So this thread got me thinking about weapons again, and I got a creative itch and just had to devise my own Expanded Weapons table.I didn't go into this exercise with any particular goals, but in hindsight, I did this:
1. More "cosmetic" options: I'm the kind of person who really likes that there are a bunch of weapons that are functionally equivalent, but appear on the chart anyway, just because they have a different damage type or are shaped different. I think it helps players to feel like their characters are "meant" to be part of the setting/genre -- "re-skinning" makes me feel like the setting/genre is pushing back against my character concept. Also certain re-skins are just stupid, like club -> nunchaku (I added "light flail" to fix this one, for example).
2. More peasant options: falchion, scythe, woodcutting axe. Basically there are some gaps in the Simple weapons list that I wanted to fill. Mechanically, these are similar to existing options, but with cosmetic differences (see point 1).
3. More finesse options: Because rapiers shouldn't have all the fun. I made several versatile weapons be versatile (finesse), including some simple weapons. This is a slight power increase to wizards/sorcerers and other Dex-based simple-weapon-users; like you can now build an archer-cleric without being stuck with the lousy dagger as your only good melee option. Longsword suddenly becomes a super attractive option for rogues and bards, and has a reason for elves to train with it, plus it's easier to pretend it's a pop-culture katana (as opposed to historically-accurate katana). I'm hoping it's not more attractive than dual-wielding, especially now that rapier+dagger is an option. At higher levels rapier+dagger might be better than scimitar+scimitar, but at higher levels, TWF needs all the help it can get. So there's definitely a risk here that this unduly rewards Dex, which looks on paper like the god-stat. However in my experience Dex isn't unbalanced. If anything, high Strength is not useful enough to non-warrior-types, so these changes let a lot of characters switch to the more useful Dex.
4. More exotic options: I don't see a lot of whip users, and that's sad. While we're fixing that, let's throw in a favorite from yesteryear, the spiked chain. And then, I like boomerangs, and apparently the chakram was a real thing and not just a gimmick on Xena: the Warrior Princess, and they seem pretty cool. And I always liked the naginata but glaive doesn't do it justice because I really envision it as a Kensei monk option, or even just plain finesse. (Which may not be historically accurate, but seems very in-genre, for a more cinematic/mythological sort of game, which is what D&D has become.) So I added that but called it "light glaive" to keep the pseudo-European feel. I thought about going deep down the rabbit-hole of non-European weapons, but decided not to for this document.
5. Extensions only: For backwards compatibility, I tried to only add or improve, not remove. I don't want to look at a monster stat block and think "oh crap, that weapon doesn't exist / works totally different now." In most cases, modified weapons just have new options applied (like finesse or versatile) but in a few cases I increased damage or range, which I think should be easy to handle. The one place where I did wind up having to remove something, was making the greatclub heavy, which means halflings and gnomes and goblins can't wield it very effectively any more. I think that's OK because they can just use a quarterstaff two-handed instead and get basically the same thing.
6. Weapon Master feat: By golly, in the RAW this feat is terrible. Since I was thinking a lot about weapons, I decided to improve this feat. A) I wanted it to be useful to characters who already had martial weapon proficiency, which is why it gives a +1 to damage. (Probably still weaker than an ASI, which is +1 to attack and damage, except that this bonus can exceed the +5 limit on ability scores. By 1 point, on damage, which is not a big deal to me.) B) I wanted simple weapons be viable choices, even to characters who have martial options available, hence the damage die increase, which effectively makes simple weapons comparable to martial weapons. C) I kept the selection of 4 weapons as a nod to RAW (like if you're converting a character who took Weapon Master -- my condolences -- you translate the 4 proficiencies gained under RAW into the 4 special weapons). And because some people's idea of a "weapon master" is more about specialization. D) But the feat also gives proficiency in every weapon, because that's other people's idea of "weapon master." Balance-wise, most characters only ever use 4 or fewer weapons anyway.
7. Non-goal: Historical accuracy. I view D&D in a more cinematic/mythological/pop-culture/larger-than-life way. Many of our contemporary ideas about how medieval weapons worked are just flat-out wrong, and I'm totally OK with that. Instead I am aiming for "makes immediate sense to the average person." Like, a bigger weapon should generally deal more damage than a smaller one.
8. Non-goal: Balance other areas of the system, notably Dexterity, GWM/SS, and Polarm Master. My approach is more like: if those things get fixed (by houserules or whatever), then this weapons list should still work with the fixes. Exception: one potential fix for Dexterity that I often see floated is the elimination of the rapier (the best finesse weapon) and I went in the other direction, going all-in on finesse weapons.
In summary, I think these changes make some PCs slightly stronger, but not so much that it unbalances the party. (Except possibly all the new finesse options; I'm not totally confident in my reasoning there.) But I like the new options and somehow this slightly bigger table makes more sense to me.
Link: Expanded Weapons
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