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Galithar
2019-06-27, 06:03 PM
So, I'm working on my own from scratch TTRPG, and I'm having a bit of difficulty with coming up with a weapons system that I'm happy with.

Things I want:
Different weapons feel different. I want mechanical implications to separate a maul and a longsword.
I want to avoid the existence of trap options and purely superior weapons. Meaning I want every weapon to be viable (even if it requires specialized skills/abilites/build to pull off) so different damage die won't cut it. The big ones almost always better (not saying this won't exist, just that it can't be the ONLY thing making them different)

Things I want to avoid is basically just things becoming so fiddly that you have to consult 4 separate tables to figure out how your weapon works.

I'm not looking for exact mechanics here, but hoping for someone to hunt me to an existing system I can look at for inspiration. Or your own Homebrew if your willing to share it. The vast majority of my TTRPG experience is in D&D 5e.

gkathellar
2019-06-27, 06:10 PM
It's very difficult to do. The most likely answer is to go 4E's route: tie various highly desirable feats and options to weapon type, such that players make statements like, "I want to be good at opportunity attacks, I'll make a polearm build," or, "I want to be the best at sliding enemies, I'll make a hammer build." Given the level of abstraction most TTRPGs operate at, meaningful differences are frequently most observable at the level of build type and special abilities.

Morty
2019-06-27, 06:13 PM
It's very difficult to do. The most likely answer is to go 4E's route: tie various highly desirable feats and options to weapon type, such that players make statements like, "I want to be good at opportunity attacks, I'll make a polearm build," or, "I want to be the best at sliding enemies, I'll make a hammer build."

I don't think the OP said they're making a D&D-alike, so this doesn't necessarily apply.

That being said, it's difficult to say what does apply without mechanics or context. Are you looking for realism? Or cool cinematic weapon-swinging?

Galithar
2019-06-27, 06:19 PM
I don't think the OP said they're making a D&D-alike, so this doesn't necessarily apply.

That being said, it's difficult to say what does apply without mechanics or context. Are you looking for realism? Or cool cinematic weapon-swinging?

Yes! I know that's not helpful lol

More accurately I'm looking for something that plays good as a game. I didn't give you any mechanical context because I'm not looking to cookie cutter something out of a system. I can get inspiration from something that wouldn't be a good fit in my system still.

But realism is a secondary concern at best. By that I mean I want a dual daggers character to feel useful in combat against the giant dragon when standing next to the maul wielder, but I want the damage to come from a 'realistic' sounding reason. Daggers attack faster so they get more attacks to deal their damage would be an example of something I'm looking to do.

Mostly I'm hoping someone knows a system where there's a big difference between when you wield a sword or am axe that I can look at to jump start my idea engine instead of just recycling through the same concepts (like attack speed) looking for new ways to put them together.


Edit:
The idea of just using meaningful abilities locked inside of a feat or something similar if something I've thought of. I'll look at 4e to see what kinds of things they used and see if I get some inspiration there. Thanks!

Squire Doodad
2019-06-27, 07:55 PM
If you are making your own game, try working with a higher-resolution grid. Maybe each character is a 4x4 square on the grid instead of a 1x1 block. That way, you can play with weapon reaches. Instead of "Spear has a range of two blocks, Mace and Sword and both 1", you have "Spear is five blocks, Broadsword is three and Mace is two" and then customize from there. Maybe you make it so that all maces are flails or something, and they have a two block reach outward but also hit the block adjacent to the player (so it hits things that are super close, like someone with a small jackknife next to you, but has shorter range than the swords.) I don't know how you would specifically implement a mechanic to let things like a "1 block range diagonally" be useful, but in general making a higher-resolution map and giving weapons more varying ranges may help you make them more unique. Also things like giving weapons a block chance and basing block chances of a given piece of equipment with the weapon type. Some of these things might already be in play, not sure.

The weapon-based feat thing sounds great too, you should do that as well.

King of Nowhere
2019-06-27, 09:35 PM
So, I'm working on my own from scratch TTRPG, and I'm having a bit of difficulty with coming up with a weapons system that I'm happy with.

Things I want:
- Different weapons feel different. I want mechanical implications to separate a maul and a longsword.

- Things I want to avoid is basically just things becoming so fiddly that you have to consult 4 separate tables to figure out how your weapon works.


You do realize those two things are basically incompatible?
You want every weapon to feel different, then every weapon should have some special rule. and then you'll need 4 separate tables.

I mean, if there is only one number that matters, or two at most, then all weapons are going to be the same, or some are going to be better. there may be a bit of trade-off between those two variables, so you may get two meaningful weapons, but that's it.
that's what happens in d&d 3.5 where the two variables are base damage and critical. some weapons are better, and the only meaningful choice is between higher base damage and higher critical (and higher critical is almost always better at higher levels, as base damage becomes irrelevant in front of boosts).
You want to have more interplay, you need to add more variables to a weapon. But that requires introducing complications. For example, you may add an "armor penetration" factor and a "speed" factor, but those would lead to more tables.

Another option is to give every weapon something special. For example, a sword may grant a +2 parry bonus to AC, because a sword is good for parrying as well as striking. A mace may grant a +2 to hit against armored opponents, but a -2 to initiative, as it is slower. A war hammer may give a -2 to hit and have lower base damage, but with a higher critical and some capacity to bypass damage reduction.
But then again, doing so requires making new rules for every weapon, which would get complicated very fast.

And let's not even start talking about monsters claws and teeth.

In italy we say you can't have a full cask and a drunk wife, and it seems to me it's exactly what you are trying to get here

Squire Doodad
2019-06-27, 10:14 PM
In italy we say you can't have a full cask and a drunk wife, and it seems to me it's exactly what you are trying to get here

What's the cask full of?

I believe the common phrase is "have your cake and eat it too"

awa
2019-06-27, 11:23 PM
I can give some ideas from my home-brew system its base on a d20 system but may be more complicated then what your looking for.
heavy rating) some weapons are hard to use when your not super strong
(my system uses armor as DR)
Impact X) deals subdual dam partially bypassing armor found on maces and clubs
Armor penetration X) reduces the effect of armor found on axes and maces
Razor) extra dam to unarmored targets (or lightly armored on a good hit) found on swords or very sharp weapons
Murderous) extra dam on crits found on barbed weapons
Wide) trying to use a pike indoors is going to be rough
Narrow) you can use daggers with very little room

alternate attacks) many weapons can thrust or slash, a thrust might have a lower damage die but a reduced wide ratting letting you use it indoors

generally the factors a PC needs to consider when picking a weapon is can you deal with armor, and do you have a weapon that can be used if it gets up close and personal


tried to put in some copy pasted examples but they did not format properly

Telok
2019-06-28, 12:15 AM
Step one: Make your combat system more than just rolling to hit and damage.

The D&D weapons are so samey because the base combat system has three levers: when do you attack, what do you roll to attack, how much damage do you do. To-hit is sacred cow married to stats, level, and ac. 'When' has been simplified so much that the only things they can do with it are 5' reach and one bonus attack. So the only actual difference ends up being the damage die.

Take a system where attacks are an opposed test against parry or dodge, armor reduces damage instead of being a dodge bonus, and weapons have both frontage (room needed to weild effectively) and length that isn't constrained to a single 5 foot square. Weapons can now give bonuses to parry, penalties to parrying or dodging, an armor penetration value, and 20' long pikes have a use beyond 'pole with a metal tip'.

You've added a single roll, which can be done at the same time as the attack roll, and there's a static modifier to a number that many monsters already use.

Kaptin Keen
2019-06-28, 12:50 AM
AD&D had a whole optional ruleset of weapon vs armor type. Not that I can recall it, but essentially certain types of armor were notably different vs certain types of armor.

It was particularly bad, with enormous time invested in trying to remember if chain was good vs slash and bad vs bludg, or the other way around, or was it really piercing, or ..?!

So if that's the sort of thing you're after, what you want is to just note three AC's on your sheet: Armor class vs Slashing, piercing and bludgeoning. So you know if you're wearing chain, and facing a swordsman, you're golden, but if he switches to his mace, you're not.

NichG
2019-06-28, 01:42 AM
Instead of using numbers to make the weapons different, why not have each weapon associated with a particular mild status condition that it can apply with its attacks, potentially with build-based options to make that condition apply more often/more effectively/etc. So for example, a round of attacks with daggers, swords, maces, spears, mauls, axes could all result in the same average damage (given a properly optimized character suited to that weapon), but daggers can convey poisons even on a miss against armor, swords give attacked enemies a to-hit penalty against the wielder, maces dizzy their target and move them down the initiative list by 1-2 points on hit, spears have reach (good enough I think), mauls knock targets prone on crit or displace them 1+ squares on crit, and axes inflict 1 point of Strength damage on hit (crit?).

Each weapon has a rule, but you don't need lots of tables or looking up weapon vs armor or things like that.

Dienekes
2019-06-28, 02:56 AM
I'd look at Riddle of Steel for some inspiration. Though it does attempt to be based on realism.

Anyway here's roughly how I would do it with some of the usual medieval/renaissance melee weapons.

Spears can attack before Big Swords which can attack before longswords, rapiers, and two-handed mass weapons, which can attack before arming swords, which can attack before all other one-handed weapons, which can attack before daggers.

Daggers would have a disadvantage here, but, they have the advantage once you get into Grapple Range where they can attack the fastest and can be used in a grapple with minimal disadvantages. If you want to add fiddly rules daggers can ignore armor against Pinned or otherwise immobilized opponents.

Swords in most of their forms specialize in being able to attack and defend as a single movement. Something that most other weapons need a shield to do (though longer pole weapons can do this as well but I'm already giving them highest reach).

Axes are the damage dealers of the weapons. Little in the way of frills, you pick up an axe you are trying to deal the highest DPR you can get. You can add a few little weird tricks, like using the axehead to hook weapons, or making throwing axes bounce. But the focus is damage.

Maces and other bludgeoning weapons are about going through armor. Less pure damage than the axe but more than the sword. They can also be seen as a bit unwieldy, but when you're facing something in full armor there is no substitute. You want a mace.

Hammers are pretty much like maces, but allow them to choose to do piercing damage or bludgeoning damage. I know that sounds like hammers are just better maces, and they kind of were. But maybe make maces just easier to use since maces don't have to worry about correctly aligning your weapon like swords, hammers, and axes had to.

Then you can get to some of the more niche weapons. Like a few favorites of mine, like the halberd. Which is a bit heavier and slower than the spears, but makes up for it by dealing damage almost as high as the axe and has a neat scrape ability where after it misses it can drag its head over the opponent's back to pull them closer or cut them. And the poleaxe which specializes in just trying to do everything as some weird 1/3 spear, 1/3 axe, 1/3 hammer. Or flails which may be the even more specialized mace which up the damage and armor piercing, but makes them more difficult to handle and absolutely useless for defense.

Some other things you might think of adding is that the bigger mass weapons can sometimes blow through the defenses of the lighter weapons. Trying to parry a rapier or longsword with a dagger is difficult, but possible. Trying to parry a bidenhander or maul with a dagger is a good way to see your weapon getting knocked out of your hands.

Kaptin Keen
2019-06-28, 03:12 AM
The same AD&D optional rule had an initiative modifier based on weapon size. Combine that with a cummulative to-hit modifier (if you so desire) for being wounded, and the correct choice of weapon might turn out to be hugely important.

That system, btw., was based on weight. Not reach. So daggers would act before large sword. Which .. is slightly dubious.

Draconi Redfir
2019-06-28, 03:18 AM
the video game "Wildermyth" has an interesting tactic for this.

Swords have a double "Stunt chance", meaning they are twice as likely to cause an enemy to be stunned for a round, unable to move for a round, dazed for a round, etc.

Axes shread armor, making enemies easier to hit with each successive strike.

Spears can hit from further away

Maces knock the enemy back a few spaces

and daggers can deal double damage when attacking an opponent who's already been attacked that turn.

there are also staffs, wands, bows, and crossbows, but i'm not sure if they have anything particularly unique about them yet.

Pauly
2019-06-28, 03:58 AM
What I would do
1) break the weapons into broad categories. For example I would treat a mace, a maul and a hand flail as being part of the same weapon group. Hyper specialist categories should be avoided. My first thought is cutting sword, thrusting sword, cut and thrust sword; axes club/mace/flail/war hammer; two handed versions of the previous (NB a two handed warhammer is a pole axe); spear; and pole arm (eg halberd with multi purpose heads with a hooking capacity).

2) determine what is the specific advantage and disadvantage each weapon has over the others. For example a cutting sword might be good at parrying but poor at defeating armor. Each weapon should have one significant bonus and one significant penalty.

3) I know players will want to dual wield, but irl dual wielding basically increases your parrying and gives you the opportunity for unexpected attack angles. Do not let it give players the fantasy trope of significantly increasing the number of attacks.

4) decide how each weapon will interact with the armors in your game. For example an axe might be very good at cutting gambeson on, but not so good at dealing with plate armor

5) determine weapon speed and weapon reach. Which goes a long way to determining who strikes first. Also determine if you penalize two handed weapons when someone gets too close. A spear might be fast and long at 6 to 10 feet of range, but can become much slower at 2 feet of range.
If you penalize long reach weapons at close range is there a mechanic that you can give them to prevent players abusing IGO-UGO? In realitty a spearman will try to keep open distance between himself and a swordsman. For example you may give a spearman the ability to take a one step move away from the enemy in the right circumstances.

What I’ve written may sound like I am encouraging hyper detail. I am not. Determine the most important features and focus on those areas to be modeled.

Glorthindel
2019-06-28, 04:09 AM
Oddly, I would favour going the other way - splitting weapons into categories, and providing different flavours within that category so that people don't feel obligated to always go with the optimal weapon. (EDIT - Heh, just noticed I was beaten too it :smallsmile:)

For example:

Hand Weapon (d8, versatile) - longswords, bastard swords, battle axes, morning star, spear, etc.

Light Hand Weapon (d8, finesse) - shortsword, rapier, scimitar, military pick, sickle, warhammer.

Throwing (d6, finesse, light, throwing) - dagger, hand axe, throwing hammer, javelin

Great Weapon (2d6, heavy, two-handed) - greatsword, greataxe, maul, flail, boar spear

Etc. And I would then be fine if someone came to me and said "hey, can I have a (two handed scimitar, finesse spear, great pick, greatsword that does d12 damage instead, etc)", since the weapon look is cosmetic, as long as you pick the category, you can have it look how you want.

Glimbur
2019-06-28, 08:20 AM
Legend of Wulin gives weapons 2ish [tags]. Different maneuvers interact with different tags. You can only be in this stance with a [flexible] weapon, the strikes in this style use [spear] type weapons, and so on. Ends up working kind of like the 4E approach up above, but you can dynamically change the tags you are using round to round. Grab the sickle and your kusari-gama is now a short blade. I have never played it but it sounds interesting.

Thinker
2019-06-28, 08:27 AM
I have a few suggestions for a combat system that allows every weapon choice to feel useful.

Divide weapons into groups (this has been discussed in the thread previously and I generally agree with what people have said about it).
Let every Weapon Group have its own properties - all Spears provide bonuses when in-formation with another Spear-wielder, for example
Let every weapon have its own special ability some examples:

As an action, a Long-spear allows the character to extend their reach by 1, but can no longer defend against attacks adjacent to the character
As an action, a Rapier allows the character to perform a Feint, rolling twice to attack and taking the better result, but at the cost of reduced damage
When carrying a Dagger in the off-hand, allow the character to reroll for defense and take the higher result
When wielding a Short-Bow, fire a shot out of turn at an exposed enemy, but on your next turn you can only move, but not attack


Tie damage to the character, not the weapon - A fighter does d10 damage, a ranger does d8 damage, etc. This way, no one can maximize raw damage
Alternatively, avoid using damage altogether - the harm inflicted by a weapon is based on narration, rather than numbers

Bladed-weapons tend to lop of fingers, hands, and the like
Pokey weapons tend to pierce through vital organs
Long weapons tend to reduce the chances of being attacked back


Create skills or abilities so that characters can specialize in weapons or weapon groups (or both)

Khedrac
2019-06-28, 08:39 AM
Different weapons feel different. I want mechanical implications to separate a maul and a longsword.
I want to avoid the existence of trap options and purely superior weapons. Meaning I want every weapon to be viable (even if it requires specialized skills/abilites/build to pull off) so different damage die won't cut it.
I think you may need to re-look at these aims - that or dramatically cut the number of weapons covered in your system.

The reality is, under certain circumstances some weapons are notably better than others. Most RPGs (and D&D in particular) paint a very unrealistic picture by having the arms and armor of very different ages and cultures exist in parallel.

To a certain extend you can make more weapons viable by having special tactics for them - for example pike formations, outside of a massed block a pike is a pretty useless weapon, in a pike column they suddenly become the best melee weapon assumign the terrain does not break the formation.

(Caveat for the below - I am not a historian, so proper historians mayrip the following to shreds)
Take a look at the historical vikings - initally their main weapons were spear, axe and sword - but for combat the spear was the budget weapon (nice reach, but once they get past the spear you die), the axe was a good weapon and better than a lot of the opponents had, but the sword was the "best" weapon - but swords were harder to make that axes (or spears) so wee rare and more valuable and higher status.
If you want to be realistic the sword will be the default choice, and as soon as the adventurers get any money they would all switch to swords.

Other weapons were basically converted farming implements - their main advantages were availability and that peasants would have a fair idea of how to use them.

And then other weapons had political/economic reasons - longbows required users who could spend a lot of time training which meant you had to trust them with their weapons and accept the time not spent farming; crossbows could be handed out when needed and collected when not.

So, the more wepaons you include, the less realisitic it will be for them all to be equally useful. This is not to say "don't do that" - I think your aim is a good one, but don't worry about drastically limiting the options.

And on a constructive note - one thing that might help with thsi is having the critical effect different for different weapon types.
For example in the new RuneQuest: Glorantha, piercing weapons impale (so extra damage, and more when it is pulled out but can disarm the wielder), slashing weapons do extra damage, and crushing weapons greatly boost the bonus damage from being large and strong (which actually means if you have no damage bonus you get no boost from the critical at all).

gkathellar
2019-06-28, 09:58 AM
Take a look at the historical vikings - initally their main weapons were spear, axe and sword - but for combat the spear was the budget weapon (nice reach, but once they get past the spear you die), the axe was a good weapon and better than a lot of the opponents had, but the sword was the "best" weapon - but swords were harder to make that axes (or spears) so wee rare and more valuable and higher status.

The sword wasn't and isn't really the best weapon. Swords (most swords, anyway - different types do different things) are all-around weapons, good at most things, superior at defense, easy to carry, hard to use against armor. Very generally, the ideal sidearm and a great weapon for single combat and unarmored or lightly-armored fighting. The wrinkle is that while swords are great in the hands of a skilled fencer, it takes a lot of training to learn even the basics.

Spears, on the other hand, are easy to use, especially in formation fighting where the strength of the weapon depends more on drill and discipline than on what we'd think of strictly as fighting skill. In single combat, the spear is easy to learn but hard to master, with tremendous versatility and flexibility and completely different fighting styles for the long spear, short spear, or spear-and-shield. Spears are cheap, but they're also really effective in the right hands, pair well with shields, and virtually unsurpassed for fighting alongside friends.

Axes are weird. You really don't want to be caught using a one-handed axe without a shield (or a two-handed axe without heavy armor), because an axe is sort of like a harder-hitting, easier-to-use sword with very little in the way of direct defense. Even as I've learned more about weapons, the exact role of the axe has continued to elude me.


If you want to be realistic the sword will be the default choice, and as soon as the adventurers get any money they would all switch to swords.

Realistically, a warrior's kit will depend on circumstances - but in many cultures, skilled fighters carried a sword as their backup, not their main weapon. The lance or spear often predominated as the main weapon, and depending on the era, circumstances, and armor conventions, a shield might be paired with either or both. For fighters expecting heavily armored foes, an appropriate bludgeon would often have been preferred. And of course, everyone carried knives and daggers.


Other weapons were basically converted farming implements - their main advantages were availability and that peasants would have a fair idea of how to use them.

It bears noting that peasants at a lot of places and times would have been familiar with all sorts of weapons, in a variety of contexts. Levies and militia in Central Europe in particular were often well-trained. Hunting large game taught all sorts of cooperative fighting skills. And of course peasants liked to be tough and compete with each other at fighting as much as anyone has throughout history.


crossbows could be handed out when needed and collected when not.

The crossbow requires serious training to reload, care for, or fire with accuracy. In parts of Central Europe, the crossbow was a highly regarded skill, essential to making one's living as a mercenary. Towns and villages held frequent competitions to cultivate experience and proficiency. Genoa in particular was famous for its skilled crossbowmen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoese_crossbowmen).


So, the more wepaons you include, the less realisitic it will be for them all to be equally useful.

... in any given situation. Real weapons were and are tools, optimized to fulfill specific needs, and real fighting masters studied and practiced to use a wide variety of weapons because situations varied. The hammer is a can opener, the sword is for everyday defense, the spear is king in formation, etc. The realistic approach is to remember that many different weapons existed concurrently because fighters faced many different challenges on the battlefield.

But realism may not be fun. At the tabletop, players often see their weapon choice as part of their character's image. "I want to be an agile dagger-fighter," is a fine starting point that falls flat if everyone is expected to be wearing the heaviest armor that's socially acceptable and carrying identical "sword, dagger, axe/hammer/spear, shield" kits. Unless serious realism is the goal, it's often better to focus on the way players are likely to imagine weapons working, and roll with that.

Zakhara
2019-06-28, 10:24 AM
My solution to this is more radical. Each class rolls damage based on their Hit Die; Fighters thus do more damage by default, without need for various weapons/feats/builds.

Of course, that degree of choice is popular. This goes somewhat off-track, but I'd propose that each weapon has a totally-unique tag and tinker the combat system to support it.

Example:
0.) Characters can store Inspiration equal to Proficiency Bonus, rather than just 1.
1.) When Attacking, you elect to "Attack to" Damage, Effect, or Inspire (Grapple/Push/Knock Down fall under 'Effect,' etc.)
2.) A Critical Hit permits 2 such features in combination (Damage+Damage, Damage+Effect, Inspire+Effect, etc.)

This way, different weapons would supply different benefits into a long-run/short-run dynamic. The downside would then be a matter of making the different effects well-balanced...which pretty much brings me back to square one, but it's a thought.

King of Nowhere
2019-06-28, 11:54 AM
it's also worth noting that exhaustion for carrying a heavy weapon factored a lot into the equation. real life armies would only fight a big battle every once in a while, but they would march all the time carrying their gear. disease has been killing more soldiers than combat until the american civil war.

So, from a realistic point of view, having an armor that does a worse job but i just a few kilograms lighter would be a good trade. In d&d? as long as it doesn't put you in the next encumbrance category, it is meaningless, and you have no reason to pick the lighter armor.

And if you want to track encumbrance like that... well, that's adding tables and tables of stuff, which you want to avoid

Dienekes
2019-06-28, 05:15 PM
Axes are weird. You really don't want to be caught using a one-handed axe without a shield (or a two-handed axe without heavy armor), because an axe is sort of like a harder-hitting, easier-to-use sword with very little in the way of direct defense. Even as I've learned more about weapons, the exact role of the axe has continued to elude me.


I actually directly studied axes used in historical combat from Viking Age to Renaissance. You actually have a bit of the circumstances to use an axe already.

Personally I believe you’ll find it easier to think of axes not in terms of how they compare to a sword but to a mace or hammer. They’re all mass weapons (weapons where the mass of the weapon is overwhelmingly at the point of impact, unlike spears where the shaft takes up much of the weight and swords where the mass of the blade itself is roughly uniform with more mass at the guard).

What’s more the length of an axe can drastically change what it’s used for. But the key feature they all have is “stopping power.” Taking a one-handed axe, its reach is lower and since the weight is toward the tip it will feel slower in the hand than a sword. But they’re cheap and easy to use, and if an opponent is wearing some sort of padded armor (which was becoming more common throughout the Viking Age) well a sword can cut through it, with a good strike, though it’s hard. An axe will have an easier time doing that, though it will be more likely to get stuck in the cloth and flesh once the hit is done.

As we see the rise of mail we get into a situation where arrows may be able to puncture the mail, but swords definitely won’t and one-handed axes probably won’t either. So we see the rise of weapons like the longaxe or Dane axe. Having two hands on the weapon alleviates the maneuverability problem somewhat as your second hand acts as a pivot point. That said, on a battlefield you’re best defense is still a shield. Which is pretty hard to use with a two-handed weapon. And the Bayeux Tapestry gives us a glimpse at how they got around this. Where axes appear, if the person using the axe is advancing into arrows or spears they have a shield, but once they actually get into striking distance the shields are slung over their back so to most effectively use the axe. These weapons still have the same benefit against cloth armor, but now they have two additional advantages 1) they strike with enough force that someone wearing mail still feels it, and if lucky a strike can actually burst through the mail rings. 2) it strikes with enough force to stop a horse. And this was the period cavalry was really coming into its own.

So how does that compare to maces? And why did we end up seeing far more two-handed axes rather than hammers? Well we did end up seeing a bunch of two-handed hammers a bit later on. But the axe has some distinct advantages as an impact weapon. When dealing with the heavily padded cloth armors the axe has a chance to rip through it, while the mace does not. Furthermore there’s what happens to a body after being struck and how it reacts. Now do not get me wrong here, a hammer to the skull is just as deadly as an axe. But to the limbs? A man can break their arm or their ribs and still have adrenaline enough to fight. But an axe will leave a deep gaping wound or even cut limbs clean off. The person struck will be out of the fight. Even if they can be saved they will not be able to defend themselves. Usually. There are of course always exceptional stories where people fought with their arm or foot cleaved off, but we’re talking in general terms here.

But eventually armor got even better and with the rise of coat of plates and then full plate harnesses the axe got replaced as the main anti-armor weapon by the mace and hammer. For some cultures anyway. France and Italy really seemed to like my favorite medieval weapon, the pollaxe. Which tried to do a bit of everything. Because, on the battlefield you did still face levies or poorer mercenaries only wearing their gambeson. And when you did you had the axe head. But when you saw a man-at-arms the back of the weapon had a hammer or beak to smash through it. And many later pollaxes (or at least the weapons that still got called pollaxes) didn’t actually have an axehead at all instead replacing it for a hammer and a beak. And as you might expect when this happened plate armor was starting to become ubiquitous on the battlefield with wealthy lords arming all their troops in a helmet and chest plate at the very least. So the axe head simply became less important (though the didn’t disappear completely).

KineticDiplomat
2019-06-28, 05:31 PM
May I suggest looking at Blade of The Iron Throne, Song of Swords, or Riddle of Steel for inspiration? They have extensive weapon lists, but pretty simple weapon systems. A weapon has a reach, an attack target number (beat this on a die when attacking) and defense target number (beat this when using it to say, parry), and damage modifiers for if its a swing, thrust, or was blunted by armor. You can create a vast variety using just those, and it easy one line copy-pasta on to a char sheet.

The Library DM
2019-06-28, 05:49 PM
Time to hop in your Tardis and go back to 1991 (or just head to DriveThruRPG) and acquire a copy of the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia by Aaron Allston and TSR, aka “Mentzer Basic D&D.” In there you will find the rules for “Weapon Mastery,” with a table that charts not only different weapons’ unique capabilities, but also rules for specific proficiencies and training in these weapons separate from class and level. (The retro-clone Dark Dungeons offers another take on this concept.)
It’s a bit complex, but I think a simplified form of it would work for you, and shouldn’t be too hard to model something similar into 5e.

Galithar
2019-06-28, 06:16 PM
Time to hop in your Tardis and go back to 1991 (or just head to DriveThruRPG) and acquire a copy of the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia by Aaron Allston and TSR, aka “Mentzer Basic D&D.” In there you will find the rules for “Weapon Mastery,” with a table that charts not only different weapons’ unique capabilities, but also rules for specific proficiencies and training in these weapons separate from class and level. (The retro-clone Dark Dungeons offers another take on this concept.)
It’s a bit complex, but I think a simplified form of it would work for you, and shouldn’t be too hard to model something similar into 5e.

I'm not just responding to you, but you're the last one to mention it. I'm NOT looking to graft anything into 5e. I'm completely homebrewing a system from the ground up. I only mentioned 5e to give reference to the system I'm most familiar with, and that I greatly dislike the weapon mechanics of said system.

That said I'm getting a lot of good ideas and places to look for additional information, so thanks to everyone! I've already got new ideas stirring where I was just kinds of stagnant before.

Spore
2019-07-01, 05:29 AM
Besides all its flaws I think Degenesis did a right thing in its weapon and armor system.

Armors can be massive (usually heavier) and get a hefty bonus that is ignored by blunt weapons. They can be padded (slight bonus to AC, easier to wear/lighter) which is ignored by piercing weapons.

Blunt weapons are usually cheap, heavy and unwieldy (require more equipment load and get a penalty on attacks but deal good damage). Slashing weapons are middle of the road for everything (their price is a bit higher than stabbing or blunt weapons). Piercing weapons are either easy to use (spears, knives) and have special qualities (knife can be thrown, spears have a better range).

Pauly
2019-07-01, 03:09 PM
One issue is what period of history are you basing your world/technology in?

D&D has a problem in that it tries to encompass all possible historical weapons and armors. By having so many systems side by side especially when they were never side by side irl creates problems where weapons are intereacting with th8ngs they were never designed to interact with.

For example if you were basing your system on Viking era Europe you only really need to worry about one handed cutting swords, hand axes, double handed axes, and spears for weapons and the available armor is full length mail, mail shirt, gambeson, helmet, buckler and shield. In this era you can put a lot more into the differences between the weapons because the number of possible interactions is small. However in a D&D type system the number of possible interactions is immense, which makes it much harder to get all the interactions right.

paddyfool
2019-07-01, 04:07 PM
It never really got off the ground commercially, but Fantasy Craft did this quite well.

There was plenty of variety of weapons, with traits that gave them individual characteristics.

And combat styles could be specialised further by going for feat trees based on weapon groupings, such as sword basics / mastery / supremacy, bow basics / mastery / supremacy, etc. These specialist feats had some mechanical effects that applied only when using the weapon type in question, and some that were more generally applicable, meaning that being a specialised user of [whatever weapon type] might also affect how you'd use other weapons.

Pleh
2019-07-01, 07:20 PM
Something you gotta watch out for when differentiating weapons is optimization.

On the one hand, every weapon is designed to be in some way optimal. On the other, if one becomes substantially more optimal than the others, most of the weapons start to see little use in the game.

In 3.5, there are substantially more Spiked Chain users than trident users. Tripping is a mechanically viable and consistently useful tactic, which the spiked chain is rather optimal for. The trident specializes as a throwable one handed weapon that can be braced against a charge, which is nice, but either requires you to either disarm yourself or it relies on the enemy to use a particular attack. Beyond that, the weapon isn't great at doing anything a different weapon couldn't do better, and even in its own ballpark of throwing and charge deterrent, other weapons play the same game with greater damage. It's only got the advantage if you want this particular set of tactical uses and need to leave one hand free (for a shield or spell). I mean, there's fluff interest in the aquatic theme, but that's not what the thread subject is about. You want tridents and spiked chains to have equal tactical and mechanical benefit, even if they don't have the same effect.

All this to say that it's not just weapons that have to be changed. The combat system they interface with and the monsters they compete with have to likewise operate in some careful balances.

Ken Murikumo
2019-07-02, 09:21 AM
Other have brought up some good points, but it looks like some people here will try and convince you of which weapons are better based on historical facts till they are blue in the face.

My suggestion is to keep the weapons simple and pigeonhole weapons into the appropriate group. You want (insert weapon here), cool that fit into the Sword category, use those rules. Is it perfect? No. Is it historically accurate? No. Does it get you into gameplay faster, with usable rules? Yes

Some examples that are system neutral:

Swords - middle of the road decent offense, decent defense, has some out of combat use

Daggers - low normal damage but has bonus damage for backstabbing (or sneak attack, or whatever)

knives - similar to daggers, does less damage, difficult to use in combat, has great utility out of combat

Maces - effective against armored foes and those who defend with their weapons

Axes - like maces but less damage to armored foes, can be thrown, good utility out of combat

Polearms - can strike foes further, can be braced against oncoming foes, not so great when super close

Bows - great range and accuracy, difficult to use super close, some utility out of combat

Crossbows - simple to use, accurate, good range, kind of a pain to reload



Then you can take it even further and give the weapons abilities based on size, then combine the two

Heavy weapon - requires 2 hands to use, does more damage, can be use to smash/impale

Medium weapon - middle of the road, only requires 1 hand, can be used with offhand item (torch/shield)

Light weapon - can be dual wielded by default, fast (gets an extra attack)



Combine the above for specific weapons:

basic Longsword - medium sword

basic Shortsword - light sword

Zwiehander - heavy sword

Lance - medium polearm

Halberd - heavy polarm

etc....

HouseRules
2019-07-02, 04:03 PM
Combine the above for specific weapons:

Swordstaff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordstaff) how do they fit?

Galithar
2019-07-02, 04:16 PM
Swordstaff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordstaff) how do they fit?

Heavy Polearm

Man_Over_Game
2019-07-02, 04:18 PM
A lot of what the OP is looking for could be simulated with just good mathematical differences. The catch is, a calculator might be needed to do the damage appropriately. But that might be preferable to having each weapon having different mechanics.


For example, one system I designed for a turn-based forum RPG site was a system that worked around damage resistance, penetration levels of a weapon and the critical rates of the weapon.

Base damage was mitigated by the damage resistance of the target. Any remaining damage is then modified by the critical damage value of the weapon (which is a percentage).

Bludgeoning weapons had high base damage, representative of high piercing power. However, they lacked critical damage, meaning that they were consistent but dealt little damage.
On the other hand, slashing weapons had low base damage (bad against armor), but had amazing critical damage.
Piercing weapons would be a hybrid of both, having decent base damage, and acceptable critical damage.

For example, the enemy you're fighting is wearing some heavy armor, so he has a Damage Resistance of 5 (so your base damage is reduced by 5).

You have a Mace with 8 base damage, 80% critical factor, and you use it against the armored guy. Reduce the damage by 5, then multiply it by the critical factor. Or 3*80%, for 2.4 damage.
Your buddy tries to slash the same guy with his scimitar (3, 300%), but ends up not even scratching the guy in the armor (3-5 ends up being 0, 0*300%, for 0 damage), and might have to use a special ability in order to temporarily buff up his base damage in order to penetrate through.

Some classes, like a Rogue, might have an ability like "Go for the Throat" (Increase the base damage of an attack by 4.), with knives naturally having a low base damage but high critical damage, which creates a sort of natural synergy towards the Cloak-and-Dagger archetype.

Of course, that's one example. My point is, it'd be better to come up with the overall game mechanics first, then find ways to make the weapons stand out after you've figured out how you want your game to play.

Cluedrew
2019-07-02, 04:29 PM
Swordstaff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordstaff) how do they fit?That's just a polearm. Not sure about weight but going of the examples I think it would be heavy, might be medium.

My suggestion is to lean outside of mechanics a bit and just give them a lot of narrative weight or out-of-combat implications. More expensive weapons might be a matter of status instead off efficiency. Some weapons are small enough to hide, others are painfully visible. If you keep the total number of weapons down you can give them their own personalities and give them to different types of characters you can use them as a tool of expression.

I mean if I say "You are attacked by a masked figure wielding a machete." its a different feel than "You are attacked by a masked figure wielding a butcher's knife." Or put a different way, the fact that they are different weapons can be a meaningful difference in its own right. Carry on with the mechanical ideas as well but I thought I would say this bit about out-of-combat and expression.

Galithar
2019-07-02, 05:40 PM
A lot of what the OP is looking for could be simulated with just good mathematical differences. The catch is, a calculator might be needed to do the damage appropriately. But that might be preferable to having each weapon having different mechanics.


For example, one system I designed for a turn-based forum RPG site was a system that worked around damage resistance, penetration levels of a weapon and the critical rates of the weapon.

Base damage was mitigated by the damage resistance of the target. Any remaining damage is then modified by the critical damage value of the weapon (which is a percentage).

Bludgeoning weapons had high base damage, representative of high piercing power. However, they lacked critical damage, meaning that they were consistent but dealt little damage.
On the other hand, slashing weapons had low base damage (bad against armor), but had amazing critical damage.
Piercing weapons would be a hybrid of both, having decent base damage, and acceptable critical damage.

For example, the enemy you're fighting is wearing some heavy armor, so he has a Damage Resistance of 5 (so your base damage is reduced by 5).

You have a Mace with 8 base damage, 80% critical factor, and you use it against the armored guy. Reduce the damage by 5, then multiply it by the critical factor. Or 3*80%, for 2.4 damage.
Your buddy tries to slash the same guy with his scimitar (3, 300%), but ends up not even scratching the guy in the armor (3-5 ends up being 0, 0*300%, for 0 damage), and might have to use a special ability in order to temporarily buff up his base damage in order to penetrate through.

Some classes, like a Rogue, might have an ability like "Go for the Throat" (Increase the base damage of an attack by 4.), with knives naturally having a low base damage but high critical damage, which creates a sort of natural synergy towards the Cloak-and-Dagger archetype.

Of course, that's one example. My point is, it'd be better to come up with the overall game mechanics first, then find ways to make the weapons stand out after you've figured out how you want your game to play.

Having to break out a calculator is not something I want for my system :P that being said I have some ideas I've been working on that are slightly similar but with more simplified math. (I think lol)

I prefer the method of armor affecting hit chance instead of damage resistance, but then sometimes I wonder why the dagger hurts the dragon and the kitty cat by the same amount. So I have been working on a system that does both. (And it was prompted by the responses in this thread so thank all of you! Even if I didn't use your idea it may have got me thinking about things differently)
Basically you have an AC a la D&D, but you also have 'glancing' and 'critical' AC. It makes it so you have some damage reduction based on their attack roll, and a minimum roll to crit on you. For example (all numbers are made up as I haven't worked out my math for balance yet) if I have an AC of 17 I may have a Glancing AC of 14 and a Critical AC of 22.

What this means is that if the attacker has 13 or less after modifiers they deal no damage to me. If they have a 14-16 they deal damage but it is reduced (amount depending on the attackers weapon and my armor type. Haven't done the math here either) then on a 17-21 they deal normal damage. Let's say that they roll a 20, that's normally a crit in D&D, but let's say for some reason they only have a +1 to attack. That's only a 21. So they hit me, but they don't get any extra damage for a critical because they couldn't be my critical AC. Criticals are something that you'll never be able to build for in my system. There will be buffs for them, sure, but always in addition to other, meatier, things you get from the same class resource. This allows some enemies and players to have some threat to a critical, but a highly defensive build won't have to worry about getting nuked by a lucky roll.

This sounds like a lot of math, but really it's just going to be like calculating resistance and vulnerability now. You compare to hit with AC and figure out which category you fall into.


With this system I can do something like this: (in theory each attack will have damage dealt in a poll of 3+ d6s with heavy weapons in d8s. I again haven't worked out my math as I just got the theory going in my head)
Blades treat enemy Glancing AC and Critical AC as 1 point lower. Glancing damage is reduced by 2 damage die.
Blunts treat enemy Glancing AC as 2 points higher. Glancing damage is reduced by 1 damage die.
Piercings have glancing damage reduced by 3 damage die and critical damage increases by 2 damage die.

Again all numbers are meaningless but I then could add modifiers as suggested above.
So a one handed blade may get an additional reduction of glancing damage die, but also treat glancing AC as lower. One handed weapons are easier to maneuver, but just barely making contact doesn't hurt as much as if it's a heavier weapon.
Two handed gets a smaller glancing damage reduction, but treat glancing AC as higher.

Then all of this gets rolled into a single table. So you don't look up all the modifiers. The table just says Longsword (1-h blade. X stats)

The only thing I don't like about it is having to adjust AC on the fly depending on the weapon attacking. Is their an elegant way to roll that into a calculation? I don't like the idea of the game looking like this:

Player: I attack Orc A
DM: Okay, roll to hit.
Player: It's a 14
DM: (thinking: Okay Orc A has AC 18 and it's glancing AC is 15 so that wouldn't hit at all.... Unlesssssss) Do you have a modifier to glancing hits?
Player: Yes I lower them by 2.
DM: Okay that's a glancing hit, roll damage.
Player: Wait what do I roll for glancing again?

In theory you could ask for hit rolls to be called out like "17 to hit +2 glancing". Which I think might be better worded to say the bonus is actually to the hit roll, when compared to glancing AC rather then as a reduction of the glancing AC. That way I can consistently keep +X as a good thing.

So I like it in theory, but I went straight to something that I think is more complicated then most people want (and I originally set out to create) and while I don't expect to become the creator of a game to rival D&D or even Pathfinder/GURPS/Shadowrun or any other popular to semi-popular TTRPG, I want it to be possible :P lol

Cluedrew
2019-07-02, 06:17 PM
To Galithar: That sounds interesting but also too complicated, but I think with a bit of trimming you could get it down to one that would work for a combat focused game.

My first thought is don't have modifiers that effect one of glancing or critical. Just do modifiers to attack role. So a light easy to high weapon just has a positive modifier to its roll because the qualities that make it good at hitting something make it good at hitting an exposed area. Makes sense for most weapons and feels close enough for the rest.

Second is you need an easy way to calculate two damage values now. The one for critical is pretty simple as you can use whatever damage system and apply it directly as the armour is sort of by definition not involved. Mixing the armour presents more options as you have two places to turn knobs now. For the sake of simplicity I say lock at least one of those knobs. So either give all weapons two damage numbers (which is effectively what you are doing with dropping damage dice, but unless there is a universal rule for it I would say write it out for each weapon and let people figure out the trends) or give armour a flat damage reduction in that range.

Armour has room to be interesting as well as now you have two important numbers to fiddle with. Usually given your stats armour can be ranked from best to worst (ignoring things like time to take them on and off for now) but now you have two numbers and so you can trade off between glancing and critical armour. If characters start carrying around extra amour for different situations or character with similar stats but different styles use different armour you have probably got it.

Mr Beer
2019-07-02, 06:17 PM
Are you looking for strong realism or more game balance? How do you want customisation to work, so for example if a super strong character has an extra-heavy mace, how are you modelling that? What about when pixies use spears, how is that going to work? No answers here, just stuff you think about.

Pauly
2019-07-02, 07:47 PM
Having to break out a calculator is not something I want for my system :P that being said I have some ideas I've been working on that are slightly similar but with more simplified math. (I think lol)

I tprefer the method of armor affecting hit chance instead of damage resistance, but then sometimes I wonder why the dagger hurts the dragon and the kitty cat by the same amount. So I have been working on a system that does both. (And it was prompted by the responses in this thread so thank all of you! Even if I didn't use your idea it may have got me thinking about things differently)

[snip]

So I like it in theory, but I went straight to something that I think is more complicated then most people want (and I originally set out to create) lol

The first thing I would say to this is “what is the technology level you want to simulate?”. Quite frankly if you don’t have plate armor then there is no need for blunt weapons and you can just cut out the most problematic interactions.

When you look at defense there are two main considerations.-
(1) The ability to avoid the hit
(2) The ability to survive the hit.

Avoiding the hit.
Weapons like spears and swords increase your ability to avoid a hit, as do defensive systems like shields and parrying daggers. This is relatively easy to model by adding modifiers to the to hit roll.
The skill of the user in real combat is more linked to avoiding hits than being able to inflict hits. So as character level up they should become harder to hit, which is the opposite of the usual RPG trend of increasing their offensive capacity. In combat martial arts bouts between beginners often end with double kills as both combatants attack but fail to defend.
Weapon speed also comes into play here, although that’s probably better modeled into the initiative system.

Surviving the hit
There are two main schools of modeling armor. The first is as a straight damage reduction. The other way is to have a chance of avoiding damage entirely. Both have their pluses and minuses, I prefer the chance to avoid damage entirely method. That way you can use weapon characteristics and character skills to increase the chance of being able to bypass armor.

The final consideration is hitting vital spots aka critical hits.
In this case user skill is more important than weapon system. Hinged flails are about the only weapon I can think of where the final hit location is randomized. The considerations are do you want armor to affect the critical hit, or do you want it to automatically bypass any armor? Do you want the critical to do extra damage, if so does the weapon system really make a difference? Maybe you could do both. A critical hit from a dagger might bypass all armor, representing getting the point into a gap in the armor, but a critical hit from an axe does double damage, if it can get past the armor representing a clean perfectly edge aligned hit cutting more effectively than usual.

HouseRules
2019-07-02, 09:05 PM
That's just a polearm. Not sure about weight but going of the examples I think it would be heavy, might be medium.

My suggestion is to lean outside of mechanics a bit and just give them a lot of narrative weight or out-of-combat implications. More expensive weapons might be a matter of status instead off efficiency. Some weapons are small enough to hide, others are painfully visible. If you keep the total number of weapons down you can give them their own personalities and give them to different types of characters you can use them as a tool of expression.

I mean if I say "You are attacked by a masked figure wielding a machete." its a different feel than "You are attacked by a masked figure wielding a butcher's knife." Or put a different way, the fact that they are different weapons can be a meaningful difference in its own right. Carry on with the mechanical ideas as well but I thought I would say this bit about out-of-combat and expression.

Since you have Heavy, Medium, and Light as a separate category...

Along the lines of Main Arm (Pole-Arm version), and Side Arm (Non-Pole-Arm Version) as another orthogonal category.

Duff
2019-07-03, 05:53 PM
A Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronan has a manageable number of stats for weapons and then an longish (maybe 20?) list of weapon abilities such as "armour piercing" or "fast".
I think they did an OK job of using that system to make each weapon different so it might be worth a look for some ideas. I don't think they really succeeded in the balance aspect.

As others have kind of said, an important question to ask yourself is "how granular do I want this to be"?
Are a scimitar and a broadsword "largish 1 handed swords" or do you want them to be different?

The more granular, the more features you need to be able to differentiate them.

Tyrrell
2019-07-08, 12:19 PM
I like what 3rd edition exalted did.

They only have three different sets of stats for non-magical hand to hand weapons- light, medium, and heavy. But they have a list of traits to add to individual weapons (balanced, smashing, piercing, and so on). This lets you have weapon individuality with whatever sort of character you want to assign to each weapon, while still keeping things simple and not needing lots of rules.

Psikerlord
2019-07-08, 09:16 PM
The Low Fantasy Gaming weapons tables (melee, ranged) might be of assistance. They attempt to make all weapons competitive in some way (well, aside from a couple obviously subpar choices, such as club), and certain weapon types gain a "natural 19" effect (like a disarm for swords, or knock down for a hammer), which is in addition to damage.

http://dndhackersguild.weebly.com/blog/osr-alternative-weapons-table

KineticDiplomat
2019-07-09, 12:41 PM
Also, ditch the D&D basis. Remember, D&D is god awful bad at melee in the “man to man” sense. It is written so that your mighty blade may carve a swathe through the hordes of goblins or take a chunk out of a dragon in the most heroic fantasy way possible. As a result it’s actual representation of weapons and armor is putrid for actual consideration. Really. Just awfully, hideously, bad.

So if someone is suggesting “hacking” d&d, you’ll find lots of ways to create variety. Even mechanical variety. It just won’t actually matter, because it’s flair. Lots of wasted effort to get the same outcome, which is to make you a least-dice-rolled hero.

So, you may need to get off the D20, roll X to hit model before you see anything worth keeping.

Pauly
2019-07-09, 07:11 PM
Also, ditch the D&D basis. Remember, D&D is god awful bad at melee in the “man to man” sense. It is written so that your mighty blade may carve a swathe through the hordes of goblins or take a chunk out of a dragon in the most heroic fantasy way possible. As a result it’s actual representation of weapons and armor is putrid for actual consideration. Really. Just awfully, hideously, bad.

So if someone is suggesting “hacking” d&d, you’ll find lots of ways to create variety. Even mechanical variety. It just won’t actually matter, because it’s flair. Lots of wasted effort to get the same outcome, which is to make you a least-dice-rolled hero.

So, you may need to get off the D20, roll X to hit model before you see anything worth keeping.

I cannot agree with this enough. In fact I would use D&D as the example of how not to do it, and things I should avoid in building a system.

Vogie
2019-07-19, 01:07 PM
You could also use combat-adjacent mechanics to make the weapons feel correct.

For example, I remember a video (can't remember if it was Mike Mearls or Matt Colville) where they were describing an interesting variant initiative system based on damage die, with the players roll initiative at the top of each round, and a 1 goes first. Using 5e as an example A Barbarian with a Greataxe would have a d12 initiative die, while a rogue with daggers uses d4, and spellcasters had something like d6+spell level intended to cast. It reminded me a bit of the Race for the Galaxy card game. The reason for the system was, I believe, was to give the verisimilitude of "simultaneous combat" and factoring in the amount of time to swing these things around, a longbow or heavy crossbow takes longer to load than a shortbow or hand crossbow, and that more complicated spells take a longer to cast over the course of the turn then shorter ones.

With a initiative system such as this, those with lighter weapons or using lower level spells tend to act first. This system doesn't have a specific differences in the individual weapons, yet the weapons have an impact on the system.

That doesn't mean it has to stay that way. You could add some other riders to these styles of weapons:

maybe certain bludgeoning weapons have a chance to have a +Initiative Debuff to their targets (remember- higher numbers are bad)
certain blades give their wielders give a stacking -Initiative buff on hit (because low numbers are good)
Suddenly the blowgun is useful! (5e joke)

You could even throw in some interesting interactions with this system as well -

perhaps a targeted creature or PC can take so many initiative debuffs that their turn gets skipped,
a targeted creature or PC can accumulate such a low (read: negative) initiative that they act twice during a turn
Perhaps if you have advantage on attack, you could use that advantage on the initiative roll as well.

Knaight
2019-07-19, 06:16 PM
Take a look at Qin: The Warring States. The main thing that differentiates weapons is that there are a number of distinct attack maneuvers, which have varying difficulties to pull off. Weapons determine which one is at which difficulty - a staff can trip someone a bit better than a spear, which is notably better than an ax, which is substantially better than a sword, and this is repeated for a number of different techniques.

It's also worth thinking about unconventional advantages. We all know varying damage, varying attack, varying crit. However you could vary how bad a flanking penalty is. After all you can whip a sword around to people in very different directions a lot faster than you can a spear, and that's not a generalized movement speed thing (as anyone who's tried to defend against spears with a sword knows, they're quick in the one direction). Listing out tables would take a while, but you could give each weapon one positive and one negative trait, both of which are situational, then penalize the golf bag of weapons approach to prevent the otherwise obvious solution of just bringing a bunch of them. These traits could be all over the place, working at unconventional angles based on sparring experience, cool stuff seen in movies, blatantly stolen mechanics from innovative videogames, or whatever else.

Celestia
2019-07-20, 04:32 PM
When it comes to realism, there's always a gradient involved. Too little realism, and you risk losing any sense of purpose or meaning. Too much realism and you risk bogging your game down in unnecessary, unfun, technicalities. It's a delicate balance, but it's not actually that hard to walk. Just make sure to always ask yourself one question: will this add to or take away from the experience?

For weapons, adding distinct differences can be a good thing, especially when those differences are (at least mostly) balanced. However, you want to keep the differences to simple groups. In real life, there are easily more than a hundred distinct forms of polearm that all function slightly different and are better in certain situations, but trying to add all that into a game would just be absurd. I recommend the following categories based on significant physical differences:

Swords: with their large striking surfaces and superior balance, swords have high accuracy and are great for both skillful feints and defensive maneuvers. However, they lack power behind their strikes, resulting in poor damage and an inability to pierce heavy armor.

Axes: axes, effectively, the opposite of swords. They have immense power, but they are inaccurate and have poor tactical and defensive capabilities.

Maces: maces are like axes but they do better against heavy armor and worse against light armor.

Polearms: polearms have both reach and high damage, but they are ineffective at close range and are mostly incapable of dealing with multiple opponents at once.

As for weapon sizes, I'd stick with the classic light, one-handed, two-handed system, but make an extra effort to have them roughly balanced. Two-handed weapons deal more damage but have worse defense. One-handed weapons deal more damage but have better defense. Light weapons deal the same damage as one-handed weapons but without the extra defense. Instead, they are faster and better at precision strikes.

Xuc Xac
2019-07-20, 06:43 PM
I usually use a variation of these rules to keep things simple but differentiated.

Two-handed weapons get a bonus for damage and leverage (for things like disarming).
Swords have a bonus to attack.
Axes have a bonus to damage.
Spears and polearms have a bonus to defense and initiative.
Maces and flails have a good bonus against armor.
Daggers have a small bonus against armor and can be drawn as a free action.
Bucklers have a bonus to defense in melee and can be drawn as a free action.
Shields have a bonus to defense in melee and provide cover against ranged attacks.
Short bows let you attack at range.
Long bows let you attack at range and can shoot heavier arrows that trade range for more damage.
Crossbows are equivalent to long bows used by a strong archer, but the user's own strength doesn't matter. You pay for it with a long reload time, but it can be carried around while loaded.

Dienekes
2019-07-21, 11:58 PM
What I've been toying with for my own game, that I'm enjoying but I haven't playtested thoroughly enough to know how much it will effect gameplay is a system of Tags and variant attack types.

Instead of every weapon just having a single damage type every weapon now has 2: Thrust Damage and Strike Damage with some weapons clearly favoring one or the other while other weapons are more balanced. Attacks can then be modified with a series of maneuvers which may (but don't always) require a specific type of attack. Lunge increases the Reach of a Thrust attack. Cleave can hit 2 opponents with Strike Damage. That sort of thing.

These weapons are also given a series of Tags. Finesse. Mass. Reach. One-Handed. Two-Handed. Versatile. Hook. Baskethilt. Armor Piercing. You get the idea.

Anyway certain maneuvers may also require the weapon to have a specific Tag, or gains some advantage with the Tag.

I think this should give my weapons distinct advantages and will lead them toward feeling a bit different from each other.