D&D 5e: Combat & Tactics inspired weapon properties

Here's a little draft of what I was thinking of in my previous post.  I've just taken the combat stuff from the basic rules and added in a few bits in red. The formatting is pretty janky, but eff that. You can see the basics, despite any typos.

I'm calling this System I, the most complex system of properties. System I uses the most weapon properties, including a number of +1 bonuses or penalties. It is more detailed than the simpler system II or basic system, but may be less efficient in play. The DM must broadly describe the physical appearance of humanoid opponents so players know when they can apply these bonuses or penalties. These minor bonuses or penalties may make some weapons more or less desirable in certain situations, so a well-armed warrior will want to switch weapons based on his opponents. Given this, the DM should have few qualms about sundering equipment, and the mending cantrip may see much more use. If mending cannot fix a magic weapon, you may rule that a magic weapon can only be sundered by a more powerful magic weapon (i.e. a rare +2 could sunder an uncommon +1), choose a different piece of equipment to sunder (reducing the effectiveness of non-magic armor or damaging a backpack) or rule an item which ought to be sundered–but cannot be–is instead disarmed. Or some other alternate effect.

Weapons

Name                          Cost           Damage                                    Weight      Properties

Simple Melee Weapons

Club                             1 sp            1d4 bludgeoning                       2 lb.           Light

Dagger                        2 gp           1d4 piercing                             1 lb.           Close-quarters, finesse, focus (Arcane), light, thrown (range 20/60), quick

Parrying Dagger      5gp           1d4 piercing                         1 lb.          Close-quarters, finesse, light, defensive, quick

Greatclub                    2 sp            1d8 bludgeoning                       10 lb.         Two-handed

Handaxe                      5 gp           1d6 slashing                              2 lb.           Light, thrown (range 20/60)

Javelin                         5 sp            1d6 piercing                             2 lb.           Close-quarters, thrown (range 30/120)

Light hammer            2 gp           1d4 bludgeoning                       2 lb.           Light, thrown (range 20/60)

Mace                           5 gp           1d6 bludgeoning                       4 lb.           Armor-piercing (medium)

Quarterstaff                2 sp            1d6 bludgeoning                       4 lb.           Focus (Arcane, Druidic), ineffective (heavy), versatile (1d8)

Sap                              1 sp          1d6 bludgeoning                  1 lb.          Finesse, light, subduing

Sickle                          1 gp           1d4 slashing                              2 lb.           Focus (Druidic), Light

Spear                           1 gp           1d6 piercing                             3 lb.           Close-quarters, set-for-charge, thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)

Unarmed strike          —              1 bludgeoning                           —              —

Simple Ranged Weapons

Crossbow, light           25 gp         1d8 piercing                             5 lb.           Ammunition (range 80/320), loading, two-handed

Dart                             5 cp           1d4 piercing                             1/4 lb.       Finesse, thrown (range 20/60)

Shortbow                    25 gp         1d6 piercing                             2 lb.           Ammunition (range 80/320), two-handed

Sling                            1 sp            1d4 bludgeoning                       —              Ammunition (range 30/120)

Martial Melee Weapons

Battleaxe                    10 gp         1d8 slashing                              4 lb.           Sundering, versatile (1d10)

Estoc                          30 gp        1d8 piercing                         3 lb.          Close-quarters, finesse, armor-piercing (heavy, medium)

Flail                             10 gp         1d8 bludgeoning                       2 lb.           Disarming, tripping, wrap-around

Guisarme                  20 gp        1d8 piercing                         6 lb.          Close-quarters, heavy, reach, set-for-charge, tripping, two-handed

Glaive                          20 gp         1d10 slashing                            6 lb.           Heavy, reach, set-for-charge, two-handed

Greataxe                     30 gp         1d12 slashing                            7 lb.           Heavy, sundering, two-handed

Greatsword                 50 gp         2d6 slashing                              6 lb.           Armor-piercing (heavy, medium), heavy, two-handed

Halberd                       20 gp         1d10 slashing or piercing     6 lb.           Armor-piercing (heavy, medium), heavy, reach, set-for-charge, two-handed

Lance                          10 gp         1d12 piercing                           6 lb.           Reach, special

Longsword                  15 gp         1d8 slashing or piercing       3 lb.           Versatile (1d10)

Maul                            10 gp         2d6 bludgeoning                       10 lb.         Heavy, two-handed

Morningstar                15 gp         1d8 piercing                             4 lb.           Armor-piercing (heavy)

Pike                             5 gp           1d10 piercing                           18 lb.         Close-quarters, heavy, reach, set-for-charge, two-handed

Rapier                         25 gp         1d8 piercing                             2 lb.           Close-quarters, finesse, ineffective (heavy)

Ranseur                     X gp          1d8 piercing                         10 lb.        Close-quarters, defensive, heavy, reach, set-for-charge, two-handed

Scimitar                      25 gp         1d6 slashing                              3 lb.           Finesse, light

Scourge                     5 gp          1d6 slashing                          2 lb.          Disarming, finesse, ineffective (heavy, medium), wrap-around

Shortsword                 10 gp         1d6 piercing                             2 lb.           Close-quarters, finesse, light

Trident                        5 gp           1d6 piercing                             4 lb.           Close-quarters, thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)

War pick                     5 gp           1d8 piercing                             2 lb.           Armor-piercing (heavy)

Warhammer               15 gp         1d8 bludgeoning                       2 lb.           Versatile (1d10)

Whip                            2 gp           1d4 slashing                              3 lb.           Disarming, ineffective (heavy, medium), finesse, reach, tripping, wrap-around

Martial Ranged Weapons

Blowgun                      10 gp         1 piercing                                 1 lb.           Ammunition (range 25/100), ineffective (heavy, medium), loading

Crossbow, hand          75 gp         1d6 piercing                             3 lb.           Ammunition (range 30/120), light, loading

Crossbow, heavy        50 gp         1d10 piercing                           18 lb.         Ammunition (range 100/400), armor-piercing (heavy), heavy, loading, two-handed

Longbow                     50 gp         1d8 piercing                             2 lb.           Ammunition (range 150/600), heavy, two-handed

Net                              1 gp           —                                              3 lb.           special, thrown (range 5/15)

New Properties:

Armor-piercing. This weapon provides a +1 bonus to hit opponents wearing the apropriate class of armor (heavy, medium, or light).

Close-quarters. This weapon can be used without penalty in tight spaces, underwater, or in close formation.

Defensive. This weapon provides a +1 bonus to your armor class as though it were a shield when it is wielded in your off hand (or two-handed). You can benefit from only one defensive weapon at a time, and cannot combine this bonus with a shield.

Disarming. This weapon provides a +1 bonus to rolls to disarm an opponent. Additionally, when you score a critical hit you may disarm your opponent in lieu of doing additional damage.

Focus. This weapon can be used as a focus for appropriate spellcasters (Arcane, Divine, Druidic).

Ineffective. This weapon has a -1 penalty to hit opponents wearing the appropriate class of armor (heavy, medium, or light).

Quick. When you are being grappled or a larger opponent otherwise moves into your space, you may use your reaction to make a free attack.

Set-for-charge. When you ready this weapon for an attack and an opponent moves at least 10 feet to within your reach, your readied attack is considered a critical hit if it hits.

Subduing. When you attack to subdue with this weapon, you knock the target out if they are reduced to less than two hit points for each of your levels (i.e. 6 hit points or less when you are level 3).

Sundering. This weapon provides a +1 bonus to rolls to break an opponents weapon or shield. On a critical hit, in lieu of dealing additional damage you may destroy an opponents shield.

Tripping. This weapon provides a +1 bonus to rolls to push an opponent, but only when pushing them prone. Additionally, when you score a critical hit you may push a two-legged opponent prone in lieu of doing additional damage.

Wrap-around. This weapon provides a +1 bonus to hit opponents using shields or behind cover.

So what about that System II? You get it by removing armor-piercing, ineffective, and wrap-around. System II abandons a few of the options that might drag down play in system I, notably the minor bonuses or penalties of weapon vs armor type. This should result in a slightly more detailed game than the basic rules, but may make weapon choice still a bit more exciting.

I'm still looking at a few of the consequences of this system. For example, you may see the Longsword now can also do piercing damage (but doesn't get the close-quarters property). This is because the otherwise identical axe now gets sundering. So its still a bit of an exercise in grid-filling and doing what you can to distinguish each weapon here. There's probably a couple other oddities that I didn't notice yet and probably should fix, but this is quite worked out compared to the previous musings. But the basic rules have this too: no point in choosing a sickle when you could have a hand-axe. Which made me think maybe a couple weapons could have the Arcane Focus, Divine Focus, or Druidic/Primal focus too, meaning a druid just might pick a sickle as a weapon. Its not much, but that's pretty much why the sickle is an option, no? So make it explicit in a few places. But there's probably a few more weapon pairs that could be distinguished a bit more.

MiniCon

The local RPG nerds had a minicon here in town yesterday. I actually made it this time. Played two games. It was fun, but a few critiques as always:

First game was D&D 5e. I think it was a classic case of too many good ideas for a convention game. It was a fun-house dungeon with an end game of apotheosis, but i have no idea how he intended us to do a fraction of the stuff he had prepped. The system of inter-dimensional doors leading from room to room was arcane at best, but we kinda figured out some part of it. That would have been enough good idea though. Part two, after we had sorta figured out part one and also had to go back and explore a room we hadn't actually found initially, was the apotheosis part. It could have been great, but this was a con game where we had made our own PCs. Meaning the DM had no ideas about our backstory and didn't give us a lot of great information about how deities worked in this generic setting. So there were tests of courage, fortitude, wits, etc. All good, but untailored for the players or PCs. Eventually it resulted in a total party kill because it came down to rolling a shit-tonne of saves to avoid exhaustion which were too high of a DC (generally 15+). Also, it suffered a bit that he had lost his 5000 word notes and we waited about 20 min for a phone call and internet access because he was so prepared that he couldn't wing it at all. We could have explored that monstrosity in 12 game sessions though, not just one.

Second game was Serenity. I think she actually requested we be familiar with the show/film, so we actually chose the characters from the show (I was Book). Easy peasy pre-gens and we all knew what the characters were. She ran a module from a book, which was actually decent. Or at least well chosen: as a con-game you need to pick something with a good time frame and she shepherded us through it all in the right amount of time. The game was somewhat ruined by these two younger players. They're of the "I rolled three repair checks, how did I do?" camp. The GM was pretty patient. I didn't understand the math of the system at all though. You roll two dice for any check (from d4 to d12) but the difficulty numbers seemed to be outrageously high at times (9+?). d6 seemed to be average, and d8 above average, but getting a 9+ on 2d4 ain't going to happen, so I thought the target numbers needed to be substantially lower for a lot of stuff. Unless there was somehow more room for help from others and whatnot. Overall the system was nice and simple though, and it made for a really solid convention game. Except its all based on skills, and I kinda hate skills. Especially perception.

Take home message: problem players suck. Don't be afraid to use (and later reuse) your good ideas, but don't throw them all in at once.

The Influence of Combat & Tactics

I burnt my hand cooking breakfast today, so in a fit of childishness I opted to do nothing this afternoon and ended up reading Combat & Tactics a bit. I'm still a little shocked at how it really does pre-figure third edition quite a bit. Armor is classified into light, medium, and heavy (or Leather, Mail, and Plate). There are proficiency options that are basically feats by another name. And the whole 5 foot square gridded combat system.

Obviously all of it didn't make it into later editions, but there's one aspect that I'm wondering if we left behind. Third edition codified a lot of bonuses to individual weapons into weapon properties, but left some things behind a bit. And now Fifth feels a bit like an exercise in filling a grid of weapon damage types and properties. Its not quite that bad, but a couple more weapon properties might be helpful.

I think some of this is the tactics that have been left behind with the transition to more story-focused games. Don't get me wrong, I love 13th Age and Vampire and other story-focused games. But I have a hankering for some old school simulation too, and I like the idea of two soldiers opting to use shields and short swords because they're optimal in a cave where both can be in the front ranks where a longsword or battle axe would be ineffective. Maybe I yearn for the days of putting the dwarf and gnome up front too where others can use reach weapons or ranged weapons over their heads. And Henchmen. But henchmen might be for a different post.

Anyway, I've picked a dozen and one (ish) additional properties here inspired by Combat & Tactics. The designers probably considered something like these and opted not to use them, so there may be reasons not to. Chief among them is probably the part where many of these properties only apply to fighting armed humanoids, not beasts. It also makes the game more complex, obviously. A well-trained fighter might be encouraged to switch weapons based on his opponents (a feature, in my mind, rather than a bug). Some of these properties have a "critical" effect. This could be re-worded to happen in addition to extra damage, but it seems possibly excessive. These properties are also written for 5e. As such they are mostly limited to +1 bonuses: advantage seems too good and would synergize with things like a rogue's sneak attack. A small (+1) bonus shouldn't really muck with the math; besides rogues/bards can already get stupid good at disarming or tripping because of expertise. If I were writing these for AD&D, they'd be more like Defensive +1 or Armor Piercing (Mail) +2. Because AD&D could work that way. I also listed some weapons these properties might apply to (though not all exist in 5e): this might be motivation for adding in a few other polearms or whatnot as well.

Defensive - +1 to AC while wielding the weapon (even in your off hand). We lost the defensive property from earlier editions, but I'm not sure why a parrying dagger or gunsen couldn't have it. There may be a good reason this went away.
Added to: Parrying Dagger/Main Gauche, Gunsen, Jitte, Ranseur/Spetum/Partisan, sai, three-piece-rod

Wrap Around - This property would give chain weapons a +1 bonus to hit opponents with shields or behind cover.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Kusari-Gama

Armor Piercing (Heavy, Medium, Light). These properties would give a +1 bonus to hit opponents wearing the appropriate plate, mail, or leather armor. A weapon might only pierce one type of armor or all three. The idea is plate might not be as good at defending from a weapon designed to pierce it.
Added to: Crossbow (Heavy), Dire Flail (Heavy), Mace (Medium), Morningstar (Heavy), Pick (Heavy), Halbeard (Heavy or Medium), Greatsword (Heavy or Medium), Estoc (heavy or Medium), 

Disarming - A +1 bonus to disarm an opponent. On a critical hit, you can instead deal normal damage and automatically disarm your opponent.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Scourge, sai, three-piece-rod

Tripping - A +1 bonus to "shove an opponent" and instead you may opt to pull them closer or knock them prone. Or/Also, a critical hit you can opt to deal normal damage and also knock your target prone. A tripping weapon cannot trip an opponent with more than two legs.
Added to: Chain, Flail, Whip, Bill/guisarme

Charger - Double damage when mounted and you've moved at least half your speed.
Added to: Lance

Set-For-Charge - Double damage if you set the weapon to receive a charge. (This needs set-for-charge rules and possibly better charging rules. Probably readying your weapon is like readying an action and then you get the attack if your opponent "charges" or moves 15' and then attacks you.)
Added to: Spear, Pike, Halbeard, Glaive and other pole-arms

Shield-Sundering - +1 bonus to sunder a shield. On a critical hit, you can instead deal normal damage and automatically sunder your opponent's shield. [This would need a rule for sundering a shield probably, though the crit property could live on its own.]
Added to: Battleaxe, Greataxe

Close-Quarters - No penalty for attacking in close quarters or while squeezing. [This would be different than just giving this to piercing weapons, which I had considered. Then I remembered picks.]
Added to: javelin, Spear, Shortsword, Rapier, Trident, Pike

Quick - You can use your reaction to make an attack of opportunity when an opponent attempts to grapple you.  [If it weren't such a pain, I'd consider saying that after making an attack with a quick weapon, your initiative increases by +2. So after a couple rounds you'd end up passing people in the initiative order. Its not a bonus attack, but could be interesting.]
Added to: Dagger

Subduing - This weapon only attacks to subdue. If the opponent is reduced to a number of hit points equal to your level + the damage bonus from your ability score, they are instead reduced to 0 hit points.
Added to: Sap

Ineffective (Heavy, Medium, Light). These weapons are less effective against particular armours, and receive a -1 penalty to the attack.
Added to: Blowgun (Heavy), Bo (Heavy)

Surprise - When you initiate combat and your opponent isn't expecting you to be armed, you gain advantage on the surprise role and a +1 bonus to the initiative roll.
Added to: Brandistock, Ninja-to

In 5e, many properties correspond with damage dice alternations. For example, a two-handed or heavy weapon will do more damage than its one-handed counterpart. Likewise light weapons tend to do one die-size less damage than an otherwise similar weapon. Here, I think the quick and defensive properties should likewise be associated with smaller damage dice. The others don't seem like they're quite sexy enough to merit a change in damage dice as long as they're associated with thematically appropriate weapons (i.e. chain weapons tend to do wrap-around, disarm, and trip).

There's a few other bits of "tactics" that would be interesting to add (I'm thinking forming a shield wall), but these might do a bit to help add in a few tactics to the game and make various weapons a bit more unique. I'm still a little unclear on the bonus part. For some, proficiency bonus might be an appropriate thing rather than just +1. But, by and large, +1 is easy to add in and not going to be overpowered. I'll have to take a closer look to decide if any of these properties are redundant or could otherwise be combined, but it just might make a slightly more interesting set of weapons available.