A warrior’s most trusty companion is their weapon! Is yours letting you down?
There are plenty of weapons to choose in the 5e game, but far fewer that most players want to choose. Some aren’t attractive because of their low damage, especially if you’re playing a martial class. Others suffer by being outclassed by another similar weapon. Choose Your Weapon presents an alternative approach which is designed to even the playing field, enhancing the appeal of previously neglected weapons. You can even use the system to create entirely new weapons, either drawing inspiration from antiquity or your favourite media, or perhaps plucking an idea straight from your own imagination.
Heroic Damage Dice
Each character is assigned a heroic damage die, initially determined by their first class choice and potentially growing as they multiclass. The more martially oriented your character, the higher your heroic damage die. It becomes the baseline for damage your character deals with any weapon in their hands.
Weapon Properties
Every weapon the character wields is represented by a selection of properties. There’s a trade off for particularly useful properties, which each reduce your damage with the weapon. Similarly, properties that represent drawbacks can increase your damage to compensate. The end result is some weapons still deal more damage than others, but the lower damage weapons are always more useful tactically.
Your character’s damage with any weapon they wield is their heroic damage die adjusted by the weapon’s properties, so a warrior will always deal more damage than a wizard would with the same weapon.
Wield any Weapon
Since Choose Your Weapon makes all weapons equal, the concept of simple and martial weapon proficiencies becomes redundant. As a consequence, any character from any class can wield any weapon (they’ll just do more or less damage depending on their heroic weapon die – being able to wield a weapon isn’t the same as being able to wield it well). Want to be a wizard with a scimitar? Got you covered! A rogue with a greataxe? Sure thing! A cleric with a glaive? Nothing’s stopping you! You can even use the rules to make up a new weapon for your character, perhaps even an unusual and iconic item: how about a Knowledge Cleric with an iron-bound tome, or a Storm Herald Barbarian who wields an anchor?
Additional Rules
Also included are clarifications about how specific class and archetype features interact with these new rules. Guidance is provided for a Monk’s martial arts, a Warlock’s pact of the blade, and others.
Furthermore, advice is offered to Guides who want to incorporate these rules into the custom statblocks they create, recommending a set of heroic damage dice to creatures based on their intended role in any encounter.
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