The average person takes a lot of over-the-counter cough medicines in their lifetime for little to no benefit.
The common cold, living up to its name, affects the average adult multiple times per year. There is no medication that actually attacks the viruses that cause colds; instead, there are different medications to alleviate different symptoms you may experience. Many are confusingly marketed, most people have no idea which medication will work for which symptom, and most over-the-counter medications might not actually work very well at all.
This post will attempt to help the average person understand which medicines they might actually want to take, and which are expensive wastes of your time.
There are multiple distinct types of medicine used to treat coughs and colds:
Decongestants try to clear the airways inside your head. This helps if you have a blocked nose, a sinus headache, or your ears won’t pop.
Expectorants and mucokinetics help you cough up mucus. This helps if you feel like your lungs and throat are full of gunk and you’re trying to cough it up in order to get it out.
Antitussives try to suppress the cough reflex. This helps if you have an unproductive cough – ie you keep coughing and it hurts but you’re not actually coughing anything up.
Painkillers are useful if you’ve got a headache, sore throat, sore chest, or whatever other kind of pain. Some of them also help bring down fever or reduce swelling.
Antihistamines are used to suppress allergic reactions. Sometimes cough and cold symptoms sort of look like allergic reactions, so we use antihistamines to maybe suppress the symptoms.
Substances like honey and mint oil help soothe your throat.
Some vitamins are necessary for the functioning of your immune system, and supplementing may help – especially if you’re one of the many people suffering from mild vitamin deficiencies.
The average person doesn’t need to know that much about medicine; you go to the doctor if you’re sick and the doctor tells you which medication to take. However, your doctor often isn’t involved when you visit the pharmacy to buy an over-the-counter cough remedy, so the average person probably should know a little about these – especially when some remedies don’t work and some of them do.
Decongestants
You will commonly encounter cough and cold remedies containing phenylephrine, which is sold as a decongestant. Unfortunately, phenylephrine doesn’t actually work.
In some countries, you will be able to get pseudoephedrine by asking the pharmacist nicely; it won’t be available on the shelves but is available behind the counter. In the UK you can find it sold as ‘Day Nurse’. Frequently it will be mixed with high doses of paracetamol; this is partly because paracetamol is genuinely helpful in reducing pain and fever, and partly to ensure that you die of a paracetamol overdose if you try to take enough to get high off the pseudoephedrine. (Yes, the war on drugs is that counterproductive.)
In other countries, you can’t get pseudoephedrine at all, and you will just have to try regularly blowing your nose and staying hydrated.
The other common decongestant you will encounter is oxymetazoline or xylometazoline, which you’ll find under brand names like Otrivine. This should ideally be sprayed up the nose. These work within minutes to help clear your airways, because they’re “sympathomimetic” or “adrenergic” – that’s a fancy way of saying that they mimic hormones like adrenaline. Your body responds by constricting veins in your nose, which reduces swelling and opens up airways. Unfortunately, they can cause “rebound congestion” – after they wear off, the congestion can come back and sometimes it’s even worse than before (though evidence is mixed about whether the meds are at fault). The leaflets will warn you strictly not to take these for more than a few days. This is because they don’t want a situation where you take the medicine, then get rebound congestion, which makes you take more medicine, which makes you get more rebound congestion, and eventually you end up in the doctor’s office being told that your awful symptoms will go away if you stop constantly spraying adrenaline up your nose.
Follow all the instructions on the leaflets and labels and listen to whatever your pharmacist tells you. I’m not a doctor, so you should listen to doctors about whether these medicines are safe for you. Some medicines really shouldn’t be taken with MAOIs, or if you have high blood pressure or heart problems, or for whatever reason some of them are bad for you if you’ve got an enlarged prostate – don’t ask me, biology is bullshit.
Expectorants vs antitussives
You don’t take expectorants because you want to stop coughing. You take them because there’s thick sticky mucus in your lungs and throat, and it’s really uncomfortable and you’re trying to cough it up, but you just can’t seem to shake it loose. In other words, you want a ‘productive’ cough – a cough that actually gets the icky stuff out of your system. Once the mucus is out, you’ll stop needing to cough, so you’ll stop coughing so much.
That’s almost the opposite of what an antitussive does. An antitussive suppresses the urge to cough. It’s useful if there’s not really any mucus blocking anything, and you’re having an ‘unproductive’ cough – you’re not actually coughing anything up. Your cough reflex is just repeatedly being triggered by irritation at the back of the throat. If you keep coughing and coughing when you don’t need to, you’ll damage your throat – so you want to tell your body to please for the love of god stop triggering that reflex that isn’t achieving anything.
It’s really useful to identify which kind of cough you have, and then take the relevant medicine to actually help with the symptoms you want help with. If you’ve got a dry tickly cough, an expectorant won’t help.
If you’re looking for an expectorant, look for anything with the active ingredient “guaifenesin”. You can use cheap generic versions; so long as they contain “guaifenesin” they’ll work just as well as the expensive brand-name stuff. Guaifenesin is kind of hard to study, because it’s hard to measure that sensation of “oh thank god the sticky stuff that wasn’t coming out is finally coming out”, but patients usually say they’re satisfied.
There’s other expectorants. Acetylcysteine, which is mainly used to treat paracetamol overdose, might also work as an expectorant. Mucokinetics like carbocisteine or bromhexine thin mucus and reduce its viscosity. Ambroxol works on the mucus membranes to try and restore the body’s natural mucus-clearing mechanisms, including making an ‘anti-glue’ chemical that helps mucus stop sticking to the bronchial wall and possibly helping cilia (tiny hairs) to push mucus out. However, I’ve never seen any of these three actually on shelves, so you should probably look for guaifenesin.
It’s important to note that expectorants try to thin mucus by adding more water to the mucus so it’s easier to cough it up and out. This means you need to be hydrated. In fact, your first line of defence is drinking lots and lots of fluids, and if that didn’t work you should try guaifenesin. If you don’t drink enough while you’re taking lots of guaifenesin, you might get a kidney stone or something.
If you’re looking for an antitussive, look for anything with the active ingredient “pholcodine” or “dextromethorphan”. Codeine used to be prescribed as an antitussive, but NICE says it isn’t better than placebo whereas dextromethorphan probably works (both NICE and the Cochraine Review say that the evidence is mixed). Pholcodine is probably a little better, but not by much, and you can’t get it everywhere because it’s technically an opioid.
Again, listen to your doctor or pharmacist about whether you should combine these medicines with your existing health conditions and/or other medications.
Antihistamines
Antihistamines are definitely good at what they do, which is suppress histamine. Histamine is a chemical that your immune system makes when it detects a threat; it makes your eyes water and your nose run, and it makes you sneeze. That’s your body’s attempt to flush the threat out of your system – wash it out of your eyes and blow it out of your nose.
Allergic reactions happen when your body panics about something which isn’t actually a threat – like pollen – and you get all those symptoms even though they aren’t helpful. Antihistamines are fantastic as a treatment for allergic reactions. They make your immune system calm down about not-actually-threatening substances like pollen, which causes hayfever. They’re also used to literally save lives when people have acute allergic reactions in hospitals. They work.
Sometimes, cough and cold symptoms look a lot like allergy symptoms – red eyes, running nose, sneezing – so it makes sense that people tried antihistamines. Unfortunately it turns out that your body freaking out about pollen is a different thing from your body fighting an actual infection, and the evidence is pretty mixed. NICE says antihistamines don’t work for coughs and colds. Some overviews agree they aren’t effective. The Cochrane Review says they have some limited effectiveness in the short term (one or two days of treatment). Most sources suggest that antihistamines aren’t worth it in children, given the side effects and the mixed/limited evidence of efficacy, but adults might as well give it a go if they aren’t bothered by the side effects.
If you want an antihistamine, you’re looking for active ingredients like diphenhydramine, loratadine, cetirizine or promethazine. Again, anything with those active ingredients will work, and brand-name medications aren’t better than cheap generic ones.
You can now buy cough syrups where the “active ingredient” is listed on the bottle as “glycerol”, presumably because consumers would not buy cough syrup if they marketed it as “literally just syrup LMAO, it turns out that active ingredients are an expensive waste of time”. I think this is definitely on my list of top 10 funniest facts in medicine.
There’s several reasons this works. Firstly, glycerol is a humectant, which means it attracts and absorbs water. You can use it to lubricate things or make them softer. It’s basically like applying moisturiser to the inside of your throat.
Secondly, honey has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties and is basically some kind of magic that I don’t understand.
Thirdly, sweet tastes by themselves may suppress coughs – and mint might do the same thing. This is the reason why menthol or levomenthol can work, too. (Menthol or levomenthol is just a fancy word for mint oil. It’s commonly the active ingredient in medicines that you rub on your chest so that you’ll inhale the vapours.)
It turns out that your body can only really process a certain number of sensations at a time in the throat. There are cells in your throat that sometimes detect “oh no, an irritant!” and send a message to your brain saying that you need to cough to get rid of the irritant. Those cells can’t send that message if they’re busy sending messages like “SUGAR SUGAR WE LOVE SUGAR” or “ALERT! THIS MINT FLAVOUR IS REALLY COLD!” – and so you can suppress the cough reflex byliterally just washing your mouth with sugar. If you inhale capsaicin, that’s an irritant, so you’ll cough – but if you firstly inhale mint vapour, it takes a lot more capsaicin to make you cough.
Don’t give honey to infants under 12 months old, because they can get botulism. Everyone else should literally just drink honey-and-lemon or glycerol syrup; it’s cheaper than cough medicine and works better.
Day vs night medications
Some medicines are marketed with different versions for ‘day’ and ‘night’. For example, in the UK we have ‘Day Nurse’ and ‘Night Nurse’.
The primary reason for this is that antihistamines make you drowsy, while most decongestants are also stimulants. You therefore don’t want to take pseudoephedrine if you’re trying to sleep, and don’t want to take antihistamines if you’re trying to get work done.
Look at the active ingredients of the medicine and decide whether you want it. It may not be worthwhile to take antihistamines if they make you drowsy, given the limited evidence base for efficacy – but if you want some help to fall asleep and you know they make you sleepy, I guess you should go ahead, since all the good actually-designed-to-make-you-sleep medicines are generally prescription-only. Not all decongestants will actually say on the packaging that they’re stimulants, but they are, so be aware of that when you are making informed choices about whether to take them in the evening.
Do not take antibiotics for the common cold. You will be contributing to antibiotic resistance, which kills people, and you will not get any better. The common cold is usually caused by a virus, so antibiotics won’t do anything at all.
Heroin was once marketed as a cough suppressant. It was supposed to be a safer alternative to all those terrible cough suppressants that have opiates or morphine in. It turns out that heroin is actually not a nice safe non-addictive alternative. Please do not treat your common cold with heroin.
Conclusion
If you go to the pharmacy to get a remedy for the common cold, and you grab a random medicine off the shelf, the likelihood is high that you will pick up a substance that has not been consistently shown to work better than placebo. It is very easy to waste your money on medicines which add fancy active ingredients to sugar syrups but which don’t actually work any better than just drinking the sugar syrup. And if you don’t know the difference between an expectorant and an antitussive, you might pick up a medicine which isn’t right for the kind of cough you have.
Supplementing vitamins C and D might help prevent the common cold, and taking zinc might help shorten its duration. Staying well-hydrated will help with your symptoms. Drinking honey-and-lemon or glycerol syrup will help. If honey and lemon proves insufficient, reach for pseudoephedrine if your nose is blocked or you have a sinus headache, paracetamol if you’re experiencing pain and fever, guaifenesin if you want to cough up more mucus, or pholcodine or dextromethorphan if you’d like to suppress a cough. Antihistamines may be worth a shot if you’re sneezing lots or have red runny eyes. If you want your nose to unblock right now and don’t mind the chance of a rebound later, use a nasal spray containing oxymetazoline or xylometazoline. I have listed the active ingredients here; anything containing those active ingredients will work, and generic medications will work just as well as brand-name products.
Do not, under any circumstances, take antibiotics and/or heroin for your common cold. I am not a doctor. Don’t take anything which your doctor or pharmacist tells you not to take. Strongly consider wearing a face mask when you are indoors with other people, especially in poorly ventilated areas.
D&D 5th edition is a system I’ve thought a lot about modifying and adjusting. It is so popular that switching some player groups over to another system can be difficult – people will keep asking whether they can roll to seduce the dragon, even when your new system has neither Charisma rolls nor dragons – but there are aspects of it that are unsatisfying, and so the solution I’ve found has been to stick with the six-attributes-and-a-d20 system and simply rework everything I don’t like.
One of the things that frustrates me is 5e’s weapon system, because it is so close to making a beautiful kind of logical sense…. and then it just doesn’t.
Light
One-Handed
Versatile
Two-Handed
Simple
1d4 (daggers, clubs, sickles)
1d6 (javelins, maces)
1d6 / 1d8 (spears, quarterstaffs)
1d8 (greatclub, light crossbow)
Martial
1d6 (scimitars, shortswords, hand crossbows)
1d8 (flails, morningstars, rapiers)
1d8 / 1d10 (battleaxe, longsword, warhammer)
1d10 (pike, halberd, glaive, heavy crossbow)
This table tells you the damage dice for most weapons in 5e. Compared to the big list of weapons in the Player’s Handbook, this seems pretty simple!
The logic behind it is obvious enough. There’s a hierarchy of damage die; d4 < d6 < d8 < d10 < d12. Two-handed martial weapons have the big d10 die. If you want a shield, you’ll need a one-handed weapon, so go down one step to d8. If you want to dual-wield, you’ll need a light weapon, so go down two steps to d6. Reduce everything by one step if you’re using a simple weapon, since those weapons are designed to be used by spellcasters and supports who can’t use martial weapons.
You get a d8! And you get a d8! Everyone gets a d8!
The way this works out, in practice, is that everyone deals 1d8 (plus modifier) by default.
Classes that are designed to be able to wade into melee – fighters, paladins, rangers, barbarians – can have a shield and a 1d8 weapon. If they want to deal more damage, they can give up the shield and get a two-handed weapon, or they can dual-wield. Either way, they’ll deal 2d6 (dual-wielding, greatsword) or 1d12 (greataxe).
Classes that want to hang back from the fight – wizards, warlocks, sorcerers – can shoot people with a 1d8 light crossbow. Typically the other option is to shoot with a 1d10 cantrip like fire bolt or eldritch blast, so they aren’t likely to be using that crossbow unless they have high enough Dexterity to make the damage bonus attractive (remember you can’t add modifiers to spell damage unless the spell says you can). If you have to go into melee as a wizard, your best option is to dual-wield daggers for 2d4 damage… or attack with a dagger for 1d4 and use your bonus action to misty step back into the backline.
(As an aside, the balancing here is actually quite smart; martial classes tend to require multiple attributes so they deal 1d8 plus modifier, while spellcasters are often single-attribute so they get 1d10 without modifiers. Spellcasters’ cantrips would outdamage martial classes’ attacks a lot if cantrips dealt 1d8 and you could add on your wizard’s +5 INT mod!)
Then there’s bards and rogues. Bards and rogues have options. They can deal 1d10 damage wielding a longsword two-handed, but they typically don’t have great Strength and are a bit too squishy to love being in melee. They can deal 1d8 damage with a light crossbow or a rapier. Or they can dual-wield and deal 2d6 with shortswords, but that comes with a downside; dual-wielding uses up your bonus action. Because rogues and bards frequently have other valuable uses for a bonus action, they’re the only classes you’ll typically see wielding one-handed d8 swords despite not being able to use shields.
And finally, we’ve got the only classes with a reason to deal 1d6 rather than 1d8; clerics, druids and monks. These classes would be a bit too powerful if they could use martial weapons, so the game limits them to simple weapons. Clerics like to be in melee so they can heal their frontline allies, so they use a shield in one hand and a one-handed simple weapon (a d6 weapon) in the other. Druids like to be in melee so they can transform into bears and eat people, so they also like having a shield and a d6 weapon.
Meanwhile, monks are limited to d6 weapons because they’re the only class that can deal a damage modifier twice. Usually, when someone dual wields, they only get to add their Strength or Dexterity modifier to one of their two attacks – so they deal 2d6+STR or 2d6+DEX, the same as a two-handed greatsword. Monks can make an extra attack with their bonus action which does add their modifier, so they deal 1d6+DEX with their first attack and 1d4+DEX with their second attack. If we assume a monk has DEX +2, then the monk deals 10 damage on average (3.5 + 2 + 2.5 + 2) – while a fighter with a greatsword (7 damage on average) needs STR +3 to do the same. (That’s fine, since monks require three attributes – dexterity, wisdom and constitution – while fighters can focus on maximising two).
All of this seems logical. Basically everyone gets 1d8 weapons. Fighting classes can go up to 2d6 if they dual-wield or use two-handed weapons, meaning they give up a bonus action and/or a shield. Spellcasters can use their 1d10 cantrips, which are roughly equivalent. If your class ‘breaks the rules’ – clerics and druids by letting spellcasters use shields, or monks by getting their modifier added to their bonus-action attack – then you’ll have to settle for a 1d6 weapon. Simple.
Except it isn’t.
But what about finesse?
If we use this simple table, finesse doesn’t actually change damage. Rogues precisely stab your weakpoints with a 1d8 rapier while fighters hammer down your defences with a 1d8 flail, but the only difference is flavour. Light simple weapons deal 1d4 whether they’re strength-based (clubs, sickles) or dexterity-based (daggers). Two-handed simple weapons deal 1d8 whether they’re strength-based (greatclubs) or dexterity-based (light crossbows). One-handed martial weapons deal 1d8 whether they’re dexterity-based (rapier) or strength-based (flail, morningstar, war pick). They’re the same.
So why not always wield dexterity-based weapons? After all, Dexterity is a better attribute than Strength generally; it’s used in more skills and saving throws. If you intend to fight with any of the above categories of weapon, you definitely should fight with dexterity-based weapons and use Strength as a dump stat.
Well, there’s two categories of weapons where dexterity weapons don’t exist.
Firstly, the super-heavy-hitters. There’s two-handed dexterity-based weapons which deal just as much damage as their strength-based counterparts – the d8 light crossbow, which deals just as much damage as the d8 greatclub, and the d10 heavy crossbow, which deals just as much damage as a glaive or halberd – but to go above a d10 you’ll need to look at the strength-based greataxe, lance, greatsword or maul.
Those weapons are Strength-based because fighters, paladins, rangers and barbarians would be a little too strong if they were able to use Dexterity to dish out that damage. Currently they need to choose between using those heavy-hitter weapons or having a high Armour Class with a shield. Dexterity can raise Armour Class enough to remove the need for a shield, and we don’t want characters to be able to have a high Armour Class and use a heavy-hitter weapon simultaneously. (Since rogues aren’t proficient in those weapons, it’s a moot point whether rogues with greatswords would be too strong.)
Secondly, the one-handed simple melee weapons which deal d6. There’s no finesse version of these weapons, even though there’s a finesse version of the one-handed martial melee weapons which all deal d8. That’s weird, we might think. Why can’t there be a 1d6 simple melee finesse weapon? It’s extra weird because druids, monks and bards can all use shortswords (1d6 martial finesse weapons) despite mostly being restricted to simple weapons. In fact, only warlocks and clerics are affected by this, since only warlocks and clerics are restricted to ‘simple weapons’ – and warlocks will be typically using 1d8 light crossbows or 1d8 pact-weapon rapiers anyway, so it’s really just clerics. (Wizards and sorcerers have a specific list of proficiencies, and can’t use all simple weapons.)
Essentially, this restriction exists purely to encourage Clerics to use Strength and not Dexterity. That’s…. all it does. Clerics don’t have access to martial weapons, and they don’t like dual-wielding because they need their shields to stride into melee and need their bonus actions to cast spiritual weapon. (If they did give up their shields and bonus actions to dual-wield, they could do 2d4 with two daggers, which is a slight buff – 5 average damage rather than 3.5 – over their one-handed d6 weapon.)
And that’s fair, because Clerics would be a little too strong if they could use Dexterity. They’re already full casters who can wear armour and use shields – they don’t need to also be allowed to dump-stat Strength! I mainly object to this because this system is messy. It seems elegant at first when you encounter the categories of simple weapons, that anyone can use, and martial weapons, which are only for the heavy-hitter classes. But then so many exceptions are carved out that we’re left with a system in which exactly one class is affected by banning finesse d6 simple weapons. Wizards and sorcerers couldn’t use such a weapon anyway, because they’ve got their own special weapon lists, and bards and monks get an exception that lets them use shortswords despite shortswords being martial weapons. Even rogues are restricted to simple weapons in theory – but with exceptions for rapiers, hand crossbows, shortswords and longswords.
And what about the weapons that don’t fit into this system?
There’s a number of weapons that don’t fit neatly into this system. Read on…
Let’s start with the heavy-hitters.
Firstly, let’s look at the two-handed melee weapons. On our table, we’d expect these to be 1d10 weapons – and some of them are! But there’s also the greatsword and maul, which deal 2d6, and the greataxe, which deals 1d12. What gives?
It looks like the system puts the damage die of a weapon up by one step – from d10 to d12 – if it’s a heavy weapon. Then, since 1d12 and 2d6 are close to equivalent, the system gives us both options.
The system also takes the damage die of a weapon down by one step if it’s a reach weapon. Reach is a buff that lets you attack from further away with your weapon, so it makes sense that those weapons shouldn’t do as much damage. So that’s actually why the pike, halberd and glaive deal 1d10 damage; heavy would take them up to d12, but reach takes them back down to d10.
What does “heavy” do, exactly? You’d think that maybe these weapons have some drawback to balance out the fact that they deal more damage. Nope. Heavy just means Small creatures can’t use the weapon, so you can’t have a tiny halfling barbarian dishing out massive damage with a greatsword. Being Small doesn’t get you anything, either – you don’t get any increase in speed, or any boost to Armour Class for being smaller and harder to hit. I suppose the designers might have done this for realism, but greatclubs (the d8 simple two-handed weapon) are perfectly usable even if you’re a tiny Fairy, so I doubt it. Small races do get some great features (like gnomes’ magic resistance, kobolds’ pack tactics and halflings’ Lucky), but it doesn’t make sense for this to be balance-related since it only really affects four classes.
(There’s no 1d10 martial two-handed weapons that aren’t heavy, but you can easily use a versatile weapon that deals 1d10 when used two-handed, so it’s not much of an oversight.)
Still, I think the “heavy” quality sucks. There’s no reason to put it on the heavy crossbow, which deals a standard 1d10 as a two-handed martial weapon. If you’re going for realism, the greatclub ought to have the quality.
It’s great that these weapons exist. It means that there’s two equivalent options for fighters ditching a shield and using two hands for weaponry – they can have a single 2d6 two-handed weapon or two 1d6 weapons. The 1d12 option is fun for barbarians, half-orcs and champions who want lots of crits. The classes that can use these weapons – rangers, barbarians, paladins and fighters – don’t have a lot of fun options except for hitting enemies really hard with swords, so it’s good to give them an option that lets them hit enemies really hard with really big swords. It just feels messy that we’re distinguishing them using the heavy category.
Let’s put this another way. A huge number of GMs are allowing Tasha’s variant rule on ability scores, which lets people put racial ability bonuses wherever they like – so instead of a mountain dwarf receiving +2 Strength and +2 Constitution, you can put +2 on whatever you like – because they think people should be free to execute whatever character concept they like. Personally, I don’t use Tasha’s variant, because the non-variant ruleset doesn’t say that you can’t make a dwarven wizard – just that you can’t have all the benefits of a dwarven wizard (like casting in medium armour) and get a +2 INT.
The heavy weapons rule is far more restrictive. It says you cannot make a Small character if you want to wield any of the heaviest-hitting weapons in the game. Small characters can still deal 2d6 by dual-wielding, and they can still deal d8 and carry a shield, but if they fight with a two-handed weapon then they’re limited to d10 and can’t use d12. Worse, all the reach weapons are Heavy except the whip. Reach weapons are a fundamental part of tank builds in D&D, since tanking in D&D is all based on the ‘opportunity attack’ mechanic and tank builds frequently feature Polearm Master or Sentinel. The heavy weapons rule says that Small characters can’t be tanks, at all, or you face disadvantage on every attack. That’s a far, far worse penalty than dwarf wizards not getting to add +2 to INT.
What about ranged weapons?
So far, we’ve mostly talked about crossbows. Crossbows deal the same damage as equivalent melee weapons – 1d6 for the hand crossbow and the scimitar, 1d8 for the greatclub or the light crossbow, and 1d10 for the heavy crossbow or the pike. This reflects the basic underlying Keep It Simple Stupid philosophy of 5e. When everyone basically deals 1d8 – whether they’re a rogue with a rapier, a wizard with a crossbow, or a fighter with a longsword and a shield – it’s easier to balance classes, and you can easily prevent people trying to hack the rules to get unexpectedly large amounts of damage.
You can see that same Keep It Simple Stupid philosophy in what happens at level 5. At level 5, casters’ cantrips improve, so fire bolt now deals 2d10 rather than 1d10 damage. At the same time, martial classes get Extra Attack, so your longsword-and-shield guy now deals 2d8 plus modifiers rather than 1d8 plus modifiers. The maths for everyone stays basically the same. (The exception is Rogue, where your extra damage comes from Sneak Attack rather than Extra Attack).
Arguably, ranged attacks are better than melee attacks. You can hit flying targets, you can keep yourself at a safe distance from melee enemies, you don’t have to chase after enemies that are running faster than you. But that’s mostly balanced out by the disadvantages of the ranged classes – warlocks, wizards and sorcerers are pretty squishy – so the game doesn’t need ranged weapons to be any weaker.
However, sometimes people do things you don’t expect. While paladins and barbarians give up their class features (smite and rage damage) if they fight from range, they can use ranged weapons. Fighters and rangers can use ranged weapons without any penalty, and that’s an issue. A fighter who focuses on ranged weapons could just maximise their Dexterity and dump their Strength, so if we allowed Extra Attack to work with heavy crossbows, we’d have a ranged character who outdamages the cantrip casters (dealing 2d10 and getting to add their modifier twice) without any of the ranged classes’ downsides – and they’d still hold their own in melee with a rapier and a shield.
That’s overpowered, so we introduce bows. Crossbows get a loading feature, which means they don’t work with Extra Attack. Bows work with Extra Attack, but their damage die is one step smaller. Simple weapons have the 1d6 shortbow instead of the 1d8 light crossbow, and martial weapons have the 1d8 longbow instead of the 1d10 heavy crossbow.
Some people conceptualise this by saying that weapons with the ‘ranged’ quality go down one damage die, and weapons with the ‘loading’ quality go up one. That explains slings and darts, which are 1d4 rather than 1d6, but I honestly can’t think of a reason why anyone would use a sling or dart; you don’t need one-handed ranged weapons because the only reason to use a one-handed weapon is when you’re also using a shield. (The exception is druids, who can’t use bows and prefer slings anyway thanks to magic stone.) And the thrown weapons are inconsistent – spears and javelins get the same damage as their non-thrown counterparts, whereas darts and tridents have a one step smaller die.
I do like how the crossbows and longbows work. Crossbows are slow-loading weapons that it’s easy for civilians to use – that feels right! It’s balanced while also feeling realistic.
What are the other exceptions?
Handaxes should do d4 damage – they’re simple light weapons – but they deal d6. Light hammers, clubs, sickles and daggers all deal d4. What gives? I honestly don’t know. Druids, wizards, warlocks and sorcerers can’t use them. Martial classes, bards and rogues can use d6 martial light weapons. So the only affected classes are… clerics and warlocks. Clerics don’t want to dual-wield (their bonus actions and shields are too valuable) so this is just…. a weapon so that warlocks can dual-wield for 2d6? But then why not give warlocks access to shortswords, since monks and bards both get that? WHY?
Whips should deal d6 damage. Like rapiers, they’re one-handed martial finesse weapons. We previously established that the reach property reduces the damage die by one step, so whips should deal 1d6 if rapiers deal 1d8. In the book, they deal 1d4, so nobody uses them; bringing them up to 1d6 means there’s actually an interesting choice between the whip and the rapier. (We probably still shouldn’t let rogues use them; a swashbuckler rogue with Sentinel and a whip getting to sneak attack on opportunity attacks seems… unnecessary.)
There’s no 1d6 martial thrown weapon. We could bring handaxes into the martial category to fix this, but it might be cooler to introduce a shuriken. And make it a rogue weapon. That’s fun.
Darts should be light weapons. That brings them in line with the other 1d4 simple weapons, and it also just makes sense. Darts are tiny. If I can wield a dagger in each hand, I can wield a dart in each hand.
Tridents should be reach weapons. It fills a niche that doesn’t exist – there are 1d10 heavy reach weapons, but no 1d8 reach weapons for Small characters. And it explains why they deal only 1d6 / 1d8, the same as their non-martial counterparts (spears and quarterstaffs).
Lances are special. They are great ranged weapons, since they can be used one-handed with a shield when mounted, but they’re terrible when anything comes within 5 feet. That disadvantage works out as 1d12 damage. Seems fair enough. Nets do zero damage; also seems fair enough.
Blowguns are odd. They deal just 1 damage. Why would a martial character ever bother with a blowgun when they could use a heavy crossbow? I suspect the answer lies in the blowgun’s cost and weight; they’re weapons you can buy cheap and smuggle. It’s not a damage-dealing weapon, it’s purely a poison delivery mechanism. Still, I’d bump them up to 1d4 damage or make them simple weapons.
There’s no simple equivalent to the rapier. A simple finesse melee weapon that deals 1d6 damage just… doesn’t exist. We covered this earlier when we discussed how it would be too strong for Clerics.
Also, this isn’t a rule exception, but I think hand crossbows being light is stupid. That implies you can have two crossbows, one in each hand. Which hand is doing the reloading if both hands are holding crossbows? Just make it a weapon you can fire multiple times!
Some of these exceptions make sense. Others… don’t.
Okay. There’s a lot of exceptions there. But at least this is all designed so that the class weapon lists, and the simple/martial system, will make sense – right? Right?
Ahahahahaha.
Here’s how weapon proficiency works in 5e.
Full martial classes – rangers, barbarians, paladins and fighters – get access to all the weapons in the game.
Rogues can use all the simple weapons plus hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers and shortswords. There’s no actual reason rogues shouldn’t be allowed to use flails, morningstars or war picks; those weapons have the same properties as the rapier except they’re Strength-based and therefore worse for the rogue. They’re also allowed to use longswords but not battleaxes or warhammers, despite those weapons having identical properties. Pretty much every rogue goes for a rapier, since rogues don’t want to spend their bonus actions on dual-wielding. The only bit that makes sense here is that rogues are banned from using martial two-handed weapons, capping them at d8 damage if they want to avoid dual-wielding; otherwise they’d be dishing out far too much damage when you add in sneak attack.
Bards also have useful bonus actions, so it makes some sense that they have the same weapon list as rogues. They can deal 2d6 with dual-wielding if they want to give up their useful bonus actions, and otherwise they’re capped at 1d8 with a rapier or a light crossbow.
Clerics and warlocks can use all the simple weapons. (Artificers are also in this category, but we’re avoiding discussing artificers for this entire article because their magic weapons make things complicated.)
Monks are proficient in simple weapons and shortswords, but their Martial Arts only works with simple melee weapons that don’t have the two-handed or heavy properties. So… they can use a 1d8 versatile quarterstaff just fine, but a 1d8 two-handed greatclub is out of the question? Monks don’t use shields thanks to Unarmored Defence, so why not allow them to pick between a quarterstaff and a flail or morningstar – which are all just 1d8 weapons to a monk? The rule might be there, I suppose, just in case future books released any simple heavy weapons – like a 1d6 simple two-handed reach weapon, or a 1d10 simple heavy weapon. With the current weapon list it feels messy.
Wizards and sorcerers have the most restrictive weapon list in the game. They can use daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs or light crossbows. Does this one at least make sense? Uh… nope. If wizards could pick any weapon from the simple weapons list, their best options would be daggers (to dual-wield for 2d4 plus dexterity), quarterstaffs (for a 1d8 melee weapon) and light crossbows (for a 1d8 ranged weapon). They don’t get Extra Attack so they have no reason to use shortbows. They may as well be able to use greatclubs and spears, since they can deal 1d8 damage with a quarterstaff anyway. I suppose if we invented our hypothetical d6 simple melee finesse weapon, wizards might like to use it – but it doesn’t exist right now, so why not just let wizards use all simple weapons?
And then there’s druids. Druids can use clubs, daggers, darts, javelins, maces, quarterstaffs, scimitars, sickles, slings and spears. This is a fancy way of saying that druids can use any simple weapon except light hammers (which they are inexplicably banned from), handaxes (which we discussed a fix to earlier), greatclubs (which doesn’t make any sense when druids can use the mechanically-equivalent quarterstaffs), shortbows and crossbows (which are worse options for them than slings anyway assuming they take magic stone). There’s really no reason druids need to be banned from archery; they already have the option of dealing 1d6 plus spellcasting modifier with a sling thanks to magic stone, so let them use a 1d6 bow to avoid a cantrip tax at the cost of attacking with a likely weaker ability score.
Yeah, wouldn’t it be lovely if there was a simple system – like ‘simple’ and ‘martial’ weapons – that told you who was allowed to use each kind of weapon?
Why are you analyzing all this stuff about damage die? Those restrictions are for flavour!
This gets into one of my most strongly held opinions about game design. Game designers’ opinions on mechanics can be rules. Game designers’ opinions on flavour should be suggestions.
Obviously, as DM, I’m God. If I say that longswords deal 2d20 damage at my table, then longswords deal 2d20 damage at my table. However, my players have a reasonable expectation that I’m going to stick to the numbers listed in the book, and they could reasonably protest that it’s bullshit if they discover this change when an enemy hits them with a longsword and one-shots them. If I go screwing around with these numbers without thoroughly understanding them first, I could mess with the balance of the game. So most of the time, I’m not going to edit the game’s mechanics. I’m going to trust the game designer.
I don’t have nearly that amount of respect for the flavour and fluff that game designers include. If I want all longswords in my game to be bright green and forged from a shimmering substance derived from dragon scales because steel doesn’t exist in my universe, then that’s fine. I’m not going to break anything, I’m going to have fun. Clearly the designers of D&D think that it’s cool for druids to be wilderness-themed – so they shouldn’t use hammers or shortswords, and should instead use clubs and scimitars. Sometimes I agree that that’s cool, and I want to make exactly the rock-slinging bear-transforming nature-protecting wild guy that the designers intended. Other times I want to be a little subversive and play an urban druid who’s deeply in tune with the rhythms of the trains and the airship traffic, friends with all the city’s rats, perfectly at home in the sewer, and volunteers constructing homes in the city’s slums – so I want a hammer please and thank you!
Good game design should help the DM know how to handle these requests. If a druid wants to use a light hammer, let them; there was never any mechanical reason that those were banned in the first place. That was just the game designer’s opinion on the flavour of weapons that suits a druid. If a rogue wants to use a greatsword as a finesse weapon, do not under any circumstances let them do that; it will break the game and your fighter will complain that they feel useless when the rogue is constantly both outdamaging them and outmanoeuvring them. The game designer banned rogues from dealing 2d6 without spending their bonus action for very good reasons, which you might not have thought through if you haven’t considered how rogues’ action economy works.
In my ideal world, the rules would be as permissive as possible within the limits of balancing. If it isn’t unbalanced for druids to use light hammers or shortbows, let them use them! Then suggest that they don’t do that because it doesn’t fit the intended druid theme. D&D already has a great way of leaving suggestions about equipment; starting equipment. Druids can have “(a) a wooden shield or (b) any simple weapon” and “(a) a scimitar or (b) any simple weapon” and leather armour. That’s the game suggesting to beginners that they take a scimitar and a shield, but leaving it up to the player. That text could be modified to give druids “(a) a scimitar and a wooden shield or (b) a sling and a club or (c) any two simple weapons”. That communicates the Tarzan flavour a druid can opt for, without constraining player choice.
Summarising current class limits
Multiattack
DEX weapon
STR weapon
DEX two handed
STR, two handed
Wizard, sorcerer
d4
d4
d6
d8
d8
Cleric, warlock
d4 / d6*
d4
d6
d8
d8
Druid
d6
d6
d6
d6
d8
Monk
d6
d6
d6
d8
d8
Bard, rogue
d6
d8
d8
d8
d10
Full martials
d6
d8
d8
d10
d10, d12 or 2d6
*d4 with Dexterity and d6 with Strength
Well, here it is. The table we’ve basically been working towards. The actual effect of the various proficiency lists and weapon categorizations. This is the maximum damage die that, RAW, each class can get for each type of situation.
Multiattack means light melee weapons, or ranged weapons that aren’t loading. It’s basically d6 for everyone, because the classes that get simple weapons have exceptions that let them use shortswords or scimitars, and handaxes are simple weapons anyway. Druids can’t use bows, but they can turn their slings into 1d6 weapons with a cantrip. It’ll never be above d6 because the game doesn’t want to let you deal above 2d6 damage by dual wielding. Wizards and sorcerers get d4, and clerics or warlocks who want to use DEX weapons get d4 since their ‘simple weapons only’ restricts them to handaxes (which aren’t finesse).
Melee dexterity weapons (finesse weapons) are really useful, since most classes dump Strength and would prefer to use Dexterity. That’s why wizards, sorcerers, clerics and warlocks – the casters who aren’t supposed to be dealing damage with weapons – are limited to d4 damage with those, since there’s no finesse d6 simple weapon and they can’t use rapiers. Monks and druids are allowed d6 with shortswords and scimitars, and bards and rogues can use rapiers for d8. This might seem a little generous to the bard, who is after all a full caster like the cleric or wizard, but bards are designed to play like an ‘all-rounder’ class; they don’t get damage cantrips apart from thunderclap and vicious mockery. If anything, bards should get access to more interesting weapons (whips perhaps?) so that low-level bards don’t feel so pressured to cast vicious mockery every single turn in combat.
The one-handed strength-only weapons are only useful to classes that carry shields. If you’re using Strength and not carrying a shield you prefer a two-handed weapon, and if you’re able to use a Dexterity weapon then most characters prefer to do that. Full martial classes – fighters, paladins, rangers and barbarians – get 1d8 with these because the game doesn’t let anyone go above 1d8 with a one-handed weapon. The only other class interested in these (setting aside the hypothetical of a Monk or Druid who’s invested in a high Strength score for no reason at all) is the cleric. Clerics aren’t allowed to have great melee weapon damage because they already do quite enough as armoured full-casters.
Basically every class except the druid gets a great two-handed ranged weapon (two-handed finesse weapons don’t exist). Wizards, sorcerers, clerics and warlocks can use light crossbows, which compete against their cantrips in a fairly balanced way (the crossbows are sometimes preferable, depending on DEX score, until cantrip improvements at level 5). Monks can use light crossbows – they just don’t get their Martial Arts with them. Bards and rogues also get light crossbows. Since none of those folks get extra attacks, nobody has a reason to use a shortbow. Druids’ ranged options are generally limited to help balance the class; their best options are the magic stone sling, produce flame, frostbite or create bonfire – all dealing 1d6 (except for produce flame, which deals d8 but is limited to 30 feet). The full martials can all use the 1d10 heavy crossbow until 5th level, when they get Extra Attack and prefer two longbow shots for 2d8.
And then finally there’s our two-handed strength weapons. Almost everyone gets d8 for these because honestly, if you’re going to use the worst attribute in the game and also use both hands, you ought to be rewarded with a chunky damage die. Rogues and bards can go up to 1d10, but basically never use that option since a 1d8 rapier is better when all your class skills work off Dexterity. And then the full martials, of course, get options like greatswords and greataxes because those options give non-spellcasters the commiseration prize of being able to cast I Have A Really Big Sword.
A first attempt at a simpler system
Light
Standard
Two-Handed Melee
Civilian weapons
1d4
1d6
1d8
Adventurer weapons
1d6
1d8
1d10
Warriors’ weapons
Special
Special
Special
Civilian weapons are weapons that anybody can use. Civilian weapons deal 1d6 damage unless they’re light, in which case they deal 1d4, or they’re two-handed melee weapons, in which case they deal 1d8. Versatile weapons deal d6 one-handed or d8 two-handed.
Adventurer weapons need some training to use. Adventurer weapons deal 1d8 damage unless they’re light, in which case they deal 1d6, or they’re two-handed melee weapons, in which case they deal 1d10. Versatile weapons deal d8 one-handed or d10 two-handed.
Only experienced or highly trained soldiers can use warriors’ weapons. Warriors’ weapons either have a larger damage die or have some special quality, like being a reach weapon. Fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins are the only classes proficient in warriors’ weapons.
Light weapons are easier to handle. You cannot dual-wield a melee weapon unless it has the light property. You cannot make multiple attacks during one turn with a ranged weapon, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make, unless it has the light property.
Two-handed melee weapons take two hands to wield, so they can deal more damage. They can only be wielded with Strength. Versatile melee weapons must be wielded with Strength in order to gain increased damage from wielding them two-handed.
All one-handed melee weapons can be wielded with Strength or Dexterity, the user’s choice. However, using a Dexterity weapon requires being fast on your feet; unless you are an expert, you cannot use Dexterity for melee weapons while you are carrying a shield, wearing medium armour, wearing heavy armour, grappled or restrained. Classes which give proficiency in heavy armour or warriors’ weapons are experts, and can use any weapon while wearing any armour.
The ammunition, range, reach and special properties are unchanged. There is no mechanical need for the finesse property, though you could include it for flavour reasons. There is no mechanical need for the heavy property; optionally, you could rule that Small characters cannot use two-handed melee warriors’ weapons, but personally I wouldn’t. The loading property is rendered obsolete by the change to the light property. The thrown property is simplified, since all one-handed melee weapons can now use either Strength or Dexterity; it now simply says, “If a weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon to make a ranged Attack.”
Fighters, barbarians, rangers and paladins can use any weapon and any armour. Bards and rogues can use adventurers’ weapons and any armour. Wizards and sorcerers can use civilian melee weapons and adventurers’ ranged weapons, but can’t use armour or shields. Druids and monks can use civilian weapons, adventurers’ light weapons, medium armour and shields. Clerics can use civilian weapons, adventurers’ light weapons, adventurers’ ranged weapons, medium armour and shields. Warlocks can use the same weapons as clerics, but only light armour and no shields.
There’s still some complexity, of course – it feels ugly to say “civilian weapons, adventurers’ light weapons and adventurers’ ranged weapons” – but this system keeps things closer to the original RAW and really simplifies a few things.
(The “Special” under warriors’ weapons is standing in for the super-cool heavy weapons – things like pikes, glaives, greatswords and so on. We’ll flesh those out later so stay tuned…)
What does this simpler system change?
We’ve simplified things by saying that anyone can decide their weapon is Strength or Dexterity based, without specifying ‘finesse’ weapons. That implies that there exists a one-handed melee d6 Dexterity weapon – let’s call it the mini-rapier – which didn’t exist in RAW. Wizards, sorcerers, clerics, druids and warlocks will be flocking to this weapon. (The change doesn’t affect monks, who could always use Dexterity with their monk weapons.)
We don’t actually want to let clerics use a mini-rapier while using their shields and medium armour, though. So we’ve made another change; you can’t use Dexterity weapons if you’re wearing armour unless you’re one of the four martial classes.
That is a really fun and interesting change – because it removes the need for us to limit rogues’ and bards’ proficiencies. Why shouldn’t a rogue be allowed to use a 1d10 battleaxe or warhammer if they want to? A Strength-based armoured rogue is inherently weaker than a Dexterity-based rogue, because the rogue who prioritises Dexterity will improve their skills and saving throws and armour class and ranged attacks.
Again, my philosophy is that we should only use rules for mechanical balance reasons and suggestions for flavour. Strength-based rogues aren’t overpowered, so we shouldn’t ban them for flavour reasons; a strong bruiser rogue could be an interesting, flavourful gang enforcer or tavern brawler. We can just suggest that rogues focus on Dexterity and don’t wear much armour, and keep it balanced by saying that armoured rogues can’t use their rapiers.
Wizards are also allowed to use the mini-rapier. Is that a problem? Not really, to be honest. A wizard’s priorities in melee are 1. Run away, 2. Leave and 3. Be elsewhere. Changing their Plan D from a 1d4 knife to a 1d6 mini-rapier really doesn’t change that logic. Why would a wizard ever attack in melee? It could be that they’re a bladesinger – but bladesingers already get rapiers. It could be that they’re unable to get away – so let’s specify that they can’t use their mini-rapiers if they’re restrained or grappled. (This is a nerf to rogues, but not a huge one and it feels realistic.) It could be that they neglected to take a damage cantrip and they’re out of spell slots, in which case they should really be using their 1d8 light crossbow. It could be that they smuggled a dagger into a fancy dinner dance, so let’s make sure the mini-rapier isn’t small enough to be smuggled into fancy dinner-dances.
Letting the wizard have slightly better damage might make the martial classes feel bad, if they feel like the wizard is stepping on their toes. But we’re going to fix that by giving martial classes lots of other fun options that wizards don’t have – like reworking the trident.
All of this also implies that if clerics do want to use the mini-rapier, they have the option of discarding their shields and armour and prioritising Dexterity instead. That’s good – it unlocks an extra interesting cleric build! Regular clerics get a high armour class from their armour and shields, so they can focus on increasing their Wisdom and Constitution. They want Strength as a tertiary attribute to be able to hit hard with their maces. These new dexterity clerics will only be able to wear light armour without shields, so they’ll typically have a worse Armour Class than a regular cleric; they’d have an armour class of 14 with leather armour and +3 Dexterity, compared to a regular cleric’s armour class of 15 with scale mail and +1 Dexterity. In exchange for that worse armour class, they’ll get to deal damage using a better ability score – Dexterity – which they get more benefits from increasing. And most importantly, it gives people the freedom to say, “My cleric worships the god of the wind, so I think it fits the character concept better if my cleric doesn’t wear armour and instead focuses on moving fast.”
But what if we simplify it even more?
Light
Standard
Heavy
Civilians’ weapons
1d4
1d6
1d8
Adventurers’ weapons
1d6
1d8
1d10
Warriors’ weapons
1d8
1d10
1d12
Wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, druids and clerics can all use only civilians’ weapons. Wizards and sorcerers can’t use armour. Warlocks can be lightly armoured. Clerics and druids can use medium armour and shields.
Bards, monks and rogues can use adventurers’ weapons, medium armour and shields.
Fighters, paladins, rangers and barbarians can use all weapons, all armour and shields.
It’s that simple.
No way it is that simple.
Here’s the ruleset if you want full freedom of how to create and flavour weapons:
The Ammunition property is unchanged.
Light weapons are easy to handle. So long as your weapon doesn’t exceed the light damage die (1d4 for civilians’ weapons and 1d6 for adventurers’ weapons), you can flavour your light civilian or adventurer weapon however you like; it can be used one-handed or two-handed, you can use Dexterity or Strength to wield it, and it can be ranged or melee. If it is a ranged weapon, it must either use ammunition or be thrown. You cannot dual-wield a melee weapon unless it has the light property. You cannot make multiple attacks during one turn with a ranged weapon, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make, unless it has the light property.
Standard weapons are ideal for most people. So long as your weapon doesn’t exceed the standard damage die (1d6 for civilians’ weapons and 1d8 for adventurers’ weapons), you can flavour your standard civilian or adventurer weapon however you like; it can be used one-handed or two-handed, you can use Dexterity or Strength to wield it, and it can be ranged or melee. If it is a ranged weapon, it must either use ammunition or be thrown. Regardless of whether it is used one-handed or two-handed, you can temporarily hold it in one hand while performing somatic spell components with the other hand, and you can benefit from wearing a shield while using the weapon. You can’t wield two standard weapons simultaneously, and ranged standard weapons can only fire one piece of ammunition per turn regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.
Heavy weapons deal more damage, but are more difficult to handle. So long as your weapon doesn’t exceed the heavy damage die (1d8 for civilians’ weapons and 1d10 for adventurers’ weapons), you can flavour your heavy weapon however you like. However, heavy weapons must always be used with two hands. Melee heavy weapons can’t be used while carrying a shield, and you must use Strength – not Dexterity – for the weapon’s attack and damage rolls. Ranged heavy weapons require two hands and are more time-consuming to reload, so you cannot perform the somatic component of a spell and use the weapon on the same turn. The ammunition for Strength-based ranged heavy weapons is very heavy, so you can’t carry more than five pieces of ammunition. You cannot take the Dash, Disengage or Hide actions and use the heavy weapon on the same turn. You can’t use your hands to make an unarmed strike or interact with another item on the same turn as using the heavy weapon, but you could interact with an item if you could do so without using your hands – for example, by kicking a door open or elbowing a button. You can’t wield two heavy weapons simultaneously, and ranged heavy weapons can only fire one piece of ammunition per turn regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make. Polearm Master works with any heavy weapon, regardless of how it is flavoured.
When you select a light or standard weapon during character creation, you can choose whether you use Dexterity or Strength for the attack and damage rolls of the weapon. You must use the same for both. When the Dungeon Master creates a weapon and places it in the game, they can decide whether Dexterity or Strength must be used to wield the weapon or whether either could be appropriate. Using a Dexterity weapon requires being fast on your feet; unless you are an expert, you cannot use Dexterity for melee weapons while you are carrying a shield, wearing medium armour, wearing heavy armour, grappled or restrained. Classes which give proficiency in heavy armour or warriors’ weapons are experts, and can use any weapon while wearing any armour.
Warriors’ weapons are more powerful, so they have more restrictions. Warriors’ weapons must use Strength for their attack and damage rolls if they are melee or thrown weapons, and must use Dexterity for their attack and damage rolls if they are ranged ammunition weapons. Ranged weapons must have either the thrown or ammunition properties. Warriors’ weapons always require two hands, even if they are light or standard, unless you have warrior weapon mastery. Whenever a character gains the Extra Attack feature through levelling up, they also gain warrior weapon mastery. Standard warrior weapons can’t be dual-wielded, even if you have the Dual Wielder feat. When creating a warrior weapon that deals 1d12 damage, you can choose to instead deal 2d6 damage with the weapon.
Alternately, warriors’ weapons can be Special. Special warriors’ weapons don’t suffer from any of the ordinary restrictions that warriors’ weapons have. They deal damage like adventurer weapons, but typically have special effects which need to be restricted to the martial classes for balance reasons.
The default maximum range of a ranged weapon is set by the following table. Two-handed ranged ammunition weapons use the Standard range, whereas light or thrown weapons use the Reduced range.
Standard
Reduced
Civilian weapon
80 / 320
20 / 60
Adventurer weapon
100 / 400
30 / 90
Warrior weapon
150 / 600
30 / 120
Reach is a property that adventurers’ or warriors’ weapons can have. Civilian weapons cannot be reach weapons. This weapon adds 5 feet to your reach when you Attack with it. If it is a warriors’ weapon, it additionally adds 5 feet when determining your reach for Opportunity Attacks with it. You can create an adventurer weapon with the reach property and flavour it according to the usual rules for adventurer weapons, but the weapon’s damage cannot exceed an equivalent civilian weapon. You can create a warrior weapon with the reach property and flavour it according to the usual rules for warrior weapons, but the weapon’s damage cannot exceed an equivalent adventurer weapon.
Special. A weapon with the special property has unusual rules governing its use, explained in the weapon’s description. You can’t choose how to flavour a Special weapon; you must use the weapon as described. (We’re going to flesh these out more later!)
Versatile is a property melee weapons can have. Ranged weapons can’t be versatile. You can choose to flavour a weapon as a versatile weapon, meaning that it can be used with one or two hands. This weapon counts as a heavy weapon when you attack with two hands, and you can use the heavy damage die. If you attack with only one hand, you must use Strength and deal only the standard damage die, but you may act with your other hand as though you only carried a standard weapon. If you are using a shield and a versatile weapon, you may drop the shield and subsequently attack with the weapon as a heavy weapon, but you must spend a bonus action to pick the shield back up and resume using the versatile weapon as a standard weapon.
That was not simpler, you absolute liar.
You’re right. That was the explanation of the logic behind the system, which allows anyone – DM or player – to create a balanced weapon (or at least, a weapon that is balanced in the system’s logic). You want to wield brass knuckles, a razor fan, a cutlass, a katar, a spiky chain, a shuriken, a tomahawk, an atlatl, or Qiyana’s hoola hoop from League of Legends? I got you.
There’ll be a super-simple super-sexy version at the end. Also, we achieved some of my personal design goals. Let’s go through:
You can do anything now. Whether you should is still in question.
Notably, the work of restricting classes to the weapons and armour they’re supposed to use is now primarily done through making certain weapons unattractive, rather than through just giving the class a list of weapons they are or aren’t proficient in – which many players interpret as a list of weapons they’re allowed to use.
Rogues and bards, in the original RAW, primarily used 1d8 rapiers and 1d8 light crossbows. They could use 1d10 longswords, but they’d have to use Strength – which is pretty unattractive for them. They couldn’t use 1d10 heavy crossbows, as they weren’t proficient. In the new system, rogues and bards can use 1d10 heavy ranged weapons. However, the rework of heavy makes those weapons pretty unattractive for them. Both classes have very valuable bonus actions (bardic inspiration, cunning action) that they want to be able to use, and bards don’t want to be restricted from casting spells.
Monks, in the original RAW, didn’t have proficiency in armour. We’ve given them proficiency, but they still don’t want to use armour, since both their Unarmored Defense feature and their Martial Arts feature specifically say that they don’t work when the monk is using armour. Honestly, the only time this is going to come up is when a monk has put on an enemy’s armour to try and infiltrate an enemy base, and if a fight breaks out while the monk is disguised in enemy armour I feel like it’s quite disabling enough that the monk can’t use their Martial Arts – no need to give them disadvantage on everything too!
Monks can also use rapiers now, which seems fine; monks could already use d8 melee dexterity weapons, since their Martial Arts feature lets them use a quarterstaff two-handed (d8) as a dexterity weapon. The main difference is that they can now use one-handed weapons to deal d8 damage. I don’t think this matters for balance at all; the benefits of a one-handed melee weapon are either using a shield (which monks don’t want to do because it prevents their Unarmoured Defence and Martial Arts) or dual-wielding (which monks could do before with two 1d6 shortswords, and they can do the same now). This just lets you flavour your monk differently, so you can make a character like Syrio Forel as a monk (which feels right). Monks do the same thing now to output damage now as they did before; make a d8 Dexterity attack and then a d4 bonus action Dexterity attack. They can opt for d10 heavy weapons, but any monk that willingly chooses to use a weapon that requires Strength in a class that already requires Dexterity, Wisdom and Constitution… well, I wish them luck rolling their Ability Scores.
We do need to make one small change to the monk. We want monks to have the choice between using a d8 melee weapon with Dexterity or a d10 melee weapon with Strength, and we don’t even mind if monks can use d10 heavy crossbows now – they could use d8 light crossbows before, and could honestly use the slight buff – but we don’t want to let monks use d10 melee weapons with Dexterity. We need to simplify the wording of the monk’s Martial Arts feature. It currently says “…monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don’t have the two-handed or heavy property” – we can replace that with “…any civilian or adventurer’s weapons”. It then says, “You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons” – and we just need to delete the last part, since anyone can use Dexterity for their non-heavy weapons now. It should just say, “You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes.”
As previously discussed, we’ve allowed wizards, sorcerers, warlocks and clerics to use one-handed d6 dexterity weapons. This is certainly a buff, but for wizards it’s a tiny buff that is only relevant for levels 1-4 and for clerics this is a fun change that lets you explore different cleric builds and different flavours of what a cleric can be. If we need to balance this, we can look at the final weapon list and make sure that those d6 dexterity weapons are bulkier and more expensive than d4 dexterity weapons. That gives wizards a reason to carry a d4 dagger – it’s lighter, more concealable and cheaper to replace – over a d6 mini-rapier. The d6 weapons could also in theory have a less attractive damage type, but, well… see later discussion of this.
The wizard buff is also balanced by the change to the wizards’ crossbow. Wizards still get a 1d8 ranged weapon, but now it’s considered ‘heavy’ – so they can’t cast spells with somatic components in the same turn as using it. That gives them a reason to possibly consider a 1d6 ranged weapon. Choices are good. (Admittedly, it also makes wizards favour fire bolt more strongly over crossbows, but you can always throw an enemy with fire resistance at the wizard.)
I believe the only thing we’ve lost is the ability for clerics and warlocks to dual-wield hand-axes to deal 2d6 plus Strength. Now if they want to dual-wield they can only deal 2d4 plus their choice of Dexterity or Strength. For the vast majority of them that’s a better deal, but that’s one valid downside of our new system; no more fiendish warlocks angrily dual-wielding hand-axes.
When you’re comparing cantrips like frostbite to bows and arrows, have you stopped to consider the range of weapons being generally larger than the ranges of cantrips?
When was the last time you had an encounter at 400 feet? Does your GM have a battle map that big? We should definitely keep the disparity (archers outranging eldritch blasters) because it helps casters not completely dominate martials (and it could create fun encounters if you’re ever sniping at people on the other side of an impassable ravine)but we don’t need to consider the difference between frostbite and a shortbow much for everyday encounter balancing. The main difference is that you can add your Dexterity modifier to a shortbow’s damage and can’t add any modifier to a cantrip’s damage.
We’ve buffed Strength a bit
Strength is the worst ability score in the game. The only skill that relies on Strength is Athletics, and even that can use Dexterity sometimes. Strength saves are fairly rare and usually only called for to resist being pushed around or knocked over; you’ll basically never need to make a Strength save to stay alive. RAW, Strength is literally only useful for characters that want to deal that tasty big damage with a greatsword or greataxe, or characters that weren’t allowed to be proficient in decent Dexterity weapons (like clerics).
We previously discussed allowing Strength-based rogues. We’ve also brought the damage of Strength-based throwing weapons a little bit more in line with the damage of Dexterity-based ammunition levels. Martial characters will still need to commit to either excelling in melee or excelling in ranged combat, since the very best weapons are still restricted; melee warriors’ weapons only use Strength, ammunition warriors’ weapons only use Dexterity, thrown weapons have shorter ranges than ammunition weapons, heavy melee weapons only use Strength, and heavy Strength-based ammunition weapons have a limited supply of ammunition. That prevents fighters who are equally good in melee or ranged combat. Still, now paladins can chuck a boulder at a guy thirty feet away and deal 1d10 damage, which seems like the sort of damage you should take if a knight throws a giant rock at you. Thrown weapons will also sometimes get lost and cost money to replace, so it seems pretty reasonable to let them deal some damage.
It makes perfectly good sense to allow people to flavour ammunition Strength weapons as longbows, from a realism point of view. Have you tried drawing a longbow? It takes crazy strength!
And we create an interesting choice for Strength-based martial characters at level 5!
For the sake of example, let’s talk about axes. Paladins, fighters, rangers and barbarians could all opt to be Strength-based characters and fight primarily in melee with axes.
Before level 5, they have three options. Firstly, they can play defensive with a 1d8 axe and a shield. Secondly, they can dual-wield with two 1d6 hand axes, and deal 2d6 per turn. Thirdly, they can opt for the two-handed greataxe and deal 1d12 per turn. (They could also deal 2d6 if they wanted a two-handed greatsword).
We haven’t changed any of that logic. We’ve added warriors’ weapons, but warriors’ weapons can’t be used one-handed until these characters gain Extra Attack at level five – so the only usable one is the greataxe. The maths is the same as before until level 5.
When they hit level 5, in the original RAW, the options change in value. If they play defensive and use a shield, they can attack twice with that 1d8 axe and deal 2d8. If they dual-wield, they can attack twice with their Action and once more with their bonus action – they don’t get an extra bonus action – so they deal 3d6 per turn. If they opt for a greataxe or greatsword, they can swing twice for 2d12 or 4d6. When you add in the existence of feats like Great Weapon Master, these characters are strongly encouraged to go for the 2d12 or 4d6 damage. 4d6 is quite simply better than 3d6.
We’ve allowed characters to use light or standard warriors’ weapons one-handed once they reach level 5 and have Extra Attack. That brings these options back in line with each other. Dual-wielding deals 3d8 plus 2x Strength, Extra Attack with a greataxe deals 2d12 plus 2x Strength, and Extra Attack with a greatsword deals 4d6 plus 2x Strength. Leaving aside the Strength modifiers, that’s average damage of 13.5 for the dual-wielder, 13 for the greataxe wielder, and 14 for the greatsword wielder. Those are very comparable options, and we’ve created an interesting choice between them; greataxes deal slightly less damage but are better for crit-fishing, greatswords deal slightly better damage, and dual-wielding light warriors’ weapons uses up your bonus action but triggers on-hit effects (if you have any) three times rather than twice. Meanwhile, the character who opts for a shield and a one-handed warrior’s weapon gets bumped up to 2d10 (11 on average) with Extra Attack (rather than 2d8), which keeps that build relevant in the face of Great Weapon Master and feats that add to AC.
I really like what this does. Magic weapons are technically an optional rule in 5e, but in practice your martial characters will fall far behind your spellcasters if you’re not constantly handing them +1 weapons and +1 helmets and +1 shields. Bringing slightly better weapons online at 5th level automatically means the GM isn’t spending so much time handing out boring +1 weapons and can focus on handing out fun stuff – like helmets that explode if you sing a flat note, or hats that summon killer bunny rabbits.
See, “everyone gets a d8” isn’t actually a great idea. It’s easy balancing at level 1 and a great anchor point to build around. But the classes that are defined by being good with weapons should get to roll bigger dice than the classes that don’t know which end is the pointy end. If you don’t handle it in the weapon rules, you end up having to hand out +1 swords anyway.
And it does have delightfully simple aspects.
No more confusion about whether spears, which are versatile, deal 1d6 or 1d8 damage when thrown! Civilian versatile weapons all work the same way; pick an ability score, deal 1d6 plus that ability score if you’ve got something in your other hand, deal 1d8 plus that same ability score if you haven’t.
We don’t even need to specify that standard ranged weapons are two-handed. Sure, bows are usually two-handed, but what are you going to be doing with your other hand anyway? You can’t hold a shield, not while wielding a Dexterity weapon. We can leave it up to individual gamers to decide whether they want the flavour of a two-handed longbow (which can be quickly fired and then held in one hand, allowing the user to cast a spell with the other hand) or a one-handed blow-dart gun (which is simply held in one hand, leaving the other free).
We could probably simplify even further if we came up with some neat way of punishing spellcasters for using shields and armour, like how we punish rogues for using them. Then everyone could have the same armour and shield proficiencies. However, it’s 6am right now and I think this post is Enough.
But wait, aren’t we simplifying away too much? Do damage types matter?
There are not very many creatures that have resistance or vulnerability to one of bludgeoning, piercing and slashing but not the other two. It really isn’t worth overcomplicating the weapon creation system for. Let characters have weapons of any of the three types, then hit them with an enemy that resists the one they picked. Skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage, which is cool for your cleric with the mace, but who has actually even encountered an ochre jelly (immune to slashing damage)? I bet the majority of DMs forget to enforce or care about this shit. It’s a ‘gotcha’ gimmick for skeletons, effectively. Either make it affect more monsters or stop having it overcomplicate the weapon system.
The better argument which I sometimes hear is that rogues are deliberately restricted to piercing damage. Rapiers, shortswords and crossbows all deal piercing damage, so it’s easy to throw a piercing-resistant encounter at your party if your rogue is doing too much. To this I respond that any DM can throw a homebrewed anything-resistant encounter at the party if any character is doing too much, and there’s no particular reason to expect this to be a rogue-specific problem. Rogues aren’t overpowered.
And we can add some really fun options.
Reach weapons are fun options; not only does the flavour of a whip totally suit a rogue or monk, we can create a fun choice by offering a tradeoff between a non-reach weapon which deals more damage and a reach weapon which lets you stand behind your paladin friend. Choices are good. However, we don’t want to let rogues and monks pick up Sentinel with a whip and start opportunity attacking everything within ten feet. Opportunity attack feats like Polearm Master or Sentinel, which allow tanky characters to tank better, would be a bit too overpowered on a rogue with a reach weapon. (Consider that rogues get their Sneak Attack damage when they make opportunity attacks as reactions, and you’ll immediately see why.)
Also, now that we’ve really looked hard at our framework for balancing and hopefully understood it, we don’t have to be too worried about unbalancing things if we add some more fun stuff.
Put in a spellcaster’s staff as an alternative to the 1d4 dagger. Let it deal only 1d2 damage (flip a coin; heads is 1, tails is 2) but let the spellcaster choose whether it deals fire, cold, acid or lightning damage. Also, make it look really snazzy and cool and have a gemstoney orb on top.
Let’s put in and flavour those ranged strength weapons. Let’s have a giant lacrosse-stick-like fork that you throw boulders with, a miniature cannon that a strong character can lug around, and a “mini” portable scorpion ballista that is even bigger than the big muscular paladin carting it around. That’s cool as hell. (I’m imagining them like the Hurler, the Powder Keg Cannonneer, and the Ballistaman from Battle Realms.)
Let’s put in a boomerang. Just make it a regular thrown weapon, but nerf its damage die by one step and give it the feature where it returns to the thrower. That’s similar to how we balance other weapons that have unique buffs, like reach weapons that have a one-step-smaller damage die. So it’s a 1d6 standard adventurers’ weapon with the thrown property and the Special returning property.
We could throw in harpoons or lassos. A weapon that, if it hits the target, creates some kind of connection to the target. The harpoon could be a Special warrior weapon that deals 1d8 when thrown, like an adventurer weapon. On a hit, a rope stretches between the harpoon-thrower and the struck target, and the harpoon-thrower can initiate an opposed Strength check as a bonus action on subsequent turns. If they win the opposed Strength check, they can drag the struck target fifteen feet towards them.
Lassos would inflict the restrained condition, so we shouldn’t let them deal damage – it’d be too powerful. They should be standard warriors’ weapons – though I’m imagining how fun it would be if a rogue used a feat like Weapon Master to get access to them and I love it – that impose the restrained condition when they hit an enemy. If they miss, it should cost the lasso-thrower an action to gather the lasso back up ready to throw it again, because restrained really is a bit broken. Perhaps even give the enemy a Strength save against a DC of 10 plus the lasso-thrower’s DEX, which they can make at the beginning of each of their turns to escape. That makes the weapon a bit weak, but that’s okay – it’s situational, as it should be. We should probably spend some time comparing it against the Net and making sure it’s balanced as a longer-ranged but easier-to-escape version, but again – it’s 7am. Perhaps later.
We’ll mostly make common-sense assumptions about how large weapons are. We’ve generally said that people can flavour their weapons however they like, but generally heavy weapons should be bigger than light ones – a dagger fits in a pocket, a glaive doesn’t. We could add in a few weapons specifically for stealth and smuggling, with slightly smaller damage die but a smaller or collapsible form.
Other weapons should just be really cheap and lightweight. Blowguns could possibly make sense in that category; no damage worth speaking of, just a lightweight poison-delivery-mechanism.
Let’s figure something out for druids. Before our overhaul, druids couldn’t use bows, so if they wanted a 1d6 ranged attack they had to use magic stone with a sling or cast thorn whip or frostbite. I don’t feel too bad about just giving them a 1d6 shortbow, because frostbite gives them a 60-foot-range 1d6 ranged attack anyway, but attacking with a magic stone slingshot felt flavourful and fun. It’s not that magic stone is weak now – it’s fantastic if you have two commoner friends nearby and you want to give them each a 1d6 ranged attack every turn – but we could maybe even design another druid cantrip (because frostbite really doesn’t fit with everyone’s druid concept). Shillelagh, similarly, is still really strong – druids’ Wisdom is still much better than their Dexterity typically, and the magical weapon is very useful in overcoming resistances – but maybe could use help still feeling special.
We could also figure out mechanics for throwing knives and shuriken, designed and balanced to be thrown. Perhaps javelins fly further but shurikens, thrown precisely into an enemy’s eyes, could deal more damage at a shorter range. We could come up with some mechanic for a proper heavy heavy crossbow, the 1d12 mini scorpion ballista, to knock back enemies when they’re hit by bolts. (Otherwise there’s no reason for a martial character past level 5 to be dealing 1d12 with that scorpion ballista when they could be dealing 2d8 with Extra Attack on their light bow.)
Let’s not forget lances either. The existence of lances implies that pikes could be reworked to have a fun anti-cavalry angle, or we could create other weapons designed for horseback use.
What about bolas? What about Greek fire and pitch-slingers? What about atlatls, also known as spear-throwers? There’s so much fun to be had here.
So where will all the existing weapons go?
Light hammers, clubs, sickles, daggers, darts and slings become civilian light weapons that deal d4 damage. They’re mainly differentiated by damage type – bludgeoning for light hammers, slashing for sickles and piercing for daggers – and whether you can throw them. There’s no reason to pick up the ones you can’t throw over the ones that you can, so let’s make the non-throwing weapons cheaper or give them some out-of-combat utility as tools.
Javelins and maces become civilian standard weapons that deal d6 damage. Javelins become finesse. Spears and quarterstaffs become civilian versatile weapons that can deal d6 when used as standard weapons or d8 when used as heavy weapons. Spears can be thrown, while quarterstaffs can be used for shillelagh, so they’re roughly even.
Greatclubs become civilian heavy weapons that deal d8 damage. Since there’s no reason to pick them over the versatile spears and quarterstaffs, they should be cheaper and easier to acquire. We’ll also say that light crossbows belong here, although they’ll need a rename. They’re two-handed ranged weapons that wizards and sorcerers and clerics can use, so light crossbows are certainly civilian heavy weapons.
Scimitars, shortswords, hand crossbows and handaxes become adventurer light weapons that deal 1d6 damage. It would be cool to put a thrown weapon in this category – maybe the shuriken? Scimitars, shortswords and handaxes are mainly differentiated by damage type.
Flails, morningstars, war picks and rapiers become adventurer standard weapons that deal 1d8 damage. We’ll add the longbow here, too, as a 1d8 weapon. Flails, morningstars and picks are differentiated by damage type. Then we’ll add in the adventurer versatile weapons that can deal d8 when used as standard weapons or d8 when used as heavy weapons; battleaxes, longswords, warhammers, and… fuck it, let’s put the “heavy crossbow” here (though it too will need a rename to avoid confusion with the light/heavy properties). It makes sense flavour-wise for the crossbow to be the more accessible weapon.
Whips become 1d6 reach adventurer Special weapons. Blowguns and Nets remain pretty much the same for now. Tridents become the lighter cousins of polearms; they’re now warrior versatile weapons that deal 1d6 (1d8) and are finesse reach weapons. Lances are warrior special weapons.
We’ll need to come up with a new name for whatever we’re putting in the warrior light weapons category. Perhaps recurve bows and sabres. Similarly, we’ll need to name our warrior standard weapons – perhaps warswords and spearthrowers. Our melee warrior heavy weapons are pretty much unchanged; there’s the 2d6 greatsword and maul, the 1d12 greataxe, and the three 1d10 reach weapons – pike, halberd and glaive. We’re adding in a 1d12 ranged warrior heavy weapon called the portable scorpion (or something like that), which might seem overpowered at first until you realise that nobody will want to use it. Only paladins, fighters, rangers and barbarians can use warrior weapons, and if they’re going to use ranged weapons then they’d prefer to use the 1d8 recurve bow so they can deal 2d8 with Extra Attack. To make the portable scorpion attractive at all, it will need to get something cool (like knockback).
We’ll also need to name all the weapons that fill in the gaps, becoming the Dexterity versions or Strength versions of weapons that should have both equivalents. And potentially fluff some extra cool weapons that could be represented by making them different damage types for categories that are missing variety.
So when do we get to see it all put together?
In my next post, for a few reasons. Firstly, I want folks who just want the weapon list to be able to link to the weapon list without reading lots and lots of writing about balance justifications. Secondly, I want to go to bed and post the finished list when I’ve slept. Send suggestions if you’ve got ’em!
What if I hate all your suggestions?
You know what, you’re valid. It does take something away from the game if we switch to this. It adds more options, which means beginners could make mistakes more easily by picking a bad weapon for their build. It takes away the funny helplessness of a wizard who’s out of spell slots stabbing things uselessly with a 1d4 dagger (which could always have been avoided by the wizard using two daggers for 2d4, but by default wizards were funny). It makes clerics’ flavour less solid; instead of being holy warriors in chainmail with hammers, clerics could be anything, including archers serving the goddess Artemis who dart in and out of combat like butterflies. Maybe you liked clerics just fine the way they were. Maybe you hate the idea of strength-based rogues being allowed. Maybe you’re just sad that druids might use boring options like a 1d6 bow rather than flavourful options like a 1d6 magic stone sling, and for some reason you think frostbite is flavourful. Maybe your favourite character ever was a warlock with two handaxes. I don’t know, dude. Send me the feedback and go back to the old way you played D&D. Why are you still reading at this point anyway? I only wrote this up because I had one of those autistic-ADHD crazy hyperfocus nights.
Errata (Edit)
After posting this, it was pointed out to me that there is one advantage of the RAW sling over the RAW bow; bows require arrows, which typically need to be restocked by a fletcher in a town, whereas slings can fire any old rock that you picked up from the ground. I can’t find anywhere that this is explicitly ruled on, and many DMs don’t track ammunition anyway, but it does seem like common sense that adventurers could scavenge for rocks to use as sling ammunition but would need fletchers’ tools proficiency to craft more arrows. If we think it’s worth the added complexity, we could add in higher-damage ranged weapons that need specific ammunition and lower-damage ranged weapons that can use improvised ammunition.
So your old phone sucks. Maybe the screen is dead, the battery lasts twenty minutes, and it freezes every time you get an email. Maybe you just dropped it down the toilet. You need a new one, but the number of phones on the market can be overwhelming and there’s so many different features and metrics that you don’t know where to start. Never fear. Here’s a guide to buying a new phone.
I’m not going to recommend a “best phone” at each price point, because the best phone is incredibly subjective. Instead, we’re going to narrow down the range of possible phones based on figuring out what’s important to you, and translating that into the numbers and jargon bits you should be looking for.
Hard criteria
Hard criteria are the ones that you’re just not going to budge on. We can use these to quickly eliminate lots of the possible phones.
Budget
Budget is usually a hard criteria – if you don’t have £1000, you aren’t going to buy the £1000 phone no matter how sparkly it is.
So how much do you want to pay for a phone anyway? If you’re limited by not being able to afford more than £200, it’s an easy question. If it’s more that you have money but wouldn’t want to spend too much, it can be harder to figure out what “too much” is.
I think about it in terms of time. My current phone is likely to last me a few years, and when I add up all the instances of googling and navigating and emailing and reading blogs in bed, I think I’ll get ~4000 hours of use at least. If you’re buying anything short of the absolute latest flagship, it should work out at less than 20 pence per hour.
All we want to do at this stage is set a hard limit and eliminate everything above it. Later you could always pick a cheaper option if you discover the specs you could get for a lower price are good enough for you. So – think about what price would make you wince, feel guilty whenever you use the phone, or be uncomfortable with the purchase no matter how great a phone you got. That’s the hard limit – we’ll come back to money/features tradeoffs later.
Size
It needs to be physically comfortable for you to use the phone. If it’s a tiny phone dwarfed by your huge meaty paws, it won’t be comfy. If it’s a huge screen and you have to stretch your little fingers to reach the top corner, you’ll be in physical pain after using it for too long.
The best way to check this out is to physically go to a phone store. Often there’s several close to each other. I wouldn’t advise buying one there – you’ll usually get a better price online. All you’re doing is holding all the phones. Hold it in the way you’d usually do – by the bottom right corner – and reach your thumb to the top left, several times. Is it comfortable? Do you have to tilt the phone downwards to reach? Can you touch the bottom right of the screen without adjusting your grip and still feel like you’re in control of it?
Very small differences in size will feel much bigger when they’re in your hands and you’re handling them every day. Find the phone which is the most comfortable size, and note down the dimensions in millimetres (you might need to look the specs up online). Also note down uncomfortable dimensions, so you have an idea of the limits of the comfortable range.
Operating system
For most people, operating system is a hard requirement. Most people who are already used to Apple or Android don’t want to learn a new system. Less-used OS options are dying out (newer Blackberry phones are Android now) too.
Some people prefer Apple phones because they like the brand enough that it outweighs everything else. However, unless you’re one of those people, I’d recommend not picking Apple. The phones tend to be much more expensive for the same specs, and less customisable.
There’s a far wider range of non-Apple phones made by myriad manufacturers, so for any specific criteria, you’ll tend to want something else. Samsung for screen quality, Blackberry for security, Xperia for super-compact phones, etc. You’ll also find it easier to get options you like for phone, other connected devices, repairs and spare parts, headphones, keyboard accessories, chargers and cables if you buy them from ten different manufacturers – the main reason to go Apple is if you’re willing to pay a significant premium to have it all match.
If you pick Apple, don’t bother reading the rest of this – their range is limited enough, and the planned obsolescence kills their devices fast enough, that you should just buy the newest/youngest Apple phone within your budget.
Otherwise, just make a choice now about whether you’re sticking to Android, or whether you’ll consider minority alternatives like Windows phones.
If your current/old phone is Android, check the OS of your current phone – it’ll probably say Android 5 Lollipop, Android 6 Marshmallow, Android 7 Nougat, Android 8 Oreo, or Android 9 Pie. These new OS updates bring new features and looks, some of which you might not like, but I’d nevertheless usually recommend getting the highest version you can – even if you’re not a fan of the new look, the most important thing is that the later updates will be more secure and last you longer. Rule out anything with a smaller number than your current phone, as it might be missing features that you’re used to.
Materials
Do you need a new phone because you smashed your last one? Do you keep doing that? Are you clumsy and tired of breaking phones? Eliminate anything with a glass back. Look for metal and plastic backs. You might also decide to restrict your search to phones with the latest Gorilla Glass.
Inputs
Just double check that it has a headphone jack if that’s the kind of thing you’re into. (It’s also worth checking where they are! I prefer headphones coming out of the top of my phone than the bottom, since jacks on the bottom of the phone interfere with how I hold it.)
Soft criteria
So we’ve got a list of hard criteria – your new phone must be under budget, the right size, your preferred operating system, and meet any requirements you have for headphone jacks or materials.
Now we’ll get onto the soft criteria. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by how many different numbers and measurements there are about phones. This one’s screen is AMOLED, but this other one’s screen is 1080p while this one claims 300ppi – and do I care about screen quality at all? Let’s talk through the different things that might be important depending on how you use your phone.
Screen
There’s a few different reasons you might care about the screen, even if you don’t watch movies on your phone much – though if you do, you’ll want a good resolution. While the measurements are complex, if you’re feeling overwhelmed I recommend focusing on two things; LCD vs AMOLED, and ppi.
Older screen technology, called IPS LCD, is typically cheaper. It uses a blue light behind the screen, shining through coloured pixels. The newer technology, AMOLED, uses pixels which each have their own individually controlled lights. This means AMOLED has a higher contrast, and black parts of the screen are actually black rather than that odd shining black-blue.
AMOLED can be much nicer for reading before bed because you don’t get the same dose of blue light. It can use more battery if the whole screen is lit up, but will use much less battery if you use “dark mode” apps with white text on black backgrounds, because it only powers the white pixels rather than the whole screen. On the other hand, IPS LCD can offer more natural white balance, and be easier to read in sunlight because the backlight is so bright.
If you want the best screen for watching videos, a Samsung Super AMOLED is the gold standard.
The other important thing is resolution. People selling phones will try to throw big numbers and words at you (4k display! 1080 x 2340! Retina display!) but try focusing on the ppi (pixels per inch). It’s all about the context. You might want millions of pixels to make your giant television look sharp, but if you pack them into a smaller space it can become overkill. While the human eye can detect up to ~900 ppi (not 300 as Apple once claimed), some people just reach a point where their screen is sharp enough and they don’t care about making it sharper.
By measuring ppi, rather than numbers of pixels, you can compare the measurement across all the computers, phones and televisions you’ve owned (though remember you’ll still want higher resolutions for devices you put closer to your face). You can look up the specs to check the ppi of the previous devices you’ve owned – were they good enough for you (the same numbers will do), or do you want something less blurry/pixellated (get higher numbers)?
300-ish ppi is good enough for most people, but if you’re someone who really enjoys sharp screens, look for 500+.
Battery
Battery will be important to you if you travel a lot, frequently forget to charge your phone, or prefer to travel light without chargers and extra battery packs. The last thing anyone wants is to discover your phone is dead when you’re trying to call a taxi home from the airport at 3am.
Unfortunately, battery isn’t the easiest to measure.
The key number is mAh, which tells you how much power is in the battery. The Apple iPhone 7 has just 1960 mAh and will die in a few hours. The ‘normal’ range is 2500-3500 ish and, because higher-end phones are often worrying about being slimmer rather than packing more battery in, you typically don’t have to pay much more for a bigger battery. For instance, solid budget phone the Moto G5 (~£190) has 2800 mAh, the exact same number as the Google Pixel 4 (£500). Phones in this sort of range will typically last you all day if you’re just carrying them around and using them for a bit of texting, but don’t expect to be gaming on it for your whole 8-hour flight.
More and more of the highest-end flagship phones are now boasting batteries around 4000 mAh. Does this mean they’ll last longer? Unfortunately, not necessarily. It’s not just the size of your battery that matters, it’s how fast you’re using energy. A battery that has to power a huge, bright screen and hungry fast processor will die faster. It’s about the ratio between your battery’s storage and the demands on it.
If you want to prioritise the longest possible battery life, then, you want to look for a mid-range phone with an outsize battery – less demands, more power. Something like the Samsung M30s or Moto G7 Power. You can also search online for reviews of specific phones – reviewers often conduct independent tests of how long the battery actually lasts in practice while doing specific battery-draining activities like watching videos.
Other phones that come up in discussions of good battery life are the Asus ZenFone 6, Xiaomi Mi Note 10, Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro, Realme 5, Vivo Nex 3, Motorola One Zoom, Oppo A5 or A9 2020, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom or Ace, Fairphone 3, Samsung Galaxy A20 or A70 or A90, OnePlus 6T or 7T Pro, Moto E5 Plus, Blackberry Motion, Sony Xperia XZ2, Huawei P30 Pro or Mate 10 Pro or 20 Pro, Google Pixel 3a, Lenovo P2, and Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus.
Ironically, the intensity of gaming makes phones die so quickly that gaming phones tend to have incredibly large and optimised batteries – so if you buy the gamer phone Asus ROG Phone 2, and don’t use it for gaming, you’ll get stunning battery that way too.
Speed
If you want apps and Web pages to open quickly without the phone freezing, you want a good processor. There isn’t a shorthand here – it’s not like processors with bigger numbers are always better – different makers will have different systems.
You’ll also want something with plenty of RAM. Confusingly, “memory” can sometimes mean a phone’s storage capacity and sometimes refer to the RAM, but they’re entirely different things. RAM is how much ‘working memory’ your phone has, so it’ll affect your ability to have lots of apps open at once and keep them all running fast, but it’s got nothing to do with storing lots of saved songs and movies. 2GB is fairly normal in budget phones, 6GB is fairly good, and the 12GB in some flagship phones is frankly unnecessary (to compare, many mid-range computers come with 8GB) unless you’re trying to be a pro phone gamer.
Storage
Do you want to store things on your phone? You definitely want at least some storage, or it’ll get annoying having to delete your photos whenever you want to download a pdf. On the other hand, lots of people stream their music and movies these days and don’t really use their storage. The exception is that you might want music downloaded to your phone for situations where you can’t stream, like flights or underground trains.
Roughly speaking, if you’re using a flagship 16 megapixel camera, 16GB storage could hold 1000 photos or 14 minutes of Ultra HD 4k film, 32 GB can hold 2000 photos, 64GB 4000, and so on. For a two hour movie of that resolution you’d need over 128 GB.
If you’re using lower resolutions, the capacity increases pretty fast. An 8MP camera can take 6400 photos before your 16GB card runs out of space.
16 GB of storage is pretty normal these days and can hold a stunning 4000 songs, so unless you’re really really into downloading stuff you really don’t have to worry about whether your phone will hold your flight playlist.
Camera
Good cameras are important if you like taking a lot of pictures, or if you think you’d like to start. You don’t have to be an artistic photographer type for that to be useful. For instance, would it be useful for you to be able to snap pictures of the notes on a whiteboard so you can read it all later? I frequently ‘scan’ documents by simply taking a pic with my phone – and because I’ve got a high resolution camera, the text comes out clear and readable.
Again, phone sellers will scream at you about SIXTEEN MILLION PIXELS and EXTRA LENSES and CUTTING EDGE NEW SOFTWARE but finding the best camera isn’t as simple as looking for the biggest number. A 16 MP (megapixel) camera is generally better than an 8 MP, but knowing how many pixels will be in the photos you take doesn’t tell you whether the colours will be washed out. To know if you can take pictures of moving objects without blur, for instance, you generally want to look at the aperture. Look for a “f” number like “f/1.9” – small numbers are better for low light and fast moving subjects.
There’s enough subjectivity here that the best option can be to Google for pictures taken by the phone you’re thinking of buying, and see if you like the image quality. Look for vivid accurate colours that you like rather than just a sharp resolution.
Some phones that come up in discussions of great cameras include the Google Pixel 4 or 3a, Huawei Mate 30 Pro or P30 Pro, Xiaomi Mi Note 10 or Mi9 or Redmi Note 8T, Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus or S10 or S10 Plus, Oppo Reno Zoom, OnePlus 7T Pro, and (for video) Sony Xperia 5.
Other features
Many features advertised to you are essentially bullshit. Sure, the artificial intelligence software that puts flower crowns on your friends sounds cool, but you are going to use it twice and then forget about it, and if you really wanted it you could download an app for it rather than having it as part of your computer.
Some others are really useful but in everything. It’s hard to find a phone these days without WiFi, 3G, a selfie camera, GPS, an accelerometer, and so on.
A few are quite useful. A fingerprint sensor saves you a lot of headaches – you can avoid typing in and remembering passwords. I’ve loved having Samsung Pay – I just tap my phone on contactless and never have to dig my credit card out of my bag (though this isn’t useful in the States where payment systems are fairly archaic). Fast charging can be good, too.
Dual SIM can be great too. This usually lets you choose between having two SIM cards (for instance, a work number and a personal number) or having one SIM card and putting an extra storage card in the other slot.
A good strategy for these features can be to decide on a price for them individually. If you’re comparing a phone with dual SIM to one without, decide how much that feature is worth to you – that’s how much extra you should be willing to pay for that feature.
Making the choice
By this point you should have a list of criteria, meaning you know what you’re looking for. You know what you want in terms of size, screen type, battery, processor, camera and so on.
This will make it easier for you to search. If you’ve decided that a certain criteria is the most important thing for you, a quick Google for “best phone cameras” or “longest lasting phone battery” will bring up some shortlists.
You can also ask any tech nerds in your life. You’ll get much better results if instead of asking “do you have any phone recommendations?” you’re able to ask “do you have any recommendations for phones of roughly x size, y screen type and z battery?”
Once you’ve gathered some suggestions that fit your criteria and gotten a shortlist, the best comparison tool is GSM Arena. That will let you see all the specs side by side. You can compare two phones, decide which of those two you prefer, then replace the losing phone with a different option until you decide you’ve found one that nothing can beat.
Once you find a winner (or just get bored of looking at new suggestions), it’s time to buy the phone.
Actually purchasing a phone
This section is written a little more specifically for a UK audience, since I don’t know how this works elsewhere.
We have a few main phone stores you’ll find on the high street – Three, Vodafone, O2, Carphone Warehouse, EE. Often they’re close together on the high street, so you can go to a few and ask how much they’d charge for the phone you want, then compare the answers.
If you go to these stores, you can buy a phone on contract. The upfront cost is much smaller, but you’re locked into a contract for a year or two. The total cost you’ll pay is bigger than if you paid upfront, and the phone you’ll get is typically locked to that network, so you’ll have to pay the same provider monthly for your calls and data and you won’t be able to switch.
The alternative is buying the phone on its own, “unlocked”, so you just get a device. On its own, it won’t be able to make any calls or texts or use data – though it’ll work on WiFi just fine. For that, you get the SIM card separately (usually for free) and pay monthly for calls/texts/data.
This means you can use different stores – you can order the phone from Amazon, but get the SIM card from any of a number of providers who don’t have high street stores, such as iD mobile and SMARTY. You’re free to change that contract at any time. So if you decide you’d rather have your 4GB/month of data from SMARTY rather than Vodafone, you just get a new SIM card and put it in your phone. You get more flexibility and the monthly cost is often cheaper.
You can also choose to buy second-hand, but I’d generally recommend that only for savvier buyers who will be able to spot fakes and understand how parts like a phone’s battery degrade with use. It’s often better to get a new budget smartphone than a secondhand flagship, especially since phone technology is improving so quickly that a flagship old enough to be discounted second-hand has probably fallen behind.
Don’t be afraid to buy a brand you’ve never heard of – there’s more makers of great smartphones in the world than just Apple and Samsung – but do make sure you buy from a reputable source that offers decent warranties without charging extra for them.
Sunlight Enthusiast 