Hey I love your videos but talking about weapons man..... For an example triping someone with a flail .......If you know how flails have to be designed as to not completely of eviscerate your hand, then triping some one with a flail becomes unreasonably stupid. Essentially you want a flail to have a shorter chain then the hilt, the ball itself is pretty heavy, and you would have to bend over to even get a chance of knocking your opponent prone as you expose your head to the headsmen.
Also what you said about the katana very accurate. But If any change should be made to the longsword it should be finesse (maybe given slightly more dice) and a katana version would just have a feature were the minimum you can roll for damage is 2 (curved blades have a forgiving cut)
A Repeating Crossbow usually doesnt have many slots. So you would still have to reload and it might only have 3 bolts in succession. Also Katanas are not more finesse they just cut better.
I like how in D&D, weapons that harm in different way (cutting flesh and opening arteries versus piercing organs versus crushing bones) are *_"mechanically the same"._* The game might be a mess, but at least Fragged Empires has talents that has weapon types matter. Translated to DnD, Slashing weapons could cause bleeding effects, cut off body parts... Piercing weapons could ignore part of natural / actual armor bonus to AC as well as overpenetrate and jam into an obstacle, while bludgeoning weapons reduce armor / gives extra penalties to armor and give penalties to attack or movement as it causes fractures and such. And you don't even need to change the weapon, just make it a feat. "Str or Dex +1: If an attack made with a slashing weapon beats the opponent's Armor Class by 5 or more, it gains a bleeding effect equal to your Strength or Dexterity Bonus, whichever was used to make the attack."
I disagree with the people's views of the humble dart! The entire point (get it) of the dart is to be cheap! You can buy 20 darts for the price of 1 measly little dagger! I can arm a mob with darts, I can only arm steve with a dagger.
But in that respect, you can buy a bunch of slings too, and then that mob will have also (basically, as long as rocks are nearby) *unlimited* *anmo* But I just checked and a sling is 1sp, but a dart is *5CP!* that means (calculator time) with the 2GP you need for a dagger, you can get 20 slings oooooorrrrr 40 darts. I thought that might work out in your favor but still, arming a mob of 20 people with 2 darts each or 40 people with one, or a mob of 20 people with unlimited ammo, as long as they don't get killed in 2 turns(which they might) I think the sling is still better. Also I feel like slings are more reusable(you don't have to go and pick them up after you throw them) and feel more aesthetically sound for a peasant rebellion because people probably have those already. HOWEVER, I understand your point and darts are (kinda) cool in that respect. Thank you for your imput :)
I think a lot of people stick with whatever weapons they get at character creation or find along the way from looting monsters/dungeons rather than buying weapons, but that should have been a survey question! haha
@@BobWorldBuilder Nah, I always want to buy weapons I don't start with. I prefer to have a bludgeoning, slashing, and piecing weapon for every character, with a ranged option as well. My typical fighter would be armor and shield, warhammer, longsword or scimitar, and a dagger. Long or short bow as height allows. What's really sad is that there are no finesse bludgeoning weapons unless you are a monk.
It needs the light property added at least. Outside of that all the things I can think of are a bit much (such as ability to throw two darts per attack but utilises bonus action).
Darts are already unique, people just don't know about it. Darts are ranged weapons, meaning they can be affected by Sharpshooter and Archery, while also being a thrown weapon, which means they can be affected by the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style. It also has finesse, which means it can be used with Strength instead of Dexterity. A bunch of unique interactions. Darts are clearly underrated
Darts are also significantly cheaper and lighter than daggers. At just 5 copper each, a level 1 character can throw darts and not be too upset if they can't retrieve them, whereas the 2 gold pieces per dagger is really going to hurt your coin purse if you have to keep replacing them. A stack of 10 darts only weighs 2.5 lbs. A stack of 10 daggers weighs 10 lbs. If your campaign is using variant encumbrance or you have a very low STR, those extra pounds can matter.
The thing I dislike the most about darts is the aesthetic, I know it was a thing in medieval times, but it feels super bland and out of place in a fantasy setting for me.
i have come to the conclusion that Dex characters should have a small pouch with Darts to be properly prepared. thrown weapons are a good short distance weapon. Darts are the Dex characters Javelins
Daggers could have a bonus when used in a grapple or against a grappled target. Like reducing the target's AC or criting on 19. Because they were used to bypass armour usually by wrestling the armoured person and working the dagger into a gap.
The reason to reduce AC instead of giving advantage is if 2 players grapple each other and both use daggers. Giving advantage boosts the player with the higher AC much more. I would like the relative boost to favour the player with the lower AC. The actual boost is flat.
There's zero reason to use different stats for a katana, the longsword stats make perfect sense. I agree that a katana could be a finesse weapon, but the longsword historically would be equally valid as a finesse weapon.
You are absolutely right, at least in terms of realistic justification. Katana does have different archetypal ideas surrounding it, though, which may give some justification for giving it different mechanics. Due to that cultural association with finesse and such, people will want it to behave differently because it's different in their heads. D&D is, at some level, a vehicle for people to create and play characters, and playing into those archetypes is a part of that, and a good system should be able to accommodate that.
@@erberor8007 Well in reality all swords used in one hand does the same amount of damage and has more or less the same amount of weight. It's more down to fighting style and skill of the fencer how deadly the sword is.
Technically there was a difference in the ability to deal with armor, with a European long sword being designed to get into gaps, and the katana having a more optimal slashing blade making it more devastating against lightly armored foes...but this kind differentiation isn't really represented anywhere with weapons (hell we don't even have touch AC anymore) so I don't really see it being a good addition.
@@khw1425 This is true depending on the type of longsword, but I'd argue it's important to remember there were hundreds of variations on the blade profile of longswords over the years vs katanas which were much more uniform, so some longswords were better for gaps in armor and thrusting, whereas other longswords (Alexandria type for example) would've been even better cutters than a typical katana but at the expense of piercing
There’s a simple fix for the lance: instead of being a one-handed weapon that needs two hands when not mounted, make it a two-handed weapon that only needs one hand while mounted. Aside from the existing rule being oddly written, this changes what feats apply. You lose dual-wielding but gain both greatweapon master, which gives a power attack option (for devastating charges) and a cleave effect (for plowing through crowds)
@@THEGRUMPTRUCK if a player wanted to do that then I would be having them rolling animal handling checks every turn seeing as they haven't saved a hand free for the reins; this also makes the cavalier fighter have an actual purpose. I would allow strapped shields but characters that had specifically described thier shields as centre grip (bos grip) would not be able to wield them and rein thier mount as well.
The lance needs to go down to pike damage dice while not mounted. Actually a cavalry lance (not jousting lance which was never used in battle) and pike on the shorter end (this would be the one based on the reach in DnD) are comparable in length and weight. The fact that one is heavy and the other isn't and that one has disadvantage within 5ft range is kind of strange. I say make the weapons the same statline (including the disadvantage rule) and add a special rule for each where a Pike can be used to target enemies when an ally is between you and a lance can be couched which allows it to be used one handed and raises the damage to the d12.
It makes sense that the whip does less damage. Honestly, according the the "rules" behind the scenes, a rapier does more damage than it should, but the rest are pretty on par Iirc, martial weapons start with a d8, and simple a d6. If it has heavy or 2 handed, add a die size (2 for both). If it has finesse or reach, subtract one (2 for both) So a whip is martial (d8) reach (d6) finesse (d4) A glaive or Halberd is martial (d8) heavy (d10) reach (d8) two handed (d10)
This is a perfect example of knowing the rules so you can bend them appropriately. In this case, the rule turned the whip into a weapon that nobody likes, so the rule should be bent
@@BobWorldBuilder I think a better option (which you're doing) is to add something mechanically unique about each weapon (like PF2E) rather than an increase in damage.
The issue with adding unique stuff is that it makes 5e more complicated. Also, you are adding rolls and slowing down combat I think the rapier bonus is about technique and the creators assumed that people without proficiency won't use. It is basically the only weapon where I see it being justified to lower the damage if not proficient. Yes there is already the not adding proficiency to attack roll but most people just using a rapier probably won't do it correctly
@@peleg6748 that's fair. I agree, it adds complexity. I would probably include the unique traits as an optional rule similar to feats and multiclassing: something (generally) not to use your first time, but once you get the hang of things, a welcome bonus
@@peleg6748 as for rapier doing less damage if not proficient.... I'm not sure. If you want to be mostly accurate, I would probably say someone trained has a higher crit chance over any other difference. They can better aim for a vital spot, and have finer control, but if you get run through, that's the same damage regardless. Rapiers are also heavier than people realize. Sure, they weigh less than a longsword, but not half as much, and you have half as many hands using it. And you're holding it at extension. It's much more tiring (from experience) Also keep in mind, a single Rapier strike is normally enough to kill a person. A commoner has 4 hp. A Rapier does an average of 4.5 damage (excluding crits and str/dex mod). I would argue even someone untrained could kill in a single Rapier thrust if medical help isn't quick. Puncture wounds suck.
The maul is statistically the best weapon in DND, as it does the same damage as the great sword, is cheaper, and with bludgeoning being the best physical damage type. It's shocking how low it is in this list.
The Halbert/Glaive is still the best melee. PAM is the best melee martial feat and Halberds/Glaives can use GWM. If a melee martial wields any other weapon then they are not playing optimally. Two 5 lvl Fighters bot Vuman (one took GWM at lvl 1 and at lvl 4 increased str to 18 and the other took PAM lvl1 and took GWM at lvl 4) assuming an enemy AC of 15. The one with the Halbered does 0,35×(18,5+18,5+15,5 +0,05×5,5+0,05×5,5+0,05×2,5)+0,05×2×0,35×(3,5+0,05×3)=18,739 DPR and the Fighter with 18 STR, GWM and a Maul does 0,4×(21+21+0,05×7+0,05×7)+0,05×0,4×2×(21+ 0,05×7 )=17,934 DPR. At level 6 that Fighter can increase his STR to 20 but from there on out he either has to pick PAM and has lost DPR all of the levels until picking it or he takes feats like Alert or lucky or Sentinel while the fighter with PAM increases his damage much more with each of the 2 ASI he puts into STR than the fighter without PAM while also having 10 ft reach and being able to make AOO against enemies entering his reach.
I think that the Pike should be able to reach 15’ because these things are effing massive. They clock in at a 18’ length minimum. Make them cool. I would like to do some stuff myself on some of these weapons. Love your work.
Maybe 15ft reach but disadvantage on attacks against a target within 5ft. Historically the way to take a pike square apart was from range or get past the points and right in their faces so I think that works thematically
@@OnlyHereForCake This makes good sense, using a pike to strike someone at arms' length is very tricky, albeit _technically_ possible. And yes, 10' reach when the idea was to leverage lines three rows or deeper is just a bit silly. Def needs to be longer.
I sometimes play DnD with my historical reenactment group (focused on late 14th/early 15th century Bohemia) for some lighthearted teambuilding outside of gym or stage and some of these weapons needed a serious homebrew so my players would stop laughing at their descriptions alone. 10 feet pikes are one of the main running joke mostly once we try to pack our van with equipment when we travel to some castle to reenact there. Everyone would love 10 feet pikes at that moment and there's always someone to remind us. 😀 PS: We usually have to use 5m (15feet) hafts and install those steel tips only once unloaded.
The size of pikes is pretty varied with the shortest of them being around and I have just assumed that DnD is just using the shorter variation because outside of formation fighting a long pike is pretty much useless. What I find funny is that a short pike being 10ft and a cavalry lance being around 9ft and having similar weight distribution (both have small spearheads/points and tapering shafts) and similar weight)) have such different stats. I personally have pikes near unusable by individual fighters but then again I have a bunch of homebrew formation rules (shield wall, volley fire, pike line etc) that make mobs far more dangerous and the pike actually make sense.
My favorite dagger feature is one I call "extra light." It allows you to use the dagger for a 2 weapon fighting bonus action even if the weapon you used for your first attack wasn't light.
either that, or, in case of a parrying dagger, a +1 to AC. Because in my experience, a parrying dagger is very similar to a buckler in practice, but trading some defense for a better offhand offense.
Just my take on certain weapons in the list: 36 ) Whip ~ Having been in the BDSM community, I can attest that the */damage/* for the whip is appropriate, but there are other aspects which are commonly overlooked. Foremost among these is the ability to inflict pain (rather than damage), which would make it seriously effective against spellcasters trying to maintain concentration on a spell. It would also be highly effective in 'subdual damage' (perhaps adding a 1d6 of such to the usual damage roll) against opponents who are unarmored or lightly armored. And let's not forget just how many cool tricks Indiana Jones taught us in utilizing the insane versatility of whips. 35 ) Flail ~ The 'classic' fantasy flail (a spiked ball on a length of chain) never actually existed - actual flails were more like a nunchuku on steroids; a club attached to the end of a short staff, originally used as a farming tool for threshing grains. The fantasy flail and the classic mobster length of chain are more closely related to the manriki-gusari, which was a length of lighter chain (lengths varied, but typically around 5') with heavier weights on the ends. Though it could be used as a bludgeoning weapon (with reach, in 5e parlance) it's primary purpose is to restrain an opponent's more traditional weapon (variation of grappling) and/or attempt to disarm them. 33 ) Trident ~ I would argue that a trident is better treated as multiple daggers (though lacking Finesse) - 2d4 base damage, 3d4 damage as 2-handed melee. The construction makes it wholly impractical for 'catching' an opponent's weapon, though I could see it having an inherent +1 attack bonus (increasing to +2 vs Small opponents and +3 vs Tiny ones). 24 ) Scimitar ~ No, it is *NOT* mechanically identical to the Short Sword: the Scimitar (or Cutlass) is a slashing weapon while the Short Sword is a piercing weapon. Remember that each damage type has its own separate Resistance (some creatures like Skeletons are/should be harder to damage with Piercing weapons, though this confers no benefits against Slashing weapons - by some metrics, Skeletons should be more susceptible to Bludgeoning damage) and quite a number of Feats specifically apply bonuses to weapons of certain damage types. On a related note, there is one specific category of weapon which is wholly absent from D&D 5e... There are Strength-based weapons and Dexterity-based (Finesse) weapons of every damage type (slashing/piercing/bludgeoning) and general power (d4, d6, d8) */EXCEPT/* for a d8 Slashing Finesse weapon - this is where Falchions, Sabers, Katanas, and the like stand apart from both the Rapier (d8 Piercing Finesse) and Longsword (d8 Slashing Strength). (There */technically/* isn't a d8 Bludgeoning Finesse weapon either, though I would argue that the humble Flail is ideally suited for this role. It weighs less than the Scimitar [3lb, Finesse, Light] and the chain portion most certainly makes dexterous control the dominant aspect for effective use.)
The sickle shouldn't be removed as it is a great "found weapon" along with hand axes and clubs etc. If you want a violent mob of villagers then it is also a good weapon pick. It is also forms the basis of more complex weapons like the Kusaragima (sickle and weighted chain).
I love to disarm my characters and make them do fights in disadvantaged situations like the only weapons to use are what you can improvise in a room or house, so mainly clubs and such, kitchen knives, thrown items
I find giving NPC's rubbish weapons really beneficial when the party are at level 1-3. If all weapons were decent it would make the job of the DM harder
I think this is a really good point with a lot of the sub-par weapons...they aren't there for established adventurers who can get exactly what they want...they're there for peasants and weaker monsters, and they are there for the players if they get captured and have their stuff taken, or if they fight a rust monster or otherwise get stripped of their weapons.
I would reason that the club got ranked higher than the light hammer because this ranking is not about power level, it's just about if we would change it and i think it's plausible that a lot of people think the club is perfectly fine as it is, being basically the most simple weapon there is (viable or not), and same thing with the handaxe
@@darkfatherg Use a staff. Per the DMG, magical staffs are also weapon staves. So it's an easy jump to the spell focus staff is also a weapon. Then your spell focus works for Shillelagh.
So, for the Longsword-Katana matter, Katanas are actually heavier in the hand (similar actual weight) than their longsword counterparts. They tend to be slightly shorter in comparison with a further forward center of balance, leading to that feeling. So, hear me out, longsword gets the finesse property, katana does not. Especially since the dexterous elfs get proficiency with longswords as a trait. The way these weapons are used in real life reflects this as well. For erveryone wanting that ninja vibe, the swords that most people think of are actually shorter. Similar in length to an arming sword, which dnd doesn't have. Just just make them both 1d8, with slashing damage. You could easily justify it as either of these being finesse. Perhaps even light for that sick dual wielding aesthetic. These two can be marshal weapons and I would simply make the shorts word a simple weapon. I would also consider throwing the scimitar into the arming sword category.
@@HeedlessDullahan lol. i think the biggest problem with the short sword is that people either think of the Renaissance era weapon, or a sword that is shorter, like the Greeks used. Which are drastically different, but both are "short swords". Lol
@@benjaminholcomb9478 I assumed you were talking about another sword because the small sword was used right on up to the US Civil war by people who wanted to die faster on the battlefield.
The maul is at 21? The maul is, as we speak, the strongest weapon in the game. Yes it has 2d6 like the greatsword, but it's objectively better. There are creatures that specifically resist slashing damage, but this doesn't exist for bludgeoning. On top of that, the crusher feat is also better then the slasher, though that is a bit more subjective.
@@telenikros I think that it just shows that people by large don't know anything about the dnd weapons. People know the greatsword. Then they find out about the maul and think "this is like a greatsword, it's unnecessary in this game because there is already a greatsword". The popularity of some weapons is keeping some other viable weapons low. Think of the battleaxe, which is identical to the longsword if you want any additional examples. People want to change the blow gun to do more damage because they don't realise it's the half baked sometimes unclear poison rules that make it less effective. It's telling how one of the most requested weapons is the katana, and some other widely requested are short sword varieties. In my opinion spear, pike and whip could all be fixed simultaneously, by introducing 15ft range as an option. If you give pikes reach 15ft (because sarissa pikes could become 18ft+), it won't feel weird if spears have reach, since pikes are longer spears. Letting whips have 15ft range is unique enough in terms of versatility that it can deal with the low damage.
The whip : If you attack a creature with 4 or less Intelligence (animals, mostly) the creature is disoriented and get disadvantage against you for the next round.
75% of this video was like “I don’t understand why people rated this weapon so strange” and I could only agree. A big factor is that many people forgot about many of the weapons. Additionally, the mechanically similar weapons are often ranked close to each other, if one were to be removed the other might be bumped up. However, with different people voting, that would never be the outcome.
Really surprised with the dart hate. It's a unique weapon in that it's the only ranged weapon with the thrown property, this allows it to make use of the Archery and Thrown Weapon fighting styles on top of Sharpshooter, as well as the Battle master's Quick Toss maneuver. A straight up underutilized weapon in my opinion
Ye I love darts but to be fair most people probably only see the damage die and range and immediately write them off. You really have to know the system and what works to make darts good where as almost anyone can look at the 2d6 a greatsword does and immediately understand why it's good
For the whip, i actually vote for a small rules change. Include the optional disarming action from the dmg, but change it to only be usable by melee attacks instead of weapon attacks. Then give the whip the feature to be able to grab objects and bring them to you within its reach so long as you are proficient.
@@BobWorldBuilder I think the whip's damage should also be nerfed in some way, or at least be only nonlethal, because I don't think you should be able to instakill some poor wizard/sorceror with one whiplash.
@@renanbauer Yeah I don't deny it can be lethal, but as someone who has used a whip before, I can't imagine killing an adult human being in one whiplash, which as it stands can do up to 8 damage with a level 1 character which is more than enough to instakill a wizard and even a relatively weak cleric who's probably wearing at least metal armor, which is just insane to me, to think that a whip could just completely bypass metal scales.
Congratulations to you and Grace on getting married. My daughter and I enjoy watching your videos. She is very pleased by this turn of events. On a weapons note, my wife likes to poi. We invented a rope dart mechanic to incorporate her love of poi into the game. It has range 5 or 10 and an opportunity to do damage as someone enters the spot next to her or completely keep them back. Rolls 18+ start these mechanics and she had to trade a magic potion to be taught these techniques at level 2 by a master. I like the thought of adding your tripping idea into it as well. The damage is currently 1d4 as a rogue but I plan on upping it once she "finds" a better blade to attach or uses it and gets "better".
Imo, I think the biggest failings of the Maul, Warhammer, etc (less loved versions of the short/long/great swords, with different damage types) is that they just don't have the magical weapon options. Swords just get so much more love. For example, on DDB the maul has 10 magic variants, including +1, +2 etc, only one of which is named and specific to the maul. The battleaxe does better with 16, 4 of which are specific to Battleaxes. The greatsword has 37, 7 of which are named. Most of that difference are the variants of magic items that specifically say "Weapon (any sword), [rarity]" I'd so much rather that they'd move towards having classes of weapons like they do for armor. There'd be a featherweight/light/medium/heavy ammunition (d4-d10's) weapons, and featherweight/light/versatile/heavy melee (d4-d12's). Slap on a trait like thrown, thrown-only, finesse, stealth, reach, tripping, silvered, Gun (which ups damage, but adds misfire and ammo cost) etc. to build your common weapon. And let the boons of magic weapons apply to all the relevant weapons. It would mean 4 ranged piercing weapons and 12 melee weapons to cover all the flavors that WotC can't possibly do with the current system. It'd be nice to have a structure to make the weapons we want instead of needing to homebrew things like a moon-touched maul, a katana being a slashing rapier, and adding features to make forgettable weapons usable.
You can add your ability score to the dagger's damage when two weapon fighting, or you can always use two weapon fighting by default when using two daggers Your fast and accurate when using two daggers
@@nerfherder5211 duel welding dagger's gives an extra 1d4 for each 1d6 of the sneak attack? Maybe a little strong. What about and additional (1d4 x your proficiency bonus) each time you use a sneak attack? Problem I see is that it only helps 1 class I'm not much of a fan of bleed mechanics. Logically, every weapon makes you bleed. The only exception would be if you take disadvantage on an attack to target a specific point - throat, underarm, inside of thigh, etc. But that ends up as just a regular weapon mechanic, not really special to daggers Also, not sure what you mean by execute move. Something like a maneuver, or an execution?
1 ) A REAL sling should definitely do more damage - they were used by shepherds to drive away LIONS. In addition, they could be used to do things like throw vials of acid or Alchemist's Fire, or other magical items normally thrown, and yes, like you said, have the Concealable property - a true sling was just a 4 foot section of leather. 2 ) The Pike should DEFINITELY be in the game - Rennaissance tactics were built ENTIRELY around it. And it should have Extra Reach AND the ability to set against a charge. This is one of the most important weapons of military history from the 1400s to the 1700s. One of the most legendary mercenary units were the Swiss Pikemen for crying out loud. 3 ) Repeating crossbows are a real weapon in history - but they were quite weak in comparison to similar sized "regular" crossbows. HOWEVER, there is no reason mechanics wise to include it - except as a reskin of a Shortbow. 4 ) Many weapons could be described explicitly as reskins of other weapons. Weapon damage type is enough reason to keep the scimitar as that makes it different from the shortsword, but you could then declare the grossmesser, falchion, and such as reskins of the saber. The Shortsword could have reskins of the Court Sword and Chinese "Willow Leaf" saber (a la Green Destiny in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"). 5 ) There is still room for an Arming Sword for aesthetics. Specifically, a weapon that is otherwise identical to the Longsword, but without the Versatile property - this would represent the classic Viking sword, the swords of the Norman Conquest, and so on. Honestly, the main reason for it.. is aesthetics.
They could have removed the scimitar and just had the Shortsword and you select whatever shape you want it to have though. Scimitar, cutlass, medium to short katana, whatever. Flavor is free and superior to multiple dupes imo. Or it could have received some sort of slashing bonus. Somehow.
So I have some notes about the Longbow. The English Longbow which is what most people think of was often over six feet long. That is *wildly* impractical for adventuring life - which makes sense! The longbow was a military weapon. In my games, with archers, I give them the option of a "horsebow" aka, a recurve composite bow. These can achieve the same or better ranges, accuracy, and penetration power that english longbows can achieve, but are often much smaller, and able to be used while mounted (hence "horsebow"). They achieve the same or better properties by putting in curves, and compositing materials to create different tensions. (IE, bone and wood. Bone is stiffer than wood, while wood lets the bow bend without breaking.) Recurve composite bows have been used everywhere, especially in places lower in wood growth, like the Mongolian Steppe, and enable certain societal structures, such as nomadic movement.
Yeah, I think that price is certain games is very important. I play in a game right now where money is NOT easy to get. We are level 8 and our party collectively has less than 500 gold. We do have some magic items that we found that bring our total up, but magic items are also extremely rare so selling those is not worth it because you likely won't find anything in towns worth trading them in for. I genuinely like how money is beyond hard to get in this world. My dm doesn't do a great job managing the cost of everyday things vs what we make. But the concept is kinda fire.
dart has the niche of being the only ranged weapon that can benefit from Sharpshooter feat while using your strength, so it's good for a thrown weapon build in heavy armor and a shield
@@kid14346 Slings for darts are little different to slings for stones. One of the thongs is twice as long as the other, to loop around the head of the dart, but I suppose you could say that if you had a dart sling you could spend an action coiling half the longer thong up and tying it tight, making the sling ready for use with a stone. A dart sling could also be tied to the end of a short staff to make a staff sling for casting stones (not darts!), where again one thong has to be at least twice as long as the other.
You mentioned wanting a sword with the ability to trip opponents, so I'm surprised you didn't put it in this list. The historically accurate Chinese Hook Sword has been a weapon available in D&D since long before 5e. The weapons are the one thing that basically don't change between editions so it should be fair game. -A Whip is less of a weapon than a multipurpose utility item. Indiana Jonesing your way over chasms and pits never gets old. -"A sickle is just a dagger you can't throw" You can throw any weapon in D&D. Sometimes even NPCs too. Sometimes you can wield an NPC as a weapon while already in flight towards your enemy. If anything a sickle as a weapon is designed to cut off your opponents weapon hand at the wrist when they attack you. -A blowgun has only one purpose. It's not a weapon, it's a delivery system for poison. -A sling is by far the worst weapon on this list. It's just stats slapped on throwing a pebble. If slings used ammunition that could do actual damage I'd consider them more than an annoyance. -Trying to claim the dagger needs to be taken out of D&D is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard concerning this game. It's basically the only actual weapon all spellcasters can use. Unless you count a staff, which I don't because you still require a free hand to cast. Not to mention the usefulness of the dagger when farming for free spell components. Granted "One D&D" is introducing an Arcane Focus that replaces all but the most expensive spell components, so maybe that last bit isn't such a selling point anymore.
A Battle Master Fighter with a Whip means you can do all your Maneuvers with Reach and still wear a shield and be entirely Dex based. Take the Sentinel feat plus the Brace Maneuver with Reach and you will likely have the option to do an AoO every round while not giving up a shield.
It is a fun, although niche use of the whip. The weapon still suffers from having very low damage, but being a one-handed dex reach has this very unique advantage which no other weapon should replicate. At the same time I think its sad that its the only dex based reach weapon in the game. Would have loved to have a two handed dex reach weapon that has a d6 damage dice, or something similar
@@arikaaa69 If you're playing a Fighter since you get so many feats you can just take some damage boosting feats like Fey Touched with Hunter's Mark to add a D6 and/or Gift of the Chromatic Dragon to add a D4.
I love running the flail with the flexible property that allows it to ignore shield and cover AC, which is what it was historically used for (rampart defense, harassing ladder climbers besieging a castle). Makes for a nifty secondary weapon
Greatbows technically exist in dnd. There a npc with a 2d6 longbow that works an dex to hit and str to dmg. It is a weapon and it even shows up sometimes on dnd beyond when you want to add stuff in your inventory.
I was just thinking that DEX to hit and STR for damage would be good thematically for longbows and shortbows. Or maybe make the damage roll optional between the two.
I wonder if it would've been better if they had given all Bows the Finesse property, and leave Crossbows the same as is. That way strength characters have a reasonable range option but crossbows are a dex characters optional range weapon of the two.
@@Battleguild str based characters are often better off with a bow than a crossbow anyway. Most strength based builds get extra attack, which they won't be able to use with a crossbow without investing an ASI, but they can with a bow, even when fully investing into melee combat.
I liked the idea in Pathfinder of different gods having representative weapons that clerics can wield and get class-specific bonuses from. It really expanded the idea of what weapons were available. I ended up using a Starknife (like a big throwing star) because it was favored by my god and it was very rewarding as a character.
If you're referring to the Warpriest feature, I've always liked the idea of using faith-relevant non-weapons with that class, with a supernatural flourish as necessary. Things like scarves, palm fronds, balancing poles, bones (femur, skull, bones from a particular animal), candelabras, etc.
For scimitars and many other curved one handed swords like sabres and cutasses, their advantage is they are easier to parry with on a horse (or other animal) or in a tight space because turning the sword hand sweeps the belly of the blade through quite a bit of space without moving the point of the sword much. Don't know how to make a good rule around that.
Fun fact about the sling in real life which makes 5e logic dumb, is that the sling is a specialized weapon that can do more damage than heavy longbow with more range if you are a trained warrior, and people swapped to bows, and then crossbows for ease of use
Yay, my comment made it to one of your videos, that alone made my day! Also, I think a Finesse Longsword would be totally game-breaking, because Dexterity's already the most OP stat, it gives you one of the most commonly used Saving Throws, AC, bonus in a lot of skills, ranged damage, initiative, etc. Plus, rogues could sneak attack with a finesse long sword, and that looks kinda weird, I guess. Other than that, katanas are already longswords, as the book mentions: in real life, katanas are not lighter than longswords at all, this is an anime/Japanese culture trope. If you're interested in learning about medieval weapon "mechanics" including weight, length and reach, I'd recommend taking a look at Skallagrim's channel, it might be a source for creativity regarding alternative weapon uses, or maybe even give you ideas for real life multi-attack tests, which might be cool too. As always, thank you for the great content, including this video and your hard work on surveys and whatnot. This is my favorite D&D channel. Cheers from Brazil.
Yep, katanas actually weighed the same as European hand-and-a-half swords (Longsword in 5e terms) while actually being closer to an arming sword (Scimitar in 5e terms) in length. This is because katanas were made of folded steel, while European swords from the same era were typically made of much thinner and tougher monosteel. The main reason why Japanese smiths stuck with folded steel was because it could be smelted at much lower temperatures and could be made from the worst iron, which was useful for an iron poor country.
As I understand it, the difference between a maul and a warhammer is size and weight. A warhammer is small enough to be wielded one-handed, while a maul is a gigantic two-handed bludgeoning weapon (though there are some that have an axehead and are used specifically for cutting wood).
Darts a very interesting weapon honestly, its the only ranged weapon with finesse to start with meaning it can be used with strength, though i think a dagger would work almost identically though its a melee weapon with the thrown property so the only difference between them is what feats or class features that key of specific weapon types they interact with e.g. sharp shooter, cost and weight are another thing thats good compared to having lots of daggers but most DMs really gloss over such things
Yeah it seems like a player just has to do more research to realize that this weapon can be made useful, when they could instead just pick up a weapon that's more useful outright
Yeah I play a dart based fighter and it's pretty cool since darts work with both the archery and throwing fighting styles and the sharpshooter feat . And you can use a shield with them as well. The only issue is that the build takes two feats to accomplish so it has to compete with any other combination of feats like polearm master and sentinel or crossbow expert and sharpshooter and compared to those it's only okay.
4:05 In one of my home games, I added a Flail variant where you could use an action to change the chain length. with a short length chain, it is a normal flail, but with a full chain, it is a 2 handed flail with reach
5e weapons simply suffer from the simplification of combat in 5e. In 3.5, weapons could be vastly different depending on their crit profile, but with crits defaulting to x2 (20), a lot of variant weapons collapsed into the exact same statline. The difference in performance between x2 (19-20) and x3 (20) is negligable, but the aesthetic, feel and personal preference shines through.
Honestly i love the blowgun, whip and darts myself but my group changed some things Blowgun - you can use skills like sniper with it and blowguns can be enchanted and the darts thenselfs Whip - it can be used to grapple an enemy as a bonus action if you attack with it or try and disarm someone with it Dart - you can throw more then one as a ranged weapon up to 3 each hand There simple changes but they made then so much more useful and i love using them
For the Whip, I can think of two things on top of just straight out raising its damage: Giving it a Grappling feature with a DC of 8+ STR mod + proficiency bonus. Giving it the Light property so you can dual wield along with it. Dual wielding whips is used in performances and fulfills the Trevor Belmont-esque fantasy of a whip user. EDIT: Something I feel strongly about many of the weapons in D&D 5e (dagger, dart, etc) is that select weapons should naturally allow multiple attacks even without a Extra Attack. Example: Do you really need to be a Level 5 Fighter to know how to stab someone twice with a dagger, or throw a dart. Some weapons are just EASIER to wield, and they will do perfectly well with a lower damage dice because you'll be able to attack twice!
That wouldnt be amazing since the current characters looking at the whip are dex based characters that want a finesse weapon. So those people wont want to use a STR based feature. Then I dont think the ability to grapple 10ft away is enough to get STR characters to use the whip all by itself. (Unless you didnt let them approach the character that grappled them)
@@___i3ambi126 Yes, but the idea is that you wouldn't have to dual wield to attack multiple times. Like in my dagger example, you wouldn't realistically need to hold two daggers to stab twice.
For the scymitar the problem is that, as a historical weapon, it was desinged to be use while riding a horse. It was light and resilient enough to withstand the strikes it would deliver and the curve of the blade would help slash trhough unrarmored oponents as it matches the curve of the swing of the riders arm. So, at least for me, is quite hard to find a way to make it more unique other than "Cool, you have advantage/deal more damage while riding a horse"
For a scimitar I use the following rules: it is a 1d8 slashing weapon, that has light, finesse and special* properties. Special* property of the scimitar says “If the skimitar is used in combination with any other weapon except the second skimitar, it loses the finesse property. Using the skimitar with a shield does not make it lose the finesse property.”
That's also a nice way to just make Longswords pointless, since that's just Longsword that is light (which means you don't need Dual Wielder feat). So i also advise it also lowers the damage when dual wielding
@@GMeneze800 I'd like to disagree. Londswords are universal (d10). Scimitars aren't. According to your logic rapier makes longsword useless since it's basically a longsword with finesse property. The idea of my homerule is to make scimitars something that resembles the properties of the shortsword, but does more damage. Btw, the narrative inspiration came from an idea of sword dancers, hence the need of similar weapons when dual-wielding
@Ninof first of all: If you use the Longsword 1d10 damage instead of a greatsword you're a Psychopath (i never really saw someone use it, except in the extremely rare situation where they lose/break their shield) Second of all: Rapiers always made Longswords useless. Dex is so much stronger than Str in combat that it is laughable. Third of all: Dual Wielding medium to longswords is the dumbest thing ever irl, since they hit eachother fairly often (except for that one weird fencing stance focused on defense). And scimitars are specially fond of doing this in combat when you dual wield them (their balance is just bad, great for one handing tho!) Fourth: You just made Dual Wielder Feat Weaker. Dual wielding longswords is just a worse option now for dual wielding Anyways, it does boost strength martials at least (since dual wielding withouth needing a feat) And i can see this being more balanced on a game with novice players a good DM, since item management and losses are easier to deal with when against smart veteran players who will most likely abuse the hell out of that rule (actually they won't because they'll be way to focused on doing Dex Builds, Polearm Masters or Casters) . But hey, if it works on your game, then it'sok. As long as everyone is having fun that's what matters Ofc, this all in a Combat point of view, and possibly a Min-Maxer as well (i've turned into one to be able to deal with them, not that matters since i'm a forever DM), And c'mon, martials are so sad that doing a buff like this is always welcome. I mean, i would even recomend 2d8 greatweapons, i know it might seem crazy, but turns out it makes strength Martials a bit more on board with Casters and Dex Martials. Might need some revision although.
10:40 i remember stumbling upon a signal arrow/bolt once, it essentially replaces the damaging tip with a whistle and could be used for distractions, signaling teammates from across long distances, and for practice
8:25 I think the confusion about why the light hammer ranked lower than the club is due to some confusion between the survey as written and the survey as interpreted. The survey asks whether or not each weapon should be kept as is or changed, i.e. whether or not the rules for it feel appropriate. This is a different question than whether or not players like each weapon. i.e.: Players think the club, a weapon PCs would only use in desperation or as a proxy for an improvised weapon, is fine as it currently stands. Players think the light hammer needs work, I'm guessing with either a larger damage die or a better thrown range.
I think it has to do with incompetence. Most players that voted in the survey have never used the weapons, forgot several of the weapons and didn't bother looking them up. Most have not ever contemplated how to best use the weapons. People are passionate, bias and incompetent and democratic votes like this usually end up like this. Unfortunately there are few better ways to do unless you want to find some elitistic test team to discuss with in which case you lose the average joes view of the world.
Bob world builder my homebrew repeating crossbow is a simple weapon with a 15/45 range that does 2d4 damage, because the one the Chinese invented is a magazine on top of the very light crossbow that you load by sliding the magazine box front to back. It's goal was to shoot out a lot of small random bolts for area denial.
To me, this should just be rolled into crossbow expert and fighter's many, many attacks. I have a hard time with a fighter getting off foue to eight shots WITHOUT a magazine.
Great survey and video. The club probably ranks so high because you can combine it with the Shillelagh cantrip unlike the light hammer (due to not being all wood). Also thrown weapons relying on Strength limits their usefulness for most classes.
Bob! Okay, I'm going to cut this down to four parts. 1) I love what you're doing. I did a similar project about two years back, and I love seeing someone else try their hand at it. 2) You haven't brought up name recognition. I think this is really the Maul's problem, but also with the Morningstar, War Pick, etc. Most people just don't actually know the differences. I think that's why the Bill hasn't been printed in years. 3) Whips scare and flails impact. Both can go around shields, and that'd be a great mechanic, but neither are good at tripping. A flail however just delivers more brute force that a sword or spear can... unlike a whip which is so non-threatening that it's used as punnishment. You don't punnish with an ax, even a little one, because it'll ruin whoever you're punnishing. You do punnish with the whip. On the plus side, whips cause fear and can produce status effects other weapons can't. 4) Sling should do about the same damage, but also come with stunning status effects. They harass during combat, but rarely kill.
I think I put it in the last video that was basically just a sponsor video but I figure I'll add it here because I've been having a lot of fun with the Warrior's Codex, which is a martial overhaul similar to the weapon variation Bob is after. They add a few more properties, like the ability to wrap around shields for flexible weapons like the mace that was mentioned in this video, but also they flesh out disarming and parrying and other real life martial combat occurrences into actual mechanics that I quite enjoy. You can even make your own weapons, as they boil the modifiers down to a point system, for instance I made a sword based off Sephiroth's sword, with reach (but also two-handed because who in the world could carry that thing) They include weapon materials, modifications, and the base modifiers, which is only like, one chapter from the codex but I figure that's the most relevant lol
Bob, You might like this: In our current Savage Worlds campaign I use a hand crossbow to fire a bolt with a Thunderstone on the end. This allows me to do a ranged crowd control attack that basically stuns instead of kills. I recently used it to take down a giant flying beast the size of a hot air balloon and when it his the ground (and took damage) and was stunned, the party made short work of the beast. I’m honestly surprised there hasn’t been more work on crossbow ammo.
The western falchion is not just like the scimitar its a two handed baby of a cleaver, axe, and sword at once. Its a heavy weapon meant for just crushing through enemies while the scimitar is a finesse light weapon. 2d4 slashing bludgeoning, heavy, crush through armor and or bonus on horseback as it is popular for cavalry as a dismounter.
The falchion is in no way a heavy blade. They have wide blades for the most part but said blade is actually quite thin. Hell such is the construction of falchion that the centre of percussion is not really any higher than most arming swords despite the much wider blade head. I advise you look at the video by Scholagladiatora called 'medieval falchions were not like axes'.
@@nathanthom8176 thank you! It's great that finally people are spreading more HEMA knowledge into dnd. Hopefully we will get rid of katana myths next, because as much as I love them, an arming Sword or longsword is often just better. You often get better balance, more range, and at the same or lesser weight. In sparring you often have to pick shorter longswords to even out the advantages against katanas, still super fun against Kendo guys( the speed and the determination to hit those guys gave is awesome)
The whip should have a ranged grappling and tripping feature, and it could be a way to deal with enemies who have blunt weapons since you could attempt to snatch them out of their hands. Slashing and piercing weapon could counter the whip as a way to keep it in check during combat. I might also consider using the whip crack having a distraction and intimidating feature that can be used once or twice during combat.
@@ANDELE3025 whip baseline is shit actually 1d4 damage is laughable. Especially when you can just use a longsword or rapier instead and its so much better
@@SarahSmith-hh7he Reach already makes it superior to LS and Rapier. 7 damage with safety of reach vs 9 damage of the 2 is not worth the loss of 12 (or 16 if not using 3.5/variant grid rule) squares worth of attack target potential.
So, for the spear There needs to be a light spear with the finesse property and s heavy spear, with the versatile property (d6/d8). A spear with reach is a pike. A pike with excessive reach, is a long pike. A glaive may have reach, or just keep it a d10 slashing. You might make a trident a versatile d8/d10 or give it it's own shtick.
Halberds should be a d10, with options to slash or pierce. Perhaps with reach, but if you make a shorter version call it a pollaxe and give it bludgeoning as well. Maybe tack on the light property to the glaive to really differentiate it from the halberd. (Or if you're willing to, maybe finesse, probably not both). Honestly functionally speaking theirs not too much you can do to nake them different without making a whole new system. I would make the light spear, heavy spear, and pikes simple weapons (think levied armies). And all the further variants Martial. A big thing to make all of these more "accurate" and define them amongst each other would be to correct their weights and values to be more, relatively, in line with each other. Not that it would come up very often in game play, but it would certainly help them on the page.
I just noticed you're not Bob the world builder. Thanks my life is ruined, and i will reincarnate as a sea urchin now. Edit: I see anchorman my life improved, my life is no longer ruined.
I gotta say, as a homebrewer with non-existent clout, I live vicariously through your using your platform to do some data-driven game design. I have zero envy for the whole being a youtuber thing, doesn't appeal to me, but oh boi do I wish I could run these types of surveys. Thank you for doing this
The problem with many of these weapons is that tthe designers have basically simplified them down to their tropes, and pop culture tropes at that meaning that they actually make pretty poor representations historically. Take the Longsword for instance. You've mentioned a few versions, such as the falchion (I'd actually have the cutlass as a short sword), the jian, the katana, then there's the messer, the bastard sword, the claymore, the side sword, the Kopis, the Kophesh, the Estoc... My point is, there are so many different designs of sword for different cultures and times, you really could just make a sword builder set of rules to design the kind of sword you want. I'd even just grab the short sword and great swords and put them all into this too as again, there are many differing types. You can actually see the designers try and show this with separate rules for the shotr sword, great sword, rapier and scimitar. So, as an example, you could give the length classification, this would decide the over all damage, then you could choose if it were going to be a light weapon, a finesse weapon or versatile, and then you would choose the damage type, either slashing or piercing. So, say you went for a short light piercing type of weapon, well done, you've just made an epee. Say you went for medium length slashing, this could be a claymore. Add versatile into that and you could have a falchion. A katana would be a medium length, versatile, finesse weapon. My point is, it would be cool to be able to customise your sword to represent what you had in mind as closely as possible. The Pike I'd just get rid of to be honest as it's really just a really long spear and ultimately impractical unless you're with a large group of pikemen. This more than any other weapon is a specialised war weapon. Also, if you were to make a Greatbow, I would seriously consider having it as a strength based weapon. Reason being, historically, you're looking at a Warbow for comparison. These things have a draw weight of 80 to 150lbs, but can go up to 200lbs. So you need to be bloody strong to pull one to full draw, and none of this holding too. You draw it, you fire it! In this case especially I do feel that Warhammer had the better system with the Weapon Skill and Bow/Ballistic skill stats rather than Strength and Dex. Anyway, if you were to redesign a bunch of these weapons, I would seriously consider looking at their historical usage and context and go from there.
I'm glad to see someone else has gone to the effort of explaining how inaccurate the 5e weapon system is from a historical standpoint so I don't have to. And don't get me started on all of the people in the community clamoring that katanas should be just better longswords because the Japanese folded their steel a ton and because anime. They had to fold their steel so much to get any decent steel since their iron was extremely impure and that's how you have to compensate for that problem. European steel tended to be better quality with much less work. Japanese steel also tended to be more brittle even after the folding, so to compensate, they would use much softer steel as the back of the blade to absorb deformation during quenching (as well as during combat) which is why the blades are curved. It also prevented them from making double-edged swords which give you a lot more options while in combat. Building a weapon with that system could work, but a lot of time would have to go into the system it to make sure it's balanced (for example adding versatile for free would be too much to me), maybe you take a hit on the die type for each feature you add. I definitely want strength to be a component for those much more powerful bows, but I've implemented one that had a strength requirement of 15, but was still dex to shoot. Having a requirement like that means that they have to have 2 high stats and allows you to increase the damage more than you might otherwise. Also I feel like the aiming would still be dex-based.
@@razzakbane I almost think aiming would be wisdom based. Reason being: I've shot recurve and longbow for years, you aren't really "aiming" so much as letting thousands of repetitions and instinct shoot the bow. I also have a compound, that's completely different. You are using a site, holding it steady, lining up pins and pulling the release trigger.
Regarding the greatsword-woth-reach-topic you mentioned, Bob, I have a small suggestion, maybe this could inspire you or something: How about a new, small extra group of weapons, called gargantuan weapons or giant weapons or such. This group would only contain between 3-5 weapons, one for each type of damage and maybe a ranged option. First of all, using such a giant weapon would require a certain strength score. And I am not talking about a 13 or something that low, I would say a 16 minimum. This would not only make sure that not every character can just wield this weapons unconditionally, but it would also make their occurance rarer and therefore more special. Talking stats and weapon traits, I would spontaneously say: 2d8 damage (for all of them, to make sure none is stronger than the others); reach, heavy, two-handed. And who knows, maybe even a new, unique feature for these giant weapons only, for example something to knock a target prone if your rolled damage exceeds a certain number. Finally, there are the weapons themselves. As already said, there should be one for each damage type. For slashing, I would recommend a giant greatsword or ultra-greatsword, but it could also just be a giant blade in general. That way, you could flavor it in any way you like, as a giant axe, for example. For bludgeoning, I would think of something like a giant hammer. And for piercing, a giant lance or halberd or so. PS: nearly forgot, but I mentioned a ranged weapon option for these giant weapons. In general, the same goes for this one, 2d8 (probably) piercing damage; heavy, two-handed, a very good range, like (120/300) for example. This could be a siege-crossbow or a stationary crossbow. Maybe you could even add a new trait, that forces the wielder to sacrifice a bit of movement (like 5 or 10 feet) to use this weapon, since it is big and semi-stationary, but in turn it could reduce the target's movement by the same amount for one turn, if it hits, since it pushes them back or partially impales them or just slows them down in general. Please let me know what you guys think of this idea, critique is always welcome ^^
The cimitar/sable kind of sword could be the finesse version of the longsword. It would also make it diferent from the shortsword since it will deal more damage.
The longswird atleast has the 'heavy' tax which many weapons do have :(. Finesse also costs a small price. Not being heavy and being versatile means a smaller dice. The intent is for Rogues to use lighter weapons. I dont think this is so bad. Most of their weapons comes not from multiple attacks anyway but from sneak attack for example, thus the weapon damage itself is not so important. You can also reflavor your magical +1 shortsword as a decently long katana or elven sword or whatever you want anyway.
@@nerfherder5211 Yeah, but it would help a Dex based fighter or similar builds if it was finesse. I forgot the longsword was versatile, the cimitar should be finesse instead of that in that case. I don't think it brings many balancing issues considering the rapier is a thing and basically the same idea. However it would add a little bit of flavor to Dex-based characters since they have two big options (rapier or cimitar, aka piercing or slashing).
@@BobWorldBuilder That would be interesting. It would also help diferenciating from the rapier so that those are more defensive (since it being a 1d8 one handed weapon a shield could be used) but the cimitar having the capacity to be a two-handed weapon brings a lot of the two-handed weapon stuff to it, making it more offensive.
I think that people's problem with the maul is not that it should be more useful, but actually the opposite; historically mauls were tools that were a lot more like sledgehammers than warhammers. Because of this, they would actually not be very effective weapons as they would be much too heavy and slow to compete with other weapons in combat hence why they were really only used as weapons by those who didn't have access to proper weapons. So the fact that mauls are arguably the best weapons in 5e doesn't really fit the weapon. To fix this I would suggest maybe lowering its damage and/or giving it some sort of "unwieldy" feature where it has a penalty to attack rolls to simulate how clunky and hard to use it would be as a weapon.
Here are a few things for the whip I've thought of over the years: - Light property. Allows whips/reach to be incorporated into dual weapon builds. - Allow you to grapple with your whips reach of 10ft. My personal (totally random) favorite: - A concentration check made as a result of a whip attack is made at disadvantage, so long as the creature doesn't have resistance to the whip's damage. Obviously all of these things being incorporated at once is too broken, but if they buffed the whip, it might make a specialized feat for it worth taking, where you could gain some of these features, though I think most people agree d4 damage is too low for most martials.
I had an idea of a "weapon building" system where a you could pick the weapon's damage and any special properties. Each would cost points, and all "normal/standard" would have the same amount of points, so you couldn't make a 2d6 light weapon. This would also be a great way for GMs to reward the players with some cool weapons without giving weak weapons (moon-touched sword), boring weapons (+1 weapons) or breaking the balance of the game with a powerful weapon (flame tongue). Also, after determining the stats of the weapon you can slap on whatever appearance you want (so no more war picks being forgotten)
I really like this style of system! If I were writing a new RPG, I'd probably go this route. For revising this system, I don't want to create something so unique
1. *Longsword*- The classic melee weapon 2. *Longbow*- Really good ranged weapon 3. *Shortsword*- This is a really good weapon- it would make sense for it to maybe deal piercing OR slashing damage, given it's kind of the in-between of daggers and longswords? 4. *Shortbow*- Good ranged weapon 5. *Hand Crossbow*- Good ranged weapon 6. *Light Crossbow*- Good ranged weapon 7. *Rapier*- Classic powerful finesse weapon, perfect for dexterity based characters not interested in dual-wielding, or even better, those with the dual-wielder feat 8. *Greatsword*- Classic strong two-handed weapon. A reach property of some kind would be cool, but this weapon doesn't exactly need any buffs 9. *Handaxe*- A weaker and more expensive javelin that deals slashing damage and possesses the powerful light property. Perfect 10. *Javelin*- Cheaper spear that lacks the versatile property and has extra range, encouraging its use as a simple thrown weapon. Perfect 11. *Quarterstaff*- Good weapon. Defensive capabilities would be cool, but are completely unnecessary 12. *Greataxe*- Slightly cheaper and weaker Greatsword, with a couple of exceptions surrounding feats and class traits 13. *Battleaxe*- Basically a Longsword 14. *Club*- A boring, cheap and weak weapon- no, *THE* boring, cheap and weak weapon. It does its job well, even if it's not a weapon that most players will use 15. *Heavy Crossbow*- A good weapon, given it's practically a mini-ballista maybe it could fire some cooler things 16. *Warhammer*- More expensive longsword that deals bludgeoning damage 17. *Spear*- Should be a light and/or finesse weapon, or perhaps a 10 foot reach when used with two hands 18. *Mace*- Generic simple melee weapon that deals 1d6 damage when quarterstaffs exist 19. *Lance*- Good weapon, possibly misunderstood or frustrating due to some poor wording on its trait descriptions which makes it harder to use from a player perspective 20. *Glaive*- Literally a halberd 21. *Maul*- Mechanically good weapon, maybe it's too boring or something 22. *Greatclub*- This thing should be versatile, dealing 1d8 with one hand and 1d10 with two 23. *Light Hammer*- A better/double price club that can be thrown 24. *Scimitar*- Just a shortsword that does slashing damage. Shortswords should be able to deal piercing and slashing damage, and scimitars need a new use 25/26. *Pike/Halberd*- Mechanically the same weapon, except the Pike deals piercing and the Halberd does slashing. Halberd should just have access to both damage types, and pike is best either removed or reworked 27. *Dagger*- A classic weapon, but sometimes overshadowed by the shortsword. The thrown property will always give it use though 28. *Net*- Poorly written "weapon" that can only be used with disadvantage and has too many limitations to really be worth using 29. *Sling*- Weak ranged option that deserves the light, concealable and possibly finesse properties 30. *Morningstar*- A slightly heavier, more expensive war pick 31. *War Pick*- A flail that deals piercing damage 32. *Dart*- A dagger that you can only throw, only a magical instance of this item could really be that interesting 33. *Trident*- Slightly heavier and more expensive spear, but it's a martial weapon, so literally just a worse spear 34. *Sickle*- Worse dagger that isn't even a weapon, Scythes are cooler, yet aren't a weapon in 5e 35. *Flail*- Inferior Damage to other options and lacks any traits 36. *Whip*- Lacks Damage and/or Interesting traits 37. *Blowgun*- Extremely underpowered martial ranged weapon that feels like an afterthought
It seems a lot of the low tier weapons would be suits for DM use. Weapons for NPCs to use in combat, so looting PCs don’t make out with a treasure hoard in weapons.
Let’s give darts a double throw ability. They are small enough that for 1 action 2 darts can be thrown. Maybe 2nd dart as a bonus action, but not necessarily.
Let’s give darts a double throw ability. They are small enough that for 1 action 2 darts can be thrown. Maybe 2nd dart as a bonus action, but not necessarily.
Morningstar could be 1d4 piercing and1d4 bludgeoning for damage instead of 1d8 piercing. The damage type difference makes sense based on construction and makes it way more interesting. The flail could go the same way, but instead I'd rather see something else, like negating 1 AC *if* the defender uses a shield. This makes both situationally better and maintains uniqueness.
After a small google I learned that one of the most important aspects is that it makes noise to scare cattle. Maybe this can be added to the weapon to give those wielding it advantage on intimidation checks. Not an entirely crazy fix but something to give it a little more sustenance while maintaining its historical significance. Other Idea, adding a grapple DC?
Bro the halberd is THE optimizer's weapon. This is not an optimization list. Halberds and glaives are probably the best martial weapons mechanically-wise
Previous versions of D&D had different arrow heads to use. Pile arrows, broadheads, whistling, barbed, etc. Each one had a very slight difference. +1 to hit, +1 to damage, bleeding, etc. Halberd has been house ruled in our games to be a piercing and slashing weapon.
Oh dang, those things are terrifying in real life. Have you considered ammunition types? The romans used lead shot(for consistent accuracy, range, damage), the Germans had rock with holes drilled through them( it creates a terrifying noise while they are airborne), or even darts( yup, you could totally shoot a crossbow bolt, Dart or arrow)
Had a pathfinder game with a whip specialist. He took feats allowing him to grab and trip people and he was DEVASTATING. Not so much in raw damage done, but he would put people on the ground where they could be attacked at a bonus, make attacks of opportunity when they got up, and allowed anyone with sneak attack (or the Precise Strike teamwork feat) do do their extra damage. We ripped through encounters with equal CR without even taking damage more often than not!
I’ve had to rework weapons for 5e more than once, as it’s the only system people want to play. Two handed weapons add your strength modifier twice (or you gain a +2 bonus, whichever is higher) to damage rolls when you get a critical hit. You also gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls whenever you use both hands to deal damage with any melee weapon (excluding the floppy weapons like the whip) Light weapons can inherently be concealed, and you can use them in your off hand with reduced penalties for two-weapon fighting. You can use a normal weapon in your main hand. Finesse only allows you to substitute your strength modifier with your dexterity modifier for attack rolls. You ALWAYS need physical strength when it comes to melee, unless you use something like a lightsaber. Charging was added as a property. Basically, when you move at least 20 feet in a straight line before attacking, you gain a +1 damage bonus for each tile you moved on your next attack roll. This is used for polearms and mounted weapons. Sundering is used for weapons meant to ignore or bypass armor such as the mace, war hammer, or war pick. If a creature has natural armor of 15+ or wears heavy armor, you get a +1 to attack rolls using that weapon against the target. Dueling was added to weapons that can parry more effectively, such as swords, the sickle, and the trident. While holding the dueling weapon, you aren’t incapacitated, and you can see your attacker, you gain a +1 bonus to AC vs melee attacks. Dismounting was added to weapons meant to stop a charging enemy. Whenever you hit an enemy with a set up weapon attack (I hold my action to attack if someone moves within my reach), you gain a +1 damage bonus for every 5 feet the target moved during their turn. I also added some weapons, such as the Arbalest, matchlock rifle and pistol, the Lucern (or crow’s beak), and reworked crossbows to function more like how they actually work (lotta damage, slow to reload) and other essentials that WOTC removed or never included for “accessibility”.
I think they fundamentally messed up adding Finesse to the game. Finesse should only be useable on melee weapons as a Class feature for Rogues or as a dedicated Feat. Since it gives every character the ability to tie both Melee and Ranged Attack and Damage, _and_ AC to Dex it basically makes Str a dump stat for anyone who's not going to wear Chain Mail or heavier armor. Even then just wear Halfplate with no Str req. and use a Rapier and Shield for 19 AC. A Dex build is always better because you don't have to pump different stats for Ranged and Melee.
I think some weapons with lower damage, like whips, should have a fear inducing feature. Though not likely to kill a high CR opponent, it would hurt like h3ll and probably should allow the wielded to keep an opponent at bay similar to a push (rather that pulling closer) and I don’t think enough weapons result in a percentage chance of causing a foe to flee. With its range and the pain it would inflict, a whip should make it somewhat likely opponents would avoid engaging the wielded. My point being that damage does not need to be the sole utility.
I saw this idea in another comment, and while I love it for relying on a unique feature of the whip, I just can't get past the idea that a whip is any more frightening than getting attacked with sword. This is a utility feature like my snorkeling idae for the blowgun, and I don't think it needs hard and fast rules, but should be included as a suggested utility in the final version of this weapon project
I could see the whip making the area around you into difficult terrain instead of attacking, lots of media shows whips being used for area denial or movement control in addition to damage.
For the curved swords (including scimitar, falchion, cutlass, etc.), there should be a feature that they deal an additional +X amount of damage to targets wearing light or no armor. The reason these swords are curved is to increase the amount of time the blade is applied to the skin of the target, allowing them to cut more deeply. However, they tend to struggle against medium to heavy armor as metal portions of armor are particularly effective at protecting against slashes.
Thank you Bob for the quality of work you do - this is really impressive and I am really looking forward to future videos on this topic. #2 and more importantly though, a huge congrats on your upcoming wedding! Will it be a traditional or a D&D themed wedding?
Just to clear the air, the spear was developed as a melee weapon. It is effectively a quarterstaff with a big arrowhead (1-2" in diameter and 5-7' long). A javelin is a shortbow stave with a sharp [metal] tip (0.5-1" in diameter and 3-4' long). The first is a piercing version of a quarterstaff and the second is a throwable version of the first.
Chain should no be a whip as it has not the same properties as it. Whip could have 1d6 reach one handed and have lowered crit requierment as it could crit on 19 and 20 Dagger could also have this or even crit from 18-20 For the sling i would add homemade ammo that could have additional properties. Like using oil to create flaming projectiles. Tossing sovereign glue like projectiles etc.
The whip doesn't deserve that spot. It's finesse - and that is a big deal. It's not a 'reach weapon with 1d4'. It's a 'dagger with 10ft'. When it comes to playing a Rogue with a bit more flavour and style, the whip does real numbers in managing battlefield position better without switching to ranged. It also leaves the window of versatility open for reach on other Dexterity focused classes if that's an option they'd like to explore. Popularity simply dictates it appear lower because there is no real notable instances of whips being shown off as cool in larger fantasy imagery in the TTRPG hemisphere or otherwise. It is being shafted by its perceived showing, without many even giving it a shot. Absolutely not F tier. Easy C tier at the very least.
I feel like a lot of players, or at least I, have a strong fantasy of using a whip more like a versatile grapple-at-range weapon. Pulling a crossbow out of someone’s hand, or traversing pits by swinging from a piece of scaffolding. I think more important than maintaining the historical accuracy of a weapon is to capture the fantasy of it. A massive part of DnD is making "It would be cool if…" a reality
Yes, and the problem with reintroducing features for your favourite weapons is that you then create an imbalance. If you're going to give one of them a special ability then ideally you need to do it for all, and put a lot of thought into balancing them all out. I thought this was where feats and fighting styles came in, that a skilled character could use their weapons in ways that a mook or a non-combat-focused PC could not. That's not to say that there aren't a few tweaks which could be made, but to me that's more in the line of readying them or reloading them: if you're walking around with a halberd or a large shield strapped to your back then it should take longer to make ready or to stow than drawing a longsword would; similarly a heavy crossbow, which needs a goats-foot, windlass or cranequin to draw the string back, really cannot be reloaded in just six seconds!
I had a player that loved the boomerang. Ofc it was heavily modified and when the player could do multi attack they would throw more boomerangs. We flavored it as a chakram a sharpened flattened toroidal weapon. Imagine juggling these sharp flying hoops thrown at enemies and return to the sender. And an enchantment of loyalty where it would return to the thrower.
If a new longsword is added, it should just be the longsword but with the Finesse property (no increase in damage). Call it a "Great Scimitar," and it could be used as a two-handed scimitar, katana, etc. Long curved swords don't actually do more damage than their straight-edged European counterparts, so I don't think a damage increase is necessary, plus it would completely antiquate the use of the battleaxe, longsword, and other similar weapons.
Changing the shortsword to simple makes sense. They were given to archers for backup and given to Centurions because it's pretty easy to teach how to use.
I don't understand why the pike can't be use with the polearm master gift. Fortunately, my DM allowed me to do so. And it's pretty helpfull against oozes, jellies ans goo to have piercing damage instead of slashing.
The pike is unwieldy, too long and and impractical when in melee to swing around and hit with both ends like a solid halberd, which is considered one of the best weapons throughout history. The stick, the spear and often hammer or axe - all in one. That is why. The halberd is a lighter and better weapon. Unless you are on a horse and carry a sword for when the lance is used anyway.
@@nerfherder5211 an old macedonian pike, certainly. But in my opinion, the D&D pike isn't the 20 feet weapon designed to be used in phalanx with dozens of guy doing the same, blocking arrows and destroying the ennemy's cavalry. Like Bob said in the video, it's basically a Halleberd or a Glaive with piercing damages (and 4 times the weight of the halleberd, while using less iron in it...). Same 9ft reach etc. The kind of stuff you can wield like a martial artist.
I think the reason for greataxe vs maul or greatsword is on the one hand the latter weapons have a slightly higher damage floor by nature of two dice instead of one, but alternatively if you have a feature like Brutal Critical that specifically says "add another damage die when you crit," you get shortchanged by adding another d6 instead of another d12.
You know what's really funny I run my own version of D&D because I've just been evolving my game over the years & I have all of your concerns covered in my game. Good stuff.
As I don't really like flanking rules, I instead made it a weapon property which I call flanking. Reduced the rapier to a d6 and gave it Flanking and added it to Daggers as is. I created an entire reworked weapon system in my game, but I really like all the ideas you are throwing out here.
A katana is basically a finesse longsword. No extra damage needed, just add the finesse property. At most, you could add the light property if used in combination with a dagger/shortsword (Tanto/wakisashi)
I just reflavored a glaive for one of my characters with a longer variant and fighting style, and for another I reflavored a magical Shortsword. But yes, a Katana is basically a longword (a medieval arming sword but in dnd). It is about the same length as an arming sword, is has about the same weight and cutting power as an arming sword. They both have a pointy end which you aparently cannot use in DND and you cannot really use the butt end for a punch either. Only the polearm can do this despite it being a common trope in fantasy. I used a glaive with polearm master to gain a nice long katana which you could even hit with the butt end of it when unsheathing for example for a nice effect. Should it be a finesse weapon? Not so important, I prefer gish/hexblade anyway, thus I get the freedom and flavor for free.
katana: Blade length 60 ~ 80 cm, Mass 1.1 ~ 1.5 kg / longsword: Blade length 85 ~ 110 cm, Mass 1.0 ~ 1.5 kg. it shouldn't be light, we already have rapiers (longer and lighter than katanas)
I train with a katana and although it is not a light weapon, the fighting style with it is more finesse that strength based. You still need strength to use it (it weights little bit more than a kilogram, but it's shorter than a longsword) but it can be comfortably used with one hand
By that logic it should also be 1d6 damage weapon because of how motherfucking brittle 90%+ of their edges were and impotent against anything beyond very thin wood plates/any actually armored opposition they were (and still are when using in the "intended" way) and with that we return to the Scimitar.
@@ANDELE3025 Then any slashing weapon should do significantly less damage to armored targets and bludgeoning weapons should do more as armor was almost inmune to sword attacks but was crushed against maces
Darts are still around as a D&D weapon because in early versions of the game Wizards had cantrips, so no always repeatable spell attack. So we carried and threw darts. They were light, proficient for our class, and kept us out of reach of enemies. Damage wasn't great but it was better than doing nothing. They never went away even after their original main purpose was lost.
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Hey I love your videos but talking about weapons man.....
For an example triping someone with a flail .......If you know how flails have to be designed as to not completely of eviscerate your hand, then triping some one with a flail becomes unreasonably stupid.
Essentially you want a flail to have a shorter chain then the hilt, the ball itself is pretty heavy, and you would have to bend over to even get a chance of knocking your opponent prone as you expose your head to the headsmen.
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Also what you said about the katana very accurate. But If any change should be made to the longsword it should be finesse (maybe given slightly more dice) and a katana version would just have a feature were the minimum you can roll for damage is 2 (curved blades have a forgiving cut)
A Repeating Crossbow usually doesnt have many slots. So you would still have to reload and it might only have 3 bolts in succession. Also Katanas are not more finesse they just cut better.
I like how in D&D, weapons that harm in different way (cutting flesh and opening arteries versus piercing organs versus crushing bones) are *_"mechanically the same"._* The game might be a mess, but at least Fragged Empires has talents that has weapon types matter. Translated to DnD, Slashing weapons could cause bleeding effects, cut off body parts... Piercing weapons could ignore part of natural / actual armor bonus to AC as well as overpenetrate and jam into an obstacle, while bludgeoning weapons reduce armor / gives extra penalties to armor and give penalties to attack or movement as it causes fractures and such.
And you don't even need to change the weapon, just make it a feat. "Str or Dex +1: If an attack made with a slashing weapon beats the opponent's Armor Class by 5 or more, it gains a bleeding effect equal to your Strength or Dexterity Bonus, whichever was used to make the attack."
I disagree with the people's views of the humble dart! The entire point (get it) of the dart is to be cheap! You can buy 20 darts for the price of 1 measly little dagger! I can arm a mob with darts, I can only arm steve with a dagger.
But in that respect, you can buy a bunch of slings too, and then that mob will have also (basically, as long as rocks are nearby) *unlimited* *anmo*
But I just checked and a sling is 1sp, but a dart is *5CP!* that means (calculator time) with the 2GP you need for a dagger, you can get 20 slings oooooorrrrr 40 darts. I thought that might work out in your favor but still, arming a mob of 20 people with 2 darts each or 40 people with one, or a mob of 20 people with unlimited ammo, as long as they don't get killed in 2 turns(which they might) I think the sling is still better. Also I feel like slings are more reusable(you don't have to go and pick them up after you throw them) and feel more aesthetically sound for a peasant rebellion because people probably have those already. HOWEVER, I understand your point and darts are (kinda) cool in that respect. Thank you for your imput :)
It's also the only ranged thrown weapon, letting you benefit from both archery and thrown weapon fighting styles.
I think a lot of people stick with whatever weapons they get at character creation or find along the way from looting monsters/dungeons rather than buying weapons, but that should have been a survey question! haha
@@BobWorldBuilder Nah, I always want to buy weapons I don't start with. I prefer to have a bludgeoning, slashing, and piecing weapon for every character, with a ranged option as well.
My typical fighter would be armor and shield, warhammer, longsword or scimitar, and a dagger. Long or short bow as height allows. What's really sad is that there are no finesse bludgeoning weapons unless you are a monk.
It needs the light property added at least. Outside of that all the things I can think of are a bit much (such as ability to throw two darts per attack but utilises bonus action).
Darts are already unique, people just don't know about it. Darts are ranged weapons, meaning they can be affected by Sharpshooter and Archery, while also being a thrown weapon, which means they can be affected by the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style.
It also has finesse, which means it can be used with Strength instead of Dexterity.
A bunch of unique interactions. Darts are clearly underrated
Take Fighting Initiate as a kensei monk and suddenly your darts are dealing ridiculous damage and at level 6 count as magical weapons.
Darts are also significantly cheaper and lighter than daggers. At just 5 copper each, a level 1 character can throw darts and not be too upset if they can't retrieve them, whereas the 2 gold pieces per dagger is really going to hurt your coin purse if you have to keep replacing them. A stack of 10 darts only weighs 2.5 lbs. A stack of 10 daggers weighs 10 lbs. If your campaign is using variant encumbrance or you have a very low STR, those extra pounds can matter.
The thing I dislike the most about darts is the aesthetic, I know it was a thing in medieval times, but it feels super bland and out of place in a fantasy setting for me.
@@PetersonRodrigues0 Just do what we did and reskin them as throwing stars . It gives it that ninja vibe and your rogue will love them .
i have come to the conclusion that Dex characters should have a small pouch with Darts to be properly prepared. thrown weapons are a good short distance weapon. Darts are the Dex characters Javelins
Daggers could have a bonus when used in a grapple or against a grappled target. Like reducing the target's AC or criting on 19. Because they were used to bypass armour usually by wrestling the armoured person and working the dagger into a gap.
Solid idea.
1 critique. Definitely just give advantage on attacks. Its how 5e handles all good situations.
I like the idea, but isn't a plus to hit or advantage better than reducing AC for ease of use?
The reason to reduce AC instead of giving advantage is if 2 players grapple each other and both use daggers. Giving advantage boosts the player with the higher AC much more. I would like the relative boost to favour the player with the lower AC. The actual boost is flat.
Ahh nice, that would be an easier way to define "close quarters" combat
There's zero reason to use different stats for a katana, the longsword stats make perfect sense. I agree that a katana could be a finesse weapon, but the longsword historically would be equally valid as a finesse weapon.
You are absolutely right, at least in terms of realistic justification. Katana does have different archetypal ideas surrounding it, though, which may give some justification for giving it different mechanics. Due to that cultural association with finesse and such, people will want it to behave differently because it's different in their heads.
D&D is, at some level, a vehicle for people to create and play characters, and playing into those archetypes is a part of that, and a good system should be able to accommodate that.
@@erberor8007 Well in reality all swords used in one hand does the same amount of damage and has more or less the same amount of weight. It's more down to fighting style and skill of the fencer how deadly the sword is.
Technically there was a difference in the ability to deal with armor, with a European long sword being designed to get into gaps, and the katana having a more optimal slashing blade making it more devastating against lightly armored foes...but this kind differentiation isn't really represented anywhere with weapons (hell we don't even have touch AC anymore) so I don't really see it being a good addition.
@@khw1425 This is true depending on the type of longsword, but I'd argue it's important to remember there were hundreds of variations on the blade profile of longswords over the years vs katanas which were much more uniform, so some longswords were better for gaps in armor and thrusting, whereas other longswords (Alexandria type for example) would've been even better cutters than a typical katana but at the expense of piercing
There’s a simple fix for the lance: instead of being a one-handed weapon that needs two hands when not mounted, make it a two-handed weapon that only needs one hand while mounted. Aside from the existing rule being oddly written, this changes what feats apply. You lose dual-wielding but gain both greatweapon master, which gives a power attack option (for devastating charges) and a cleave effect (for plowing through crowds)
great weapon master is tied to the heavy property, not the two handed one
a Lance doesn't have 'heavy' so you can have a halfling or gnome dual wield lances if mounted, basically doing double damage.
@@THEGRUMPTRUCK if a player wanted to do that then I would be having them rolling animal handling checks every turn seeing as they haven't saved a hand free for the reins; this also makes the cavalier fighter have an actual purpose.
I would allow strapped shields but characters that had specifically described thier shields as centre grip (bos grip) would not be able to wield them and rein thier mount as well.
The lance needs to go down to pike damage dice while not mounted. Actually a cavalry lance (not jousting lance which was never used in battle) and pike on the shorter end (this would be the one based on the reach in DnD) are comparable in length and weight. The fact that one is heavy and the other isn't and that one has disadvantage within 5ft range is kind of strange. I say make the weapons the same statline (including the disadvantage rule) and add a special rule for each where a Pike can be used to target enemies when an ally is between you and a lance can be couched which allows it to be used one handed and raises the damage to the d12.
@@nathanthom8176 That's fair. Animal Handling checks makes sense, I do the same as well.
I've always liked the idea of giving the whip the statistics of the "Thorn Whip" cantrip, just with reduced range and only 5ft pull.
Great idea, no reason to create new rules and its instantly balanced!
then i would come back to the idea that melee cantrips should be useable for OA
It makes sense that the whip does less damage. Honestly, according the the "rules" behind the scenes, a rapier does more damage than it should, but the rest are pretty on par
Iirc, martial weapons start with a d8, and simple a d6. If it has heavy or 2 handed, add a die size (2 for both). If it has finesse or reach, subtract one (2 for both)
So a whip is martial (d8) reach (d6) finesse (d4)
A glaive or Halberd is martial (d8) heavy (d10) reach (d8) two handed (d10)
This is a perfect example of knowing the rules so you can bend them appropriately. In this case, the rule turned the whip into a weapon that nobody likes, so the rule should be bent
@@BobWorldBuilder I think a better option (which you're doing) is to add something mechanically unique about each weapon (like PF2E) rather than an increase in damage.
The issue with adding unique stuff is that it makes 5e more complicated. Also, you are adding rolls and slowing down combat
I think the rapier bonus is about technique and the creators assumed that people without proficiency won't use. It is basically the only weapon where I see it being justified to lower the damage if not proficient. Yes there is already the not adding proficiency to attack roll but most people just using a rapier probably won't do it correctly
@@peleg6748 that's fair. I agree, it adds complexity. I would probably include the unique traits as an optional rule similar to feats and multiclassing: something (generally) not to use your first time, but once you get the hang of things, a welcome bonus
@@peleg6748 as for rapier doing less damage if not proficient.... I'm not sure. If you want to be mostly accurate, I would probably say someone trained has a higher crit chance over any other difference. They can better aim for a vital spot, and have finer control, but if you get run through, that's the same damage regardless.
Rapiers are also heavier than people realize. Sure, they weigh less than a longsword, but not half as much, and you have half as many hands using it. And you're holding it at extension. It's much more tiring (from experience)
Also keep in mind, a single Rapier strike is normally enough to kill a person. A commoner has 4 hp. A Rapier does an average of 4.5 damage (excluding crits and str/dex mod). I would argue even someone untrained could kill in a single Rapier thrust if medical help isn't quick. Puncture wounds suck.
The maul is statistically the best weapon in DND, as it does the same damage as the great sword, is cheaper, and with bludgeoning being the best physical damage type. It's shocking how low it is in this list.
I was more shocked at how low polearms are, given the bustedness of PAM.
The Halbert/Glaive is still the best melee. PAM is the best melee martial feat and Halberds/Glaives can use GWM. If a melee martial wields any other weapon then they are not playing optimally. Two 5 lvl Fighters bot Vuman (one took GWM at lvl 1 and at lvl 4 increased str to 18 and the other took PAM lvl1 and took GWM at lvl 4) assuming an enemy AC of 15. The one with the Halbered does
0,35×(18,5+18,5+15,5 +0,05×5,5+0,05×5,5+0,05×2,5)+0,05×2×0,35×(3,5+0,05×3)=18,739 DPR and the Fighter with 18 STR, GWM and a Maul does 0,4×(21+21+0,05×7+0,05×7)+0,05×0,4×2×(21+ 0,05×7 )=17,934 DPR. At level 6 that Fighter can increase his STR to 20 but from there on out he either has to pick PAM and has lost DPR all of the levels until picking it or he takes feats like Alert or lucky or Sentinel while the fighter with PAM increases his damage much more with each of the 2 ASI he puts into STR than the fighter without PAM while also having 10 ft reach and being able to make AOO against enemies entering his reach.
The hand crossbow is the best weapon in 5e, since with a single feat it's equally effective in melee or at range, and gets a bonus attack.
@@SaibrockA hand crossbow isn't even a real weapon and shouldn't exist in dnd either
@@Droid6689 A dragon isn't a real creature and shouldn't exist in dnd
I think that the Pike should be able to reach 15’ because these things are effing massive. They clock in at a 18’ length minimum. Make them cool. I would like to do some stuff myself on some of these weapons. Love your work.
Maybe 15ft reach but disadvantage on attacks against a target within 5ft. Historically the way to take a pike square apart was from range or get past the points and right in their faces so I think that works thematically
@@OnlyHereForCake This makes good sense, using a pike to strike someone at arms' length is very tricky, albeit _technically_ possible. And yes, 10' reach when the idea was to leverage lines three rows or deeper is just a bit silly. Def needs to be longer.
I sometimes play DnD with my historical reenactment group (focused on late 14th/early 15th century Bohemia) for some lighthearted teambuilding outside of gym or stage and some of these weapons needed a serious homebrew so my players would stop laughing at their descriptions alone. 10 feet pikes are one of the main running joke mostly once we try to pack our van with equipment when we travel to some castle to reenact there. Everyone would love 10 feet pikes at that moment and there's always someone to remind us. 😀
PS: We usually have to use 5m (15feet) hafts and install those steel tips only once unloaded.
The size of pikes is pretty varied with the shortest of them being around and I have just assumed that DnD is just using the shorter variation because outside of formation fighting a long pike is pretty much useless.
What I find funny is that a short pike being 10ft and a cavalry lance being around 9ft and having similar weight distribution (both have small spearheads/points and tapering shafts) and similar weight)) have such different stats. I personally have pikes near unusable by individual fighters but then again I have a bunch of homebrew formation rules (shield wall, volley fire, pike line etc) that make mobs far more dangerous and the pike actually make sense.
@@nathanthom8176 I'd argue an individual use of a pike makes pretty good sense for fighting giants, dragons, etc.
My favorite dagger feature is one I call "extra light." It allows you to use the dagger for a 2 weapon fighting bonus action even if the weapon you used for your first attack wasn't light.
either that, or, in case of a parrying dagger, a +1 to AC. Because in my experience, a parrying dagger is very similar to a buckler in practice, but trading some defense for a better offhand offense.
Just my take on certain weapons in the list:
36 ) Whip ~ Having been in the BDSM community, I can attest that the */damage/* for the whip is appropriate, but there are other aspects which are commonly overlooked.
Foremost among these is the ability to inflict pain (rather than damage), which would make it seriously effective against spellcasters trying to maintain concentration on a spell. It would also be highly effective in 'subdual damage' (perhaps adding a 1d6 of such to the usual damage roll) against opponents who are unarmored or lightly armored.
And let's not forget just how many cool tricks Indiana Jones taught us in utilizing the insane versatility of whips.
35 ) Flail ~ The 'classic' fantasy flail (a spiked ball on a length of chain) never actually existed - actual flails were more like a nunchuku on steroids; a club attached to the end of a short staff, originally used as a farming tool for threshing grains. The fantasy flail and the classic mobster length of chain are more closely related to the manriki-gusari, which was a length of lighter chain (lengths varied, but typically around 5') with heavier weights on the ends. Though it could be used as a bludgeoning weapon (with reach, in 5e parlance) it's primary purpose is to restrain an opponent's more traditional weapon (variation of grappling) and/or attempt to disarm them.
33 ) Trident ~ I would argue that a trident is better treated as multiple daggers (though lacking Finesse) - 2d4 base damage, 3d4 damage as 2-handed melee. The construction makes it wholly impractical for 'catching' an opponent's weapon, though I could see it having an inherent +1 attack bonus (increasing to +2 vs Small opponents and +3 vs Tiny ones).
24 ) Scimitar ~ No, it is *NOT* mechanically identical to the Short Sword: the Scimitar (or Cutlass) is a slashing weapon while the Short Sword is a piercing weapon. Remember that each damage type has its own separate Resistance (some creatures like Skeletons are/should be harder to damage with Piercing weapons, though this confers no benefits against Slashing weapons - by some metrics, Skeletons should be more susceptible to Bludgeoning damage) and quite a number of Feats specifically apply bonuses to weapons of certain damage types.
On a related note, there is one specific category of weapon which is wholly absent from D&D 5e...
There are Strength-based weapons and Dexterity-based (Finesse) weapons of every damage type (slashing/piercing/bludgeoning) and general power (d4, d6, d8) */EXCEPT/* for a d8 Slashing Finesse weapon - this is where Falchions, Sabers, Katanas, and the like stand apart from both the Rapier (d8 Piercing Finesse) and Longsword (d8 Slashing Strength).
(There */technically/* isn't a d8 Bludgeoning Finesse weapon either, though I would argue that the humble Flail is ideally suited for this role. It weighs less than the Scimitar [3lb, Finesse, Light] and the chain portion most certainly makes dexterous control the dominant aspect for effective use.)
allow me to be the first to say that this entire comment is valuable for my own efforts in weapon reworks - you have my full appreciation my friend :)
The sickle shouldn't be removed as it is a great "found weapon" along with hand axes and clubs etc. If you want a violent mob of villagers then it is also a good weapon pick.
It is also forms the basis of more complex weapons like the Kusaragima (sickle and weighted chain).
I love to disarm my characters and make them do fights in disadvantaged situations like the only weapons to use are what you can improvise in a room or house, so mainly clubs and such, kitchen knives, thrown items
I find giving NPC's rubbish weapons really beneficial when the party are at level 1-3. If all weapons were decent it would make the job of the DM harder
It really should have Finesse property though, and so should quarterstaff and spear for that matter.
I think this is a really good point with a lot of the sub-par weapons...they aren't there for established adventurers who can get exactly what they want...they're there for peasants and weaker monsters, and they are there for the players if they get captured and have their stuff taken, or if they fight a rust monster or otherwise get stripped of their weapons.
I would reason that the club got ranked higher than the light hammer because this ranking is not about power level, it's just about if we would change it
and i think it's plausible that a lot of people think the club is perfectly fine as it is, being basically the most simple weapon there is (viable or not), and same thing with the handaxe
exactly
light hammer costs 20 times as much as a club, so that might’ve been why
You can Shillelagh a club you can't Shillelagh a light hammer.
@@darkfatherg Use a staff. Per the DMG, magical staffs are also weapon staves. So it's an easy jump to the spell focus staff is also a weapon. Then your spell focus works for Shillelagh.
club possibly also ranked higher cus of Shilleagh? since that only works on clubs and great clubs?
So, for the Longsword-Katana matter,
Katanas are actually heavier in the hand (similar actual weight) than their longsword counterparts. They tend to be slightly shorter in comparison with a further forward center of balance, leading to that feeling.
So, hear me out, longsword gets the finesse property, katana does not.
Especially since the dexterous elfs get proficiency with longswords as a trait.
The way these weapons are used in real life reflects this as well.
For erveryone wanting that ninja vibe, the swords that most people think of are actually shorter. Similar in length to an arming sword, which dnd doesn't have. Just just make them both 1d8, with slashing damage. You could easily justify it as either of these being finesse. Perhaps even light for that sick dual wielding aesthetic.
These two can be marshal weapons and I would simply make the shorts word a simple weapon.
I would also consider throwing the scimitar into the arming sword category.
Also, can we petition changing the name short sword to long dagger
@@HeedlessDullahan lol.
i think the biggest problem with the short sword is that people either think of the Renaissance era weapon, or a sword that is shorter, like the Greeks used.
Which are drastically different, but both are "short swords". Lol
@@benjaminholcomb9478 and no one ever thinks of the small sword which is criminal
@@HeedlessDullahan ...
I might also have been thinking of it as the Renaissance short sword.
This is the PROBLEM! (I declare self-righteously)
@@benjaminholcomb9478 I assumed you were talking about another sword because the small sword was used right on up to the US Civil war by people who wanted to die faster on the battlefield.
The maul is at 21? The maul is, as we speak, the strongest weapon in the game. Yes it has 2d6 like the greatsword, but it's objectively better. There are creatures that specifically resist slashing damage, but this doesn't exist for bludgeoning. On top of that, the crusher feat is also better then the slasher, though that is a bit more subjective.
Yeah totally agree, the maul being so much lower then the gear sword just doesn't make sense at all
@@telenikros I think that it just shows that people by large don't know anything about the dnd weapons.
People know the greatsword. Then they find out about the maul and think "this is like a greatsword, it's unnecessary in this game because there is already a greatsword". The popularity of some weapons is keeping some other viable weapons low. Think of the battleaxe, which is identical to the longsword if you want any additional examples.
People want to change the blow gun to do more damage because they don't realise it's the half baked sometimes unclear poison rules that make it less effective.
It's telling how one of the most requested weapons is the katana, and some other widely requested are short sword varieties.
In my opinion spear, pike and whip could all be fixed simultaneously, by introducing 15ft range as an option. If you give pikes reach 15ft (because sarissa pikes could become 18ft+), it won't feel weird if spears have reach, since pikes are longer spears. Letting whips have 15ft range is unique enough in terms of versatility that it can deal with the low damage.
Actualy there is some ceatures who have resist for bludgeoning dmg.
@@vida2559 like?
AFAIK there's nothing that resists bludgeon and not piercing and slashing. Although that might have changed like a book ago?
@@Olav_Hansen treants
The whip : If you attack a creature with 4 or less Intelligence (animals, mostly) the creature is disoriented and get disadvantage against you for the next round.
Hmmm that's a neat special feature. It opens up the idea of intimidation bonuses for certain weapons
Should be 8 intelligence to see what happens when you whip a barbarian
75% of this video was like “I don’t understand why people rated this weapon so strange” and I could only agree. A big factor is that many people forgot about many of the weapons. Additionally, the mechanically similar weapons are often ranked close to each other, if one were to be removed the other might be bumped up. However, with different people voting, that would never be the outcome.
Really surprised with the dart hate. It's a unique weapon in that it's the only ranged weapon with the thrown property, this allows it to make use of the Archery and Thrown Weapon fighting styles on top of Sharpshooter, as well as the Battle master's Quick Toss maneuver. A straight up underutilized weapon in my opinion
Ye I love darts but to be fair most people probably only see the damage die and range and immediately write them off. You really have to know the system and what works to make darts good where as almost anyone can look at the 2d6 a greatsword does and immediately understand why it's good
For the whip, i actually vote for a small rules change.
Include the optional disarming action from the dmg, but change it to only be usable by melee attacks instead of weapon attacks.
Then give the whip the feature to be able to grab objects and bring them to you within its reach so long as you are proficient.
I've thought about this, but I'm currently leaning toward some kind of grapple/trip. I'll reconsider this...
@@BobWorldBuilder I think the whip's damage should also be nerfed in some way, or at least be only nonlethal, because I don't think you should be able to instakill some poor wizard/sorceror with one whiplash.
I agree, allow it to be used how it's used in movies. That or rachet up the damage to make it a heavy whip.
@@yoshilovesyoshi a whip can be lethal if one is good (or bad) with it
@@renanbauer Yeah I don't deny it can be lethal, but as someone who has used a whip before, I can't imagine killing an adult human being in one whiplash, which as it stands can do up to 8 damage with a level 1 character which is more than enough to instakill a wizard and even a relatively weak cleric who's probably wearing at least metal armor, which is just insane to me, to think that a whip could just completely bypass metal scales.
Hah not surprised by this data at all. Thanks for sharing it all Bob!
Congratulations to you and Grace on getting married. My daughter and I enjoy watching your videos. She is very pleased by this turn of events. On a weapons note, my wife likes to poi. We invented a rope dart mechanic to incorporate her love of poi into the game. It has range 5 or 10 and an opportunity to do damage as someone enters the spot next to her or completely keep them back. Rolls 18+ start these mechanics and she had to trade a magic potion to be taught these techniques at level 2 by a master. I like the thought of adding your tripping idea into it as well. The damage is currently 1d4 as a rogue but I plan on upping it once she "finds" a better blade to attach or uses it and gets "better".
Imo, I think the biggest failings of the Maul, Warhammer, etc (less loved versions of the short/long/great swords, with different damage types) is that they just don't have the magical weapon options. Swords just get so much more love.
For example, on DDB the maul has 10 magic variants, including +1, +2 etc, only one of which is named and specific to the maul. The battleaxe does better with 16, 4 of which are specific to Battleaxes. The greatsword has 37, 7 of which are named. Most of that difference are the variants of magic items that specifically say "Weapon (any sword), [rarity]"
I'd so much rather that they'd move towards having classes of weapons like they do for armor. There'd be a featherweight/light/medium/heavy ammunition (d4-d10's) weapons, and featherweight/light/versatile/heavy melee (d4-d12's). Slap on a trait like thrown, thrown-only, finesse, stealth, reach, tripping, silvered, Gun (which ups damage, but adds misfire and ammo cost) etc. to build your common weapon. And let the boons of magic weapons apply to all the relevant weapons. It would mean 4 ranged piercing weapons and 12 melee weapons to cover all the flavors that WotC can't possibly do with the current system. It'd be nice to have a structure to make the weapons we want instead of needing to homebrew things like a moon-touched maul, a katana being a slashing rapier, and adding features to make forgettable weapons usable.
You can add your ability score to the dagger's damage when two weapon fighting, or you can always use two weapon fighting by default when using two daggers
Your fast and accurate when using two daggers
Stabby stabby
I would prefer some sort of execute move, some bleed effect, sneak attack bonus or similar I think.
@@nerfherder5211 duel welding dagger's gives an extra 1d4 for each 1d6 of the sneak attack? Maybe a little strong. What about and additional (1d4 x your proficiency bonus) each time you use a sneak attack? Problem I see is that it only helps 1 class
I'm not much of a fan of bleed mechanics. Logically, every weapon makes you bleed. The only exception would be if you take disadvantage on an attack to target a specific point - throat, underarm, inside of thigh, etc. But that ends up as just a regular weapon mechanic, not really special to daggers
Also, not sure what you mean by execute move. Something like a maneuver, or an execution?
@@billwhipple9039 Perhaps I'd just give the rogue a really cool sentient magical dagger instead of messing around with homebrew. Hard to say :(
1 ) A REAL sling should definitely do more damage - they were used by shepherds to drive away LIONS. In addition, they could be used to do things like throw vials of acid or Alchemist's Fire, or other magical items normally thrown, and yes, like you said, have the Concealable property - a true sling was just a 4 foot section of leather.
2 ) The Pike should DEFINITELY be in the game - Rennaissance tactics were built ENTIRELY around it. And it should have Extra Reach AND the ability to set against a charge. This is one of the most important weapons of military history from the 1400s to the 1700s. One of the most legendary mercenary units were the Swiss Pikemen for crying out loud.
3 ) Repeating crossbows are a real weapon in history - but they were quite weak in comparison to similar sized "regular" crossbows. HOWEVER, there is no reason mechanics wise to include it - except as a reskin of a Shortbow.
4 ) Many weapons could be described explicitly as reskins of other weapons. Weapon damage type is enough reason to keep the scimitar as that makes it different from the shortsword, but you could then declare the grossmesser, falchion, and such as reskins of the saber. The Shortsword could have reskins of the Court Sword and Chinese "Willow Leaf" saber (a la Green Destiny in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon").
5 ) There is still room for an Arming Sword for aesthetics. Specifically, a weapon that is otherwise identical to the Longsword, but without the Versatile property - this would represent the classic Viking sword, the swords of the Norman Conquest, and so on. Honestly, the main reason for it.. is aesthetics.
Scimitar is an ascetic choice. It has a good arabian/subcontinent/asian feel to it as it can represent everything from a mameluke to a shao lin sword
They could have removed the scimitar and just had the Shortsword and you select whatever shape you want it to have though. Scimitar, cutlass, medium to short katana, whatever. Flavor is free and superior to multiple dupes imo. Or it could have received some sort of slashing bonus. Somehow.
The word you're looking for is "aesthetic". Ascetic is different.
@@Wordviews thanks. When you on your phone and are in a hurry. Ascetic is a school of philosophy about living austerely I believe?
@@stefansneden1957 Yes, so you can give your monk an ascetic Shao Lin sword!
@@RichWoods23 I see what you did there.
So I have some notes about the Longbow.
The English Longbow which is what most people think of was often over six feet long. That is *wildly* impractical for adventuring life - which makes sense! The longbow was a military weapon.
In my games, with archers, I give them the option of a "horsebow" aka, a recurve composite bow. These can achieve the same or better ranges, accuracy, and penetration power that english longbows can achieve, but are often much smaller, and able to be used while mounted (hence "horsebow"). They achieve the same or better properties by putting in curves, and compositing materials to create different tensions. (IE, bone and wood. Bone is stiffer than wood, while wood lets the bow bend without breaking.)
Recurve composite bows have been used everywhere, especially in places lower in wood growth, like the Mongolian Steppe, and enable certain societal structures, such as nomadic movement.
Yeah, ultimately it comes down to how much energy can be stored, whether that comes from curvature, materials, or length.
The dart is okay in low tier play, if you need to buy all your weapons it's more expensive to buy 10 daggers than 10 darts.
Yeah, I think that price is certain games is very important. I play in a game right now where money is NOT easy to get. We are level 8 and our party collectively has less than 500 gold. We do have some magic items that we found that bring our total up, but magic items are also extremely rare so selling those is not worth it because you likely won't find anything in towns worth trading them in for.
I genuinely like how money is beyond hard to get in this world. My dm doesn't do a great job managing the cost of everyday things vs what we make. But the concept is kinda fire.
dart has the niche of being the only ranged weapon that can benefit from Sharpshooter feat while using your strength, so it's good for a thrown weapon build in heavy armor and a shield
I would give them a quick special ability allowing you to throw 2 per action. but other than that, I think they are fine
I've always ruled that Darts can be used with Slings since that is how darts typically were thrown in actual combat.
@@kid14346 Slings for darts are little different to slings for stones. One of the thongs is twice as long as the other, to loop around the head of the dart, but I suppose you could say that if you had a dart sling you could spend an action coiling half the longer thong up and tying it tight, making the sling ready for use with a stone. A dart sling could also be tied to the end of a short staff to make a staff sling for casting stones (not darts!), where again one thong has to be at least twice as long as the other.
You mentioned wanting a sword with the ability to trip opponents, so I'm surprised you didn't put it in this list. The historically accurate Chinese Hook Sword has been a weapon available in D&D since long before 5e. The weapons are the one thing that basically don't change between editions so it should be fair game.
-A Whip is less of a weapon than a multipurpose utility item. Indiana Jonesing your way over chasms and pits never gets old.
-"A sickle is just a dagger you can't throw" You can throw any weapon in D&D. Sometimes even NPCs too. Sometimes you can wield an NPC as a weapon while already in flight towards your enemy. If anything a sickle as a weapon is designed to cut off your opponents weapon hand at the wrist when they attack you.
-A blowgun has only one purpose. It's not a weapon, it's a delivery system for poison.
-A sling is by far the worst weapon on this list. It's just stats slapped on throwing a pebble. If slings used ammunition that could do actual damage I'd consider them more than an annoyance.
-Trying to claim the dagger needs to be taken out of D&D is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard concerning this game. It's basically the only actual weapon all spellcasters can use. Unless you count a staff, which I don't because you still require a free hand to cast. Not to mention the usefulness of the dagger when farming for free spell components. Granted "One D&D" is introducing an Arcane Focus that replaces all but the most expensive spell components, so maybe that last bit isn't such a selling point anymore.
A Battle Master Fighter with a Whip means you can do all your Maneuvers with Reach and still wear a shield and be entirely Dex based. Take the Sentinel feat plus the Brace Maneuver with Reach and you will likely have the option to do an AoO every round while not giving up a shield.
It is a fun, although niche use of the whip. The weapon still suffers from having very low damage, but being a one-handed dex reach has this very unique advantage which no other weapon should replicate. At the same time I think its sad that its the only dex based reach weapon in the game. Would have loved to have a two handed dex reach weapon that has a d6 damage dice, or something similar
@@arikaaa69 If you're playing a Fighter since you get so many feats you can just take some damage boosting feats like Fey Touched with Hunter's Mark to add a D6 and/or Gift of the Chromatic Dragon to add a D4.
I love running the flail with the flexible property that allows it to ignore shield and cover AC, which is what it was historically used for (rampart defense, harassing ladder climbers besieging a castle). Makes for a nifty secondary weapon
Greatbows technically exist in dnd. There a npc with a 2d6 longbow that works an dex to hit and str to dmg. It is a weapon and it even shows up sometimes on dnd beyond when you want to add stuff in your inventory.
I was just thinking that DEX to hit and STR for damage would be good thematically for longbows and shortbows. Or maybe make the damage roll optional between the two.
Right, I think it's in Waterdeep DH...have to check that out again!
I wonder if it would've been better if they had given all Bows the Finesse property, and leave Crossbows the same as is.
That way strength characters have a reasonable range option but crossbows are a dex characters optional range weapon of the two.
@@Battleguild str based characters are often better off with a bow than a crossbow anyway. Most strength based builds get extra attack, which they won't be able to use with a crossbow without investing an ASI, but they can with a bow, even when fully investing into melee combat.
I liked the idea in Pathfinder of different gods having representative weapons that clerics can wield and get class-specific bonuses from. It really expanded the idea of what weapons were available. I ended up using a Starknife (like a big throwing star) because it was favored by my god and it was very rewarding as a character.
If you're referring to the Warpriest feature, I've always liked the idea of using faith-relevant non-weapons with that class, with a supernatural flourish as necessary. Things like scarves, palm fronds, balancing poles, bones (femur, skull, bones from a particular animal), candelabras, etc.
For scimitars and many other curved one handed swords like sabres and cutasses, their advantage is they are easier to parry with on a horse (or other animal) or in a tight space because turning the sword hand sweeps the belly of the blade through quite a bit of space without moving the point of the sword much. Don't know how to make a good rule around that.
Another feature is that they are much better at cutting through cloth than straight blades.
Fun fact about the sling in real life which makes 5e logic dumb, is that the sling is a specialized weapon that can do more damage than heavy longbow with more range if you are a trained warrior, and people swapped to bows, and then crossbows for ease of use
Yay, my comment made it to one of your videos, that alone made my day!
Also, I think a Finesse Longsword would be totally game-breaking, because Dexterity's already the most OP stat, it gives you one of the most commonly used Saving Throws, AC, bonus in a lot of skills, ranged damage, initiative, etc. Plus, rogues could sneak attack with a finesse long sword, and that looks kinda weird, I guess. Other than that, katanas are already longswords, as the book mentions: in real life, katanas are not lighter than longswords at all, this is an anime/Japanese culture trope.
If you're interested in learning about medieval weapon "mechanics" including weight, length and reach, I'd recommend taking a look at Skallagrim's channel, it might be a source for creativity regarding alternative weapon uses, or maybe even give you ideas for real life multi-attack tests, which might be cool too.
As always, thank you for the great content, including this video and your hard work on surveys and whatnot. This is my favorite D&D channel. Cheers from Brazil.
Thanks for leaving that comment! haha, Yeah I agree that adding finesse could shift the longsword to being objectively better than many others
Yep, katanas actually weighed the same as European hand-and-a-half swords (Longsword in 5e terms) while actually being closer to an arming sword (Scimitar in 5e terms) in length. This is because katanas were made of folded steel, while European swords from the same era were typically made of much thinner and tougher monosteel. The main reason why Japanese smiths stuck with folded steel was because it could be smelted at much lower temperatures and could be made from the worst iron, which was useful for an iron poor country.
@@BobWorldBuilder well that would be historically accurate lol. In order of OP IRL: guns, spears, longsword. Range of engagement is often the king 🤴.
As I understand it, the difference between a maul and a warhammer is size and weight. A warhammer is small enough to be wielded one-handed, while a maul is a gigantic two-handed bludgeoning weapon (though there are some that have an axehead and are used specifically for cutting wood).
Darts a very interesting weapon honestly, its the only ranged weapon with finesse to start with meaning it can be used with strength, though i think a dagger would work almost identically though its a melee weapon with the thrown property so the only difference between them is what feats or class features that key of specific weapon types they interact with e.g. sharp shooter, cost and weight are another thing thats good compared to having lots of daggers but most DMs really gloss over such things
Yeah it seems like a player just has to do more research to realize that this weapon can be made useful, when they could instead just pick up a weapon that's more useful outright
Yeah I play a dart based fighter and it's pretty cool since darts work with both the archery and throwing fighting styles and the sharpshooter feat . And you can use a shield with them as well.
The only issue is that the build takes two feats to accomplish so it has to compete with any other combination of feats like polearm master and sentinel or crossbow expert and sharpshooter and compared to those it's only okay.
4:05 In one of my home games, I added a Flail variant where you could use an action to change the chain length. with a short length chain, it is a normal flail, but with a full chain, it is a 2 handed flail with reach
5e weapons simply suffer from the simplification of combat in 5e. In 3.5, weapons could be vastly different depending on their crit profile, but with crits defaulting to x2 (20), a lot of variant weapons collapsed into the exact same statline. The difference in performance between x2 (19-20) and x3 (20) is negligable, but the aesthetic, feel and personal preference shines through.
Honestly i love the blowgun, whip and darts myself but my group changed some things
Blowgun - you can use skills like sniper with it and blowguns can be enchanted and the darts thenselfs
Whip - it can be used to grapple an enemy as a bonus action if you attack with it or try and disarm someone with it
Dart - you can throw more then one as a ranged weapon up to 3 each hand
There simple changes but they made then so much more useful and i love using them
For the Whip, I can think of two things on top of just straight out raising its damage:
Giving it a Grappling feature with a DC of 8+ STR mod + proficiency bonus.
Giving it the Light property so you can dual wield along with it. Dual wielding whips is used in performances and fulfills the Trevor Belmont-esque fantasy of a whip user.
EDIT:
Something I feel strongly about many of the weapons in D&D 5e (dagger, dart, etc) is that select weapons should naturally allow multiple attacks even without a Extra Attack.
Example: Do you really need to be a Level 5 Fighter to know how to stab someone twice with a dagger, or throw a dart.
Some weapons are just EASIER to wield, and they will do perfectly well with a lower damage dice because you'll be able to attack twice!
That wouldnt be amazing since the current characters looking at the whip are dex based characters that want a finesse weapon. So those people wont want to use a STR based feature.
Then I dont think the ability to grapple 10ft away is enough to get STR characters to use the whip all by itself. (Unless you didnt let them approach the character that grappled them)
There are weapons you can innately attack more with. Light weapons. By deul wielding
@@___i3ambi126 Oh youre right, that's an oversight on my part. In any case, it could still be a grapple using DEX instead of STR. Same concept.
@@lordjalor Maybe a STR save to not get ensnared?
@@___i3ambi126 Yes, but the idea is that you wouldn't have to dual wield to attack multiple times. Like in my dagger example, you wouldn't realistically need to hold two daggers to stab twice.
For the scymitar the problem is that, as a historical weapon, it was desinged to be use while riding a horse.
It was light and resilient enough to withstand the strikes it would deliver and the curve of the blade would help slash trhough unrarmored oponents as it matches the curve of the swing of the riders arm. So, at least for me, is quite hard to find a way to make it more unique other than "Cool, you have advantage/deal more damage while riding a horse"
For a scimitar I use the following rules: it is a 1d8 slashing weapon, that has light, finesse and special* properties. Special* property of the scimitar says “If the skimitar is used in combination with any other weapon except the second skimitar, it loses the finesse property. Using the skimitar with a shield does not make it lose the finesse property.”
Interesting ideas!
That's also a nice way to just make Longswords pointless, since that's just Longsword that is light (which means you don't need Dual Wielder feat). So i also advise it also lowers the damage when dual wielding
@@GMeneze800 I'd like to disagree. Londswords are universal (d10). Scimitars aren't. According to your logic rapier makes longsword useless since it's basically a longsword with finesse property. The idea of my homerule is to make scimitars something that resembles the properties of the shortsword, but does more damage. Btw, the narrative inspiration came from an idea of sword dancers, hence the need of similar weapons when dual-wielding
@Ninof first of all: If you use the Longsword 1d10 damage instead of a greatsword you're a Psychopath (i never really saw someone use it, except in the extremely rare situation where they lose/break their shield)
Second of all: Rapiers always made Longswords useless. Dex is so much stronger than Str in combat that it is laughable.
Third of all: Dual Wielding medium to longswords is the dumbest thing ever irl, since they hit eachother fairly often (except for that one weird fencing stance focused on defense). And scimitars are specially fond of doing this in combat when you dual wield them (their balance is just bad, great for one handing tho!)
Fourth: You just made Dual Wielder Feat Weaker. Dual wielding longswords is just a worse option now for dual wielding
Anyways, it does boost strength martials at least (since dual wielding withouth needing a feat)
And i can see this being more balanced on a game with novice players a good DM, since item management and losses are easier to deal with when against smart veteran players who will most likely abuse the hell out of that rule (actually they won't because they'll be way to focused on doing Dex Builds, Polearm Masters or Casters)
. But hey, if it works on your game, then it'sok. As long as everyone is having fun that's what matters
Ofc, this all in a Combat point of view, and possibly a Min-Maxer as well (i've turned into one to be able to deal with them, not that matters since i'm a forever DM), And c'mon, martials are so sad that doing a buff like this is always welcome. I mean, i would even recomend 2d8 greatweapons, i know it might seem crazy, but turns out it makes strength Martials a bit more on board with Casters and Dex Martials. Might need some revision although.
10:55 but Crossbow Expert is already a thing. nless you remove the feat, adding a repeating crossbow won't change a thing
Yes! I love diving into the weapons system in 5e
I appreciate your enthusiasm!
10:40 i remember stumbling upon a signal arrow/bolt once, it essentially replaces the damaging tip with a whistle and could be used for distractions, signaling teammates from across long distances, and for practice
Congratulations Grace World Destroyer on getting married to the one and only Bob!
8:25 I think the confusion about why the light hammer ranked lower than the club is due to some confusion between the survey as written and the survey as interpreted.
The survey asks whether or not each weapon should be kept as is or changed, i.e. whether or not the rules for it feel appropriate. This is a different question than whether or not players like each weapon.
i.e.: Players think the club, a weapon PCs would only use in desperation or as a proxy for an improvised weapon, is fine as it currently stands. Players think the light hammer needs work, I'm guessing with either a larger damage die or a better thrown range.
I think it has to do with incompetence. Most players that voted in the survey have never used the weapons, forgot several of the weapons and didn't bother looking them up. Most have not ever contemplated how to best use the weapons. People are passionate, bias and incompetent and democratic votes like this usually end up like this. Unfortunately there are few better ways to do unless you want to find some elitistic test team to discuss with in which case you lose the average joes view of the world.
Bob world builder my homebrew repeating crossbow is a simple weapon with a 15/45 range that does 2d4 damage, because the one the Chinese invented is a magazine on top of the very light crossbow that you load by sliding the magazine box front to back. It's goal was to shoot out a lot of small random bolts for area denial.
To me, this should just be rolled into crossbow expert and fighter's many, many attacks. I have a hard time with a fighter getting off foue to eight shots WITHOUT a magazine.
Great survey and video. The club probably ranks so high because you can combine it with the Shillelagh cantrip unlike the light hammer (due to not being all wood). Also thrown weapons relying on Strength limits their usefulness for most classes.
I know when i wanted to use an anime sword, i didn't feel the need for any new options. I just reflavored the Halberd.
Smart!
Bob! Okay, I'm going to cut this down to four parts.
1) I love what you're doing. I did a similar project about two years back, and I love seeing someone else try their hand at it.
2) You haven't brought up name recognition. I think this is really the Maul's problem, but also with the Morningstar, War Pick, etc. Most people just don't actually know the differences. I think that's why the Bill hasn't been printed in years.
3) Whips scare and flails impact. Both can go around shields, and that'd be a great mechanic, but neither are good at tripping. A flail however just delivers more brute force that a sword or spear can... unlike a whip which is so non-threatening that it's used as punnishment. You don't punnish with an ax, even a little one, because it'll ruin whoever you're punnishing. You do punnish with the whip. On the plus side, whips cause fear and can produce status effects other weapons can't.
4) Sling should do about the same damage, but also come with stunning status effects. They harass during combat, but rarely kill.
I think I put it in the last video that was basically just a sponsor video but I figure I'll add it here because I've been having a lot of fun with the Warrior's Codex, which is a martial overhaul similar to the weapon variation Bob is after. They add a few more properties, like the ability to wrap around shields for flexible weapons like the mace that was mentioned in this video, but also they flesh out disarming and parrying and other real life martial combat occurrences into actual mechanics that I quite enjoy. You can even make your own weapons, as they boil the modifiers down to a point system, for instance I made a sword based off Sephiroth's sword, with reach (but also two-handed because who in the world could carry that thing)
They include weapon materials, modifications, and the base modifiers, which is only like, one chapter from the codex but I figure that's the most relevant lol
Bob,
You might like this: In our current Savage Worlds campaign I use a hand crossbow to fire a bolt with a Thunderstone on the end. This allows me to do a ranged crowd control attack that basically stuns instead of kills. I recently used it to take down a giant flying beast the size of a hot air balloon and when it his the ground (and took damage) and was stunned, the party made short work of the beast.
I’m honestly surprised there hasn’t been more work on crossbow ammo.
The western falchion is not just like the scimitar its a two handed baby of a cleaver, axe, and sword at once. Its a heavy weapon meant for just crushing through enemies while the scimitar is a finesse light weapon.
2d4 slashing bludgeoning, heavy, crush through armor and or bonus on horseback as it is popular for cavalry as a dismounter.
The falchion is in no way a heavy blade. They have wide blades for the most part but said blade is actually quite thin. Hell such is the construction of falchion that the centre of percussion is not really any higher than most arming swords despite the much wider blade head. I advise you look at the video by Scholagladiatora called 'medieval falchions were not like axes'.
@@nathanthom8176 thank you! It's great that finally people are spreading more HEMA knowledge into dnd. Hopefully we will get rid of katana myths next, because as much as I love them, an arming Sword or longsword is often just better. You often get better balance, more range, and at the same or lesser weight. In sparring you often have to pick shorter longswords to even out the advantages against katanas, still super fun against Kendo guys( the speed and the determination to hit those guys gave is awesome)
The whip should have a ranged grappling and tripping feature, and it could be a way to deal with enemies who have blunt weapons since you could attempt to snatch them out of their hands. Slashing and piercing weapon could counter the whip as a way to keep it in check during combat. I might also consider using the whip crack having a distraction and intimidating feature that can be used once or twice during combat.
No. That should be a whip-based feat like PAM is for polearms. Whip baseline is already perfect (for rogues, paladins, kenseis, etc).
Yeah grappling and tripping is definitely what I'm leaning toward!
@@ANDELE3025 whip baseline is shit actually 1d4 damage is laughable. Especially when you can just use a longsword or rapier instead and its so much better
@@SarahSmith-hh7he Reach already makes it superior to LS and Rapier.
7 damage with safety of reach vs 9 damage of the 2 is not worth the loss of 12 (or 16 if not using 3.5/variant grid rule) squares worth of attack target potential.
There already is a finesseable version of a longsword, it's called a rapier.
Just make a rapier variant with slashing damage and the katana people will be happy
So, for the spear
There needs to be a light spear with the finesse property and s heavy spear, with the versatile property (d6/d8).
A spear with reach is a pike.
A pike with excessive reach, is a long pike.
A glaive may have reach, or just keep it a d10 slashing.
You might make a trident a versatile d8/d10 or give it it's own shtick.
Halberds should be a d10, with options to slash or pierce.
Perhaps with reach, but if you make a shorter version call it a pollaxe and give it bludgeoning as well.
Maybe tack on the light property to the glaive to really differentiate it from the halberd. (Or if you're willing to, maybe finesse, probably not both).
Honestly functionally speaking theirs not too much you can do to nake them different without making a whole new system.
I would make the light spear, heavy spear, and pikes simple weapons (think levied armies).
And all the further variants Martial.
A big thing to make all of these more "accurate" and define them amongst each other would be to correct their weights and values to be more, relatively, in line with each other. Not that it would come up very often in game play, but it would certainly help them on the page.
I just noticed you're not Bob the world builder. Thanks my life is ruined, and i will reincarnate as a sea urchin now.
Edit: I see anchorman my life improved, my life is no longer ruined.
Haha, it's a common misconception, no worries :P
I gotta say, as a homebrewer with non-existent clout, I live vicariously through your using your platform to do some data-driven game design. I have zero envy for the whole being a youtuber thing, doesn't appeal to me, but oh boi do I wish I could run these types of surveys. Thank you for doing this
The problem with many of these weapons is that tthe designers have basically simplified them down to their tropes, and pop culture tropes at that meaning that they actually make pretty poor representations historically. Take the Longsword for instance. You've mentioned a few versions, such as the falchion (I'd actually have the cutlass as a short sword), the jian, the katana, then there's the messer, the bastard sword, the claymore, the side sword, the Kopis, the Kophesh, the Estoc... My point is, there are so many different designs of sword for different cultures and times, you really could just make a sword builder set of rules to design the kind of sword you want. I'd even just grab the short sword and great swords and put them all into this too as again, there are many differing types. You can actually see the designers try and show this with separate rules for the shotr sword, great sword, rapier and scimitar.
So, as an example, you could give the length classification, this would decide the over all damage, then you could choose if it were going to be a light weapon, a finesse weapon or versatile, and then you would choose the damage type, either slashing or piercing. So, say you went for a short light piercing type of weapon, well done, you've just made an epee. Say you went for medium length slashing, this could be a claymore. Add versatile into that and you could have a falchion. A katana would be a medium length, versatile, finesse weapon. My point is, it would be cool to be able to customise your sword to represent what you had in mind as closely as possible.
The Pike I'd just get rid of to be honest as it's really just a really long spear and ultimately impractical unless you're with a large group of pikemen. This more than any other weapon is a specialised war weapon.
Also, if you were to make a Greatbow, I would seriously consider having it as a strength based weapon. Reason being, historically, you're looking at a Warbow for comparison. These things have a draw weight of 80 to 150lbs, but can go up to 200lbs. So you need to be bloody strong to pull one to full draw, and none of this holding too. You draw it, you fire it! In this case especially I do feel that Warhammer had the better system with the Weapon Skill and Bow/Ballistic skill stats rather than Strength and Dex.
Anyway, if you were to redesign a bunch of these weapons, I would seriously consider looking at their historical usage and context and go from there.
I'm glad to see someone else has gone to the effort of explaining how inaccurate the 5e weapon system is from a historical standpoint so I don't have to.
And don't get me started on all of the people in the community clamoring that katanas should be just better longswords because the Japanese folded their steel a ton and because anime. They had to fold their steel so much to get any decent steel since their iron was extremely impure and that's how you have to compensate for that problem. European steel tended to be better quality with much less work. Japanese steel also tended to be more brittle even after the folding, so to compensate, they would use much softer steel as the back of the blade to absorb deformation during quenching (as well as during combat) which is why the blades are curved. It also prevented them from making double-edged swords which give you a lot more options while in combat.
Building a weapon with that system could work, but a lot of time would have to go into the system it to make sure it's balanced (for example adding versatile for free would be too much to me), maybe you take a hit on the die type for each feature you add.
I definitely want strength to be a component for those much more powerful bows, but I've implemented one that had a strength requirement of 15, but was still dex to shoot. Having a requirement like that means that they have to have 2 high stats and allows you to increase the damage more than you might otherwise. Also I feel like the aiming would still be dex-based.
@@razzakbane I almost think aiming would be wisdom based. Reason being: I've shot recurve and longbow for years, you aren't really "aiming" so much as letting thousands of repetitions and instinct shoot the bow. I also have a compound, that's completely different. You are using a site, holding it steady, lining up pins and pulling the release trigger.
Regarding the greatsword-woth-reach-topic you mentioned, Bob, I have a small suggestion, maybe this could inspire you or something:
How about a new, small extra group of weapons, called gargantuan weapons or giant weapons or such. This group would only contain between 3-5 weapons, one for each type of damage and maybe a ranged option.
First of all, using such a giant weapon would require a certain strength score. And I am not talking about a 13 or something that low, I would say a 16 minimum. This would not only make sure that not every character can just wield this weapons unconditionally, but it would also make their occurance rarer and therefore more special.
Talking stats and weapon traits, I would spontaneously say: 2d8 damage (for all of them, to make sure none is stronger than the others); reach, heavy, two-handed. And who knows, maybe even a new, unique feature for these giant weapons only, for example something to knock a target prone if your rolled damage exceeds a certain number.
Finally, there are the weapons themselves. As already said, there should be one for each damage type.
For slashing, I would recommend a giant greatsword or ultra-greatsword, but it could also just be a giant blade in general. That way, you could flavor it in any way you like, as a giant axe, for example.
For bludgeoning, I would think of something like a giant hammer. And for piercing, a giant lance or halberd or so.
PS: nearly forgot, but I mentioned a ranged weapon option for these giant weapons. In general, the same goes for this one, 2d8 (probably) piercing damage; heavy, two-handed, a very good range, like (120/300) for example. This could be a siege-crossbow or a stationary crossbow. Maybe you could even add a new trait, that forces the wielder to sacrifice a bit of movement (like 5 or 10 feet) to use this weapon, since it is big and semi-stationary, but in turn it could reduce the target's movement by the same amount for one turn, if it hits, since it pushes them back or partially impales them or just slows them down in general.
Please let me know what you guys think of this idea, critique is always welcome ^^
The cimitar/sable kind of sword could be the finesse version of the longsword. It would also make it diferent from the shortsword since it will deal more damage.
The longswird atleast has the 'heavy' tax which many weapons do have :(. Finesse also costs a small price. Not being heavy and being versatile means a smaller dice. The intent is for Rogues to use lighter weapons. I dont think this is so bad. Most of their weapons comes not from multiple attacks anyway but from sneak attack for example, thus the weapon damage itself is not so important. You can also reflavor your magical +1 shortsword as a decently long katana or elven sword or whatever you want anyway.
@@nerfherder5211 Yeah, but it would help a Dex based fighter or similar builds if it was finesse. I forgot the longsword was versatile, the cimitar should be finesse instead of that in that case.
I don't think it brings many balancing issues considering the rapier is a thing and basically the same idea. However it would add a little bit of flavor to Dex-based characters since they have two big options (rapier or cimitar, aka piercing or slashing).
Yeah maybe finesse and versatile then? but 1d6/1d8
@@BobWorldBuilder That would be interesting. It would also help diferenciating from the rapier so that those are more defensive (since it being a 1d8 one handed weapon a shield could be used) but the cimitar having the capacity to be a two-handed weapon brings a lot of the two-handed weapon stuff to it, making it more offensive.
I think that people's problem with the maul is not that it should be more useful, but actually the opposite; historically mauls were tools that were a lot more like sledgehammers than warhammers. Because of this, they would actually not be very effective weapons as they would be much too heavy and slow to compete with other weapons in combat hence why they were really only used as weapons by those who didn't have access to proper weapons. So the fact that mauls are arguably the best weapons in 5e doesn't really fit the weapon. To fix this I would suggest maybe lowering its damage and/or giving it some sort of "unwieldy" feature where it has a penalty to attack rolls to simulate how clunky and hard to use it would be as a weapon.
Honestly, I think whips are great as is. I've built a bugbear rogue dual wielding them, flavored as bladed chains. That was a terrifying build.
Well as is, the whip is not technically a light weapon so it can't be dual wielded! So we can agree that the light property should be added :P
@@BobWorldBuilder oh snap! That's right! I think I gave him the dual wielder feat. Very fun combo, reach galore!
Here are a few things for the whip I've thought of over the years:
- Light property. Allows whips/reach to be incorporated into dual weapon builds.
- Allow you to grapple with your whips reach of 10ft.
My personal (totally random) favorite:
- A concentration check made as a result of a whip attack is made at disadvantage, so long as the creature doesn't have resistance to the whip's damage.
Obviously all of these things being incorporated at once is too broken, but if they buffed the whip, it might make a specialized feat for it worth taking, where you could gain some of these features, though I think most people agree d4 damage is too low for most martials.
I had an idea of a "weapon building" system where a you could pick the weapon's damage and any special properties. Each would cost points, and all "normal/standard" would have the same amount of points, so you couldn't make a 2d6 light weapon. This would also be a great way for GMs to reward the players with some cool weapons without giving weak weapons (moon-touched sword), boring weapons (+1 weapons) or breaking the balance of the game with a powerful weapon (flame tongue). Also, after determining the stats of the weapon you can slap on whatever appearance you want (so no more war picks being forgotten)
I really like this style of system! If I were writing a new RPG, I'd probably go this route. For revising this system, I don't want to create something so unique
That's exactly what i'm trying to do with my friends
Not the most balanced thing 👀
1. *Longsword*- The classic melee weapon
2. *Longbow*- Really good ranged weapon
3. *Shortsword*- This is a really good weapon- it would make sense for it to maybe deal piercing OR slashing damage, given it's kind of the in-between of daggers and longswords?
4. *Shortbow*- Good ranged weapon
5. *Hand Crossbow*- Good ranged weapon
6. *Light Crossbow*- Good ranged weapon
7. *Rapier*- Classic powerful finesse weapon, perfect for dexterity based characters not interested in dual-wielding, or even better, those with the dual-wielder feat
8. *Greatsword*- Classic strong two-handed weapon. A reach property of some kind would be cool, but this weapon doesn't exactly need any buffs
9. *Handaxe*- A weaker and more expensive javelin that deals slashing damage and possesses the powerful light property. Perfect
10. *Javelin*- Cheaper spear that lacks the versatile property and has extra range, encouraging its use as a simple thrown weapon. Perfect
11. *Quarterstaff*- Good weapon. Defensive capabilities would be cool, but are completely unnecessary
12. *Greataxe*- Slightly cheaper and weaker Greatsword, with a couple of exceptions surrounding feats and class traits
13. *Battleaxe*- Basically a Longsword
14. *Club*- A boring, cheap and weak weapon- no, *THE* boring, cheap and weak weapon. It does its job well, even if it's not a weapon that most players will use
15. *Heavy Crossbow*- A good weapon, given it's practically a mini-ballista maybe it could fire some cooler things
16. *Warhammer*- More expensive longsword that deals bludgeoning damage
17. *Spear*- Should be a light and/or finesse weapon, or perhaps a 10 foot reach when used with two hands
18. *Mace*- Generic simple melee weapon that deals 1d6 damage when quarterstaffs exist
19. *Lance*- Good weapon, possibly misunderstood or frustrating due to some poor wording on its trait descriptions which makes it harder to use from a player perspective
20. *Glaive*- Literally a halberd
21. *Maul*- Mechanically good weapon, maybe it's too boring or something
22. *Greatclub*- This thing should be versatile, dealing 1d8 with one hand and 1d10 with two
23. *Light Hammer*- A better/double price club that can be thrown
24. *Scimitar*- Just a shortsword that does slashing damage. Shortswords should be able to deal piercing and slashing damage, and scimitars need a new use
25/26. *Pike/Halberd*- Mechanically the same weapon, except the Pike deals piercing and the Halberd does slashing. Halberd should just have access to both damage types, and pike is best either removed or reworked
27. *Dagger*- A classic weapon, but sometimes overshadowed by the shortsword. The thrown property will always give it use though
28. *Net*- Poorly written "weapon" that can only be used with disadvantage and has too many limitations to really be worth using
29. *Sling*- Weak ranged option that deserves the light, concealable and possibly finesse properties
30. *Morningstar*- A slightly heavier, more expensive war pick
31. *War Pick*- A flail that deals piercing damage
32. *Dart*- A dagger that you can only throw, only a magical instance of this item could really be that interesting
33. *Trident*- Slightly heavier and more expensive spear, but it's a martial weapon, so literally just a worse spear
34. *Sickle*- Worse dagger that isn't even a weapon, Scythes are cooler, yet aren't a weapon in 5e
35. *Flail*- Inferior Damage to other options and lacks any traits
36. *Whip*- Lacks Damage and/or Interesting traits
37. *Blowgun*- Extremely underpowered martial ranged weapon that feels like an afterthought
It seems a lot of the low tier weapons would be suits for DM use. Weapons for NPCs to use in combat, so looting PCs don’t make out with a treasure hoard in weapons.
Let’s give darts a double throw ability. They are small enough that for 1 action 2 darts can be thrown. Maybe 2nd dart as a bonus action, but not necessarily.
Let’s give darts a double throw ability. They are small enough that for 1 action 2 darts can be thrown. Maybe 2nd dart as a bonus action, but not necessarily.
Javelin should have a longer range.
Scimitars could have a double wield mechanic. When wielding 2 they ad a bonus to AC? Or some other minor feature from one of the dual wield features.
Morningstar could be 1d4 piercing and1d4 bludgeoning for damage instead of 1d8 piercing. The damage type difference makes sense based on construction and makes it way more interesting. The flail could go the same way, but instead I'd rather see something else, like negating 1 AC *if* the defender uses a shield. This makes both situationally better and maintains uniqueness.
I kinda like how the d4 is sharp and spiky, like the morning star.
The glaive at C tier? My barbarian-zealot/fighter-champion with polearm mastery begs to differ.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!
After a small google I learned that one of the most important aspects is that it makes noise to scare cattle. Maybe this can be added to the weapon to give those wielding it advantage on intimidation checks. Not an entirely crazy fix but something to give it a little more sustenance while maintaining its historical significance.
Other Idea, adding a grapple DC?
You made me realize how unoptimized my group is. I think we use all of the F-Tier and half the D-Tier weapons 😂
Honestly optimization is super over-rated. I'm into this more as a thought experiment than something I actually employ as a player :P
Bro the halberd is THE optimizer's weapon. This is not an optimization list. Halberds and glaives are probably the best martial weapons mechanically-wise
This list def isn't for optimization just a popularity poll the longsword is one of the weaker weapons in optimization
Previous versions of D&D had different arrow heads to use. Pile arrows, broadheads, whistling, barbed, etc. Each one had a very slight difference. +1 to hit, +1 to damage, bleeding, etc. Halberd has been house ruled in our games to be a piercing and slashing weapon.
Love your ideas for Sling variants! I homebrewed a staff sling for a druid character
Thank you! That's awesome!
Oh dang, those things are terrifying in real life. Have you considered ammunition types? The romans used lead shot(for consistent accuracy, range, damage), the Germans had rock with holes drilled through them( it creates a terrifying noise while they are airborne), or even darts( yup, you could totally shoot a crossbow bolt, Dart or arrow)
Had a pathfinder game with a whip specialist. He took feats allowing him to grab and trip people and he was DEVASTATING. Not so much in raw damage done, but he would put people on the ground where they could be attacked at a bonus, make attacks of opportunity when they got up, and allowed anyone with sneak attack (or the Precise Strike teamwork feat) do do their extra damage. We ripped through encounters with equal CR without even taking damage more often than not!
I’ve had to rework weapons for 5e more than once, as it’s the only system people want to play.
Two handed weapons add your strength modifier twice (or you gain a +2 bonus, whichever is higher) to damage rolls when you get a critical hit. You also gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls whenever you use both hands to deal damage with any melee weapon (excluding the floppy weapons like the whip)
Light weapons can inherently be concealed, and you can use them in your off hand with reduced penalties for two-weapon fighting. You can use a normal weapon in your main hand.
Finesse only allows you to substitute your strength modifier with your dexterity modifier for attack rolls. You ALWAYS need physical strength when it comes to melee, unless you use something like a lightsaber.
Charging was added as a property. Basically, when you move at least 20 feet in a straight line before attacking, you gain a +1 damage bonus for each tile you moved on your next attack roll. This is used for polearms and mounted weapons.
Sundering is used for weapons meant to ignore or bypass armor such as the mace, war hammer, or war pick. If a creature has natural armor of 15+ or wears heavy armor, you get a +1 to attack rolls using that weapon against the target.
Dueling was added to weapons that can parry more effectively, such as swords, the sickle, and the trident. While holding the dueling weapon, you aren’t incapacitated, and you can see your attacker, you gain a +1 bonus to AC vs melee attacks.
Dismounting was added to weapons meant to stop a charging enemy. Whenever you hit an enemy with a set up weapon attack (I hold my action to attack if someone moves within my reach), you gain a +1 damage bonus for every 5 feet the target moved during their turn.
I also added some weapons, such as the Arbalest, matchlock rifle and pistol, the Lucern (or crow’s beak), and reworked crossbows to function more like how they actually work (lotta damage, slow to reload) and other essentials that WOTC removed or never included for “accessibility”.
I think they fundamentally messed up adding Finesse to the game. Finesse should only be useable on melee weapons as a Class feature for Rogues or as a dedicated Feat. Since it gives every character the ability to tie both Melee and Ranged Attack and Damage, _and_ AC to Dex it basically makes Str a dump stat for anyone who's not going to wear Chain Mail or heavier armor. Even then just wear Halfplate with no Str req. and use a Rapier and Shield for 19 AC. A Dex build is always better because you don't have to pump different stats for Ranged and Melee.
I think some weapons with lower damage, like whips, should have a fear inducing feature. Though not likely to kill a high CR opponent, it would hurt like h3ll and probably should allow the wielded to keep an opponent at bay similar to a push (rather that pulling closer) and I don’t think enough weapons result in a percentage chance of causing a foe to flee. With its range and the pain it would inflict, a whip should make it somewhat likely opponents would avoid engaging the wielded. My point being that damage does not need to be the sole utility.
This would be a great feature for the whip. Hearing that crack would definitely cause some foes to figuratively crap their pants.
I saw this idea in another comment, and while I love it for relying on a unique feature of the whip, I just can't get past the idea that a whip is any more frightening than getting attacked with sword. This is a utility feature like my snorkeling idae for the blowgun, and I don't think it needs hard and fast rules, but should be included as a suggested utility in the final version of this weapon project
I could see the whip making the area around you into difficult terrain instead of attacking, lots of media shows whips being used for area denial or movement control in addition to damage.
For the curved swords (including scimitar, falchion, cutlass, etc.), there should be a feature that they deal an additional +X amount of damage to targets wearing light or no armor. The reason these swords are curved is to increase the amount of time the blade is applied to the skin of the target, allowing them to cut more deeply. However, they tend to struggle against medium to heavy armor as metal portions of armor are particularly effective at protecting against slashes.
Thank you Bob for the quality of work you do - this is really impressive and I am really looking forward to future videos on this topic. #2 and more importantly though, a huge congrats on your upcoming wedding! Will it be a traditional or a D&D themed wedding?
Thanks very much! :) The wedding will be mostly traditional, but we are using some Legend of Zelda music in the ceremony haha
Just to clear the air, the spear was developed as a melee weapon. It is effectively a quarterstaff with a big arrowhead (1-2" in diameter and 5-7' long). A javelin is a shortbow stave with a sharp [metal] tip (0.5-1" in diameter and 3-4' long). The first is a piercing version of a quarterstaff and the second is a throwable version of the first.
Chain should no be a whip as it has not the same properties as it.
Whip could have 1d6 reach one handed and have lowered crit requierment as it could crit on 19 and 20
Dagger could also have this or even crit from 18-20
For the sling i would add homemade ammo that could have additional properties. Like using oil to create flaming projectiles. Tossing sovereign glue like projectiles etc.
The biggest problem with increasing the crit range on a dagger is how exponentially more deadly the rogue becomes
@@kyleweir689 currently they just use short swords. So they would have to sacrifice more reliable damage for less but rarely more damage
The whip doesn't deserve that spot. It's finesse - and that is a big deal. It's not a 'reach weapon with 1d4'. It's a 'dagger with 10ft'.
When it comes to playing a Rogue with a bit more flavour and style, the whip does real numbers in managing battlefield position better without switching to ranged. It also leaves the window of versatility open for reach on other Dexterity focused classes if that's an option they'd like to explore. Popularity simply dictates it appear lower because there is no real notable instances of whips being shown off as cool in larger fantasy imagery in the TTRPG hemisphere or otherwise. It is being shafted by its perceived showing, without many even giving it a shot.
Absolutely not F tier. Easy C tier at the very least.
I feel like a lot of players, or at least I, have a strong fantasy of using a whip more like a versatile grapple-at-range weapon. Pulling a crossbow out of someone’s hand, or traversing pits by swinging from a piece of scaffolding.
I think more important than maintaining the historical accuracy of a weapon is to capture the fantasy of it. A massive part of DnD is making "It would be cool if…" a reality
This sounds like you should look at 3.x weapons, 5e dropped alot of features to be more streamlined and remove complexity
Yes, and the problem with reintroducing features for your favourite weapons is that you then create an imbalance. If you're going to give one of them a special ability then ideally you need to do it for all, and put a lot of thought into balancing them all out. I thought this was where feats and fighting styles came in, that a skilled character could use their weapons in ways that a mook or a non-combat-focused PC could not.
That's not to say that there aren't a few tweaks which could be made, but to me that's more in the line of readying them or reloading them: if you're walking around with a halberd or a large shield strapped to your back then it should take longer to make ready or to stow than drawing a longsword would; similarly a heavy crossbow, which needs a goats-foot, windlass or cranequin to draw the string back, really cannot be reloaded in just six seconds!
Yeah I've been doing a little research into 3.5!
I had a player that loved the boomerang. Ofc it was heavily modified and when the player could do multi attack they would throw more boomerangs. We flavored it as a chakram a sharpened flattened toroidal weapon. Imagine juggling these sharp flying hoops thrown at enemies and return to the sender. And an enchantment of loyalty where it would return to the thrower.
If a new longsword is added, it should just be the longsword but with the Finesse property (no increase in damage). Call it a "Great Scimitar," and it could be used as a two-handed scimitar, katana, etc. Long curved swords don't actually do more damage than their straight-edged European counterparts, so I don't think a damage increase is necessary, plus it would completely antiquate the use of the battleaxe, longsword, and other similar weapons.
Changing the shortsword to simple makes sense. They were given to archers for backup and given to Centurions because it's pretty easy to teach how to use.
I don't understand why the pike can't be use with the polearm master gift. Fortunately, my DM allowed me to do so. And it's pretty helpfull against oozes, jellies ans goo to have piercing damage instead of slashing.
The pike is unwieldy, too long and and impractical when in melee to swing around and hit with both ends like a solid halberd, which is considered one of the best weapons throughout history. The stick, the spear and often hammer or axe - all in one. That is why. The halberd is a lighter and better weapon. Unless you are on a horse and carry a sword for when the lance is used anyway.
@@nerfherder5211 an old macedonian pike, certainly. But in my opinion, the D&D pike isn't the 20 feet weapon designed to be used in phalanx with dozens of guy doing the same, blocking arrows and destroying the ennemy's cavalry. Like Bob said in the video, it's basically a Halleberd or a Glaive with piercing damages (and 4 times the weight of the halleberd, while using less iron in it...). Same 9ft reach etc. The kind of stuff you can wield like a martial artist.
I think the reason for greataxe vs maul or greatsword is on the one hand the latter weapons have a slightly higher damage floor by nature of two dice instead of one, but alternatively if you have a feature like Brutal Critical that specifically says "add another damage die when you crit," you get shortchanged by adding another d6 instead of another d12.
The best "tripping feature" is the sort that enemies can't get up from. That is why my favourite whip alternative is a bastard sword or a battleaxe.
You know what's really funny I run my own version of D&D because I've just been evolving my game over the years & I have all of your concerns covered in my game. Good stuff.
Watching Dune made me think about a function for the dagger, what if it could bypass spells like shield? Giving it that mage killer niche.
Really interesting idea!
That is not a bad idea at all
As I don't really like flanking rules, I instead made it a weapon property which I call flanking. Reduced the rapier to a d6 and gave it Flanking and added it to Daggers as is. I created an entire reworked weapon system in my game, but I really like all the ideas you are throwing out here.
A katana is basically a finesse longsword. No extra damage needed, just add the finesse property. At most, you could add the light property if used in combination with a dagger/shortsword (Tanto/wakisashi)
I just reflavored a glaive for one of my characters with a longer variant and fighting style, and for another I reflavored a magical Shortsword. But yes, a Katana is basically a longword (a medieval arming sword but in dnd). It is about the same length as an arming sword, is has about the same weight and cutting power as an arming sword. They both have a pointy end which you aparently cannot use in DND and you cannot really use the butt end for a punch either. Only the polearm can do this despite it being a common trope in fantasy.
I used a glaive with polearm master to gain a nice long katana which you could even hit with the butt end of it when unsheathing for example for a nice effect. Should it be a finesse weapon? Not so important, I prefer gish/hexblade anyway, thus I get the freedom and flavor for free.
katana: Blade length 60 ~ 80 cm, Mass 1.1 ~ 1.5 kg / longsword: Blade length 85 ~ 110 cm, Mass 1.0 ~ 1.5 kg. it shouldn't be light, we already have rapiers (longer and lighter than katanas)
I train with a katana and although it is not a light weapon, the fighting style with it is more finesse that strength based. You still need strength to use it (it weights little bit more than a kilogram, but it's shorter than a longsword) but it can be comfortably used with one hand
By that logic it should also be 1d6 damage weapon because of how motherfucking brittle 90%+ of their edges were and impotent against anything beyond very thin wood plates/any actually armored opposition they were (and still are when using in the "intended" way) and with that we return to the Scimitar.
@@ANDELE3025 Then any slashing weapon should do significantly less damage to armored targets and bludgeoning weapons should do more as armor was almost inmune to sword attacks but was crushed against maces
for repeating ranged weapons, artificer infusions has Repeating Shot, which removes the loading property and gives a +1
If it isn’t Greatsword or Halberd, pretty sure you’re wrong.
Not you, Bob, specifically. That was a general “you.”
halberd and glaive are the same weapons
@@spiceyicey sure, that too.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!
Darts are still around as a D&D weapon because in early versions of the game Wizards had cantrips, so no always repeatable spell attack. So we carried and threw darts. They were light, proficient for our class, and kept us out of reach of enemies. Damage wasn't great but it was better than doing nothing. They never went away even after their original main purpose was lost.