Combat Reforged | Weapons Rework for D&D 5e

weapons and dungeons and dragons 5th edition are too basic and too boring so let's fix them because i just did a video with mr rex on how i fixed the armor system in dungeons and dragons and how can be spiced up in different ways and just released a full pdf with a full combat overhaul of armor shields martial actions and weapons but this specific video is over weapons and a little bit of martial actions having to do with these certain weapons because i feel like each weapon should feel different when you use them but first we're going to get into why weapons are bland homebrew methods i've used to fix them and exact examples again based on those comments which is a sneak peek of that combat overhaul pdf we'll talk about a little later in the video how you can get your hands on it overhaul your entire system too all right first we're getting into all the issues with these weapons is that these weapons should not feel the same you should be able to mix and match weapons based on different scenarios and situations you find yourself in combat instead martial classes are forced to having to pick feats or fighting styles that even those aren't specific weapons they are two-handed weapons not a great sword or a great axe this literally eliminates the scenario of bringing two different types of weapons for different scenarios you might encounter that you want to cover your bases with you literally are just choosing between a d12 weapon or a d12 weapon which in most cases means players will just pick the weapon that has the highest weapon die and that's it i do actually think each weapon should feel different whenever you equip it and use it it should have different properties not because you chose a feat that you had to invest a lot of choice into you can literally switch even maybe god forbid mid combat to gain the benefits of these different weapons and this is starting to pique your interest just wait because think about fighters fighters are proficient with all martial weapons and they should be able to pick up and use all these different weapons gaining all their different benefits and i'm not going to get into it in this video but i also have a variant rules for weapon proficiencies instead of just simple weapons and martial weapons you actually get to choose between axes swords uh thrusting weapons which i've lumped all type of spears into i've lumped things together like puncture weapons of a morning star with all those little spiky points and a pick would be in the same puncture category and have different puncture properties pretty powerful puncture properties if i say so myself but anyway as a dungeon master you could choose to be able to have players switch between weapons from one round to the next or maybe they have to make a more tactical choice before the fight starts of which weapon they drop but in the big picture this moves away from just choosing the weapon that deals the highest weapon die and i chose this because it's a d10 instead of what's my combat looking like and we're getting into it later in this video but they're also having different actions you can choose that each weapon has a different action you can also use which leads us into my solution section number two solutions to these homebrews these weapons i feel like should feel different but how are you gonna do that how you're gonna give that feeling to the player of using a sword versus an axe well i did it in two different ways two big ways a passive one each weapon has a different passive that you're able to gain a bonus from just by wielding it each of these weapons deal more damage based on specific situations that they each would shine in and this damage bonus is equal to your proficiency bonus which at first is just me plus two but then scales with you as you level up the second thing i did with all of these weapons is give them some sort of action some action economy where you can spend one of your attacks to get an extra effect from each of these different types of weapons an axe has an ax attack those puncture weapons would have their own attack thords have some sort of flourish attack and that thrusting weapon would have a big thrust attack specifically as an action so you can choose to spend your action economy on this very specific cool thing that this weapon can do and at the same time be gaining passives from all of its passive effects and the third thing i almost forgot about is critical strikes here's how i handle critical strikes which are going to blend this right into the third step which are the homebrew solutions the mechanics themselves whenever you land a critical strike with a slashing piercing or bludgeoning weapon three different things happen shown right here somewhere and really quick i did categorize weapons differently on slashing piercing and bludgeoning hammers deal bludgeoning damage swords are slashing damage axes are slashing damage but puncture weapons and thrusting weapons are piercing damage i in this rule system i do think that you can go crazy i'm in the comment section but i don't have swords deer deal piercing damage yes i know you can thrust with a sword and if you as a dungeon master want to describe that as piercing damage cool go for it let them be able to do that that's fine but i do think that slashing and piercing damage can get really watered down and washed away into who cares-ness if you have it like that so i like to have the slashing weapons be slashing the piercing weapons be piercing but if you want to blur those lines go for it so the homebrew here is slashing weapons when you deal a critical strike with a slashing weapon that gain a bleed condition which reminds me that the bleed condition is not in rules as written it's something i'm adding into alkanes almanac and if y'all if you guys want to see all the different conditions that i added to fifth edition uh let me know in the comments down below but the bleed condition is basically you gain the bleed effect which you the target gains the bleed effect which is 1d4 necrotic damage every round until you're either able to make a medicine check or get at least one point of healing but this gives slashing weapons that wound effect where they're bleeding out from that big gash across their body now piercing weapons are a little bit different you impale them and they get impaled it's not a big huge gash but it's a impale so if you piercing damage crit a target they become impaired or they gain the impaired condition for one round which is basically the next attack roll or any saving throw or whatever they make is then a disadvantage so now critical strikes between these two different types of weapons feel different you have a wound on one target versus ah you just got impaled so everything you do is just a disadvantage for one round because you're fighting through it or whatever but this is the difference between slashing and piercing so this is also another reason why i separate them and i don't let swords deal piercing because then whenever you crit you have to ask them oh was that a piercing attack or a slashing attack and just slows down the game i like to separate them but anyway bludgeoning weapons that's my favorite one on a bludgeoning weapon critical you get to choose as the player if the target flies back five feet or gets knocked prone but that's just the critical effect type things that i have across all these weapons and i did that only for the categories of weapon damage not each weapon having a different critical that's too much but now we're going to get into the passives and active abilities for each of these three selected weapons of swords axes and hammers this rep outfit still gets me if any of this combat stuff sounds cool if you like combat in dungeons and dragons because honestly who doesn't that's one of the favorite parts of most people this pdf is the pdf for you it's it might be the best one that i've made so far i put a lot into this along with my team along with a lot of influence from a bunch of different people i've been collaborating with mr rex zipper on disney a lot of very good homebrew creators we have combined together to have this pdf this thing has a ton of modular rules you can add into your game i can't even list them all off right now is a weapon system going over every single weapon thing that i'm just talking about a martial system not just the different actions you can do with every single type of weapon bonus actions you can do to play defensively reactions you can do to play tactically with your friends combo maneuvers you can do together that's just that part of it the armor part i've got to have multiple different types of materials that your armor is made out of to give different properties to the most mundane of armors and then an armor system to change the way the armor class works that again that's the whole video i did with mr rex that video will be down in the description and the shields i haven't even talked about the shield system so many different shield um abilities maneuvers properties you can add into shields if you're watching this video live right now this is available on my patreon along with bonus level of perks volume 2 which has 200 different feats you can customize your characters with i try and give you guys as much value as possible which is why i'm overhauling my patreon starting in september with a bunch of huge changes i'll have that post linked down in the description so you can see what's going on there because i've never been able to give this much value and thanks to your support from the current patrons that are already there and the support from the kickstarter i'm able to do stuff like this so thank you guys so much now let's get back to those weapons so now the three weapons that you guys chose in my little community posts voting poll that i did for what your favorite weapon is is swords axes and hammers i'm gonna go over the passives and the action ability that you can do with each of these three weapons for the passive effects of these weapons you deal your proficiency bonus in damage if a certain situational thing happens the first up is swords what does it feel like to use a sword and what type of passive would it have you gain your proficiency bonus and damage if you deal damage to the same target in back-to-back rounds this damage can happen only once per round because then you can just keep getting the bonus damage especially if you have multiple different attacks or whatever so for example if i attack this certain orc on my turn on round one let's say i only have one attack i attack this orc right here if i attack that same work the next round i get my proficiency bonus in damage against that target if i switch targets i don't get it this also gets across that dueling effect of swords and challenging someone to duel and if you focus in on one target that's going to be an help to you so maybe if you're in combat and there's a bunch of different enemies maybe you don't draw that sword because that's not the type of fight this is going to be axes gain this proficiency bonus and damage against any bloodied target or bleeding target so if a target is below half health in my when my table whenever target goes below half health i say that they are now bloodied that's just something i surprisingly say so i i call it a bloodied condition because they're below half health and it procs this acts damage so if you attack something that's closer to death than it is full health you gain your bonus and damage to finish it off in this violent way and bleeding if a target is bleeding or has some sort of bleed on them you deal bonus damage too and as a side note here i put scythes in the axe category so they would also get this effect cause i feel like that's fitting for these bladed decapitation weapon hammers i love hammers on this one you deal your proficiency bonus and damage to any target that is wearing a metal armor you're wearing metal armor and a huge hammer comes and strikes you in the shoulder plate it dents it in on yourself it's now stabbing you every time you raise your armor this bent metal is impaling yourself as you move it's a little extra damage now hold up you might think that hammers that's very specific hammers against metal armored targets if you think about every type of thing you fight in dungeons and dragons not all of them have metal armor that they're wearing right you could also say that it's a metal constructs you could also rule as that again let's use a dungeon master but also hammers gain this bonus in anything that's a petrified target or anything made of stone or golems or anything like that and if you don't feel like that's enough as a dungeon master you want to give those hammer wheelers more stuff they can also deal the proficiency bonus to prone targets on the ground but again now just using a hammer has so much more going on with it you're thinking about what type of armor people are wearing you're seeing petrified targets a stone golem i'm pulling out my great maul to go fight that big construct or maybe you get a crit with a hammer that deals bludgeoning damage and you choose to make them fall prone and now you deal bonus damage to this prone target as your next attacks and again those passes i have for every single different kind of weapon there is but now getting into the action the active abilities you can choose to actively use while wielding these weapons a quick shout out goes to zipper on disney it's a collaboration of me and him putting our heads together on this is the pdf that he just released called galder's gazetteer and i really do think it's a very close fitting to al cantor's almanac there's a lot of different homebrew rules in there four players a bunch of different classes and all this different type of stuff me and him have put our heads together he's a great dude we've been collaborating a bunch of different stuff and been inspired each other from a lot of the different stuff that each other does so one of the things that i got inspiration from him on is these active effects he did this for slashing piercing and bludgeoning type weapons having some sort of active effect but i'm doing this for all different kinds of weapons so on a hit how all of this works across the board for all of these weapons on a hit once you have hit something you can forego your extra attack so yes this would be for marshals with extra attack disclaimer here so on a hit you can forgo that extra attack and you don't get your extra attack but you gain an additional effect this additional effect usually does cause damage and a little bit something else but as a quick game design note this also speeds up combat in ways because instead of making an attack and making an attack now you've made your two attacks you dealt that damage you move on you make an attack and once you hit you get to choose do i want to take an extra attack and swing at something else or the same target whatever or do i want to trigger this active effect of my weapon but what are these active effects the first one up is the sword if you hit a target in combat and you have an extra attack you can burn your extra attack to make the target make a dexterity saving throw if they fail that saving throw they take one extra dive damage in the hit that you hit them with and they have disadvantage on their next attack roller ability chest so here's what this would look like you attack that orc and you hit them you would deal one d8 damage plus let's say your strength modifier is five so one to eight plus five and then you could do another attack and do another one d8 plus five if you hit you could attack and miss again but how this works is you make that sword attack you hit you have that one d8 plus five but before you roll damage you can choose to trigger this extra effect you spend your extra attack and you cause the orc to make a dexterity saving throw can you dodge this flurry of blows that you're coming at him with right these flourishes okay makes the dexterity saving throw and fails he fails that role now you deal an extra weapon die of damage so now it's two to eight plus five you add that extra 1d8 and they have disadvantage on their next attack roll or ability check and now you've dealt 28 plus five damage and they are on the back foot a little bit from this little flurry of blows you gave them sorry monks not flurry of blows don't worry i got quarter staff stuff and unarmed stuff too now moving on to axes axes are a little bit more gruesome since they're axes or scythes whatever you make your attack with an axe and as soon as you hit you can choose to have the target make a constitution saving throw and if they fail that saving throw they take an extra diet damage again because i don't want you to burn your extra attack and you feel like i want to deal damage you still get your one extra dive damage but axes give the target the bleed condition now stop right there if that made you excited respect and i love you because if you remember axes what are acts's passive effect passively axis deal bonus damage they deal an extra proficiency bonus and damage to targets that are bleeding so you have an action now with you see the place that i'm going for there's actual mechanics there's think there's tactics axes have an ability where you could trigger an as an action to give a target a bleed so that now all following attacks on that target deal bonus damage oh man this stuff excites me moving on to hammers hammers you attack the target and then you can forego your extra attack to gain one bonus and you see how this is all very similar it's all very similar you forego that extra attack you get one bonus die in damage whatever the weapon die is 1d1218 whatever it is but you trigger a strength saving throw from the hammer and if they fail they take one extra die damage and they get knocked back five feet oh my god this synergizes with a critical strike bludgeoning effect so if you choose to make this attack with your hammer and critically strike and forgo your second attack gaining an extra bonus diet weapon damage which would then turn into a critical you already get knocked back five feet from the critical and because you're using this hammer effect now it's ten feet oh i gotta calm down this is too fun because it was so fun to make these for every single weapon it spent so much time really thinking about the essence of these weapons what does it feel like to play a hammer you should shine against chunky targets that are like golems and stuff or metal targets you're getting in their armor it can go to flavor the descriptions too and you can shine in these moments because you chose that weapon or you got a collection of weapons or you're a fighter that has four different weapons and you're ready for anything so do you guys want to see a ranged version of this video this video gets a thousand likes in the first 24 hours of this video going live i'll do a follow-up video follow the world builder more inspiration from other collaborating youtubers out there i just showed up in one of his videos he's doing a bunch of real life uh d d statistics type stuff so if we get a thousand videos the first 24 hours i'll do a follow-up video for ranged weapons a new crossbow i have a whole new mechanics for crossbows and how they work and bows or maybe you guys want to see a whole video where i show you my gun system of the different ways that i implement guns into dungeons and dragons matt colbert released a video on this and i was like oh man i totally have a whole thing on guns but comment down below let me know what you guys think about that stay tuned for all the updates i have on my patreon i'm about to drop some huge news on that coming out september 1st everything's going gonna change i have a whole bunch i'm upgrading all the rewards across the board for everyone thank you so much for what this whole thing has become i appreciate it so much stay creative think outside the box peace

Channel: The Dungeon Coach

Views: 47,103

Keywords: Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, DnD, DnD 5e, D&D 5e, Dungeon Master Tips, Dungeon Master Guide, DM Tips, DM Tip, D&D Homebrew, Homebrew, DnD Homebrew, DnD 5e Homebrew, D&D 5e Homebrew, The Dungeon Coach, alkanders almanac of all things, new weapon system, weapons dnd 5e, D&D weapons, dnd weapons, dnd weapons guide, d&d weapons homebrew, d&d weapons for fighters, dnd weapon perks, dnd weapon feats, homebrew weapon system D&D 5e, New D&D 5e weapons

Id: _f5Uip_siOc

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021