Anyone else miss weapon speed?

[nsruf]

I'm glad their gone, but I woudn't have minded it as an optional rule... seems like something simple to add...

Actually you would have to change the whole initiative system again, so that you declare what you do BEFORE rolling. Otherwise, how can you figure out which speed factor applies?

And I really dislike stating actions in advance, both because of the extra bookkeeping involved for large battles and the situations where actions fail because they happen at the wrong time.

So speed factor really have no place in my game.

 

[Arnwyn]

Yes, I miss it (well, I don't really *miss* it, as our group still uses it). But not because it's "more realistic" or "makes sense" (we're trying to simulate combat by rolling funky-shaped dice... realism is NOT our first concern) - it's to help prevent PCs from always taking the most uber-strong-damaging weapon in a particular size category. [And yes, we roll initiative every round - our group is one of the few that doesn't like cyclical initiative. We like the randomness of battle.]

Of course, with the new cyclical initiative system, weapon speed factors would be totally inappropriate. It's good that they didn't include them with this new system.

P.S. I, personally, avoid SKR's "essays". While I understand what he's getting at, they are generally so poorly written that they often do not help his position - unless you already agreed on his position in the first place, or simply don't care. (His infravision essay was particularly laughable... he made his point, but his arguments were *awful*.) IMO, of course.

 

[shadowlight]

Actually you would have to change the whole initiative system again, so that you declare what you do BEFORE rolling. Otherwise, how can you figure out which speed factor applies?

And I really dislike stating actions in advance, both because of the extra bookkeeping involved for large battles and the situations where actions fail because they happen at the wrong time.

So speed factor really have no place in my game.

Yeah, It would add some time to combat. If I were to implement it (which I'm not), I'd have a base initiative for the whole combat and then modify the order each round depending on your weapon...

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

P.S. I, personally, avoid SKR's "essays". While I understand what he's getting at, they are generally so poorly written that they often do not help his position - unless you already agreed on his position in the first place, or simply don't care. (His infravision essay was particularly laughable... he made his point, but his arguments were *awful*.) IMO, of course.

What was awful about his infravision arguments? Certainly far less laughable than the pro-infravision arguemnts, I'll guarantee you of that.

 

[HellHound]

Thank goodness they are gone.

And, my goodness, let this poor dead horse LIE!

 

[Arnwyn]

What was awful about his infravision arguments? Certainly far less laughable than the pro-infravision arguemnts, I'll guarantee you of that.

I'm not going to go into any detail and hijack the thread more than it already has been, but I'll give a quick (very summarized) version of the crux of his argument (quoted): "AD&D doesn't have any rules for..." so therefore, it shouldn't be in D&D.

Well, I hate to tell ya, but there's no rules for how campfires work, either - so should they "not exist"? Uh huh. [His point is right - infravision *does* adds more mechanics problems into the game for something that will be used fairly often - but his points weren't put forth very well. He yammered on a lot longer than he should have... IMO.]

I haven't heard the pro arguments, so I can't comment (though I doubt they'd be any better than Sean's).

 

[Victim]

There's already plenty of reasons not to use the weapon with the most raw damage. Let's take medium size martial weapons: the warhammer, battle axe, and longsword all do d8s. One has a 19-20 crit range and the others have 20/x3. Some medium martials do 1d6 damage, but have better critical effects. Rapiers and Scimitars have 18-20 threat ranges so they can cause crits all the time. Heavy Picks have 20/x4 crits so, although your base damage is less and you don't crit often, when you do the effect is devastating. Characters looking for reliable average damage will go for the d8 weapons. People looking for flashier attacks will probably go with the rapier or scimitar, so they can eventually threaten on 12-20. Our fighter went this route, and only seemed to suffer against foes he couldn't crit. Picks should cause fight ending crits when they occur - I've this used, but the crits never effectively came into play.

So all the medium martial weapons are equally effective, give or take a bit.

 

[HellHound]

My goodness, the pick can turn into a fight-ender with a lucky roll!

Two-pick rangers can rock.

 

[Aaron L]

More that just the type of weapon goes into how fast you attack with it. I have seen some very very quickly wielded greatswords and some very slowly wielded longswords. Using one "speed factor" for everyone who uses the same type of weapon would be unfair.

 

[Berk]

*kicks the dead horse lying on the ground*