Light Weapon is BROKEN! But that may be a good thing!

[Rukelnikov]

Well, enough with the clickbait titles, anyway, latest Light weapon tag doesn't require you to dual wield, which is cool because it allows for instance small thrown weapons to take advantage of it with only one hand and do a "flurry of attacks" which is usually in line with that kind of combat style.

However, this also means you can make one attack with whatever weapon you want, say a Greatsword, then stow it as part of your action, retrieve a light weapon, attack with it, thus triggering the light weapon property, retrieving a second light weapon as part of the extra attack.

The thing is, I think this is awesome, having stuff like this baked in the weapons themselves brings the system a step closer to combatants feeling more versatile and distinguisahble by the range of weapons they use or combine. Wish we could have more stuff like that, maybe making the Charge Attack feature of charger be the Heavy weapon tag for instance.

[KorvinStarmast]

No, not broken. I get very tired of the "it's broken" claim erupting out of an innocuous change.

[Theodoxus]

Well, enough with the clickbait titles, anyway, latest Light weapon tag doesn't require you to dual wield, which is cool because it allows for instance small thrown weapons to take advantage of it with only one hand and do a "flurry of attacks" which is usually in line with that kind of combat style.

However, this also means you can make one attack with whatever weapon you want, say a Greatsword, then stow it as part of your action, retrieve a light weapon, attack with it, thus triggering the light weapon property, retrieving a second light weapon as part of the extra attack.

The thing is, I think this is awesome, having stuff like this baked in the weapons themselves brings the system a step closer to combatants feeling more versatile and distinguisahble by the range of weapons they use or combine. Wish we could have more stuff like that, maybe making the Charge Attack feature of charger be the Heavy weapon tag for instance.

Sure, drop your optimal greatsword to pull out a pair of short swords to do from no additional damage, to the same amount of damage... and hope your opponent doesn't steal your greatsword, or kick it away, or eat it... what's the advantage here?

[Rukelnikov]

Sure, drop your optimal greatsword to pull out a pair of short swords to do from no additional damage, to the same amount of damage... and hope your opponent doesn't steal your greatsword, or kick it away, or eat it... what's the advantage here?

You don't need to drop it, you can draw or stow a weapon as part of each attack.

You can, for instance take the TWF style, and have the following routine once you get Extra Attack:

Starting with nothing drawn:


Draw a handaxe and throw it (This triggers Light weapon)
Draw a second handaxe and throw it (This is the extra attack from Light weapon)
Draw a Greatsword and attack with it


On your second turn:

Attack with Greatsword and stow it
Draw a handaxe and throw it (This triggers Light weapon)
Draw a second handaxe and throw it (This is the extra attack from Light weapon)


Back to initial setup

That is +Attribute damage over just using a Greatsword, you lose the reroll from GWF, on average thats only 1.33 per greatsword attack, so even a +3 is already better, it may not be the best thing out there, but its viable.

The cool thing is you can combine this with Great Weapon Master, since the feat can proc only once per turn if we hit with our attack we still get full value of the feature (ofc we only get one chance to proc it)

But there's other stuff you can do too, like take the Dueling fighting style, and just use throwing daggers, you get 3 attacks with +2 damage each, which is better than adding +5 to one of the attacks.

The fact that taking mixed styles can work is much better than what we have currently.

[Unoriginal]

You don't need to drop it, you can draw or stow a weapon as part of each attack.

You can, for instance take the TWF style, and have the following routine once you get Extra Attack:

Starting with nothing drawn:


Draw a handaxe and throw it (This triggers Light weapon)
Draw a second handaxe and throw it (This is the extra attack from Light weapon)
Draw a Greatsword and attack with it


On your second turn:

Attack with Greatsword and stow it
Draw a handaxe and throw it (This triggers Light weapon)
Draw a second handaxe and throw it (This is the extra attack from Light weapon)


Back to initial setup

That is +Attribute damage over just using a Greatsword, you lose the reroll from GWF, on average thats only 1.33 per greatsword attack, so even a +3 is already better, it may not be the best thing out there, but its viable.

The cool thing is you can combine this with Great Weapon Master, since the feat can proc only once per turn if we hit with our attack we still get full value of the feature (ofc we only get one chance to proc it)

But there's other stuff you can do too, like take the Dueling fighting style, and just use throwing daggers, you get 3 attacks with +2 damage each, which is better than adding +5 to one of the attacks.

The fact that taking mixed styles can work is much better than what we have currently.

It's "draw or stow as part of the action", or with the appropriate setup "draw twice", not "draw and stow, and draw again".

Unless they changed that in D&Done and you're talking about that..If it's the case, I apologize.

[Rukelnikov]

It's "draw or stow as part of the action", or with the appropriate setup "draw twice", not "draw and stow, and draw again".

Unless they changed that in D&Done and you're talking about that..If it's the case, I apologize.

In D&DOne you can draw or stow before or after every attack.

[Slingbow]

In D&DOne you can draw or stow before or after every attack.

So is every 5e thread going to become a D&DOne thread?

[Bane's Wolf]

So is every 5e thread going to become a D&DOne thread?
Most likely, especially in the first few days after a playtest release :smallwink:

[Psyren]

So is every 5e thread going to become a D&DOne thread?

This was very clearly a OneD&D thread from the start :smallconfused: OP said the "latest tag" which implies the latest playtest packet, it's not like 5e has changed the Light property since 2014.


No, not broken. I get very tired of the "it's broken" claim erupting out of an innocuous change.

This, though I'll give the OP a point for at least admitting it was intentional clickbait.

[Phhase]

Oooh, interesting, I like it.