Weapons as special effects

DanMcS · Oct 10, 2004

BardStephenFox said:
OK, I am thinking this is pretty nifty. Here is a question though, What about unarmed attacks? What if a fighter took improved unaramed attack?

I wouldn't let this work on unarmed attacks, even if the fighter took improved unarmed attack. Off the top of my head, I'd do a new feat chain that would end up looking like the monk progression:

Martial Arts (BAB +1) 1d6
Improved MA (BAB +4) 1d8
Greater MA (BAB +8) 1d10
Unarmed Mastery (BAB +12) 2d6
Improved UM (BAB +16) 2d8
Greater UM (BAB +20) 2d10

Stick in a "rapid strike" feat chain something like flurry of blows, and I'd probably allow unarmed damage to work with light martial arts weapons.

So you can make a martial artist out of a stock fighter, without him having to use the pseudo-mysticism of the monk class.

BSF · Oct 10, 2004

The more I think about this, the better I like it. I could see this as being a wonderful way to handle a campaign that only used the 3 "generic" classes from Unearthed Arcana. I keep trying to figure out how I would retrofit this into my current campaign.

Have you had much playtesting with this system? If so, how do you suggest handling non-fighter combat classes? For my current campaign, I have 7 PCs and not one of them has a fighter level. I have had fighters in my games, but the players tend to find them less interesting over time. I would love to turn that trend around. This system also reduces the dependance on equipment

Speaking of equipment, in the .doc, you use an infamous Jackie Chan ladder and a stick as weapon examples. Is it appropriate to still differentiate between weapons and improvised weapons for to-hit penalties?

The ideas here are dang cool. I want to find a situation to play with them in and see how well they work.

Samurai · Oct 10, 2004

If you did want to stick with the original list, you could say Unarmed is another catagory, like Light, Standard, and Heavy weapons. Unarmed is -2 dice categories on damage and is automatically Finessable like Light weapons. The benefit is that you don't have a weapon in your hands, meaning you can't be disarmed. You can't use the Reach, Wide Threatening Area, Thrown, or Ranged qualities while unarmed, and until Improved Weapon Prof, you always deal Nonlethal damage (after that, you may choose to deal either lethal or nonlethal).

In most cinematic fights, the fighter is almost as deadly with his bare hands as he is with a weapon. Having a completely seperate progression defeats this truism, IMHO. If they are equally good with all weapons in a variety of stances and uses, surely they'll know how to fight barehanded as well...

Samurai · Oct 10, 2004

Also, I really like this idea, but I think I prefer a smoother, slightly slower damage progression. Personally, I'd go like this:

...d4, d6, d8, d10, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10 (or 3d6), 4d6, 5d6, 6d6...

which corresponds to an average damage of 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17.5, 21...

Nifft · Oct 10, 2004

Simple, flexible, extensible. Genius.

For you, sir, I take off my hat of d02.

Thanks for sharing! -- N

Ulorian - Agent of Chaos · Oct 11, 2004

Nifft said:
Simple, flexible, extensible. Genius.

For you, sir, I take off my hat of d02.

Thanks for sharing! -- N

What he said.

Macbeth · Oct 11, 2004

This is a really niffty system. I still have a few ideas/questions/whatever that will have to wait until after I get home from class today. Right now, I wanted to ask if you've thought about getting this published? It seems like a really cool system, and I'm sure somebody (maybe even EN Publishing) would at least take it as an article, possibly expand it into a full length PDF.

DanMcS · Oct 11, 2004

BardStephenFox said:
Have you had much playtesting with this system? If so, how do you suggest handling non-fighter combat classes? For my current campaign, I have 7 PCs and not one of them has a fighter level. I have had fighters in my games, but the players tend to find them less interesting over time. I would love to turn that trend around. This system also reduces the dependance on equipment

No experience whatsoever, I started brainstorming this last wednesday or thursday. But as written, non-fighters are limited to Improved Weapon Proficiency. This is ok, because they have other schticks. Rangers have favored enemy and fighting style. Paladins have spells and smiting. Barbarians have rage and two-handed power attacking, which is so overpowered that I noted in the .doc that I use PA as 1.5x rather than 2x for two-handed weapons.

Speaking of equipment, in the .doc, you use an infamous Jackie Chan ladder and a stick as weapon examples. Is it appropriate to still differentiate between weapons and improvised weapons for to-hit penalties?

The ideas here are dang cool. I want to find a situation to play with them in and see how well they work.

Improvised vs weapons: I wouldn't differentiate. Jackie seems to do pretty well with a stool or a flute versus men with swords a lot of the time.

I think the best feature here is that it's close enough to the original weapon list that you can mostly use them unmodified if you need to. Rather than figuring out grips for every warrior in the bandit raiding party, give them spears and swords straight out of the phb. But then the last mook standing (who has absorbed the power of his dying comrades, in true movie tradition) ends up being a badass with Improved Weapon Proficiency and you schrodinger some improved technique feats onto him and he whups up on the PCs for a minute before going down gloriously.

DanMcS · Oct 11, 2004

Samurai said:
If you did want to stick with the original list, you could say Unarmed is another catagory, like Light, Standard, and Heavy weapons. Unarmed is -2 dice categories on damage and is automatically Finessable like Light weapons. The benefit is that you don't have a weapon in your hands, meaning you can't be disarmed. You can't use the Reach, Wide Threatening Area, Thrown, or Ranged qualities while unarmed, and until Improved Weapon Prof, you always deal Nonlethal damage (after that, you may choose to deal either lethal or nonlethal).

Hey, that's pretty smooth. It tracks nicely, too- a non-proficient user gets bumped down two steps and ends up with a d3 subdual. Proficient get a d4, Improved get a d6 and can do lethal. I like it. Probably have to rename the thing, Combat Proficiency or something, since weapon proficiency would not be totally descriptive anymore.

I might allow Wide Threatened Area, rationalized as a kung fu stance where the user lunges to hit someone. Most (real-world) pro boxers have a listed reach over 6 feet.

Seems like version two of the .doc is shaping up nicely.

DanMcS · Oct 11, 2004

Combat Proficiency rules, version 2. Includes the unarmed attack rule, patches to power attack and weapon finesse, fixed a couple of typos, clarified the examples a bit, and cleared out some redundant text.

Weapons as special effects

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