Due to the way modifiers and DR work, heavy weapons are mathematically far-and-away better than light.

 

This is because modifiers multiply base damage ( after they've all been added together);  ie  you get more out of the same modifier when using a weapon with higher base damage.

 

Now, I had previously attempted to suggest balancing this using better crit modifiers for light weapons, but since everything is additive, and there's often a lot of damage modifiers, that suggestion was unwieldy.

 

So instead,  I'd like to suggest that instead of just representing critical hits as a modifier,  instead simply calculate it as a per-weapon change in base damage range.

 

For example (not in game values): 

great-sword -  Base Damage 8-15;  Crit  (+5) gives range 13-20 when critting.

 

dagger - Base Damage 4-10;  Crit (+10) gives range 14-20 when critting.

 

Weapons could be balanced between

 

heavy: high base damage, but low crit buff,  

vs

light: low-base damage, but high crit buff.

 

Thematically,  heavy, inaccurate weapons do serious damage overall, but it's hard to poke someones eye out with a mace,

whereas a dagger or rapier, low damage overall, until you hit something vital.

 

All the other modifiers could be applied as regularly.  Not only that,  I think this representation is *easily* understood.

 

Accordingly,  I'd also like to second Sensuki's call for a return to +1 accuracy on perception.  If critical hits were an avenue to exploit light weapon damage,  it would expand the design space and role playing capabilities of character creation to allow a stat to buff that kind of game play.

dnd next ripoff, there a crit is maxDamageForThisWeapon+roll.

Thematically,  heavy, inaccurate weapons do serious damage overall, but it's hard to poke someones eye out with a mace,

whereas a dagger or rapier, low damage overall, until you hit something vital.

 

I think this is a bit off. Precision can be achieved with large weapons. Pike is a good example, you could poke someone's eye out with a Pike.

 

They just need to do some tuning for each individual weapon IMO, if they want to make them all interesting and fairly well balanced at the same time. I'd like to see special active attacks and unique capabilities/bonuses for some weapons.

 

I wouldn't aim too much for realism though, considering we're using weapons that IRL were designed to fight people and not crazy fantasy monstrous things. Personally, I would never want to be in a situation where I'm attacking an ogre or a dragon with a dagger.

Edited March 17, 201510 yr by Odd Hermit

dnd next ripoff, there a crit is maxDamageForThisWeapon+roll.

 

adding the dagger max damage was pure coincidence...   obviously not what's happening in the maces context.  The point is that heavy weapons should receive less critical damage then light ones.

Edited March 17, 201510 yr by tdphys

 

Thematically,  heavy, inaccurate weapons do serious damage overall, but it's hard to poke someones eye out with a mace,

whereas a dagger or rapier, low damage overall, until you hit something vital.

 

I think this is a bit off. Precision can be achieved with large weapons. Pike is a good example, you could poke someone's eye out with a Pike.

 

 They just need to do some tuning for each individual weapon IMO, if they want to make them all interesting and fairly well balanced at the same time. I'd like to see special active attacks and unique capabilities/bonuses for some weapons.

 

I wouldn't aim too much for realism though, considering we're using weapons that IRL were designed to fight people and not crazy fantasy monstrous things. Personally, I would never want to be in a situation where I'm attacking an ogre or a dragon with a dagger.

 

 

I'm okay with Pikes being a heavy high precision/crit weapon with low attack speed

 

The whole problem is that base damage is *the* primary way a weapon is defined, and makes tuning one dimensional, outside of perhaps feats/talents that are specifically targeted at the weapon.   There is accuracy bonus for light weapons, but this currently pales in damage amplification to the base damage size, due to the way modifiers are calculated.

 

I'm not a realism nut,  I prefer to have a varied tactical design space for my characters over realism (big fan of 6 meaningful stats).  I don't prefer a one-dimensional optimal strategy.  I throw the "thematic" tag out there hoping that it catches with those who do care though

Edited March 17, 201510 yr by tdphys

dnd next ripoff, there a crit is maxDamageForThisWeapon+roll.

 

In the playtest?

 

In the released version of 5E you just roll twice as many dice as you'd normally roll.

 

Which can be great if you roll well, but it can also suck since you can theoretically crit for a lot less than a normal hit (although it's not likely).

It would be better if they had differentiated the weapons functionally instead of statistically.