Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Can You Explain Some BG3/DnD Weapon Damages?

If you look to DnD 5e weapon damages as a person who is interested in weapons but not a DnD player (like me), it quickly raises the thought that the DnD makers have not much of a clue. BG3 does not seem to homebrew much here, except in one sad case, the crossbow.

Can you explain why there is sometimes such a strange relation between weapon damages in DnD?

1. Why is a longbow 1d8 and a heavy crossbow 1d10, although in reality they are about the same energy (about 150 Joules for a 160 lbs bow and a 800 lbs crossbow)? BG3 is even much worse, as bows and crossbow have same range and crossbows can use the second action at lvl 5, unlike in DnD which is much better here (only bows/longbows can use the second action and have more range than crossbows).
BG 3 should change it to DnD standards or give longbows also 1d10. Currently there is no use for longbows in the game.

2. Why are hand crossbows as strong as normal bows, stronger than slings (see below) and - in BG3 - have the same range as big bows and crossbows? Makes no sense.

3. Why has a thrown javelin 1d6 damage, with 30/120 range while it weights 2 lbs? Such a relatively heavy javelin would cause much more damage at lower distances than an arrow or bolt, so the low damage is utter garbage. If BG3 will introduce javelins as thrown weapons (hopefully strength based), they should at least have 1d10 damage when thrown, but low range.

4. Why are slings simple weapons, with just 1d4 damage? What is the sense of such a weapon? A sling is very difficult to master and surely not a simple weapon to use. In addition slings used by a mildly experienced slinger generate reliably between about 100 and 180 Joules of energy (mostly in the area of 140 to 150 Joules), that is on par with very strong longbows and heavy crossbows. You can also use a shield while slinging, so that should be the only ranged weapon (except javelins) where the magical +2 AC of a shield should permanently work. The DnD sling is such a nonsense, it's almost hilarious.

5. Why does a greataxe 1d12, but a halberd (which is essentially a long and heavy greataxe) does 1d10? Because of balance as the halberd has more reach? If that's the balancing, it would be a sad hint how primitive the DnD system actually is.The same could be said about twohander and glaive.

6. Why does a morningstar, with it's short spikes, 1d8 pierce damage, but a spear, the most often used war weapon during history especially for piercing, does 1d6 piercing damage? Did the DnD makers really assume that a morningstar is a more effective and dangerous weapon than a spear? Possibly. Sad.


There would be more to say but it's already too much.I don't have much hope in BG3 here (perhaps mods can help), but at least they should solve the longbow/crossbow problem, to not make it even worse than DnD.

Nobody here helped design Dungeons and Dragons so nobody can answer why design choices were made as they were. A lot of the numbers don’t make sense, but you can say this for pretty much every RPG, so it’s not a big deal.

You seem to make a mistake of thinking that games are a simulation of reality. They are not, and especially 5e is not. And even so they are there is so much systemic abstraction going on, that arguining about individual weapon damage stats without taking into account other systems can be counted as taking things out of context. You might as well argue why we get better by leveling up, and not by spending time practising the skill with an instructor.

I am not versed well enough in D&D to give exact balancing insight. Except for no1, though my knowledge is still limited.

Crossbows should have "loading" property. If I understand it correctly one can't use Crossbow with multiattack (you will still get single attack per attack action) So crossbows do a bit more damage, and can be favoured by characters who don't specialise in melee and don't rely on multiattack for their damage. Characters who do specialise in range combat, will be better of using a bow as it will grand them more attacks per-round.

As of now in BG3 crossbows don't have "loading" property (I think, I didn't test it in recent patch) so they very well be just a better option - if so it's on Larian. Maybe they will implement "loading" property for 1.0, now when multiattack became a real thing.

That would be my guess. At least in BG1&2 one could reach with halibert from behind a tank, and attack enemy without yourself getting in attack range.

Balancing is a good thing. If one has a variety of weapons, there should be a reason for those weapons existance, and they ideally should be sidegrades. Trading damage for engagement reach seems like a very valid design for me. D&D 5e is meant to be straightforward system to understand (and is designed for table-top so it can't be too complex) so there is limited amount of parameters one can design weapons with.

There are only few parameters one can use to differentiate weapons:
damage, range, proficency, special rules like "loading". In case of BG3 unique weapon attacks. I think that's it. If you think there are other parameters that could make weapons more interesting I would love to hear them. Armor piercing could be interesting (like in PoE1&2), but for that we would need to get rid of AC and create something more granual.

D&D is not realistic.
D&D combined Armor and Evasion in calls it AC. But in reality different Armor types are prone to different weapons.
Means a dragon with AC 19 is not hard to miss but his scales are hard so you need a 19 to make damage. But a Axe is different than a sword and needs maybe only a 17 etc. ...
D&D is very streamlined in this way because AC is a fundamental Pillar of Danger Level and Enemy Strength.

Yes, I’m sure the designers had some vague hand-wavy justification in mind, but the different weapon damages seem quite rightly there to serve game balance and give us options to puzzle over rather than to mirror real life. Some weapons are clearly better than others, but usually they’re then not available to all classes, or don’t have the thrown property, or some other factor that gives them a situational utility, or at least can do if you can find versions with magical effects.

I imagine the D&D designers spent a lot of time and effort carefully balancing the different weapons, which is why it mucks things up so badly when Larian do things like standardise range and get rid of the loading property, or let hand-crossbows be fired on a bonus action without a specific feat, so I very much hope this is going to be addressed in the final release.

Regarding slings, though, is it true that in 5e they can still be used with shields given they require ammunition and therefore a spare hand to load? I don’t know enough about 5e but from reading the rules that’s what it looks like. If so, I guess slings are pretty niche and only really useful to druids who don’t have proficiency in any other ranged weapon unless their race gives them one.

Yes. most ranged weapons have either the two-handed or loading property, which means they need both hands for either wielding or re-loading, but slings are the exception, and they only need one hand, leaving your other hand free to have something else in it (my recommendation would be a shield, or use the Magic Stone cantrip).

As for the damages, if you look at the whole weapon table spread out, you will notice that most of the damages are the same, meaning many of the weapons are mechanically the same, only differing in the type of damage they put out, and RP flavour. It's mostly for balance and keeping players on a more even field. Simple weapons do less damage and have less utility that martial weapons, reach weapons have their damage reduced because having a 10 foot attack reach is actually quite a good bonus, when it comes to mundane combat (remember that on tabletop, we often play on fixed grids or hexes, field control, terrain, and range are important).

My only big complaint is that a great axe should be 2d6, like the greatsword and maul, there's no reason for it not to be, and the only reason I can come up with as to why its a d12 is that it's the typical barbarian weapon, and barbarians are already using a d12, and the d12 is one of the lesser used dice.

Cheers! Do you happen to know where this is clarified in the 5e rules? Slings have the “Ammunition” property, which specifies that “you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon” but I can’t find where it is stated that slings are exempt from this.

hm, actually maybe I am mistaken, because I could have sworn it was the loading property that specified the use of a free hand to reload. I've just re-read it. Sorry about that.

EDIT: Okay, I see where my confusion is happening now.

The first printing of the PHB had this passage for ammunition:

But the seond printing says this:

There's the extra clause. Slings were able to be used with shields, but no longer.

Ah! That indeed explains the confusion. Thank you for tracking that down.

Something to consider. The original game was designed out of a tabletop miniatures game. the original "Balancing" if you will was around how much "units within a group" should do in squad combat. This logic has largely been carried over to D&D and not much has ever changed. All of the subsequent iterations were designed (ostensibly) around "Improving" the original rather than making it "more realistic".

So, ranges of bows vs Crossbows or spears are more normalized against each other in "Ranged combat arena" rather than differentiated by capability. And the wonkiness of Crossbows not getting the second action, who knows? Other than someone who likely never used a crossbow figured that you had to wind up the crossbow, so you couldn't possibly do that in the same time as knocking another arrow. Or some such.

End of the day, take it with a grain of salt.

I can understand that you need a simple system for TT, without overly complicated calculations, and for this the DnD system is remarkably differentiating. There are some big mistakes still. Now, on a digital game, some faults could be dealt with, instead Larian sadly made it worse.

But I think some of my thoughts would not be for many. I would give more abilities to some weapons, so all have pros and cons. I would also say f.e. that AC from a shield should only count when it is out, and that changing a weapon set at least costs a bonus action.


Here I would like to differ. I think it is ok to have some variants. A 2d6 may sound better generally, but a 1d12 could be better for criticals. So you have more options for your playstyle if the weapons have different dices. I would really like it if there would be more such options, f.e. slings doing 1d4 but allowing a bonus action, or a chance to apply prone. Even better perhaps to have f.e. twohanders with 2d6 and 1d12, for visual preferences.

On a side note the Armor types are just as made up. Studded Leather Armor isn't a thing. Gygax looked at an old painting showing a Brigandine (Oblong steel plates with leather or cloth riveted to it) and mistook it for a light leather armor type.

Its fine though, because its fun to think that you could Bedazzle leather to make it better armor. haha (Yes, I get its steel rivets attached to a leather backing and NOT actually bedazzled - but honestly how would THAT make it better protection, it seems like it would just make it heavier).

A type of Brigandine is what Sandor Clegaine wore in GoT - and its not 'light' armor.

Only for barbarians brutal critical, this is why I made the barbarian link regarding greataxe specifically, although i didn't really explain it fully.

2d6 and 1d12 both have the same maximum potential damage of 12, which would be 24 on a crit, the difference is in the minimum potential damage, 2d6 has a minimum of 2, but 1d12 has a minimum of 1. It's really not a lot.

But, bring in brutal critical at level 9 from barbarian, and suddenly you're rolling 3d12 for a crit with a battleaxe, and 5d6 for a crit with a greatsword/maul, here's where greataxe wins, because you're not rolling weapon damage three times, you're specifically rolling one extra weapon damage dice (see Sage Advice for confirmation). Again, it's really not that much extra damage (at least until level 13), but when you have a community full of powergamers and damage optimisers, they put a lot of weight on extra numbers, and it give barbs an excuse to crit fish.

I read several remarks that the great axe was especially made for Barbarians, you hinted to it too in your post. I'm not sure I like it as I would prefer a greatsword for my possibly planned Barbarian, from style, and as I already have several self-applied restrictions for my char, I'm not sure wether I'm strong enough to not use the "best" weapon. Sometimes options are not for the weak.

You are correct, best in slot meta for Barbarians is the Susser Greatsword +1 - no question about it.

The Sword of Justice is less optimal because you can't concentrate on any spell while you are Raging, so it would cancel the Tyr's Protection +2 AC spell.

1) Longbow can utilize extra attack, crossbow can't in TT.
2) You can't reload a hand crossbow without a free hand in TT, also range is really short!
3) Thrown weapons allow melee characters to use their high Str, use extra attack, and keep shield AC.
4) Sling doesn't have two-handed property so like thrown weapons you can use with shield while closing to melee, can use extra attack, and only missile attack dealing bludgeoning damage.
5) Reach allows you to fight second rank. In TT, allies in front of you give you +2 AC, and if you position well your enemies won't get that same +2 AC. Besides, both weapons are heavy for Great Weapon Mastery but halberd also benefits from Polearm mastery feat! - making it strongest overall melee weapon choice for fighters.
6) Spear and staff are both one-handed polearms that benefit from polearm mastery. Both can benefit from Shield mastery feat too. Don't cry for them, they're super-strong! Poor morning star, however Larian gave it powerful properties.

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An important note, in TT (un)equipping a shield costs an action. Most combats are decided in 3 rounds. You really want to avoid switching shields, however BG3 allows you to switch from sword & shield to longbow for free, no problem.

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Barbarian brutal critical and Halforc savage attacks both only allow _1_ extra weapon die for critical hits.
- Greatsword 2d6 crits becomes 5d6 (17.5) for barbarians at level 9. Greataxe 1d12 becomes 3d12 (19.5).
- Half orc barbarian greatsword crits become 6d6 (21) vs greataxe crit 4d12 (26).