Weapons: Damage Remastered

[demonslayerelf]

So, this is a relatively basic thing, and I'm not really looking at specific weapon traits. This is specifically for dealing with the damage of weapons, and a better effect of Enlarge. I mean, a d4 is basically nothing, and when your barbarian becomes a literal giant for a little while, it doesn't make much sense.

There are three categories of weapons for the purposes of damage; Hand-held, Shafted, and Balanced. Ranged weapons are considered Balanced, while thrown weapons are considered Shafted or Hand-held, as appropriate.

For normal weapons, you can use your imagination. Daggers and the like would be hand-held, longswords, shortswords, clubs, and the light would be balanced, while axes, maces, spears, javelins, etc. would be shafted.

This means for the PHB weapons, not too much changes.
The Maul becomes a 1d12 bludgeoning weapon, and that's it. This mostly comes into play when dealing with Enlarge and Reduce, or similar effects(Such as the Mystic's Giant Form, or even a True Polymorph/Shapechange and you pick up a weapon fitting your size.)

When a creature is under the effects of one of these... Effects... Their weapon's damage die changes to match. For each size larger they get, consult the number two spaces to the right. For each size smaller, consult the number two spaces to the left. For calculating a creature's new damage, instead travel 3 to the left or right from the normal damage.
(Why is this? A magical effect would turn you into a creature of the average of a given size- But a giant for instance is not the average, but the full size.)

Therefore, a fighter who's been enlarged will have a greatsword dealing 2d10 slashing damage, rather than 2d6+1d4. A bit more, of course, but it also works in reverse. If the same fighter were Reduced, their greatsword would deal a paltry d8 damage, rather than 2d6-1d4.

Likewise, let's say a Hill Giant is enlarged.(A bit of reverse engineering says that a Hill Giant's Greatclub would now deal 4d8 damage, rather than 3d8.) Their 4d8 then becomes 4d12 as a gargantuan creature. If a Storm Giant(Who's new damage would be 8d6 on a greatsword- Scary!) were reduced their damage would then become 4d8 with their greatsword. In both cases, more effective than the 1d4 increase or decrease that would normally been brought.


The hand-held track is as follows;
1/1d4/1d6/2d4/1d10/3d4/4d4/5d4/6d4/8d4/10d4/12d4/16d4/20d4/24d4

The shafted track is as follows;
1/d4/d6/d8/d10/d12/2d8/2d10/2d12/4d8/4d10/4d12/8d8/8d10/8d12

And the standard track is as follows;
1/d4/d6/d8/d10/2d6/2d8/2d10/4d6/4d8/4d10/8d6/8d8/8d10/16d6



Just a thing to consider. Any thoughts?

[Composer99]

This seems awfully fiddly. Three separate weapon damage tracks? Jumping multiple spaces up and down as size changes? I mean, go nuts if you want: poring over look-up tables has a long history in D&D. It just doesn't seem to jive with the design philosophy of 5e.


When a creature is under the effects of one of these... Effects... Their weapon's damage die changes to match. For each size larger they get, consult the number two spaces to the right. For each size smaller, consult the number two spaces to the left. For calculating a creature's new damage, instead travel 3 to the left or right from the normal damage.
(Why is this? A magical effect would turn you into a creature of the average of a given size- But a giant for instance is not the average, but the full size.)

I really can't parse out where the jumping three spaces comes from. Is it that you jump two spaces on the track when your size changes artificially, but three spaces for an inherent size differential? I'm guessing that this is the case from the storm giant example.

What's more, as I understand it, damage and hit points are the only thing that scale in 5e the way everything used to scale in 3rd/3.5/4th. Buffing damage numbers by themselves can throw the damage vs hit point balance out of whack, and since it looks like monster damage is buffed the most (because more monsters are Large or larger), the PCs will end up holding the short end of the stick (and getting beat into the dirt more often).

Would it not be simpler to have weapon damage scale normally? You do have to account for Tiny size (there's not many weapon-using monsters at that size), and smoothing over the Small/Medium progression, since Small and Medium creatures don't have different damage dice in 5e.

Something like this:



New Size
New Damage (Dice)


Tiny
One-quarter damage


Small
Half damage


Medium (*)
Normal damage dice


Medium (**)
Normal damage dice +1d4


Large
Double damage dice


Huge
Triple damage dice


Gargantuan
Quadruple damage dice



(*) When shrunk from Large size
(**) When grown from Small size

[demonslayerelf]

Just going beat by beat on this, but before I start, I just need to preface by saying I really hate how 5e doesn't scale, or anything along those lines. Everything I will make will always scale, because while that isn't quite the 5e philosophy(Which is actually just to make everything super simple), it makes everything infinitely more consistent, and it makes designing new things easier. It also gets rid of a lot of arbitrary little things that don't quite hold up(Like the d4 damage difference from enlarge and reduce. Basically worthless beyond 5th-ish level, and the spells don't scale.)


The reason why I made it as three damage tracks is because, putting it simply, there are 5 dice to work with, other than 1's and d20's. Each track needs 1-3 dice for the math to work to where maximum damage is the same. From there, it's just style and science. Smaller weapons with a center of gravity very close to the character would be more reliable, but less effective, even with good luck. Therefore, it gets the lowest die size. Larger weapons, with large hafts and blades/tips far away from the character would be overall less reliable, but it's easier to get the devastating hit with a great axe as compared to a dagger. That's why it gets the biggest dice. Then the middle track, weapons who's centers of gravity are closer than an axe, but farther than a dagger.
So, fiddly? Sure. I was looking for a way that made sense, worked mathematically, and gets people to use different types of dice. (It makes me somewhat upset, for instance, that d12's are barely seen unless you have a greataxe. D4's are in the same situation, albeit to a lesser degree. Then d6's are almost overused, I'd say. Most spells and weapons that I can think of off hand(And which come up in play most often) use d6's or d8's. W/e, not the point.)



The jump three/two spaces is, I'd say, the only thing I picked semi-arbitrarily. I basically just imagined that if you double the size of something, it's damage should more or less double, as well. 3 jumps is just how that ended up. Why enlarge and reduce only change it two, though, is basically just because it's a magical effect, and while it roughly doubles/halves the size of something, an 8-foot tall goliath becomes a 12-ish foot enlarged goliath, since it's right in the middle of the "large" category. I figured it wouldn't constitute 3 jumps, so I went with 2. It also keeps the math more or less the same at lower points. 1d8+1d4, for instance, is about the same as 1d12, or 2d6, or 3d4, etc.


I'd like to point out how easy 5e is compared to past editions. I don't want to get into this, but just look up "5th edition CR is broken," and you'll probably find some stuff on the topic. A little more damage on a few of the monsters won't change nearly anything.


A quick look through the Tiny creatures in the monster manual shows that nearly all of them have either 1 or 1d4 damage on their attacks. The smallest things on my little chart, there.


I didn't think this would come up really, but the small creatures that use weapons are proportionate to medium weapons. Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes all have the same(Or close to it) hand size, and more or less the same proportions of a human/elf/what have you.(And it's the same in reverse- Centaurs are large creatures, but use medium weapons.)
Other small creatures though, don't have the same damage dice when they use small weapons. The monster manual doesn't contain any small creatures which use specifically small weapons, though...
*Gasp* Could it be...? The Thri-kreen is what I need! They possess a unique Thri-kreen weapon, the Gythka- A two-handed polearm specifically for a small creature.
And it deals 1d8 damage. Sure, it could be argued that having 2 blades somehow reduces the damage(Which... Doesn't make any sense), but all other 2-handed polearms- Built for medium creatures- deal 1d10 damage. Therefore, a small weapon does have a different damage die. Only one step on the chart though... Which is fine, I suppose.
Special clause, between small and medium, the damage die only changes by one step.


And ultimately, I should end with another little note from me; My design is not the same as the normal 5e design. I do not favour simplicity over all else. I do not think the players should have an inherent advantage. I think monsters should be much more powerful than what they are now.(And no, not just by increasing their health and damage. This isn't even remotely my fix to bland monsters.) I do not work at WotC, did not work at TSR, or anything like that. I enjoy consistency, but I also enjoy strange. This was something I randomly thought of, and rolled with it to solve a few very minor problems I have.

[cdax]

I really like this. My play group was having this discussion not even a week ago.