I’ve been on a quest to collect all the house rules in D&D - all your weapon videos are on my playlist - love what you’re doing and look forward to its completion - it will be interesting to see if they cribbed anything from you in 5.5
Love the morning star. 3.5 did a good job making it stand out. However, in THIS edition, I would argue the versitle piercing weapon of choice would be...the spear!
If plate armor had a "slippery" tag so weapons would glance automatically, the morning star and a few war hammers could have an "anti-slippery" tag (their spikes).
If the base game made a distinction between defense from armor and defense from agility, I can see the Morningstar in particular gaining an AP feature. I've looked at a Damage Reduction system in other locations, where you gain DR instead of AC for armor (with your AC being your DEX, with limits for heavier armor values). With a system like that in play, granting the Morningstar an AP feature where it ignores a certain amount of DR could make it a good armor-buster like it's design was meant to be, and in particular granting that feature to mace-like weapons instead of clubs or hammers could make them stand out that little bit more.
In theory, a DR conversion is fairly easy with the current system. With no armor, most characters have a base AC of 10, so assuming 10 represents most character's base Evasion, DR would be a given armor's current AC - 10, with evasion being 10+ your Dex modifier (as allowed by armor size). Character's who get AC from Con would instead gain innate damage reduction. You could alternatively interpret armor as providing a combination of immunity to slashing attacks and resistance to bludgeoning attacks: metallic armor would be functionally impossible to cut and rigid, spring-tempered plates would be resistant to the deforming properties of a bludgeoning weapons.
@@Kingfisher_2376 That is... mostly how that works to be fair. Creatures with Natural Armor have the difference between their AC and their DEX score in DR, and DR does have limitations like not applying to things that don't require your armor save (say, DEX saving throws from magic attacks) or crits/advantage also modifying DR. The biggest downsides to this system is mostly that larger threats will have less defenses (and by that I mean like Adult Dragons threats) but there's some guidance to buff those numbers up based off half the party's Proficiency as needed). The full PDF is MrRhexx's Games Armor Redesigned for the record.
I suppose the first decision one needs to make regarding the "Morning Star" is where exactly the designation should stop. On its face, the weapon seems fairly straightforward but given the inevitable variation in realistic weaponry there are a number of different ways to interpret a concept as vague as "spiked club." In theory, one could argue that the Morning Star could include anything from a mace with many shallow blunted spikes to the godendag, a large club with a prominent thrusting spike welded onto the head. Something else to consider is that "Versatile" is not necessarily a pure buff. According to the rules, a small creature must use any versatile weapon with two-hands, so a non-Versatile martial weapon serves as the best ways for a character like a Halfling to carry a shield and still deal decent damage. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing if you intend for small creatures to deal less damage overall, since the Heavy and Versatile properties serve to emulate the "Sized" damage rolls associated with older editions of D&D (ie: "Battleaxe" serves as a small "Greataxe" and "Hand Axe" as a small "Battleaxe"), but it is a potential nerf for certain builds. My last point to consider is whether or not it is believable that such a weapon would be a Martial Weapon rather than Simple. Exactly what makes a weapon in D&D Simple or Martial is nebulous and fairly arbitrary, mostly serving to justify why some weapons are basically inferior versions of another (Sickle vs Scimitar). Arguably, this is a bad excuse for what is otherwise a purely narrative distinction, especially given that most non-proficient weapons seem to otherwise rely on a given class's dump stats. IE: a wizard would be bad with a Rapier more because of his poor Dex or Rogue would not use a Mace because of their poor Strength stat. A Morning Star is not an especially complex weapon to use effectively, with most examples being merely a club with spikes in all directions. ----- I don't really have a lot of practical suggestions for the Morning Star as it's not exactly prominent in the historical spaces I frequent. In our world, it never really stood out beyond merely being a form of club. It's not really a weapon I hold in high esteem, and it doesn't really present a clear fantasy that sets it apart from the Mace or club.
I definitely like the ideas here, somewhat surprised I haven’t heard you mention the extra limited use actions that weapons have in bg3, allowing you to use the weapon as normal and get those new actions only if you are proficient, the Morningstar’s special action is tenacity, allowing you to use your reaction on a miss to still deal your strength modifier in damage, I found that trait very useful in my dps fighter.
I've actually covered those before, and even made my own dedicated video on it last year! Tenacity would be a great addition as well th-cam.com/video/zbtQuSRNWYA/w-d-xo.html
How about instead of dealing either piercing or bludgeoning it could have the special property. It's property would be that while it deals piercing damage it benefits from features, spells and feats that typically require that the weapon deal bludgeoning damage. This would let it serve as a niche weapon that can benefit from effects such as the crusher feat piercer feat, dao genie, etc.at the sametime.
It's a good question! I honestly just prefer the metric system over imperial measurements. Something that got ingrained in me in college, and I just kinda stuck with it
I’ve been on a quest to collect all the house rules in D&D - all your weapon videos are on my playlist - love what you’re doing and look forward to its completion - it will be interesting to see if they cribbed anything from you in 5.5
personnaly I would change the damages, 1d4 bludgeoning damages and 1d4 piercing damages
Love the morning star. 3.5 did a good job making it stand out. However, in THIS edition, I would argue the versitle piercing weapon of choice would be...the spear!
Clubs will never die
If plate armor had a "slippery" tag so weapons would glance automatically, the morning star and a few war hammers could have an "anti-slippery" tag (their spikes).
E4r
If the base game made a distinction between defense from armor and defense from agility, I can see the Morningstar in particular gaining an AP feature. I've looked at a Damage Reduction system in other locations, where you gain DR instead of AC for armor (with your AC being your DEX, with limits for heavier armor values). With a system like that in play, granting the Morningstar an AP feature where it ignores a certain amount of DR could make it a good armor-buster like it's design was meant to be, and in particular granting that feature to mace-like weapons instead of clubs or hammers could make them stand out that little bit more.
In theory, a DR conversion is fairly easy with the current system. With no armor, most characters have a base AC of 10, so assuming 10 represents most character's base Evasion, DR would be a given armor's current AC - 10, with evasion being 10+ your Dex modifier (as allowed by armor size). Character's who get AC from Con would instead gain innate damage reduction.
You could alternatively interpret armor as providing a combination of immunity to slashing attacks and resistance to bludgeoning attacks: metallic armor would be functionally impossible to cut and rigid, spring-tempered plates would be resistant to the deforming properties of a bludgeoning weapons.
@@Kingfisher_2376 That is... mostly how that works to be fair. Creatures with Natural Armor have the difference between their AC and their DEX score in DR, and DR does have limitations like not applying to things that don't require your armor save (say, DEX saving throws from magic attacks) or crits/advantage also modifying DR. The biggest downsides to this system is mostly that larger threats will have less defenses (and by that I mean like Adult Dragons threats) but there's some guidance to buff those numbers up based off half the party's Proficiency as needed). The full PDF is MrRhexx's Games Armor Redesigned for the record.
🥳❤️👍🏿
I do love me a good lang ya bang (wolf brush mace, I have 1 hanging above my computer), which is clearly a polearm sized morningstar! 😊😅
I suppose the first decision one needs to make regarding the "Morning Star" is where exactly the designation should stop. On its face, the weapon seems fairly straightforward but given the inevitable variation in realistic weaponry there are a number of different ways to interpret a concept as vague as "spiked club." In theory, one could argue that the Morning Star could include anything from a mace with many shallow blunted spikes to the godendag, a large club with a prominent thrusting spike welded onto the head.
Something else to consider is that "Versatile" is not necessarily a pure buff. According to the rules, a small creature must use any versatile weapon with two-hands, so a non-Versatile martial weapon serves as the best ways for a character like a Halfling to carry a shield and still deal decent damage. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing if you intend for small creatures to deal less damage overall, since the Heavy and Versatile properties serve to emulate the "Sized" damage rolls associated with older editions of D&D (ie: "Battleaxe" serves as a small "Greataxe" and "Hand Axe" as a small "Battleaxe"), but it is a potential nerf for certain builds.
My last point to consider is whether or not it is believable that such a weapon would be a Martial Weapon rather than Simple. Exactly what makes a weapon in D&D Simple or Martial is nebulous and fairly arbitrary, mostly serving to justify why some weapons are basically inferior versions of another (Sickle vs Scimitar). Arguably, this is a bad excuse for what is otherwise a purely narrative distinction, especially given that most non-proficient weapons seem to otherwise rely on a given class's dump stats. IE: a wizard would be bad with a Rapier more because of his poor Dex or Rogue would not use a Mace because of their poor Strength stat. A Morning Star is not an especially complex weapon to use effectively, with most examples being merely a club with spikes in all directions.
-----
I don't really have a lot of practical suggestions for the Morning Star as it's not exactly prominent in the historical spaces I frequent. In our world, it never really stood out beyond merely being a form of club. It's not really a weapon I hold in high esteem, and it doesn't really present a clear fantasy that sets it apart from the Mace or club.
I definitely like the ideas here, somewhat surprised I haven’t heard you mention the extra limited use actions that weapons have in bg3, allowing you to use the weapon as normal and get those new actions only if you are proficient, the Morningstar’s special action is tenacity, allowing you to use your reaction on a miss to still deal your strength modifier in damage, I found that trait very useful in my dps fighter.
I've actually covered those before, and even made my own dedicated video on it last year! Tenacity would be a great addition as well
th-cam.com/video/zbtQuSRNWYA/w-d-xo.html
@@altrolerpg I appreciate the reply, I'll make sure to check that one out as well!
How about instead of dealing either piercing or bludgeoning it could have the special property. It's property would be that while it deals piercing damage it benefits from features, spells and feats that typically require that the weapon deal bludgeoning damage.
This would let it serve as a niche weapon that can benefit from effects such as the crusher feat piercer feat, dao genie, etc.at the sametime.
Nice video, as usual, but I gotta ask: why do you convert the weighs and lengths to metric in your script? Sorry if this was answered already.
It's a good question! I honestly just prefer the metric system over imperial measurements. Something that got ingrained in me in college, and I just kinda stuck with it
@@altrolerpg , thanks for the response. 👍🏻
Science uses metric.
@@oldmanandrew , that's fine.
@@DjigitDaniel It’s science!