Ah, the golf bag. Every warrior’s best friend. We touched on this subject back in “Weapon Focus,” but it deserves a special mention here. As Cleric and Warrior so ably demonstrate, the rationale for carrying backup weaponry goes well beyond “being disarmed sucks.”

Whether you’re aiming for monster vulnerabilities in 5e or trying skirt DR in 3.X, owning a collection of alternate loadouts is good policy. Every time you take the attack action, you want to get full impact out of your swing. That means avoiding common immunities (get that mess enchanted!). It means bludgeoning damage (take that, skeletons!). It means wooden clubs for rust monsters, silvered weapons for lycanthropes, and adamantine daggers for shenanigans. In other words, there’s a reason that Paizo’s iconic cavalier looks like a walking scrapyard.

All of this leads naturally to our question of they day: How much is too much? When you’re building up your arsenal, what tools do you positively, absolutely have to have in your toolbox? What threats are too esoteric to warrant prepping for? I mean, not every campaign is going to need an anti-vampire kit. Do you assume that you’ve always got three different polearms strapped to your back, or do you get pack horses to lug that mess around? How do you calculate the trade-off between “main weapon” enchants and keeping your backups at a reasonable level? And let’s not forget the economics of the situation. If you decide to keep four to five reasonably-enchanted weapons on your person, that’s a lot of gold that’s not going into the party’s general fund. Where’s the line between “well-prepared” and “over-prepared?”

So what do you say, my fellow fighty-types? Shall we figure out a proper shopping list? Tell us all about the contents of your ideal golf bag down in the comments!

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