I'll look when I get home, but I thought an old Dragon magazine article covered this exact thing that was re-printed in one of the Best of compilations.

Quote from: Monster Manuel;785678On topic, I love the idea of a two-handed (large) weapon gaining "advantage" on the damage. Maybe a small weapon could get "disadvantage"?

I think the problem with this is, you want people to use daggers without disadvantage, and the more properties you put on the weapon, the more important you make the weapon rather than the wielder in the equation; by giving daggers "disadvantage", you've made them a strictly worse choice, rather than a situationally worse choice. IMO, damage by class should make the wielder the most important thing.

I definitely think qualities are the way to go - a zweihander is big, obvious, hard to use in small spaces, while a dagger is concealable, requires getting close to the opponent, but also versatile enough to be thrown if required (Ranged damage, at the expense of losing your weapon either temporarily or permanently); now both are inherently balanced, and situationally better or worse.

I keep circling this idea, and I think part of the problem I notice over and over is that big tough barbarians already have an advantage. Essentially giving them bigger, tougher weapons doesn't ... balance.

One thing I keep wondering is if it might be useful to make all weapons do, say, 1d6, and then give everyone perks. Maybe... 4 perks.

For example, a barbarian can use all their perks on damage. 1d6+4 damage. RAR!

A fighter can use up to 2 perks on damage, but can also use them on maneuvers, reach, whatever.

A rogue might use all perks on damage, but only under sneak attack conditions. But she may also use them on various tricks and maneuvers.

A wizard can use perks to boost various spells or apply spell damage (ok, I'm using a perk to do fire damage with this quarterstaff, and a second perk to do it at 20/60 range, and a third perk to up that to 30/120 range, and the last for 'catch fire' check)


Obviously, this starts ... not being 5e at all, but just thinking.

You know, if you want your barbarians to be good at surviving but not at punching, you could give them a d8 hit die and a +2 HP / Level class feature, or something.

Quote from: Will;785695Obviously, this starts ... not being 5e at all, but just thinking.

Have you read SpyLite? Microlite D20 hack, has a similar simple weapon construction system.

The problem of this system is, that instead of letting Gandalf using a sword, it may result in Gandalf using a spear. And so'd Aragorn. In fact, everyone'd. Pikes probably, not spears. Just to get that greater reach of a weapon.

And then, if you also abstract and throw out weapons lengths, you are also taking away another tactical decision from the game, at which point the combat may become poorer, less about choices and positioning and more random dice chucking and all around less interesting. and you may come to wonder yourself "what happened?"

Quote from: Monster Manuel;785678A bit off topic, but I wanted to say that I'm excited to see these kinds of threads popping up in 5e. In 3e and 4e I think there'd be a lot less "Here's how you could do this", or even "Here are the problems with doing it that way" and more "You can't do this, you'll break the game".

On topic, I love the idea of a two-handed (large) weapon gaining "advantage" on the damage. Maybe a small weapon could get "disadvantage"?

With 1d6, it's close enough to the same as tossing d8 and d4 respectively, or +1/-1: 1/36 pip short on the former, same higher on the latter.

Why bother?

Also, what do you with multiple counts of ad/disad?

Quote from: Rincewind1;785698The problem of this system is, that instead of letting Gandalf using a sword, it may result in Gandalf using a spear. And so'd Aragorn. In fact, everyone'd. Pikes probably, not spears. Just to get that greater reach of a weapon.

Nah, Gandalf and Aragorn's players obviously wanted them to have swords.

Plus, pikes and spears are kinda crap in confined spaces... and if someone parries your pike or spear out of the way, they can just run past it and stab you. Once they're past the stabby bit, you die.

Quote from: Phillip;785701With 1d6, it's close enough to the same as tossing d8 and d4 respectively, or +1/-1: 1/36 pip short on the former, same higher on the latter.

Why bother?

Also, what do you with multiple counts of ad/disad?

It was a throwaway idea, but in this system I don't see how you'd get multiple Advantage/disadvantage on this. The idea was to apply the advantage/disadvantage rule of rolling twice and picking one to damage, not to-hit. Since a weapon can't be both large and small, it wouldn't apply more than once.

Quote from: Ladybird;785707Nah, Gandalf and Aragorn's players obviously wanted them to have swords.

Plus, pikes and spears are kinda crap in confined spaces... and if someone parries your pike or spear out of the way, they can just run past it and stab you. Once they're past the stabby bit, you die.

the same is true of sword though "once they are past the stabby bit you die".

You want to try and engender a system that manges to

i. allow different weapons to be better in different circumstances (short range, log range , open spaces, confined spaces)
ii. allows the differentiation between big slow weapons and small fast weapons
iii. Allows PCs to select tactics, possibly supported by mechanics, that allow them to drive combat into situations where their choice of weapon can maximize its benefits.
iv. Runs fast with minimal complexity in actual play (ie complexity can be front loaded if required) and places comon sense real tactical skill over system mastery.

If this works then a figther with a spear should have the advantage in a wide open space where manuverability is key, a fighter with dual daggers should have the advantage in a close grapply battle, a fighter with a rapier should have the advantage where enemies are lightly armoured and speed counts over raw power, etc etc

The figther should always have advantage in melee combat over another class of the same level but... there may be corner cases where the other class can tactically drive the combat to give them advantge in a very specialised niche.

That is our Platonic Ideal to which our designs should try and move.