CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON
Warriors choose their weapon for many different
reasons. Some choose lighter bladed weapons. Some
choose heavier blunt weapons. Some choose weap-
ons for their style, some choose for their look. Despite
personal preferences, it doesn’t matter how much
you like your weapon when you attack a creature that
it particularly doesn’t affect. Stabbing a skeleton is
particularly hard. Slashing a gelatinous cube isn’t ef-
fectively either.
A good piece of wisdom adventurers shares with
young and bushy tailed would-be adventurers is to
carry a good selection of weapons, one for every
occasion. A weapon is more than a piece of metal or
wood, its a tool.
This is a rules add-on for Dungeons and Dragons, 4th
edition to help simulate the different ways weapons do
damage. Effectively, this is done by introducing new
keywords: Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning.
A WEAPON FOR EACH SITUATION
You use wield a weapon, you are capable are dealing
a certain type of damage. A weapon is made to use in
a certain way and using it a way it is not supposed to
use it is not terribly smart.
When you wield a weapon, you apply a new type of
damage as an additional keyword when you a power
with the Weapon keyword. For example, if you are us-
ing a longbow, which is a weapon that deals Piercing
damage, and then use Twin Strike, you deal Piercing
damage. Sometimes, a weapon is capable of deal-
ing two different types of damage. When wielding
a weapon like this, you pick the type of damage for
each attack. More often that not, this won’t matter as
most monsters take the same amount of damage from
a sword as they would from a quarterstaff. For certain
monsters though, this will matter.
If you find yourself in a situation where your weapon
is inefficient against the enemy you’re fighting against,
you may choose to use your weapon to deal a differ-
ent type of damage. For example, if you find yourself
fighting a zombie with a warhammer, which deals
bludgeoning damage, you may improvise and attempt
to deal slashing damage with it. When you decide to
deal a different kind of damage from a weapon’s nor-
mal damage, you take a -5 penalty to attack rolls.
Following this is a list of weapons from Player’s Hand-
book and Adventurer’s Vault and the type of damage
they deal.

MELEE WEAPONS
SIMPLE MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Club...........................................................Bludgeoning
Dagger..........................................Piercing or Slashing
Javelin..............................................................Piercing
Mace.........................................................Bludgeoning
Sickle...............................................................Slashing
Spear................................................................Piercing
Spiked gauntlet................................................Piercing
Two-Handed
Greatclub..................................................Bludgeoning
Morningstar.............................Bludgeoning or Piercing
Quarterstaff...............................................Bludgeoning
Scythe.............................................................Slashing
MILITARY MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Battleaxe.........................................................Slashing
Broadsword.....................................................Slashing
Flail.........................................Bludgeoning or Piercing
Handaxe..........................................................Slashing
Khopesh..........................................................Slashing
Light war pick...................................................Piercing
Longsword.......................................................Slashing
Scourge...........................................................Slashing
Shortsword.......................................................Piercing
Throwing Hammer.....................................Bludgeoning
Trident..............................................................Piercing
Warhammer...............................................Bludgeoning
War pick...........................................................Piercing
Two-Handed
Falchion...........................................................Slashing
Glaive............................................Slashing or Piercing
Greataxe.........................................................Slashing
Greatsword......................................................Slashing
Halberd............................................................Piercing
Heavy flail.................................................Bludgeoning
Heavy war pick.................................................Piercing
Longspear........................................................Piercing
Maul..........................................................Bludgeoning
SUPERIOR MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Bastard Sword.................................................Slashing
Craghammer...........................Bludgeoning or Piercing
Katar.................................................................Piercing
Kukri................................................................Slashing
Parrying dagger ...........................Piercing or Slashing
Rapier...............................................................Piercing
Spiked Shield...................................................Piercing
Tratnyr..............................................................Piercing
Triple-headed flail.....................................Bludgeoning
Waraxe............................................................Slashing
Two-Handed
Execution axe..................................................Slashing
Fullblade..........................................................Slashing
Garrote............................................................Slashing
Greatspear.......................................................Piercing
Mordenkrad...............................................Bludgeoning
Spiked chain....................................................Piercing
Double Weapons
Double axe......................................................Slashing
Double flail................................................Bludgeoning
Double sword................................Slashing or Piercing
Urgosh....................................Bludgeoning or Piercing
IMPROVISED MELEE WEAPONS
One-Handed
Any.......................................................DM’s Discretion
Unarmed attack.........................................Bludgeoning
Two-Handed
Any.......................................................DM’s Discretion
RANGED WEAPONS
SIMPLE RANGED WEAPONS
One-Handed
Hand crossbow................................................Piercing
Repeating crossbow.........................................Piercing
Sling..........................................................Bludgeoning
Two-Handed
Crossbow.........................................................Piercing
MILITARY RANGED WEAPONS
Two-Handed
Longbow...........................................................Piercing
Shortbow..........................................................Piercing
SUPERIOR RANGED WEAPONS
One-Handed
Shuriken...........................................................Piercing

Two-Handed
Blowgun...........................................................Piercing
Greatbow..........................................................Piercing
Superior crossbow...........................................Piercing

IMPROVISED RANGED WEAPONS

One-Handed
Any.......................................................DM’s Discretion