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My House Rules for Weapons in OD&D

All weapons do d6 damage in OD&D. However, some weapons have special abilities, and all weapons have different effects based on how you wield them.

The point is basically that I want a way to differentiate weapons in a simple way that’s not just window dressing. Also, I want the weapons PCs choose to be about how they approach combat as a problem, first, flavor second, and then of course damage third or not at all. Since damage is largely flat (besides two handed weapons) you can just play how you want to play.

Maybe this is already a solved problem and variance in damage dice is fun. But for some reason I feel like my players are always choosing whatever weapon they can legally play in their class which does the most damage. Which at that point - I’d rather just make the damage the same and give each weapon a unique property or ability. Like Spears can trip people.

As usual, this is pretty heavily inspired by Philotomy.


Published on February 20, 2018.

Tagged: nilvein   house_rules   combat   dnd   odnd