In your explorations of the Archive, you find an exhibit of weapons of war. After studying the detailed notes explain the precise differences, you are able to distinguish between halbards, guisarmes, spontoons, pikes, bills, ranseurs, poleaxes, sword-staves, bardiche, war sycthes, and fauchards. In time, perhaps you will also learn of the atgeir, partisan, corseque, and earspoon.
5e offers a list of 37 different weapons. Some have special features. Some deal more damage. However, even at a glance some weapons appear inferior to others. Examining these weapons brings us to the question of today: are all these weapons worth offering to players, or are some “traps” that should always be avoided?
Examining Weapons
Let us begin by examining the normal weapons table.
What Matters?
All weapons have the following features: a name, a cost, damage dice, damage type, weight, and properties. Additionally, they can be Simple or Martial, however this is used only as a shorthand for proficiency — it does not add any new semantics, so can be ignored. Cost and weight are largely irrelevant in most campaigns. Encumbrance is often ignore, but even if not weapon weights are small. Most PCs will gain their weapons as starting gear, so do not need to deal with the cost.
From a purely mechanical perspective, this means a weapon consists of a name (used to determine proficiency), damage dice, damage type, and properties. While comparing mechanics, this is all we will consider.
Ranged Weapons
There are nine Ranged Weapons — weapons that cannot be used in melee. All use Dexterity, as the thrown weapons are not thrown melee weapons.
Nets
The strangest is the Net. Attacks with a net are either beyond the first range increment (5ft), or are ranged attacks against a creature in melee range, so are always at disadvantage. They do not work against creatures bigger than Large, or that are formless. If you have multiple attacks, you lose all but one while using a net. Nets deal no damage, but inflict the Restrained condition. Nets are also fairly easy to escape from, and the difficulty does not scale, so they are even less effective at higher levels.
The problem with nets is that to use one effectively, you must hit a target, then have your allies make at least two attacks against them before they escape on their turn. Two attacks are necessary, as you lose your attack, and one attack at advantage is worse than two regular attacks. It is extremely hard to use a net effectively, and in many situations it is impossible.
Projectiles
The remaining ranged weapons are projectiles. Most consume ammunition, except for darts, which are cheap and small — we can generally assume that we will have enough weapons or ammunition to make attacks. All have a range property, which can be loosely grouped into short (20-30/60-120) and long(80/320 or more). Battlefields will rarely be large enough for long-ranged weapons to be at disadvantage due to range, but short-range weapons may be, so are inferior.
The other properties are somewhat situations. Loading weapons have no downside for classes without multiple attacks; heavy weapons have no downside for non-small creatures; and so on for different builds. However, some options are always inferior. For example, no class that is proficient with darts is not proficient with slings. Slings have slightly better range and the same damage, so unless the damage type is significant slings should always be preferred to darts. Similarly, no class that is proficient with the blowgun is not also proficient with the hand crossbow, which is superior. Finally, no class proficient with the heavy crossbow does not get multiple attacks and is not proficient with the longbow, so should use that from level 5 onwards.
It is worth examining the loading and heavy properties.There are three loading weapons aside from the blowgun. Each uses a larger dice than the non-loading weapons with the closest set of properties. This means they offer an average of +1 damage for characters who only make one attack. While appreciated, this bonus is small, and these classes tend to have other abilities to make up the difference (spells, sneak attack).
The Heavy property does the opposite, giving a slight penalty to damage for small characters. The penalty is very small, and only applies to characters using two-handed martial weapons, so I am unconvinced that it serves a balancing purpose. Perhaps it is intended to improve verisimilitude, but I see no reason why gnomes would not produce appropriately scaled version of these weapons. The rule restricts options for no discernible benefit.
Simple Melee Weapons
The first weapon to leap out of the simple list is the dagger. It is the only finesse weapon here. It is inferior to the shortsword and scimitar, except as a thrown weapon — I note this here as the only classes that are not proficient with at least one are casters. There is no reason to use a dagger in melee. As a ranged weapon, it is inferior to the sling, which anyone can use, so there is no reason to use a dagger at range either.
The club is a light hammer that you cannot throw. Only druids can uses clubs and not light hammers, but they can use quarterstaffs, which deal more damage. Two-weapon druids are the only builds that should use the club, and two-weapon druid builds are a strange choice.
We can identify more redundant weapons. Sickles are worse handaxes, by the same logic is clubs. Maces and greatclubs are both quarterstaves without the versatile property, and no class is proficient with maces or greatclubs and not quarterstaves. A javelin is a non-versatile spear with slightly better range. The handaxe deals more damage than the light hammer unless the target is resistant to slashing damage and not bludgeoning.
The only simple melee weapons we have not identified as strictly inferior are the handaxe, quarterstaff, and spear. It appears that this list exists primarily for flavor, rather than to add meaningful choices to the game.
Martial Melee Weapons
On to martial weapons. I have grouped these by property.
Finesse
First, consider the finesse weapons: the rapier, scimitar, shortsword, and whip. The whip can be discarded quickly: it is not light, so should be compared to the rapier, which deals an average of 2 more damage. Reach fails to make up for this, particularly as everyone proficient with the whip is proficient with better reach weapons. All other reach weapons deal only 1 point of damage less than comparable non-reach weapons, so the whip is disproportionately weaker. The scimitar and shortsword are identical save for damage type, and inferior to the rapier unless used for two-weapon fighting.
Two-Handed
There are six two-handed weapons. The glaive and halberd are identical in every regard. The greatsword is superior to the greataxe in damage. A barbarian’s brutal critical starts to make up for this, but only against high AC targets — most of the time, the slight boost to damage on regular hits that greatswords offers will dominate over the critical damage spikes, the exception being cases where regular attacks rarely hit, in which case critical will dominate. We can pick either the glaive or halberd to mark as redundant, and should not use the greataxe outside of very specific scenarios for high-level play.
Versatile
There are four versatile martial weapons. The versatile property is misleading. Most characters will either be using something in their offhand, so will never use it two-handed, or will not, so will always use it two-handed. As most characters will not switch from one to the other, versatile weapons can be treated as two weapons, one of which is two-handed. In all cases, the battleaxe is the same as the longsword, and the trident is the same as the spear. They can be discarded. As a two-handed weapon, the longsword is inferior to the greatsword for all non-small characters. The same is true of the warhammer and maul. Only small characters should use versatile weapons two-handed. It is worth noting that this kind of build is likely underpowered — small characters will be weaker than medium characters with two-handed weapons, but will be just as good with one-handed weapons.
In one hand, the longsword is now unthreatened. The warhammer is as strong as the flail, so we shall discard the flail.
Reach
Reach weapons can threaten more foes. However, as most creatures will close the distance to attack anyway, this bonus is small and can be hard to take advantage of without other features like feats. Nonetheless, we shall examine them. The glaive and halberd, as stated, are identical. The lance is special, and will be addressed later. The pike is comparable to the glaive, but with a different damage type. Finally, there is the whip. This deals an average of 3 less damage, however it is a one-handed finesse weapon. The whip could be used for dexterity or one-handed reach builds, but the drop in damage is higher than most other trade-offs, so will be less effective than other strategies.
Other
There are a few weapons we have not addressed. A morningstar is a war pick, and the war pick is a rapier without finesse, so they can be ignored.
Finally, the lance. The lance gives disadvantage on attacks against nearby foes. As most enemies will run up to you and try to kill you, this is a problem. Without a good way to keep foes at reach, the lance is an ineffective weapon. If you want reach, use a pike. If you want to roll a d12, use a greataxe. If you want to do mounted combat, play a game that does not primarily consist of running round underground rooms.
Takeaways
We have made it to the end of the list. If you lost track, that is fine — here is a summary of what we observed and some key takeaways.
For simplicity, these lists consider weapons that are inferior due to lower damage or range to be inferior generally. This ignores the rare cases where a target is resistant to the damage of a superior weapon, but not the inferior. This list is a general guide, rather than an explanation of every possible outcome.
The following weapons are strictly inferior or merely equivalent to other weapons:
- Dart
- Blowgun
- Mace
- Greatclub
- Light Hammer
- Net
- Lance
- Whip
- Halberd
- Battleaxe
- Flail
- Morningstar
- Trident
- War Pick
These weapons are superior only in highly specific scenarios:
- Sickle (two-weapon druid only)
- Club (two-weapon druid only)
- Javelin (as a one-handed thrown weapon against a target between 20ft and 30ft away)
- Greataxe (high level barbarian against high AC target)
- Longsword, two-handed (small characters only)
- Warhammer, two-handed (small characters only)
- Heavy Crossbow (before unlocking multiple attacks)
These weapons are reasonable choices for any character:
- Handaxe
- Quarterstaff
- Spear
- Light Crossbow
- Shortbow
- Sling
- Glaive
- Greatsword
- Longsword, one-handed
- Warhammer, one-handed
- Maul
- Pike
- Rapier
- Scimitar
- Shortsword
- Longbow
- Hand Crossbow
We can spot some general trends in damage and properties. Light weapons normally deal 1 less damage than the closest non-light equivalent. Two-handed weapons deal about 2 more damage than one-handed weapons. Reach weapons deal about 1 less than they would otherwise. This makes sense — there is a trade going on where a weapon gains a special ability, but loses some damage.
There is no cost to the finesse property — the rapier and longsword have the same damage potential. This is interesting, as it means there is no disadvantage to a dexterity build, and some advantages (initiative, dexterity saves, AC). Given the opportunity, one-handed dexterity builds should be preferred to strength.
Analytics is fun, but it is worth checking we are still grounded in reality. It is time to consult the data and find out what weapons actually see use.
The Data
We want to use our set of 4828 unique characters — non-unique characters would give extra weight to their weapon choices. Of these, only 4753 added weapons in a valid format. From some quick counting, we can see that only 7 characters use blowgunds. With 1874 users, the most common weapon is the daggers — I suspect this is because it is a universal backup weapon. There are a total of 10769 weapons, so most characters likely have at least two.
The Breakdown
Excluding daggers, the most common weapons, each used by more than 10% of characters are (in increasing popularity): shortbows, longbows, quarterstaves, javelins, handaxes, shortswords, rapiers, and light crossbows (at 19.3%). I suspect the prevalence of the light crossbow is as a ranged backup option. Javelins and handaxes feature often in starting gear. The frequency of quarterstaves is unexpected, but is likely being taken as the simple weapon choice for mages. Unsurprisingly, rapiers are common as the weapon of choice for dexterity builds.
Used by fewer than 1% of characters are the following: clubs, sickles, slings, flails, lances, tridents, morningstars, greatclubs, pikes, nets, war picks, and blowguns. Much of this, especially nets and lances, is unsurprising. The other reach weapons are not far behind pikes, so this appears not to be a popular property.
The other weapons fall in the 1-10% window. Greataxes are slightly more popular that greatswords. Whips are surprisingly common at 1.5%. Darts are also more frequent than expected.
Conclusions
Some of our analysis is supported by the data. Reach weapons and those with complex special rules appear unpopular, while rapiers are common. However, it is harder to identify the simple weapons that are not being used. A drawback of this dataset is that we do not know whether a PC uses all the weapons they carry, or favors one, and unfortunately the starting gear of each class introduces a level of chaos.
It is also worth noting that some decisions do not reflect optimisation. This is fine — there are other metrics, like flavor, that influence these decisions. However, the existence of these inferior options means anyone not following optimisation risks creating a trap build that is mechanically weaker than the game’s difficulty intends, so will feel underpowered and frustrating to play. In an ideal world players would not need to compromise between choosing effective and flavorful weapons.
An Elegant Weapon for a Civilised Age
We have identified several issues with the normal weapon list. Some properties, like heavy, restrict options with no clear cause. Others, like reach, are rarely used. A great many weapons are demonstrably bad choices, but players still use them.
This analysis does not always hold. Magic weapons are generally better than mundane, regardless of type, and some feats may create new viable options. However, I would prefer to offer my players a choice of weapons that allowed feats to give a bonus, not merely bring them into line with everything else, and to create magic items that do not feel like a downgrade in any way.
A solution is possible, but that is a project for another post.