Weapon Speed variation

[Xaov]

You something that I find to be kinda crappy about the current set of rules is that there really isn't that much distinction between weapons when it comes weapon speed. For Instance apparently a person can swing a greatsword as fast as someone using daggers.

I think that perhaps there should be some sort of distinction. For instance the basic Attacks can stay the same. But perhaps if someone uses daggers they get twice the attacks, and if they use a greatsword they get half as many attacks.

Daggers really should be faster but less damaging attacks, but a Greatsword while slower will pack an incredible punch.

What do you guys think?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I completely disagree. Someone wielding daggers is going to get in fewer attacks against the greatsword wielder, simply because the greatsword has a much longer reach. Adding in weapon speed without adding in reach, as well as various other factors, is less realistic IMO, not more.

 

[Zadam]

I tend to view combat as a bit more abstract than that. I don't see someone with one "attack" in D&D as meaning that person literally only swung their sword or dagger one time. I take it to mean that during the round the person may have made one, or several "swings" to try and hit their enemy during that round (probably several using a dagger, but only one or 2 with a greatsword). To roll a miss simply means all their combat moves and swings resulted in misses or glancing blows which failed to do any substantial damage. To roll a hit but then rolling a low damage could mean they only got one medium strength blow in, or 2 light blows etc. Rolling for high damage could mean they actually hit a couple of times, or once for a devastatingly powerful blow.


If you keep it abstract like that, then its very likely that during a round someone fighting with a dagger might in fact make several lunges and slashes with the dagger wheras the greatsword fighter might only swing once or twice. But doing significant damage with a dagger is harder, so hence a few cuts and prods from a dagger equates less damage than one powerful hit from a heavy greatsword, and hence this is represented already by the damage roll.

 

[Ranger REG]

What do you guys think?

Until you can prove they have hidden propulsion unit, I'm still not a fan of weapon speed factor.

 

[Bront]

in 2nd Ed, I toyed with a system of initiative that factored in weapon speed.

Basicly, you broke each round up into 10 segments, and you rolled a D10, added your weapon speed (or spell casting time), and modified with your initiative by your dex. If you had multiple attacks, you devided by however many you got. The resulting numer was what segment you went on, and then when you went, you rolled again and added it. So basicly, it worked like a chart where you might go on 7, then 13, then 23 depending on what you rolled. High speed characters often went several times a round if they rolled well.

It was cumbersome to run though, and wasn't balanced. Unarmed combatants or people who specialized in small weapons often could do more damage than a dude with a great sword or large and powerfull weapon.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

What do I think?

First, "Ugh! Memories of 2e flooding back into brain. Must... Represss..."

Second, what you're talking about is NOT a minor change to the system. In order to work well you would have to completely retool the combat system from the ground up taking into account reach (as Lord Pendragon mentioned) etc. in order to get a small increase in realism.

To illustrate the effect of the change you're considering, let's take a look at your examples. Off the top of your head, you estimate it might be fair to give the dagger twice as many attacks as normal and the greatsword half as many. So, we come up with the dagger attacking four times for every time the greatsword attacks. On the face of it, this solution has the dagger effectively doing 4d4 damage in the same period the greatsword does 2d6. So a dagger averages 10 damage per time period and a greatsword 7. A longsword that attacks twice in that period (assuming it to be the baseline) would deal 9 points of damage. If you think it's realistic for everyone to bring a knife to a swordfight and for the dagger to be the most deadly weapon in the game, preferred to swords and spears, that may sound like a reasonable result. I don't think it does.

But wait a minute! That's not how D&D is played. By even mid levels, characters do more damage from strength, weapon specialization, magic, bardsong, etc. than from the weapon dice. So, let's see what happens if we take three 8th level fighters with 18 strengths (15 +2 for levels, +2 gauntlets of ogre power) and see how much damage they inflict per round. They've each got weapon specialization in their chosen weapon and a +1 shock weapon.
Mr. Dagger: 4 attacks for 1d4+7+1d6 each--52 damage per round
Mr. Longsword: 2 attacks for 1d8+7+1d6 each--28 damage per round
Mr. Greatsword: 1 attack for 2d6+9+1d6--19.5 damage per round

You'll notice that, once strength and magic is included, the dagger is, by far, the damage king, dealing 2.5 times the damage of a greatsword in one attack period and almost twice the damage of the longsword.

I submit that, unless you revamped the system entirely, there would only be one viable weapon in such a system: whichever one gave you the most attacks.

 

[Staffan]

Veggie boy pretty much sums up my views on the subject: http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/weaponspeeds.html

 

[werk]

A thread that starts:

You something that I find to be kinda crappy about the current set of rules ... What do you guys think?

Should probably be in house rules.



You asked what I think...

 

[IcyCool]

Should probably be in house rules.

Ditto.

 

[Xaov]

Hmm I just read through that document you posted Staffan and I guess that pretty much does sum it all up. Pendragon even before that you took into account reach which I failed to consider. I guess from reading this thread, the work would most definately outway the benefit. Heh I know that if I was DMing I would hate to have to try to keep track of all that. Oh well it was just a thought.


As for this being in House Rules. I considered placing this topic there, but decided to place it here in the D&D rules section because it was a question pertaining to In Game Mechanics in general. I just didn't think it belonged in the house rules section.

Anyways, thanks for the help.