Friday, February 01, 2013

MAD D&D Weapons

Multiple Ability Dependent (MAD) is a term +Douglas Cole used recently in a comment to my D&D bow house rules. MAD is a term used commonly with classes, the paladin is a classic example of this alongside the monk. Both require many attributes to be high for the character to be competent in that class.

My bow house rules took three attributes into consideration when determining the effectiveness of the bow. This made the bow a MAD weapon, and MAD is generally seen as a bad thing in D&D, at least in regards to classes.

But wouldn't a MAD weapon benefit a MAD class? If your character requires three attributes to be good at the chosen class, but the weapons used only rely on one, isn't that an awful lot of benefit for non MAD (SAD, single ability dependent) class? All other classes are equally good with the weapons without being MAD (no pun intended).

There's plenty of conversation whether classes should be MAD or SAD, but shouldn't the discussion also include weapons? What do you think? Should weapons keep being SAD and rely on STR bonuses for melee and DEX bonuses for ranged? Or should they become MAD? Any house rules that make your SAD weapons MAD?



Image source
http://users.eecs.northwestern.edu/~pred/medieval/

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