Alternate Loadouts
The third worst feeling in gaming: Watching your weapon skitter across the rim of the volcano, teeter on the precipice, and then pitch over the side.
The second worst feeling in gaming: Having to continue the fight against the magma dragon with your bare hands.
The worst feeling in gaming: Stepping on a d4.
While a comfy pair of designer slippers can guard against the latter, it takes a bit of planning and foresight to deal with the former. That may go against your character as a fighty-man, but remember Thrognor: You can’t let the party wizard be the only guy that prepares contingencies. That’s because disarming happens. Thieves happen. Rust monsters happen. And when these things happen, you’re going to wish you had a fallback option hanging at your hip.
If I think back to high school, I believe that my literal very-first-ever combat encounter was against a gray ooze. I didn’t know an ooze from an otyugh at that point in my career, so of course I stabbed it merrily with my halfling’s lone weapon: the masterwork short sword I’d shelled out for at character gen. When the inevitable happened, I concluded that 1) my DM was a jerk, and 2) I’d never let that mess happen again.
Over a decade later, I found myself grappled by a ghoul in Foxglove Manor. It was a different system, I was a more seasoned gamer, but I hadn’t forgotten the lessons of my youth. With my half-orc barbarian’s bastard sword rendered useless by the grapple, I let the big two-hander fall to the floor. In its place I drew forth my trusty silvered dagger, and proceeded to go absolutely HAM against that undead dickbag. I know it’s a basic move, but I still felt unreasonably proud at the time. I like to think high school Colin would have been proud of me too.
What about the rest of you guys? Have you ever been caught without a backup weapon? Conversely, do you tromp around like a walking armory, carrying a golf bag full of spare polearms? Let’s hear you best stories of clever weapon loadouts down in the comments!
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Yeah, when making characters I typically consider as many scenarios as I can. Particularly in D&D.
Common questions I ask myself, regardless of main combat approach, are:
“Do I have methods of attack for both melee and ranged? If so what’s the longest range attack I can manage?”
“Do I have a method of attack that benefits from advantage or isn’t going to suffer from foes having Magic Resistance?”
“Do I have a method of attack that circumvents disadvantage/high AC foes?”
“Do I have multiple damage types at least one of which is not commonly resisted?”
“Do I have a damage type that works well against X kind of foe I am likely to encounter in this campaign?” (This can get tricky when you have to consider things like devils and demons which have immunity and resistance to a good number of damage types.)
“Does anything stick out as working especially well for my build mechanically and/or my character concept?”
All of these combined can lead to some tricky choices I have to make between seemingly optimal choices and best set-up for handling any kind of situation. And often (due to limited number and/or variety of cantrips available/viable weapons for the character), I will have to grudgingly accept “no” as my answer to one or more questions.
In addition to this I always like to spent pretty much every copper I can pre-game on equipment. It’s a lot easier to get money in game than it is to find somewhere to purchase all the things in the equipment section (especially all of them at once) I’ve found. And it’s not like you can usually purchase things in the middle of the forest/a cave/a burning town/a dungeon when you notice a particular item would be useful.
As a result of this I basically treat my inventory as if it’s hammer-space unless a GM actually objects. Which often they don’t because then they have to question the amount of items everyone else has and even the bare bones amount a character is expected to have is actually unrealistic to be carrying through the forest for miles and in the middle of combat. Seriously, can you imagine a guy with full plate, five different weapons, and backpack full of rations, torches, fifty feet of rope, and random nicknacks trying to fight off five goblins or an ogre? Or sneak past these creatures in their own home?
So as the conclusion is that we’re handwaving the absurdity of that, it feels pretty fair to handwave the question of “how/where are you carrying all this stuff?”
Also I find it’s almost a bit unfair not to handwave it, as there’s a lot of places adventurers have to go that a traditional mount, cart, or wagon simply cannot go. So you’d be left with the options of “here is a whole section of the player’s handbook that’s basically just taunting you because you can’t use most of it since we’re being unreasonably realistic about what you’re hauling around with you” or “you can have all this stuff, but you can’t actually have it anywhere that’s mildly inconvenient for a person on foot to get to and thus functionally impossible for your means of conveyance…. which is where you’d actually want 90% of it”. Which to me seems against the spirit of the game and the point of the designers including those items in the first place.
I always dug the concept of attunement that 5e forces you to contend with. It creates loadout choices that continue to matter into the late game, and doesn’t force you to rely on the oft-ignored encumbrance rules that usually make those decisions matter.
Indeed, Attunement is a useful mechanic for that. Though I think they made the number of things you can attune to a bit low/made too many things require attunement that didn’t really need to.
Is there an optimal number of magic item slots?
I guess answering that would first depend on how rigorously followed the criteria for what an attunement item should be would wind up as.
But let’s say we have some kind of perfect outcome where attunement items winds up being limited only to weapons that have a decently large impact on combat (+1 attack & damage, extra damage dice, extra cirt threat range, etc but maybe not more minor things like one extra die of crit damage or such), main items that are the equivalent to weapons (like staffs and maybe certain wands and rods depending on their function), armor and shields with a decent impact on combat, or things that significantly alter gameplay (like broom’s of flying) or provide a decent amount of combat buffery (bracer’s of archery for example).
I would say five. That’s enough to get the standard “armor + weapon (or equivalent) + one other thing” but neither be limited to basically that exact setup for everyone or involve far too many strong items impacting combat or major game effecting things.
I could see four possibly working better if the change to what is and isn’t an attunement item would effect overall combat power.
But I could be wrong and with that change maybe three really is the right answer. Either way the end result would still be more variety what what magic items people tend to have and less weird attempting to shuffle attunement items around because someone wound up with one more than they can use because just half the stuff is attunement required. There really is just nothing sadder than having to stow a magic item in a bag forever because nobody can use it.
Also, I’d really like to see more magic weapons that aren’t sword or bows and more helmets, boots, and other articles of clothing people might wear. But especially helmets since as is, I’m not sure I’ve noticed someone remarking about their character’s helmet more than once in my entire time playing D&D.
Of course I’d also like to see a lot more weird items that aren’t just about combat and are there to be strange magical things.
I remember back when I played martials in 3.5 carrying a bunch of back-up weapons to deal with various resistances. Have your go-to sweet magic weapon, but also have a silvered back-up weapon of a different damage type, a cold iron weapon of another damage type, if your main weapon isn’t adamantium get an adamantium knife for golems and to cut through non-adamantium environmental obstacles. PF and 5e simplified this a lot, which is quite nice, but it can still be prudent to carry a backup silvered weapon if that werewolf you’re fighting knocks your beloved magic weapon out of hand.
For playing, say, a wizard in 5e it’s more tricky. On the one hand having a variety of attack cantrips for different situations seems like a good idea: toll the dead as the go-to cantrip, firebolt against magic resistance or necrotic resistant ranged enemies and benefit from advantage, shocking grasp for magic resistant enemies that get into melee and help get out of melee. On the other hand, wizards only get 5 cantrips over their entire career; do I really want over half to be different forms of damage and sacrifice so much non-direct damage versatility? For me at least the answer is no. I’d prefer to have 1-2 damaging cantrips (warlocks can get by with just their 1 special cantrip) and also be able to have minor illusion, prestidigitation, mage hand, and other non-combat cantrips that give you options besides in just fighting monsters. I’d rather sacrifice having a spell like shocking grasp for melee enemies and instead use a slot for misty step to get out of melee.
Think that taking a note from 3.X and making “scribe spell scroll” a 5e feat could help? It always struck me that that little freebie feat was intended to give diversity and staying power to the guys in robes. Heck, even just making scrolls more common to in the treasure pile would help.
I always check my damage types.
Do I have at least one bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing weapon? Unarmed strike and a dagger (or the Weapon Versitile (Combat) feat…
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/weapon-versatility-combat/ ) can do it all, but actual weapons are better if you got the room.
Another rule is two daggers, or dagger adjacent weapons at least. They weigh a pound and can go ANYWHERE on your person.
Recently I have wanted to use Barroom Sphere to get unhindered attacks with improvised weapons too. I love that a table is a viable option for attack. There’s just something so satisfying about that…
Goddammit spheres of power… I was all excited that some weapon called a “barroom sphere” had come out. I don’t know what that things does, but I know I want one!
I mean technically, the Barroom sphere is from Spheres of Might, not Spheres of Power. But yes, I have found the two aspects of the martial sphere: drunken fighting, and improvised weapon fighting to be fun. Of course, it can get a bit hilarious when someone invests enough combat talents in the sphere that they deal significantly more damage with an improvised weapon than a manufactured one.
Daggers are great – one of my characters, Ravi, has about 6 daggers secreted on various parts of his person should we ever get stripped of our weapons (including magic and silvered daggers).
Ravi is a sorcerer with a strength of 8. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a dagger. It feels thematic for him to have a backup plan though.
Disarmed rogues love him!
My Magus possesses 4 swords (her starting fire-forged steel longsword of great sentimental value, her cold iron greatsword for emergencies, the loot-acquired +1 adamantine longsword (now her primary weapon) and the +1 greatsword taken from a fallen PC comrade) as well as a silver morningstar, multiple daggers and a shortbow. Not to mention Improved Unarmed Strike as a backup’s backup. She prepares for the day by meditating surrounded by her weapons, which has creeped out more than one partymate.
The Magus is actually a very good class for using tons of weapons. Beyond their martial weapon proficiency, they can turn anything they just picked up (even an improvised weapon) into a +1 or +2 or flaming weapon with a swift action, then back it up with 5d6 of Shocking Grasp damage. My build is particularly useful for this, since she also has a level of Elemental (Earth) bloodline Bloodrager, buffing her strength and letting her add a d6 of acid damage in emergencies. So, for example, that time she was eaten by a plant monster, rather than panicking like a puny wizard or something, she shouted “Ha ha! It can’t dodge now!”, pulled out what quickly became a 1d4+1d6+8 damage dagger and got a-stabbing. (She’s nothing if not enthusiastic for her work.)
That occultist I’ve talked about from time to time was a VMC magus, and he was capable of the same kind of versatility you’re talking about. I never used it though since I was relying on magic weapon, greater to buff my implement weapon, turning arcane pool and legacy weapon buffs into progressively bigger enchants. Now that I think about it, that does seem like a bit of a waste of potential. The ability to make any weapon “the good weapon” is pretty cool for overcoming resistances!
Another Magus feature that helps them be even more flexible is that fact that they can grant flaming, frost or shock to a weapon, so they have every energy type but acid easily available.
I now want to make a Magus build whose thing is “all weapons are mine!”. Maybe a level of Brawler for Martial Flexibility, to make all exotic weapons usable as well (plus free Improved Unarmed Strike!). Catch Off-Guard, of course. Maybe Shikigami Style to treat improvised weapons as (eventually) 3 sizes bigger than they are. Eventually get Improvised Weapon Mastery and a Glove of Improvised Might and go around beating fools with a (GM willing) +4 6d6 flaming or keen (17-20/x2) table. (Improvised Weapon Mastery increase damage die by one, all three Shikigami Style feats increase its effective size by 3, so a 1d8 improvised weapon may become 3d8 or 4d6, depending on which chart you read, and Elysium help your foes if you get an improvised weapon that STARTS at 2d6…) At that point, the table is doing more damage than the Empowered Shocking Grasp attached to it.
can’t remember how I learned the lesson but here are my weapons checks:
Bbn/Sor/Dragon Disciple: Falchion,Claws,Acid Splash
Rog/Ora/Shadow Dancer: Rapier,Dagger,Produce Flame,Acid Arrow,Sap,Brass Knuckles
Hunter Catfolk: Longbow,Blowgun,Claws
Mnk/Rog/Wiz/Arcane Tricster: Unarmed Strike,Battle Axe,Cossbow,Acid Splash
Do you often switch between ’em, or do you find yourself relying on “the usual” in most fights? My problem is that, especially when the identify monster checks are in short supply, I just swing away without thinking about it.
Shadowdancer does a lot of situational switching (and that is the short list, he can single use weapons for 10 rounds now), Dragon Disciples Claws are 5rounds/day so only emergency, Arcane Tricksters Battle Axe is just for show (he‘s a Dwarf after all) Catfolks Blowgun is backup and the Claws for Emergency or food catching, the Tiger companion is for close combat.
I had a 3.5 dwarf prist. Had a +5 hammer of throwing. Basicly a mini Thor hammer. After over a year and half I roll a crit fail. Hammer disappears into another diminson leavening me with my other hammer that only did 1d4 unless I rolled a nat 20×2 witch would then bring them down to 1hp.
My other was a pathfinder half orc bard/barbarian. He had a masterwork Lax (a lute/axe combo) so I could do 1d10 slashing or 1d6 blunt or 1d4 piercing (had a spike on end). I had to take a point in special weapons to use it and I started with no armor or money and only rags to wear.
As I read your comment, “Jukebox Hero” came up on my playlist. I bet your bardbarian had stars in his eyes.
I’ve actually never encountered this problem. Every time I’ve had a weapon lost or destroyed, I was always playing a barbarian, paladin, or other strength based melee character. And when I play a strength based melee character, you can bet I’m carrying a buttload of javelins, which happen to work in melee just as well as for throwing.
That’s what I would advise for thief too- bringing some throwing weapons that also double as backups.
I bet that throwable minion knives would have worked well here. 😛
I’m currently playing a knight (5e Fighter: Champion) who uses a lance while on horseback, and also carries a longsword and a war hammer. My other character in that game is a shadow worshipping hermit (Warlock with Lighteater Patron) who has the Pact of the Blade, has her spells, and also carries a quarterstaff.
How often do you find youself using the longsword as opposed to the war hammer?
I actually wrote that wrong, its a war pick. Same stats as the longsword but with piercing damage instead. Well, the longsword is also Versatile, but since Allrianne is a duelist, she one-hands her weapon all the time anyway. The longsword is her primary weapon, she just pulls out the war pick if she thinks it would work better against a given foe.
I always wanted to try the alternate favored class bonus with dwarves for a swashbuckler. The image of an effete dwarf bonking other fencers with a pick amuses me no end.
Aye lad… I’ve been on both sides of this fence repeatedly in my thirty plus years of gaming the papermans… but of my current characters:
Jareth Mooncalled, Elven Sage and Crazy Hobo: If his trusty enchanted shortstaff gets disarmed his back up weapon is to run away. What am I saying, he’d probably bite the enemy because he’s crazypants.
Jednesa, Ogress “Shirtless Savage” Barbarian Wrestler: Her hands are her primary weapons. The big iron wedge (axe/mace) is her backup (for stuff she shouldn’t touch and for knocking down walls). Teeth and bare feet are tertiary (but have also been used).
Stenet Fjall, Dwarven Holy Warrior: Axe. Backup axe. Throwing axes. Walking axe. Go see the pic of the dwarf with all the axes and you get the idea. But he’ll punch, bite, and shout mean words at demons if he has too.
Earnest Venture, Cyberpunk Cowboy: Two pistols are primary (either laser, bullet, vortex, or plasma depending on the need of the mission). Carbine is the backup. Two more pistols (of another type). A few more smaller pistols. And if for some reason all his pistols are gone and he can’t rearm from a fallen enemy†, he has vibroknife and knows Belter-te (Zero-G Martial Arts).
Totes L’Jitt, Drall Technician (Outlaw Tech): His chief weapon is snark, thievery and snark; two chief weapons, thievery, snark, and technical aptitude! Er, among his chief weapons are: thievery, snark, technical aptitude, and near fanatical devotion to saving his own hide! Um, I’ll come in again…
Cynthia Xanthus, Xenophiliac Greek Social Scientist and Linguist: Her weapons are speaking to people and making friends. If that gets taken away (or is useless) she has a shotgun and a terrible aim!
† This needs to be a trope, like the New York Reload. Maybe the McClane Backup?
So, Totes L’Jitt’s key weapons are these?: https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Snark
As for Cynthia Xanthus, if you have enough friends to do things for you, you can do anything. She reminds me of a Sorcerer PC I knew, Jing Xiulan, whose primary weapon was friendship/politeness and backup weapons were disguises, mind control and extradimensional holes.
“I wouldn’t Dominate my friends. That’s why you should be my friend!” – Xiulan
(She really is a good person, I swear.)
I’m pretty sure McClane’s backup is named “Officer Carl Winslow.”
I’m more alluding to his way of arming up off his enemies… though that is more a staple of Sam Peckinpah movies, so maybe The Peckinpah Rearm?
My paladin carries his body weight in weaponry, or near enough to it. (thank goodness we don’t actually track encumbrance in that game, that’d be a pain)
He’s got his main magical battleaxe, his backup magical battleaxe, his backup backup magical battleaxe, his flaming mace, a longsword, a greatsword, a cursed silvered glaive that he can’t get rid of without making someone massively overpay for it (that’s it, that’s the curse), six or so daggers, a whip, a few hand axes in case he didn’t have enough axes already, a heavy crossbow, a longbow, and of course his old axe that was turned into a rabbit. The rabbit is named Axe and also carries an axe as his weapon of choice.
So far the DM has not put me in a situation where he has to turn over all his weapons, but I dread that day.
You could always hire a porter: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/carrying-capacity
I’ve never played a character which didn’t always pack a backup dagger while trying to have both melee & ranged options (preferably with different damage types). Gauntlets are also fun to bring (cold iron on one hand with silver on the other), as more than one of my martial characters have happily just punched things to death when their main weapon proved less than optimal.
That said… this has been a problem in my group. Considering how much of a martial character’s wealth is required just to keep their primary weapon at top performance, there often isn’t enough left over to have a competent backup without harming the character’s overall ability (since said money could get another plus on their main weapon). Combined with feats that only boost one category or type of weapon, I’ve seen many players completely ignore backups out of fear of falling behind (especially with optimizers around). This often results in the situation of characters either using their main weapon… or sitting on the sidelines because their backup literally can’t contribute.
Not to mention that as a GM, it often creates a situation where I don’t want to introduce things that’d permanently harm weapons (rust monsters, sunder) because it’d cripple some of the martial characters to lose something they’ve invested the majority of their wealth into.
I wonder if there’s a market for matching sets of cold iron / silver gauntlets. That seems like something that ought to exist.
I had a gm once throw a Rust Monster at a whip-user of mine thinking I was using the Whip-Dagger from 3.5. I was instead just using a leather whip (d3 compared to the former’s d4).
Regardless of character though, I tend to have a walking stick of sorts because few characters won’t be proficient in a quarterstaff. It’s a solid bludgeoning weapon with a good damage die, is cheap, and is easy to use even in cities where weapons must be kept sealed.
Carrying along a weapon of each damage type is something I always strive to do, even on characters restricted to simple weapons. A sickle or dagger is a good slashing weapon (depending on the game dagger may be piercing only), a spear is a good piercing weapon, and a club or staff is a good bludgeoning weapon.
On the other hand though, we once fought a molydeus (think that’s how it’s spelled), and in previous editions it could only be damaged by one weapon material, on top of its already potent DR. During that fight, only the mages and the one warrior with that type of weapon could contribute with damage. I just grappled it instead, which wasn’t too hard given my high grapple bonus.
I know it’s the wrong mindset for a GM, but I sympathize a little. It’s always frustrating when your cool encounter idea doesn’t get to do its thing because you overlooked some detail or other.
Out of curiosity how did you get around everyone with either a +1 armor bonus or a +3 natural armor bonus being completely immune to damage from a normal whip?
Did you have some sort of special feat/class ability or did you just use the whip for other things such as disarming or tripping enemies instead?
So there’s my ranger a keen sniper with a fantastic bow we’re making our way into an underground gambling den, trouble is no weapons so I’m asked to disarm myself.
First, my bow made from a dragon’s wing bone with an awesome range of 180 or so feet.
Then my grandfather’s knife excellent at disarming and sundering weapons, then both arms I have my spring operated wrist-mounted blades and on the opposite end arrow launchers with ropes tied around the arrows for ranged grappling and of course being Spider-man.Then I take out my blowdart gun for depositing poison at range and hand over my falcon stating that he bites.
Then the piece de la resistance I take off my left shoe and put it in the box. The guard and the dm look at me strangely then I smack the heel and a knife extends. “Why do you have so many weapons on you,” he asks.
“I figured you’d do something dramatic like shatter my bow at some point so I wanted backups. “
…The best part is that after all of that, you DIDN’T hand over the weapon in your right shoe. They’ll never suspect that you are still armed now!
I dig the falcon. That mess is definitely a weapon: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/91/3d/f8/913df8835ed592bb088bc7186a6f0502.jpg
My favorite part about that was the bitey falcon
To all the fans of the falcon
In the game disciples 1, the human raged hero is a ranger who attacks with his pet bird of prey.
At max level you get to watch this thing tearing chunks out of dragons.
Silver for monsters, steel for humans. Good for Geralt, good for my group. While not necessary flashy we tend to always have at least one weapon just in case. Usually i play wizards, sorcerers and that, not pc that goes warcrying into the battlefield, still i always have a good dagger at hand, just in case. The rest of the group does the same, lets say for example the party fighter use a long sword as his main weapon, he could have a lot of talents for long swords, still he may carry a mace, a lance, a dagger and a short sword. We also like to have at least one silver weapon at hand just in case.
We have yet to fall prey of some monster to which our weapons are useless 🙂
Even for non-attack purposes, it’s wise to have a dagger. You can’t very well cut the rope bridge, stab the phylactery, or eat your dinner without one.
A dagger can be really useful and is easy to hide. They are one of the rogues favorite weapons for some reason after all. In any case makes more damage than the bare fists so, unless you are a monk, carring one or more can’t hurt your pc. Well unless your pc is polishing his dagger’s collection and missteps falling over his dagger and dying from 3-4 critical hits at once. Um, in fact that is a nice explanation for a “curios” “accident”, you know 🙂
All my characters have backup weapons except for just one. Most of my characters have the setup of main melee weapon, backup weapon for damage type (usually a kunai), and a ranged weapon. Even Irlana has a backup alchemical silver kunai just in case. My two purely ranged characters have a backup melee weapon. My natural attack focused warpriest has a bow but no backup melee weapon. And the only character that doesn’t have a backup melee weapon or a ranged weapon is my Magnus. I figured that since he has claws as a backup melee and can also fly naturally, he doesn’t need any other weapons.
Why a kunai?
Blunt and piercing type damage. Can be used as a crowbar or piton and even a saw if you pay the extra 9 gold.
I just wish there was a weapon that could do Slashing and/or Blunt damage that wasn’t Exotic. Be useful for my characters that have piercing main weapons. (Even in the Exotic weapons section, there’s only 4 of them.)
Why not a bite?
If they have a bite attack, they don’t need a backup melee weapon. Unless I believe that materials like cold iron, silver, or adamantine will be needed to get past DR.
I was more talking about a weapon that can do all the basic damage types.
That said, DR-penetrating grills should be a thing: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTDp36yOOWJx1NcHXCPJ1ur23KV5dsWlXb5rNwMEjbPFYf0drHz
lol
I once made a character with quick draw whose shtick was to fight with a weapon for a couple of rounds then drop it, draw another as a free action and fight some more. Rinse and repeat. After the fight was over I’d have weapons littered across the battlefield.
She carried a greataxe, a longsword and shield, 6 kukris, a longspear, a dagger, 4 javelins, a hand axe, a chakram. Sometimes other weapons as well.
Nice! I actually made a gunslinger archetype with a similar shtick back in the day. It was able to make use of pistol collection, swapping the +X enhancement bonuses and the various enchants between guns each morning. You fire and drop until you’re down to your last pistol, then you’ve got to make do with normal reloading after that. It was sort of based off of this guy:
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/theboondocksaints/images/4/43/Boondock_1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100622140311
I think it made it into some version of The Veranthea Codex as the “goblin pistolero.”
Please tell me you went by Il Duce!
Naw. The only time I actually got to play in Veranthea I was running this guy for a dev-team one shot:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/138226/Veranthea-Codex-Spoony-Jawz-Top-Pilot-of-Trectoyri–FREE-PDF
It was no Il Duce, but being a goblin fighter pilot has its own appeal.
People made jokes about Fox being paralyzed by magnetic effects due to all the daggers on her person (5 hidden, six visibly strapped to her legs.). Yet, no one complained when the Chuul showed up, was dragging the wizard away due to paralysis, and the Aberration Bane Dagger to the tentacle face saved the day. No one said a word when I outed the changeling pretending to be a vampire because my Undead Bane dagger didn’t proc. And they cheered when I revealed the Dragon Bane Arrows.
My Gm did forbid the Human Bane Caltrops though. >.>
At some point, I think you just save money with a bane baldric: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/baldric-bane/
Well, this was Eberron back in the 3.5 days. And for some reason, we kept finding +1 Daggers on people, so I kept having them Baned for different things. The party never saw me use the Human Bane one, which would have tipped off that I was a changeling.
Well that just makes good sense. What were you guys fighting? Cultists?
5E has mostly done away with this for magic weapons. Rust Monsters and oozes now specify non-magical metal, and things that resist damage from weapons that aren’t silver or adamantine are also susceptible to magic weapons. As such your trusty +1 Warhammer will see you through anything.
I’m not actually sure I like that level of streamlining.
In one campaign the story came to a natural break so I got to swap out characters. Since my character came in at level 13~ he had to have a magic weapon. In his case a +1 Battleaxe.
Ser: “This is Best Friend three!”
Apostrophe: “What happened to one and two?”
Ser: “One got killed by a rust monster, I avenged them by driving their handle through the monster’s brain. Two retired after I found three.”
I was running my chain-lock when I ran into this bad boy:
https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=helmed-horror
Of course I shot eldritch blast at it.
Immune to force.
Well, hey at least it takes 1d6 necrotic. Thanks, hex!
Immune to necrotic.
With my usual attack vector gone, I turned to my imp. “Sting this weirdo!”
Immune to poison.
Getting frustrated, I decided to pull out the big guns. It was my last remaining fireball for the day.
I damn near flipped the table when my DM told me it was specifically immune to fireball. Not the best sequence of actions for this cowboy.
The helmed horror is interesting from a design perspective because it requires a certain amount of trust between player and GM.
“Is immune to three spells” and the player doesn’t know which ones. They need to trust you to not be switching them on the fly to be whatever the player casts.
I’ve started GMing recently, and I can’t help but feel like some of my players think I’m picking on them. I’m not trying to, and I roll in the open (I actually tried fudging a roll in their favor, but they were paying attention to the total I said before and extrapolated that the creature had a +4 and so the number I claimed was one two low. They survived the hit with 1 HP) but I have the enemies go for the squishiest target available because the monsters want to win too. (Except the Slaad, it just wanted to infect as many of them as possible and I wanted it to die before I ran out of nonsensical statements for it to scream)
I witnessed a player manage to fling all six of his backup weapons (plus his main melee and ranged weapons) off of a blimp through a series of critical fumbles. Just one after another, he kept rolling them, and whoops, there goes another sword over the edge.
It was funny, but we decided after that that it was probably best to stop using critical fumbles.
It’s like you guys traded equipment in for a Wisdom bonus!
Odette, street samurai ballerina:
– Streetline Special holdout pistol for ultimate concealability
– Fichetti Tiffani Self-Defender fashion pistol for a handbag gun in polite company
– Defiance EX Shocker taser for walking around town
– Tiffani-Defiance Protector fashion taser for polite gatherings that don’t call for lead
– Steyr TMP machine pistol to sit in the glovebox of my jet ski
– Ingram Smartgun X submachine gun for when I need to fight one-handed or in cramped quarters
– Ares Alpha assault rifle for actual serious business combat
– Remington 950 “hunting” rifle for when someone needs to die a long way away
– Smart nanofibre skin implants that turn into dermal armour and/or spikes when I need to grand jete somebody to death
Lost my shit at “glovebox of my jet ski.” I now want to play the Miami Vice version of Shadowrun. It may have the best possible soundtrack of any show, real or imagined.
Not sure if this counts, but I was hit by Teleport Trap once – it tore my Magus’ arm clean off. The really unfortunate part was that we had just teleported into a battlefield full of Zon-kuthonites…
Now, seeing as how it’d be hard to use basically any of my class features with one arm, I put my sword away and cast Fly. For that entire mass-scale combat, I was flying around and casting spells, being essentially a level 5 wizard with one arm… in a level 11 party… wishing I had prepared Fireball against this swarm of floating eyeballs.
You could say my Magus is a bit of a one-trick pony… But in her defense, her Black Blade gets really jealous of other weapons.
Where are your scrolls at!?
But…but…gold can’t rust!
See hover-over text.
I am playing an illusionist in a pathfinder game, 8th level. I have simple weapons only. I can do a free Mid range attack that is ranged touch and does 4d6 damage. My 6 strength means melee is useless.
I carry a MW crossbow and 5 bolts of every practical special material.
5 regular daggers + one dagger of appropriate materials.
I have every tool I could think that might be useful for mundane checks including MW thieves tools (note: I don’t have disable device)
My GM thinks I’m crazy. I think I need to read through more books for more useful tools.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/r-z/traveler-s-any-tool/
WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!?
lol. don’t leave home without it!
My moon elf wizard/cleric casts AoE spells from a distance and would consider physical weapons a waste of her time and abilities. Somehow, she has nonetheless ended up with a ridiculous assortment of weaponry she has never once used and never will – longsword, longbow, enchanted staff, dagger…
You say that now, but once upon a time my party was fighting an especially treacherous succumbs when our paladin (in a Pathfinder game) kicked off his Aura of Justice. And let me tell ya, it is all manner of gratifying as a wizard to wind up with your staff like a baseball bat to deliver that sweet sweet revenge smite!
I will always try to sell the trusty dagger. In Pathfinder it’s slashing and Piercing damage 19-20 crit, works well with dex and str, and is a useful tool for role playing. A walking stick or quarterstaff is always nice to have and if you drop it an forget it you aren’t down gold. For ranged I either pick up a few more daggers or rock like 3 javelins for str based characters. I’m not a walking arsenal I’m a guy who travels a lot and a dagger is a nice medieval multi-tool.
Often times my melee characters only have ranged weapons only to deal with, “Things I can’t charge that round.” The GM knows that if it stays in the air longer for three seconds and it’s two sizes larger than me I’m going to get out my rope and try to lasso it. what’s worse is the game where he learned this I nat 20 his ruling of ranged grapple with a lasso, even if it took two turns to make.
How are you going to cut the ropes on the bridge, free the hostages, harvest components from that dead dragon, or eat your friggin’ dinner without a knife? Always carry a knife!
As for the lasso… I guess it eats a creature’s turn to chew through the rope. That’s something. I mean… Is there some clever way I’m not seeing to keep your quarry from snapping the rope and scarpering?
Current character Smyler has two throwing axes (that he can recall with a swift action) as his main weapon. He still carries his old rapier, wears spiked armor (sharkskin armor from Stormwrack is pretty awesome at least partially because it comes with the teeth still attached), and has a dagger in his left wrist sheath and a final one in his boot. For ranged combat he’s got a composite longbow and an aquatic longbow.
My 4E character Anduril used a greatbow as his main weapon. His backups were a scimitar and the greatbow again, but used as an improvised bludgeoning weapon (yes I actually used it this way on more than one occasion).
I usually have a backup weapon or two but as I (in polar disagreement with the first comment) enforce encumbrance on myself even when the DM doesn’t insist, there is a limit to what I have available.
Having a backup is good, common sense even, but I hate it when players try to “swiss-army-knife” and have a solution for every problem by themselves; someone in the party should be able to do something, but not everyone. Don’t have a ranged attack? It’s the archer’s time to shine. Your sword glancing off that crystal golem? Finally, the dude who decided to specialise in maces gets to feel worthwhile. Or in that latter scenario, improvise. grab the nearest blunt instrument. I find that just reaching into hammerspace pocket with an “I have just the thing” takes all the reward out of actually having a solution.
I gather that you don’t approve of bags of holding.