Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Seventh Draft]

Available on the DM's Guild (pay what you want) at this link!

And I thought having six drafts was note-worthy!

Expanded and Exotic Weapons has been due for a revision for a little while now, to bring it up to speed with most of my modern content. 

Come to think, that's been my thought process for most of my later revisions for this project. I learn more, I want to apply what I've learned.

What have I learned, and what have I changed? Let's take a look-see:

CHANGELOG:

• New art by Douglas Wright!
• Exotic Weapon Proficiency is now half a feat, also giving you your choice of +1 to Strength or Dexterity!
• Added the Garrote! A weapon loved by rogues, and hated by whomever the rogue is sneaking up on.
• Moved the Harpoon from Exotic to Expanded Weapons and modified its stats accordingly.
• Modified the Double Weapon property to be more intuitive, basing it on the double scimitar found in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron. 
• Added more magical weapons, making sure to have at least one magical weapon per each exotic weapon!
• Multiple crunch changes, most weapons got at least a minor textual edit.

CONCERNS:

• The static numbers for sap and garrote still don't sit well with me, but apparently that's how weapons are done.
• All double weapons are now two-handed weapons as well, so GWF comes into play. I can imagine that's going to be pretty major for the spiked chain, but we'll see.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Honestly? To expect an eighth draft of this same project, maybe a year down the line. So it goes.

Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Sixth Draft]

Available on the DM's Guild (pay what you want) at this link!

The thing about making an expanded weapons list is it can (and will) just keep expanding as new ideas come up. I guarantee this sucker will be just about as long as the Strongholds project when I'm done with it. But for now, I'm happy that I can squeeze it in to four action-packed pages of content, all done up in public domain artwork and ready for the DM's Guild.

Six whole drafts, though! Can you believe it? I sure can't.

So let's see what got changed.

CHANGELOG:

• DM's Guild compliant public domain artwork!
• Minor tweak for trading expanded weapon proficiencies: the traded weapons must have the same damage dice.
• Brass knuckles are back in! Just about as good as a light hammer, without connecting to unarmed combat rules in any way (it's for the best, really).
• Added a special property for the sword sheath allowing it to be drawn with the same object interaction as the sword it's paired with.
• Changed the sap, yet again. Less rolling (hopefully) means more fun.
• Added the spiked shield and the monk's spade to the exotic weapon list! Both have been widely requested, so it's good to have them on there. 
• Added magical version of the monk's spade, the spiked shield, and the spiked chain as a little bit of bonus content.

CONCERNS:

• Spiked shield does some wacky things vis-a-vis AC and being wielded as a weapon primarily. I'm pretty sure that's okay because it costs a feat, though. 
• I'm unsure of the balance on the monk's spade, with its bonus action shove. Could use some more eyes on that. 
• Sap is always a little wacky, but I love it so it has to be in. I blame the Thief series of computer games.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Everything's an ongoing project. I just wish adding new content didn't raise so many balance concerns. 

Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Fifth Draft]

I think five drafts is just about the most I've ever done on any one project. I seem to remember my very first project being five drafts, but that hardly counts because the first draft of that one wasn't even Photoshoped.

Anyway, this particular project is currently part of the Bi-Weekly (Bi-Monthly?) Homebrew Review on reddit's /r/unearthedarcana, and true to its name, review was done and further edits needed to be made!

Plenty changed in this draft. Here's the changelog to help us sort it out.

CHANGELOG:

• Art assets removed as there just wasn't space for them. The credits are modified to reflect this.
• Gauntlet has been replaced with Kunckle, brass, with a new special property to make it more useful.
• Sap has been tweaked to make it more intuitive and less gamebreaking. 
• Scythe is no longer a finesse weapon, and now is a 1d8 reach two-handed simple weapon.
• Double Weapon has been retooled, hopefully allowing for more clarity. 
• The Ensnaring property has been removed and replaced with special properties for its related weapons. 
• Double Weapon formatting in the table has been fixed to frankly be a lot easier to read and understand.
• The Spiked Chain can now grind targets for damage, while the Kusari-Gama can now disarm, in addition to the grapples they used to do. 
• Several mechanics that inflicted Disadvantage on yourself now remove Advantage, because that seems overall more reasonable. 
• Harpoon has been buffed somewhat to make it worth taking a feat for. 
• The Punching Dagger is now the Katar, and both it and the Claw are now no longer light, but deal more damage.
• Monk weapons have been retooled to be more in keeping with monk design schema.

CONCERNS:

• When this much is changed, little side-errors start popping up. That's what I'd be on the lookout for. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Making selectable PDFs is exhausting and way more work than it should be. I'd love to do it in the future, but I definitely want to take a break before figuring it out again. 

Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Fourth Draft]

Adding new mechanics further down the line is a bit of a double-edged sword (or, y'know, a sword, two-bladed).

On one hand, it's usually pretty necessary to work out bugs and kinks when it happens. On the other hand, it's new and unpolished, so it always brings a whole lot of clunk to the table as well.

While the 4e encounter-power mechanics the last draft used worked, they didn't always work in service of a weapon and, if the weapon missed, it resulted in the feat feeling wasted. Wanting the weapons to feel worthwhile, I broke the powers down into either new weapon properties or special mechanics on the weapons themselves.

But now we're getting into the crunch of what got changed, and that's the changelog's job.

WHAT I CHANGED:

• Rebalanced the Katana, Scythe, and Shuriken, keeping them from stepping on the toes of other weapons. The Katana no longer has the light property (there's always the feat to hold two), and the shuriken fell from 1d6 to 1d4 damage, but now has a minor special property. The scythe was reduced to 1d6 slashing, but is now also a finesse weapon (that you cannot sneak attack with).  

• Folded Exotic Weapon Powers into the weapons themselves. This resulted in the new Ensnaring and Rapid Fire properties, as well as cropping down the feat into just a single proficiency because the powers now come bundled with.

• Reworked Double Weapons such that there is only one way to hold them, as two one-handed weapons, because it cuts down on complication and cheese. 

• Added Special Rules for every Exotic without Extra Shot or Ensnaring.

• Moved Tonfa into the Expanded Weapons list. Being Exotic wasn't working out for it.

• Added Harpoon to the Exotic Weapons list. Now any orc or goblin can be your character's white whale. 

CONCERNS:

• Balance on new content, as always. Specifically on the new weapon properties and special properties for Exotics. 

• Little, horrible mechanical complexities and cheese this might accidentally cause with builds I didn't consider. Seems to be a reoccuring theme with this project. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Weapons have a lot more moving parts than appear on the surface. You all have helped me stumble upon a new branch of system mechanics I didn't as much consider when I started this project. 

My quest to make an effective, selectable PDF continues. For this version I've generated this selectable PDF, which you can download by clicking here. 

It looks great in Google Drive, which was my goal, but now it looks awful in Adobe Acrobat. C'est la vie.

A newer version of this option is available. 

Expanded and Exotic Weapons [Third Draft]

There are two important things to consider when revising homebrew:

1. The difference between when a mechanic is bad and can be fixed, and when it's bad enough to have to take it behind a shed and do what must be done.
   
   and...
2. When to keep it simple, and when it's appropriate to complicate it a little bit. 

The "trade in proficiencies" bit wasn't really working out for this homebrew. So, I nixed it, and mixed the format of this project around a little bit. 

The changelog can explain.

WHAT I CHANGED:

• Expanded and Exotic Weapons is the new title, replacing the old "Exotic Weapons" and representing the two weapon lists available here,

• Broke weapons into two lists, one intended to be an extension of the PHB's weapon list and proficiencies, the other of which requires feats to access. 

• Removed Bladed Fan because that one just really wasn't working out. 

• Added Repeating Crossbows because D&D cowboys. 

• Added Sword Sheath because that's a fun thing to beat people with. 

• Added Exotic Weapon powers which are once-per-short-rest abilities related to the weapon, intended to help make a feat worth it. 

• Revised item descriptions, rebalanced weapon damage because you can't do that enough times. 

CONCERNS:

• What's the power balance on the new Exotic Weapons and the weapon abilities? I think the power variation is fairly alright; I guarantee they're not going to be perfectly balanced, but as long as the spread is roughly even I'm alright with it. 

• Do any expanded weapons invalidate any existing weapons? Keep in mind the differences in Simple and Martial weapon categories. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Well, that thing I posted, above. 

• 4e-style mechanics can work in 5e. Whoda thought. 

Also, I'm still figuring out how to generate a PDF with selectable text that Google will let me embed without breaking it. It's surprisingly tricky, but for now you can download a PDF with selectable text here. It won't look pretty previewed, but if you download it, it should run off a computer or device just fine.

A newer version of this option is available.

Exotic Weapons [Second Draft]

One of my favorite things to do recently is to take cracks specifically at game mechanics I don't have experience with yet, to build up my knowledge base and system mastery for more complicated homebrew projects down the line.

So far, I've learned that weapons in 5e are fairly comprehensive and have very little wiggle room to add new material. Rather than let that be a deterrent, I've found the areas that 5e's weapon spread hasn't covered, and used that to bring back perennial favorite D&D weapons, and to bring in new stuff that fits the genre all the same.

...Problem is, in the first swing at it I had very little idea of what the parameters of these weapons should be. But, you all helped me with that quite a bit! Let's see how:

WHAT I CHANGED: 

• Adjusted damage values for Bladed Fan, Spiked Chain, Jian, Katana, Kusari-Gama, Nunchaku, and Sap.

• Removed Dwarven Throwing Hammers and Kukri because unknown to me the PHB's light hammer already covered that niche, and the Kukri wasn't coming together right.

• Added Machete and Tonfa, both providing very interesting dual wield options.

• Reworked properties for the katana, sap, and nunchaku.

• Changed proficiency requirements. You must now trade three Martial proficiencies for one Exotic proficiency, and two Simple proficiencies count as one Martial proficiency for this purpose. 

• Tweaked Double Weapon property, mostly for clarity.

• Tweaked Grappling property, to keep players from grappling two people at once with a spiked chain. 

• Added note on Exotic Weapons and monk weapons.

CONCERNS:

• The spiked chain as a two-handed weapon that deals 2d4 damage interacts in an interesting way with the fighting style Great Weapon Fighting. I don't see it as particularly game-breaking, just nice, and a small homage to the spiked chain's history as a powerful, optimal weapon. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Special properties are probably the way to go with differentiating weapons, but not overly powerful and only where they make sense. 

A newer version of this option is available.

Exotic Weapons [ROUGH DRAFT]

Homebrew is best and easiest to add when it's relatively light-weight, something that can be included in a game without too much fuss or argument, that blends into many settings and may even serve to enhance the more esoteric corners of whichever D&D world you are running.

That's kind of what I'm going for here: enhancing the basic weapon options offered by the 5e PHB, without rocking the boat too much in terms of balance. Hopefully it's on the mark, but of course that's where all of you all come in!

FEATURES:

• 23 New Exotic Weapons, each unique in their own way, from the likes of the Katana and the Kusari-Gama to the ever-popular Spiked Chain and Chakram!

• Rules for Gaining Proficiency in an exotic weapon, that don't disrupt balance or character progression.

• 5 New Weapon Properties to make these weapons even more unique (without breaking balance, of course).

CONCERNS:

• Double weapon may be a bit hard to understand, but it's about as clear as I think I'm able to make it.

• The katana held in two hands deals 1d10, which is more than any other finesse weapon. However, I think its negative special property (and the fact that it eats up an extra hand that no other finesse weapon does) somewhat cancels out this benefit.

• Grappling with reach seems alright, but also like something that could go wrong in ways I didn't think of. 

WHAT I LEARNED: 

• It's hard to keep weapons representative of what they do, while still remaining unique and balanced. 

• 5e is very restrictive on things like Crit Range (a.k.a. keen) and other staples of weapons in past editions. This makes 5e's weapons more streamlined and balanced, but less easily diversified. I had to get creative with keeping these weapons unique. 

A newer version of this option is available.