Exotic weapons are redundant with rarity

[Darkorin]

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to start a new discussion about Exotic weapons and weapon rarity (common, uncommon, rare, unique).

Let us first take a look at the definition of Exotic:

Exotic Definition:

• originating in or characteristic of a distant foreign country.
  
• attractive or striking because colorful or out of the ordinary.
  
• of a kind not used for ordinary purposes or not ordinarily encountered.
  

As you can see, these definitions does fit well with the concept of rarity. Something exotic IS something that is unusual, or as some people would say... Uncommon.

It feels to me that Exotic weapons are superfluous since the concept is too close to the rarity concepts. It's even more striking when you go back to the Rarity blog where it is said that "Eastern weapons" would be considered uncommon.

My position would be to scrap all references to Exotic weapons since it is purely a legacy term and most of the previous "exotic" weapons are now "uncommon".

What do you think?

[CommanderCoyler]

Should go with the D&D 4e term of 'Superior', as that is their design intent:

'What's Your Weapon?' Blog Post wrote:

In Pathfinder Second Edition, we have a different way of talking about whether a weapon is likely to be found in a particular region, and so a weapon's type instead describes a weapon's mix of power and flexibility. Simple weapons usually have a smaller damage die than similar martial weapons (d6 rather than d8, for instance), and exotic weapons usually use the same damage die as a martial weapon but include additional abilities that make the weapon more complex.

[Pramxnim]

CommanderCoyler wrote:

Should go with the D&D 4e term of 'Superior', as that is their design intent:

But their design intent isn't to make Exotic weapons superior in terms of damage, such that if you don't have them, you fall behind. In PF2, you trade off accuracy for more complex abilities (since people aren't as proficient in exotic weapons as they are in others. Fighters only get to Master in exotic weapons), making them a style choice rather than the optimal choice.