How would you rank the diffrent weapon set ups?

[Rfkannen]

I was thinking about the diffrent weapon set ups a martial character can have: two handed close weapon, 2 handed polearm, bow, 1 str weapon and sheild, 1 dex weapon and sheild, two str weapons, two dex weapons, ect, and I was wondering what your opinions on all of them were?

Do you think any are particularly useful or useless?

[Kadesh]

What do you want to play? That's the best one. It doesn't matter mechanically if you don't have a good one, just the requirement that the one you use is the one you are happiest with for the next X months of game time.

[GlenSmash!]

I can't rate which is the best, but Versatlie + Free hand for grappling is my favorite.

[TerakasTaranath]

Finesse weapon and shield is the most "optimal" imo. Dex adds to many great things to the game like initiative, most common save, good skills etc. Dual wielding with dex eats up your bonus action, and assuming you get a fighting style dueling does great damage while allowing shield to the AC and possible shield master feat.

I also think polearm builds are really really great.

[Kharneth]

I was thinking about the diffrent weapon set ups a martial character can have: two handed close weapon, 2 handed polearm, bow, 1 str weapon and sheild, 1 dex weapon and sheild, two str weapons, two dex weapons, ect, and I was wondering what your opinions on all of them were?

Do you think any are particularly useful or useless?

If we're talking the weapons themselves... :

Bow/X-Bow (range > damage)
Two handed close weapons (2d6 ones especially)
Two handed polearm
Dual str weapons
Dual dex weapons
Str sword & board
Dex sword & board

Strength weapons are simply better than finesse weapons. Dex only shines when you add in the other potential boons, namely Initiative and AC. But Dex and AC depend on your armor selection.

It gets even more complicated when you add in Feats as polearms end up out-ranking two handed close due to the feat.

In my ranking I chose a preference of offense over defense as a personal choice and my defense for this is the idea that your party includes support/control to lessen the impact of enemies and/or provide healing. Killing the enemy sooner is my usual tactic for avoiding unnecessary damage.

Ranking the weapons doesn't really work because a lot of them have different purposes and mostly our selection isn't limited to which one is best but which one works best within the context of a given character.

[Man_Over_Game]

Strength weapons are simply better than finesse weapons. Dex only shines when you add in the other potential boons, namely Initiative and AC. But Dex and AC depend on your armor selection.

It gets even more complicated when you add in Feats as polearms end up out-ranking two handed close due to the feat.

In my ranking I chose a preference of offense over defense as a personal choice and my defense for this is the idea that your party includes support/control to lessen the impact of enemies and/or provide healing. Killing the enemy sooner is my usual tactic for avoiding unnecessary damage.

Ranking the weapons doesn't really work because a lot of them have different purposes and mostly our selection isn't limited to which one is best but which one works best within the context of a given character.

A lot of good things from this post. First and foremost, Ranged is superior. There's a very valid reason humanity realized this early and put a lot of emphasis on it throughout history.

Dexterity is generally better for someone who only needs a single stat, and can max out that stat. This is due to the fact that your AC is tied to this stat (Dexterity) and so is a bunch of other important stuff. It's very lackluster to invest in if you only have a 16 and can't afford to invest more (due to MAD issues). Dexterity is also valuable for ranged characters, and a cool byproduct is that this one stat can provide for two fighting styles. Best examples? Rogue, ranged fighters, and brawler-focused Monks.

On the other hand, Strength is better for those who don't need to max out a stat, since you only need a 15 Strength to get the highest armor AC that a 20 Dexterity still can't match. As a result, Strength is better for MAD characters, like Paladins or Eldritch Knights, since they don't actually need decent stats to have a high AC.

I'd also say that Dexterity is best used as ranged first and melee second, where Strength should be the ones holding the front line.

Because of the fact that avoiding damage can be a really big deal, I really value the +2 AC on a shield (and getting a 1d8 weapon) over the benefit of a two handed weapon (for 2d6 damage). You're effectively trading +2 AC for 2.5 damage per hit, and AC gets stronger the more you have, so I'd say the shield seems more valuable to me if I were a Strength character (since I already have the highest AC). The extra damage might be more worth it for a Fighter, who gets more attacks, but definitely not worth it as a Paladin. The shield is also a better option if your Strength stat isn't maxed, as you still have something going for you if you miss (and you'll miss more if your stat is lower).

Lastly, the additional + 2 average damage per hit you get from a close ranged heavy weapon compared to a reach weapon just isn't worth the possible 5 foot additional range and Attack of Opportunity bonus from Polearms. The utility you get from reach weapons is just too good. I'd only take the close ranged heavy weapons if I had explicit reasons for enemies to stay within 5 feet of me (like class features or grappling or other such things).

Also, if you're a Strength character but you're too lazy to carry javelins, shame on you.

I'd rank it as:
DEX + Ranged
STR + Shield + Versatile
STR + Polearm
STR + Two-Hander
DEX + Two-Weapon-Fighter
STR + Two-Weapon-Fighter (I'd only recommend this for a Barbarian. But if you ARE doing this, just go Battlerager and carry a shield)
DEX + Shield + Whip (I'd ONLY EVER recommend this for a Horizon Walker, because they do almost as much damage as TWF with reach and +2 AC)

I don't add in feats, as they're hard to gauge (is Shield Master better than Dual Wielder? By how much?) and I feel like they unbalance a lot of things, but without feats, this is my list.

[Foxhound438]

assuming you have an easy way to get advantage (say, barbarian) (superiority dice is a fine sub), for melee:

2wf < s+b < PAM < GWM < PAM+GWM

dex or not is not a big difference in my opinion, both have their upsides. Obviously if you want to do GWM at all you need to be strength. if you don't have free advantage (or super dice) GWM gets a lot worse. 2wf is way down the list because it really loses in damage once extra attack comes in- you're locked into a mediocre fighting style, your bonus action is no longer free for spells or special abilities, and you need two magic weapons if your game is built around having them at all. Rogues is the one exception there, since you can't pam with a finesse weapon.

for ranged, it's pretty much CBE+SS > not. If you have something other than attack you want to do on your bonus action all the time (say, horizon walker L3 feature) then you could skip CBE, but I think that's still weaker than choosing a subclass that doesn't tie down your bonus action.

And monks are kind of their own thing, I wouldn't directly compare it to the types of builds you might do on a fighter or ranger, since the "weapon setup" scales directly with monk levels, and that comes with a lot of different utility and support than other martial characters can have.