I've been thinking about the way some classes have greater or lesser range of options in terms of armor and weapons. That feature has been there in D&D since 1st edition, and back then it seemed to be a balancing force. Wizards got magic, so they had worse options in terms of weapons and armor, with fighters being the other way around. By 5th, fighters have a bunch of cool things they can do that seem to make up for the lack of spell-power, and can even get some limited spell-power. Pretty much every class has cool abilities, so I'm not really convinced that we need to have restrictions on weapons and armor at all. If we removed that restriction it does seem like a lot of weapons and armor might never be used, but I'm not sure that's all that bad an idea. Some entries on the table might get redundant, but really, that can be addressed by making some entries have only cosmetic differences, or reworking them to have some other mechanical differences.
I'm thinking of reworking those tables. Are there any other issues this might create that I am missing?
As I'm thinking about it, I feel like it would be a benefit to abstract weapons more. Part of the benefit of this would be that players can create their own fantasy weapons and armor, perhaps even ones unique to their character. The values matter less and less as you go up in level, so it makes more sense to make weapons and armor into an aspect of characterization. You would use the table below, with the option of adding a tag to a weapon if it needed additional rules.
The concept definitely sounds interesting, but.... this sounds like a pretty massive change to how a core system of the game works. Something like this would never happen during a given edition. It would be more likely to occur when 5e is outmoded for 6th, whenever that happens.
I fail to see a point. Upping the unarmed damage would make certain feats pointless and encrouches on Monk territory. Also, the ranged weapons are completely off. Being able to throw a dagger further than a bow can shoot an arrow just doesn't make sense. Not to mention hitting something a 100 feet away. Restricting Light armour that way also doesn't make much sense. The changed damage on melee weapons would throw off the balance of GWF and certain feats.
But in earlier editions the restrictions were hard ones. A wizard could not cast a spell in armor, ever. Now they can take a feat or a multi class dip and cast in armor freely. The lack of armor and weapons reflects the amount of time it takes to learn to cast spells, and vice versa for a fighter who spends time learning to fight while doing little else.
And let’s be real, fighters can do cool stuff, absolutely (fighter have always been my favorite class, actually) but nothing that comes close to a wish spell, (even at lower levels, sure a fighter can attack twice, action surge and do it again, while a wizard can clear an entire room with a well placed fireball) so there is still some balancing needed.
And abstracting the weapons seems cool, but as lostwhilefishing said, why? If someone wants to create a homebrew weapon, they can just do it without blowing up the existing system. And most people will just want a sword, axe, bow or crossbow, I’d think, maybe a polearm. So the existing system gives a quick reference for the common stuff, and as I said, if someone wants to get fancy, they can do so easily enough.
And just adding tags at will is very problematic, why would anyone use heavy weapons when super heavy exists? I’d just make my glaive a d12 so I get reach and damage with no down side. Goodbye great axes.
The obvious replacement for armor proficiencies is min strength for all armor, which has the useful side effect of discouraging using strength as a dump stat. A range I'd consider:
Ranged weapons make no sense, having an inverse relationship between damage and range is the inverse of how it does and should work. F=ma
No distinguishing between the types really takes away quite a few class/race advantages or balancing as well. Les reasons to sacrifice specialization for versatility. No reason for Mage Armor and several other spells.
The concept definitely sounds interesting, but.... this sounds like a pretty massive change to how a core system of the game works. Something like this would never happen during a given edition. It would be more likely to occur when 5e is outmoded for 6th, whenever that happens.
Well, I've done a lot of massive rewrites for professional purposes and for hobby purposes, so I don't much mind that. I'm working on a setting book with a team, and this may go into that or into an alternate players' handbook.
The idea behind categories like this was to create clear trade-offs. In terms of the ranged weapons, yeah, the result is too counter-intuitive. I'd need to find a different trade-off.
As to why do this, well, over the last couple of years I've seen a few game systems do something similar, and it works well with several other systems I'm looking to create. The race/class re-balance is to be expected.
I've been thinking about the way some classes have greater or lesser range of options in terms of armor and weapons. That feature has been there in D&D since 1st edition, and back then it seemed to be a balancing force. Wizards got magic, so they had worse options in terms of weapons and armor, with fighters being the other way around. By 5th, fighters have a bunch of cool things they can do that seem to make up for the lack of spell-power, and can even get some limited spell-power. Pretty much every class has cool abilities, so I'm not really convinced that we need to have restrictions on weapons and armor at all. If we removed that restriction it does seem like a lot of weapons and armor might never be used, but I'm not sure that's all that bad an idea. Some entries on the table might get redundant, but really, that can be addressed by making some entries have only cosmetic differences, or reworking them to have some other mechanical differences.
I'm thinking of reworking those tables. Are there any other issues this might create that I am missing?
As I'm thinking about it, I feel like it would be a benefit to abstract weapons more. Part of the benefit of this would be that players can create their own fantasy weapons and armor, perhaps even ones unique to their character. The values matter less and less as you go up in level, so it makes more sense to make weapons and armor into an aspect of characterization. You would use the table below, with the option of adding a tag to a weapon if it needed additional rules.
The concept definitely sounds interesting, but.... this sounds like a pretty massive change to how a core system of the game works. Something like this would never happen during a given edition. It would be more likely to occur when 5e is outmoded for 6th, whenever that happens.
I fail to see a point. Upping the unarmed damage would make certain feats pointless and encrouches on Monk territory. Also, the ranged weapons are completely off. Being able to throw a dagger further than a bow can shoot an arrow just doesn't make sense. Not to mention hitting something a 100 feet away. Restricting Light armour that way also doesn't make much sense. The changed damage on melee weapons would throw off the balance of GWF and certain feats.
But in earlier editions the restrictions were hard ones. A wizard could not cast a spell in armor, ever. Now they can take a feat or a multi class dip and cast in armor freely. The lack of armor and weapons reflects the amount of time it takes to learn to cast spells, and vice versa for a fighter who spends time learning to fight while doing little else.
And let’s be real, fighters can do cool stuff, absolutely (fighter have always been my favorite class, actually) but nothing that comes close to a wish spell, (even at lower levels, sure a fighter can attack twice, action surge and do it again, while a wizard can clear an entire room with a well placed fireball) so there is still some balancing needed.
And abstracting the weapons seems cool, but as lostwhilefishing said, why? If someone wants to create a homebrew weapon, they can just do it without blowing up the existing system. And most people will just want a sword, axe, bow or crossbow, I’d think, maybe a polearm. So the existing system gives a quick reference for the common stuff, and as I said, if someone wants to get fancy, they can do so easily enough.
And just adding tags at will is very problematic, why would anyone use heavy weapons when super heavy exists? I’d just make my glaive a d12 so I get reach and damage with no down side. Goodbye great axes.
The obvious replacement for armor proficiencies is min strength for all armor, which has the useful side effect of discouraging using strength as a dump stat. A range I'd consider:
Ranged weapons make no sense, having an inverse relationship between damage and range is the inverse of how it does and should work. F=ma
No distinguishing between the types really takes away quite a few class/race advantages or balancing as well. Les reasons to sacrifice specialization for versatility. No reason for Mage Armor and several other spells.
Well, I've done a lot of massive rewrites for professional purposes and for hobby purposes, so I don't much mind that. I'm working on a setting book with a team, and this may go into that or into an alternate players' handbook.
Ah, that was just an error. The unarmed damage was supposed to stay the same.
The idea behind categories like this was to create clear trade-offs. In terms of the ranged weapons, yeah, the result is too counter-intuitive. I'd need to find a different trade-off.
As to why do this, well, over the last couple of years I've seen a few game systems do something similar, and it works well with several other systems I'm looking to create. The race/class re-balance is to be expected.
If you want to really break it down then make everything point buy.
stats - point buy
armor - point buy
weapons - point buy
spells - point buy
skills - point buy
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