A d4, a d6, a d8, a d10, and rarely a d12:
these dice are the defining feature for 35 out of 37 weapons in D&D 5e-- the other two
don’t even use dice, and nobody uses them anyway! (net and blowgun). One simple way to add variation to your weapons
is to steal from 3rd edition where similar weapons had different ranges and effects for
critical hits! But I wouldn’t call this sort of VARIETY,
“the spice of life.” What I want, and a few thousand of you want,
is weapon CUSTOMIZATION: we don’t want to have the same longsword from levels 1 to 3
when we find a +1 longsword, and then until level 6 or something we find a longsword that
does a little fire damage. So I’m going to give you three BETTER ways
to customize weapons that are SIMPLE to add to your game-- because I’m Bob and this
is where we learn how to have more fun playing D&D together! This first method was actually inspired by
this video’s sponsor, Valda’s Spire of Secrets! And if you’re one of the other few thousand
people who want MORE weapons and customization, you’ll really want to check out this epic
5e expansion with about 100 new weapons like the Dwarven Waraxe, atlatl, boomerang, DOOMerang,
greatbow (thank you!), a ton of firearms, and perhaps my favorite: the scorpion on a
stick. It includes a bunch of new weapon properties
that we’re going to talk about in a second, AND way more than just weapon stuff: new races,
classes, subclasses for each core class, feats, optional rules, and over 100 new spells like
finger guns lol! Link below! So weapons with the Elegant property require
a Dexterity score of 16 to wield, and Superheavy does the same thing for STR-based weapons. Some examples of elegant weapons are the edged
card, which is a lot like a dagger (finesse, light, thrown) but it uses a d8, instead of
a d4. And the hook sword which is kinda like a short
sword (finesse, light), but also has the trip property and uses a d10 instead of a d6. And one Superheavy weapon is the two-handed
20 lb Dwarven Waraxe which does 2d8 damage! The point is, these are non-magical weapons. But they’re awesome! They’re more than just reskinning or reflavoring
because they do more damage or have additional features, and giving them a prerequisite Ability
Score gives your characters this upgrade to look forward to and work toward! In the meantime, they’ll be more creative
with the “unlocked” weapons they wouldn’t normally choose. So my simple homebrew system for this style
of customization is to use a similar approach to dual wielding: anybody can dual wield,
but they only add their STR or DEX to the damage if they have the fighting style or
feat that allows it-- so for Ability Score requirements: anybody can use any weapon they’re
proficient with, but they only add their STR or DEX to the damage if they meet the ability
score requirement. To make it easy to remember, you could match
the requirement and the damage die: d4 weapon requires 14 ability score, d6-16, etc., but
that’s a little high, so I’d probably shift it down to d4-10, d6-12, etc. But if that’s not simple enough, this next
customization method definitely is: just populate your game world with different versions of
the same weapon that use different damage dice! Yeah, there’s no legitimate reason that
a dagger can’t be a d6 or a d8 or higher! Maybe it’s silvered or reinforced or of
fine elven make. This allows you to give mundane enemies a
slight edge in battle, and it can surprise your experienced players when an apparently
mundane weapon is more powerful than it should be! Then later when your PC finds a +1 dagger
that does d4 damage, they’ll probably keep their d8 dagger and switch between the two
for different kinds of encounters! Because that sort of variety is useful! And my favorite new method for weapon customization
also relies on the damage die, and it takes inspiration from D&D 5e’s most elegant mechanic:
advantage and disadvantage-- in other words: it makes weapons a little more fun because
you get to roll more dice! But it breaks down to tiers of quality for
weapons, and for me, this comes right out of the video game RPGs of my childhood. You might start out with a “tarnished”
or “broken” shortsword that still uses a d6, but it does 2d6-take the lowest. Then soon enough your character can afford
to have that weapon fixed, buy a new one, or just find a better one and upgrade to a
standard or sturdy shortsword that uses the basic 1d6. And later upgrade again to a silvered, or
reinforced, or elven shortsword that does 2d6-take the highest! So just a small tweak of the mechanics that
gives each weapon a few different levels of detail. And THEN you can combine some of these methods! Get a strong shortsword that does 1d10 or
2d8 take the highest, BUT you’ll need a 16 STR or DEX score to add that modifier to
the damage! However, this combination of methods is where
we go from “simple way to customize weapons” to an entirely new weapon system! So if you’d like to see a follow up video
where I try to make that work, give this one a thumbs up, and leave YOUR ideas in the comments! Thanks again to Valda’s Spire of Secrets
and dScryb, to all the wonderful Bob World Builder Patrons, and you! Keep building :D
These are interesting, but before adding these in, it might be better to start with modifying monster resistances and immunities to reflect the different weapon damage types. For example, it is pretty common in tales about battling dragons to hear how they are only brought down by piercing weapons (arrows or spears) while slashing and bludgeoning weapons do little to no damage.
The fact that the weapon damage types exist should be highlighted. That in itself will make players think more about weapon choices.
This can be applied to armor as well. Warhammers exist because of metal armor - bludgeoning damage is typically more effective against it than slashing or piercing. I'd say plate mail is immune to slashing and resistant to piercing, but bludgeoning does full damage, for example. Maybe padded armor doesn't increase your AC but instead gives resistance to slashing.
Interesting