Weapon list (and less interesting choices)

The other day, we playtested the rules in a real adventure for the first time. For the most part, everything worked as anticipated. But one thing that didn't work was the weapons list. I had thought that the incentives and disincentives were fairly balanced. But in play, I found my players overestimating the incentives and underestimating the disincentives when shopping for equipment. As a result, I had one player-character who was comically over-encumbered from the start, while another had opted for a weapon he had almost no chance of hitting with.

I don't know if this is a general thing, but at least for my group it seems to be: they constantly overestimate their luck. This presents a problem since it can result in decidedly un-fun situations. So I repeatedly have to build in fail-safes that - if everyone was rational - should not be needed.

Anyone analyzing games will tell you that you create interesting choices through incomparables. Gather two forest-tokens, or move your troops? Discard all cards, or play one? But this works poorly when you have players like mine, who have a very fickle interest in rationality and could just as well compulsively chop down trees every round out of some vague animosity towards dryads.

So I revised the weapons list and some of the rules, and I think it came out less interesting but a whole lot better. Here's the list.

(It used to be that higher damage was balanced against lower chances of hitting for weapons where you didn't meet the requirements. After the playtest I decided to instead lower the damage. This, I hope, will make oversized weapons lose their appeal).