Giving love to less popular weapons, your ideas?

[Elaetheus]

I am currently playing a character that runs tridents, and that is in no less part due to +4 and Cyclone available quite immediately.

Why not have something similar for other, less common weapon types?

I will mention Greataxes and Halberds as examples.

We could make something like a craftable "Hurricane" greataxe (+4, keen, 1d8 electrical damage, some sort of Daze DC) in the spirit of Barbarians and the like. Or a craftable halberd of flame (+4, keen, 1d8 fire damage) to promote the latter (I know that there exists +4ab halberd).

Your thoughts, ideas, positions?

[Apokriphos]

Halberd with their dual damage classification and Greataxe, with its large criticals when compared to the 2h martial alternative Greatsword, are still quite powerful weapons that see frequent use.

However, weapons like Clubs, Flails, and Battleaxe, and Handaxe might be worth getting this sort of treatment.

One thing I am always concerned about when discussing the proliferation of +4 weapons is how easy it is to boost them to +5 and nullify all forms of magical damage reduction. With the opening of CoT to all and their +5 boost at level 10, this issue will begin to creep up all over Arelith already.

Other ways to improve less used weapons it to provide them other perks besides Boosted attack or enhancement. Boosts to Dex/Strength/Massive Critical, and other changes could be added as well.

[Ork]

With the opening of CoT to all and their +5 boost at level 10, this issue will begin to creep up all over Arelith already.

CoT Divine Wrath does not pierce damage reduction. Only weapon enchantment can. Currently, the only way to get +5 enchantment weapons are: ranger 26+, paladin 26+, fighter 23+, rogue 19+, certain +5 weapons, "greater magic weapon" spell. Not really "easy".

[Twohand]

+1

Would be nice having more +4 two-handed weapons that aren't, for some reason, locked behind a race or 50! UMD. I bet, once it arrives, that the Falchion will be extremely popular, and I think it'd be cool to give people more options for the sake of variety. Like, why would you choose a Greataxe over a weapon that can slow people down on a hit or another two-handed one with 18-20 crit range? Greataxes look cool, even more when they're +4.

[Tarkus the dog]

Probably shouldn't add Falchion to the server.

[MissEvelyn]

I would just love if the weapons table on the wiki was used in game. Longswords having a critical multiplier of x3 would make them attractive enough to consider not always choosing Scimitar, which remains the default "meta" choice.

[Reallylongunneededplayername]

Give blunt weapons a stun DC: Clubs, Maces, Chairs.

[Elaetheus]

Halberd with their dual damage classification and Greataxe, with its large criticals when compared to the 2h martial alternative Greatsword, are still quite powerful weapons that see frequent use.

However, weapons like Clubs, Flails, and Battleaxe, and Handaxe might be worth getting this sort of treatment.

One thing I am always concerned about when discussing the proliferation of +4 weapons is how easy it is to boost them to +5 and nullify all forms of magical damage reduction. With the opening of CoT to all and their +5 boost at level 10, this issue will begin to creep up all over Arelith already.

Other ways to improve less used weapons it to provide them other perks besides Boosted attack or enhancement. Boosts to Dex/Strength/Massive Critical, and other changes could be added as well.

Ork has already answered about the inconsistency of the CoT claim. The current greataxe is only an aesthetic choice compared to the Cyclone and Trident +4 that is easily keenable. It is not on par with the latter two weapons.

Also yeah, I expect the saber-wielders in quantity once the falchion drops. This is why I went forward with the discussion. I’m otherwise pretty fine with tridents but I’d love to see more variety eventually.

I like the stun idea for bludgeoning weapons. For example mauls/war hammers could have a +4 variant with keen and such a property.

I would just love if the weapons table on the wiki was used in game. Longswords having a critical multiplier of x3 would make them attractive enough to consider not always choosing Scimitar, which remains the default "meta" choice.

Must be a typo? Page 18 of updates on the forums doesn’t mention that. It would make longswords the best 1h weapon choice in the game otherwise, if not overall.

Ravenloft has exotic 20/x4 longswords and greatswords. I am not sure if those would be lore friendly here, and adding them would be enlarging weapon options, not treating the existing types. It should be mentioned that however far dnd is from real warfare, it is really odd to see that main weapons are tiny sabres and arming swords that we call longswords, and not polearms/blunts. (Greatsword should be more like a polearm too, an option would be to add a 20/x3 “zweihander” variant at some point perhaps, with current greatsword remaining the proper “longsword”.)

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Correctly cracked whips are literally meant to rend flesh open at supersonic speeds. It'd be nice if their crit multiplier was x3 instead of x2, and maybe a d4 base damage instead of a d2, although I'd take the former without the latter. Edit: And while I'm being wishful, would a 19-20/x3 crit modifier be too much if it kept the base 1d2 damage?

Whips get the short end of the statistical stick in numbers because they come with free disarm in vanilla and PnP. Disarm has been modified on Arelith to such an extent that I believe I can safely argue that disarm is useful but no longer worthy of the ugly stick to its numbers- at least not all of them.

You also don't really benefit from "reach" with a whip in NWN, which is another huge perk their low damage is based around.

[MissEvelyn]

It should be mentioned that however far dnd is from real warfare, it is really odd to see that main weapons are tiny sabres and arming swords that we call longswords, and not polearms/blunts. (Greatsword should be more like a polearm too, an option would be to add a 20/x3 “zweihander” variant at some point perhaps, with current greatsword remaining the proper “longsword”.)

That is definitely one of my gripes with D&D and video games, that they call the arming sword a longsword, which in the real world and in history has a longer hilt that allows for two hands and is longer and heavier in general.

A complete reimagining of the weapon system would be amazing, and I agree that it's odd that sabers and cutlass-like blades have been chosen to be the most powerful ones in terms of numbers. Odd choice indeed. Either way, something interesting should be done to all the other weapons to make them attractive choices.
I'd love that to be a thing where the player is internally debating whether to go longsword or scimitar, simply because both are attractive choices and offer something good. Maybe not as good as the wiki says, if that's too powerful. But still good.

[Hunter548]

Both the flails need buffs. Light flails are martial weapons with the same stats as maces (a simple weapon) and no upside aside from the goblin flail. Heavy Flails got bizarrely and inexplicably nerfed from its vanilla stats ( d10 19-20/x2), and went from "very slightly worse greatsword" to "unquestionably the worst two handed weapon" with the introduction of haks. I still don't understand the logic there.

Cyclones need to be removed (still). They made sense when weapon focus: trident didn't do anything, but tridents are fine as a weapon now with it working properly. Slow on hit is an incredibly strong property.

More things like Dead Man's Crosses would be good for making the other underpowered weapons better. Warhammers, battleaxes, handaxes, etc.

Or just standardize weapon damage/crit range across the various proficiency groups. God knows I'd way prefer if it was just a choice of aesthetic, and it'd save all this complaining about scimitars being everywhere and warhammers being underpowered. It's also the simplest WRT adding new weapon types in the future - no need to worry about balancing (say) heavy maces vs warhammers.

Naginatas need to not be a monk weapon.

Nik is right that falchions would be absurdly OP.

[Dr. B]

With the opening of CoT to all and their +5 boost at level 10, this issue will begin to creep up all over Arelith already.

CoT Divine Wrath does not pierce damage reduction. Only weapon enchantment can. Currently, the only way to get +5 enchantment weapons are: ranger 26+, paladin 26+, fighter 23+, rogue 19+, certain +5 weapons, "greater magic weapon" spell. Not really "easy".

And Arcane Archer 9+.

I would just love if the weapons table on the wiki was used in game. Longswords having a critical multiplier of x3 would make them attractive enough to consider not always choosing Scimitar, which remains the default "meta" choice.

A x3 multiplier to a one-handed weapon with 1d8 damage with a 19-20 critical threat would be disastrously overpowered, especially in the hands of weapon masters. We're talking 1d8 base damage with a 13-20 threat range and a x4 multiplier, plus all the benefits of using a tower shield. It would be overpowered on non-WM melee builds as well, and would pretty much make all other 1-handed melee options obsolete.

It is also essential to point out here that damage output largely depends on your opponent's AC. Against higher AC opponents, a longsword does more damage than a scimitar. Scimitars are not always the optimal choice. And thanks to the weapon proficiency update in October, one now has the option of switching between a longsword or scimitar depending on their needs. In that regard, they are already "attractive enough to consider not always choosing Scimitar".

[RedGiant]

With the opening of CoT to all and their +5 boost at level 10, this issue will begin to creep up all over Arelith already.

CoT Divine Wrath does not pierce damage reduction. Only weapon enchantment can. Currently, the only way to get +5 enchantment weapons are: ranger 26+, paladin 26+, fighter 23+, rogue 19+, certain +5 weapons, "greater magic weapon" spell. Not really "easy".

And Arcane Archer 9+.

And Monk 23+...

...which I think gets us very close to the OP's original concern: qualified damage reduction, such as the type granted by spells, is getting to be almost useless on Arelith. This is something I've been complaining about for awhile. Namely, as Arelith has evolved, we are actually slowly eliminating viable aspects of the game...melee mechanics in particular. What we get in turn is an oversimplified AB/AC arms race.

[Elaetheus]

Both the flails need buffs. Light flails are martial weapons with the same stats as maces (a simple weapon) and no upside aside from the goblin flail. Heavy Flails got bizarrely and inexplicably nerfed from its vanilla stats ( d10 19-20/x2), and went from "very slightly worse greatsword" to "unquestionably the worst two handed weapon" with the introduction of haks. I still don't understand the logic there.

Cyclones need to be removed (still). They made sense when weapon focus: trident didn't do anything, but tridents are fine as a weapon now with it working properly. Slow on hit is an incredibly strong property.

More things like Dead Man's Crosses would be good for making the other underpowered weapons better. Warhammers, battleaxes, handaxes, etc.

Or just standardize weapon damage/crit range across the various proficiency groups. God knows I'd way prefer if it was just a choice of aesthetic, and it'd save all this complaining about scimitars being everywhere and warhammers being underpowered. It's also the simplest WRT adding new weapon types in the future - no need to worry about balancing (say) heavy maces vs warhammers.

Naginatas need to not be a monk weapon.

Nik is right that falchions would be absurdly OP.

Agree on first paragraph.

Not sure about cyclones, no strong feelings here. In lower end 20+ pve that slow does proc, but I feel like it’s mostly a 5% thing against PCs. Saw only one more person (cleric of umberlee) with a trident so far, so not sure if the opness is that justified.

What I don’t get is that we have trident +4 but say no Greataxe +4 in loot tables. Not that much of a difference between the two, even if the former is considered to be a “simple” weapon.

More or less in accord with the rest.

[Hinty]

Heavy Flails were boosted to 3d6 x2 were they not?

Sure for crits they suck, but they are the best two hander BY FAR to use against anything you can not crit. Undead? Golems? Palemasters?

[Hunter548]

Heavy Flails were boosted to 3d6 x2 were they not?

Sure for crits they suck, but they are the best two hander BY FAR to use against anything you can not crit. Undead? Golems? Palemasters?

In vanilla, and prior to the hak change was d10/19-20x2. So their damage dice were boosted, but their crit range was nerfed.

Vs crit-immune things they are slightly better, sure. However, crit immunity is in the minority and they aren't actually that much better. Base weapon dice isn't the largest part of damage, and moving from d10 to 3d6 is on average an increase of 5 damage. That's nice, but when you're swinging for 40-50 a hit it's not the biggest part of your damage - and if you compare it to greataxes, heavy flails are only picking up three damage on average, in exchange for being trash for everything else.

tl;dr:
1) that niche is a pretty small one
2) they're not that much better at it than other two handed weapons
3) the best use of time is probably just to use a greataxe, not worry about carrying a heavy flail for space/weight/effort acquiring crafted items considerations, and still chunking crit immune mobs pretty efficiently