from jumping into 5e right away. It made a lot of sense for Wizards to prioritize magic items from previous editions; it'd let them get the DMG out faster and it makes conversions from previous editions easier, which is important for winning over older players. Page count is also a consideration. Despite the gaps you point out, the DMG still has a lot of them - 308 in total.
Also, I'd argue D&D's inspirations - western mythology and Tolkien's writing - are biased towards certain weapons too. I can't think of any famous glaives, whips, or crossbows (though I"m happy to be proven wrong.)
I can't think of any famous glaives, whips, or crossbows (though I"m happy to be proven wrong.)
For glaives, having an eastern inspiration would have put at least Amenonuhoko on the radar of the designers.
For whips, only a more-modern-than-D&D example comes to my mind; Vampire Killer from the lore of Castlevania.
Though a quick googling has provided me with information that suggests a lot of things could have been incorporated in D&D if the designers had a wider breadth of their own personal knowledge, or had chosen to do more research into various mythologies.
Well, as others said, the current selection of magic items from the DMG is based on the early editions, more nostalgia than on trying to do balanced between weapon types. And its not ilke we had a giant book of magic items post-DMG. All additional magic items have been tied to specific adventures, which informs what form they will take.
And, yeah, Ihave to agree with Inquisitive Coder at this point about the source material. Thanks to when those early editions came out, doing research on non-european weapons wasn'ta huge priority. Not like it was easy as looking up wikipedia, pre 3rd edition.
So, early weapon selections were heavily biased by western culture's facination with swords as THE weapon. And, given nostalgia edition, I don't expect a huge break through in magic items.
The silver lining is that the DMG has good guidelines for creating magic items, tables for adding history and quirks, and more than enough items to take inspiration from. There's really no need to feel limited to the options in the book. Plus, XGtE has more interesting crafting rules that require players to face enemies of a certain CR for rare materials.
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Is there any particular reason that elemental effects seem to be restricted to certain weapon types? Flame Tongue seems to be the equivalent to the Flaming effect in prior editions, but is now available to swords only, and someone who wants a burning battleaxe is out of luck. Does anything break mechanically if I open those effects up to other weapons?
Very likely thematic reasons. The only thing I can think of is that such enchantments are relatively more effective the smaller the damage dice of the weapon is...however I don't think re-skinning it will pose any problems.
DnDBeyond Tooltip Syntax
All right then, thanks very much!
The limitations of various magical weapons in 5th edition is to match the nostalgic way that things worked back in the days before 3rd edition (which took a completely different approach to magical items than anything which came before it).
Flametongue is limited to swords because back in the day it was a specific magic item, rather than a template of powers that any weapon could have.
So no, there isn't anything that actually breaks by dropping those limitations, except for adherence to legacy.
I like to take an approach that falls somewhere between the "back in the day" way of swords arbitrarily being the coolest, and the 3rd edition way of a list of parts to build your custom items from, in which there are a lot of finite sets of capabilities that you can pick one (and only one) of and put it on whatever sort of weapon, armor, whatever, that you want to.
Basically what Aaron of Barbaria said. These are just examples of very specific magic items from games past. Its nothing more than nostalgia.
I can think of two reasons why 5e did away with generic magic item properties. The first is that the designers want magic items to really feel special. The other is that 5e has two rules that are keyed off magic item names: Combining Game Effects and the attunement rules. The mix-and-match approach to creating magic items clashes with both.
There's no reason why a fiery battleaxe can't exist, but a unique item fits better into 5e's design than cloning an existing item. For example, it could deal less fire damage than a Flame Tongue, but once per day you can swing it to cast Burning Hands, or maybe throw it to cast Aganazzar's Scorcher. Ideally the DM would give it a bit of history that ties it to their world as well: it might've been used by an elemental evil cult, created by efreeti or given as a gift from a forge deity to their cleric.
That's fair, I suppose. I guess I'm just a little miffed that most of the cool enchantments seem to be swords only, while other weapons get a bit neglected, the Flame Tongue/Flaming example was just the first example that came to mind. Especially since I rarely make characters that use swords as their weapon of choice.
Though I suppose I can't complain too much, as I like 5E better than either of the previous editions in every other way.
You can see this all over the D&D materials. The adventures throw longswords after you all day long. Real annoying if you use something else. I randomize weapon type personally. Just reskin it, it's no problem.
DnDBeyond Tooltip Syntax
There's absolutely a bias towards swords in D&D. There's also a couple axes and hammers, usually dwarf themed for obvious reasons, so that's at least cool. And there's a number of maces designed for clerics to use.
Only three polearms, one of which is basically Posidon's legendary trident, and one of which is meant for throwing; no glaives. Well, there's also magic staves, but I'm not counting those since those are generally for spellcasters. Heaven forbid we get more bows than just the Oathbow and basic +1/2/3. Or arrows of slaying. Anyone else find it odd that both the bow and arrows are basically variations of Favored Enemy? Daggers are kinda weird, but at least they get some love. You get a +1 poison dagger, a +1 acid dagger, and then a couple legendary daggers, with little between.
Heaven forbid you from having a PC that uses a whip. The closest thing to magic whips are Quaal's Feather Token, the Tentacle Rod (drow snake-whip) and the Rope of Entanglement, none of which actually using a whip yourself. There's also the Thorn Whip and Lightning Lure cantrips, along with the Element Monk's water whip, all spells. There's not even a magic equivalent for using a sling or a crossbow.
I guess the moral of the story? Stick to the cliches.
It helps to remember that when the Player's Handbook came out, the DMG wouldn't be out for another 4 months. That put some people off from jumping into 5e right away. It made a lot of sense for Wizards to prioritize magic items from previous editions; it'd let them get the DMG out faster and it makes conversions from previous editions easier, which is important for winning over older players. Page count is also a consideration. Despite the gaps you point out, the DMG still has a lot of them - 308 in total.
Also, I'd argue D&D's inspirations - western mythology and Tolkien's writing - are biased towards certain weapons too. I can't think of any famous glaives, whips, or crossbows (though I"m happy to be proven wrong.)
Well, as others said, the current selection of magic items from the DMG is based on the early editions, more nostalgia than on trying to do balanced between weapon types. And its not ilke we had a giant book of magic items post-DMG. All additional magic items have been tied to specific adventures, which informs what form they will take.
And, yeah, Ihave to agree with Inquisitive Coder at this point about the source material. Thanks to when those early editions came out, doing research on non-european weapons wasn'ta huge priority. Not like it was easy as looking up wikipedia, pre 3rd edition.
So, early weapon selections were heavily biased by western culture's facination with swords as THE weapon. And, given nostalgia edition, I don't expect a huge break through in magic items.
The silver lining is that the DMG has good guidelines for creating magic items, tables for adding history and quirks, and more than enough items to take inspiration from. There's really no need to feel limited to the options in the book. Plus, XGtE has more interesting crafting rules that require players to face enemies of a certain CR for rare materials.