MGibster
Legend
I always thought weapon speeds were both cumbersome, made very little sense, and just made combat less fun. Having to factor in weapon speed every time we rolled for initiative, which was every round back then for my group at least, just slowed things down. And it just doesn't make sense. Let's take a look at two weapons and their speeds.One of the great things in 1e/2e was weapon speed/factor which was added to the initiative roll.
Halberd - WS 9
Dagger - WS 2
I know everyone might be thinking, "Of course a dagger is faster than a halberd." Okay, that might be true. But if you're armed with a halberd and I'm armed with a dagger which one of us is going to get hit first? I am because you're going to have the opportunity stab, hammer, or slice me long before I get close enough to stab you with my tiny dagger. The halberd should have a higher weapon speed to represent the advantage of reach.
WS was an interesting idea that was poorly implemented.