Talk:Long Cane (5e Equipment)

Qaulity Article Nomination

This article is a current quality article nominee as of 05:59, 13 March 2020 (MDT). Quality articles exemplify D&D Wiki's very best work, and therefore must meet the quality article criteria. Please discuss the page's merits below.

• Support — A nice weapon that fulfils a good niche not covered by 1st party weapons, a reach weapon for Small pcs. In addition to that, the fluff is short but good and pertinent which works in favor of this item.--Blobby383b (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2021 (MDT)

• Support — What Blobby said, fits very nicely into the range of available weapons. I would only lower the price to be more comparable to a spear than a pike.--Malachai (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2022 (MDT)

• Comment — This is similar enough to the QA longspear that I would feel weird holding both up as QAs unless they're written such that they can co-exist. As it stands, the long-cane is different from the long-spear in three ways--the long-spear is simple, heavier than the long-cane, but is also lighter enough that it can be used in one hand for 1d6 damage. This is an issue with the long-spear that, once fixed, would make this weapon just "longspear, but martial and it can't be one-handed." I'm also missing why this weapon is named "cane", but is described as an unusually long and whippy spear. Am I missing something?

So, after all that waffling, I reach the point. I think once the long-spear gets fixed (I've already raised the issue on the long-spear talk page) this weapon should either be a bludgeoning version of the long-spear, or this should become the simple version of a martial-ized longspear. —Salasay ♄ 08:34, 3 April 2023 (MDT)

I believe that those changes would make the weapon unique, but I thought about it for a while and believe that changing the weapon in another way would work better. The lone cane is still not heavy so it can still be used by Small pcs, but now the weapon can now be wielded in one hand and it gains the reach property when using the weapon in two hands. In addition, to reflect you stabbing others instead of bobbing them with the cane, the damage the weapon deals changes too when using two hands to wield the weapon. --Blobby383b (talk) 23:10, 12 February 2024 (MST)

The changes made to these weapons so far don't yet address my biggest issue with the longspear, which is that it doesn't make sense for it to have the heavy property. Once that gets fixed, this weapon would still be too similar. —Salasay ♄ 03:26, 13 February 2024 (MST)

Also, while I don't have a strong game-balance objection to the idea of gaining reach by switching to two hands, it doesn't really make sense from the POV of realism. Switching to using a weapon in both hands explicitly sacrifices range in exchange for power and control (here represented by the increase in damage). The only time one-handing a weapon would have less reach would be if you were also choking up, but that's pretty much exclusive to thrusting weapons and this proposal stops being a thrusting when used in one hand--a swung bludgeoning weapon is just about the worst type of weapon to choke up on. —Salasay ♄ 06:13, 13 February 2024 (MST)

Noted, thanks for the feedback. I made the default weapon have reach and made you gain more control of the weapon with two hands. Functionally it is almost the same, but I believe the changes make the weapon make more sense. --Blobby383b (talk) 16:46, 25 February 2024 (MST)

I'm sorry, I have to keep pushing back on this--there is a very clear model for what a longspear *should* be, and as it stands we're missing that mark. In 3.5, the longspear was a standard spear but with reach instead of a throwing option, and adding the heavy property defeats the purpose of it being a longspear rather than a smallpike, and makes no sense on a versatile weapon. Thus, one tweak I would make from that "pure" baseline is the "Special: When you use a longspear in one hand, you have disadvantage to attack a target within 5 feet of you", purely because Reach is more powerful in 5e than it was in 3.5e. I would accept also pushing into the martial category, because the longspear would otherwise be the only simple weapon with reach, but I ain't gonna push for it.

As for the longcane, I would make it identical to the longspear (as I've described it) but switched from piercing to bludgeoning. If we wanted to differentiate it more, swap the special out for "Special: When you use a longcane to attack a target within 5 feet of you, reduce its damage die from 1d6 to 1d4, or from 1d8 to 1d6." —Salasay ♄ 10:23, 15 June 2024 (MDT)