[3.5E] Weapon Familiarity!

[Fenes 2]

Well, no elven thinblade in my campaign. Not ever. Rule zero for sure, and maybe even Mr. Steelpipe-time should another DM be as stupid to try to make it available.

As far as the dwarven waraxe is considered, I have to take a wait and see, but should I ever have a human fighter going for the bastard sword or dwarven waraxe, and a dwarven fighter going for the dwarven waraxe, then I might either ban it, or give the human the same familiarity with either weapon. I do not think that one of the major human perks - the extra feat - should be negated by weapon familiarity from either dwarf or elf.

 

[Mercule]

Am the only one who doesn't care for weapon famailieraty???

I am completely happy with a dwarf taking exotic weapon Dwarven Waraxe and such.

Nope. I'm fully in the "WotC is smoking crack on this one." Camp.

Dwarves deserve familiarity with the Waraxe as much as humans deserve it in the bastard sword. Likewise, half-orcs deserve familiarity with the double axe as much as humans do with the double sword. Feel free to substitute whatever "racial" weapon names you want to in the above and compare with the bastard sword or the double sword for humans.

Unless there is a parallel human weapon familiarity or an extremely special case (like the thri-kreen, although I don't use them), I'm 100% opposed to this. It doesn't make game-balance/game-play sense and it doesn't make "cultural" sense. As things stand right now, none of the PH races have any "special" weapons that would make sense for familiarity. Likewise, it doesn't sound like humans are getting it.

Even if humans get it, too, I'm still not enamoured by the idea. I'll probably rule-0 it out of hand. It's a real shame that I should have to do that, though.

About the best we can hope for is that WotC decides to cut their losses and drop the weapon familiarity before things go to the printer. Sure, it'll make 'em look bad for giving inaccurate previews, but that's a whole lot better than how bad they'll look by including such painfully lame new rules.

 

[Maniac]

I don't particulaly care one way or the other on weapon familiarity. I don't think it was bad before but I don't thinks it that broken now. I guess we will just see more dwarven fighters with waraxes now.

One thought I had regarding elves was how their free proficiency with longsword works. Right now its great if you take a class that does not already have that proficiency, however, if you are say a fighter, the ability becomes redundant. I wonder if they will allow weapon focus in that case? Woo hoo! back to the old days when elves were the best race and got +1 "to hit" with the longsword.

M.

 

[Cassander]

Maniac: How about giving elves who already get martial weapons proficiency an exotic weapon proficiency, like the thinblade?

Overall, I am not a huge fan of weapon familiarity when applied to good exotic weapons like the war-axe or thinblade, but dont mind it for stuff like the Urgosh which is rarely taken as is. However, it does seem to fit very well with the automatic proficiency idea... if dwarves with MWP get the war axe, shouldnt all other dwarves get the battle-axe for free? Then the battle-axe wouldnt completely disappear from dwarven culture.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Knightfall]

Maniac: How about giving elves who already get martial weapons proficiency an exotic weapon proficiency, like the thinblade?

Overall, I am not a huge fan of weapon familiarity when applied to good exotic weapons like the war-axe or thinblade, but dont mind it for stuff like the Urgosh which is rarely taken as is. However, it does seem to fit very weel with the automatic proficiency idea... if dwarves with MWP get the war axe, shouldnt all other dwarves get the battle-axe for free? Then the battle-axe wouldnt completely disappear from dwarven culture.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I don't know if I like the idea of adding several new 'racial' weapons to the PHB. However, if it happens, it happens.

NOTE: Weapon Familiarity makes the dwarven waraxe and urgosh Martial Weapons for dwarves. It doesn't make the weapon a free proficiency for all dwarves. It seems to me that it simply makes it easier to use those weapons if you have the barbarian, fighter, paladin or ranger classes.

If your a dwarven bard or wizard, you still don't have access to the weapon unless you take it as a Martial Weapon proficiency (expend a feat).

Later,

KF72

 

[Maniac]

Maniac: How about giving elves who already get martial weapons proficiency an exotic weapon proficiency, like the thinblade?

Well, that would certainly be more in line with what it looks like is happening with dwarves but it would necessitate the addition of the Elven Thinblade into the standard rules not that I am against that.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

M.

 

[Ravellion]

Hmmm.... The Waraxe weapon familiarity? I thought only the Urgrosh had been confirmed? The Urgrosh and Double axe are not so much unbalanced towards martial weapons. The Waraxe and Bastard sword are simply better, and should deserve to require a feat in any case. I wish they would have jsut called it Special Weapon Proficiency instead of Exotic Weapon Proficiency in the first place... that would ahve saved a lot of grumbling and complaining...

Rav

 

[Knightfall]

Hmmm.... The Waraxe weapon familiarity? I thought only the Urgrosh had been confirmed? The Urgrosh and Double axe are not so much unbalanced towards martial weapons. The Waraxe and Bastard sword are simply better, and should deserve to require a feat in any case. I wish they would have jsut called it Special Weapon Proficiency instead of Exotic Weapon Proficiency in the first place... that would ahve saved a lot of grumbling and complaining...

Rav

From the D&D 3.5 Scoops page under Specific Details, Cassandar's analysis (summarized) about the adventure Life's Bazaar right at the end.

Looking at the corrected stats for the dwarf in Life's Bazaar, we can find out the following things about 3.5e dwarf stats:

Dwarves get Weapon Familiarity in both the dwarven urgosh and the dwarven waraxe, which, as previously reported, means that these are treated as martial weapons to dwarves.

Dwarves get a "+4 bonus to ability checks made to resist bull rush and trip attacks when standing on the ground". The term "save" is no longer used, implying that bull rush and trip attacks will be handled similarly to how they are in 3.0e.

All 3.0 dwarven abilities are listed, with the exception of the bonuses to appraise and craft checks regarding metal and stone. Perhaps these were simply left out because they are just skill bonuses and not special qualities per se.

I'd also point out that the attack bonuses that the dwarf gets using the urgosh generally fit in with how things work in 3.0 without any two-weapon or ambidexterity feats. Chris Thomasson says that more errata will be posted in the future, so perhaps the two-weapon fighter's stats (which were analyzed a couple days ago) will be revised to fix the apparent strange bonuses in his stats. At that point, we may find out more about how two-weapon fighting works in 3.5e.

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Felon]

Re: Waraxe not Dwarven Enough...

Oh, puh-lease! Just drop the the adjective "dwarven" from "dwarven waraxe." It's not that special to be considered a racial weapon, just a bastard sword version of an axe.
That's like giving humans weapon familiarity with a bastard sword.
Still not a fan of Weapon Familiarity.

Weapon Familiarity seems like a pretty lame idea to me as well. Just because an exotic weapon is identified with a specific race, that shouldn't suddenly obviate the need for a member of said race to have special training in order to wield it proficiently. The people who complained about dwarves needing a feat in order to use an urghosh were just showcasing their weak grasp of 3e rules. Odd that the designers would decide to cater to that ignorance.

And you've pointed out the lamest aspect of WF: should dwarves, half-orcs, gnomes, and even halflings are given weapons appropriate to their racial "flavors", how will humans, as the "diverse" race, get compensated?

 

[Felon]

Well, no elven thinblade in my campaign. Not ever. Rule zero for sure, and maybe even Mr. Steelpipe-time should another DM be as stupid to try to make it available.

Oh lord, another person grousing about the supposedly-OTT thinblade. In truth, it follows a standard convention for an exotic weapon: take a martial or simple weapon and upgrade it by one step at the cost of a feat. In this case, the thinblade can either be seen as a rapier with its damage die increased by one die-type (which is the difference between a battleaxe and a waraxe), or as a longsword with its threat range increased by one number (same as the difference between a dagger and a kukri).

Now, granted, this ill-conceived racial Weapon Familiarity nonsense takes a sledgehammer to the whole concept behind exotic weapons by giving superior weapons away for bupkus, but that's not a problem specifically with the thinblade. The same is true of the waraxe.