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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1653852" data-attributes="member: 10201">Yep. Similar situation in the games i ran. But it was easily fixed not by making axes unlike real-world axes (in comparison to swords), or by changing two-weapon fighting (i didn't know it at the time, but it probably should've been changed to be more realistic), but rather by making shields more like real-world shields. Specifically, i changed them to improve AC by 1 (buckler) to 4 (tower shield) points, rather than just 1, and shields became important, much like in RL. In short, since the various weapon choices had strengths and weaknesses in RL, i think it's better to try and mimic those, rather than introduce artificial balancing mechanisms. Frex, back to the ax-vs-sword thing: in RL, one of the big advantages of the ax is in armor penetration. AD&D2 had a mechanism for this, with the modifications to AC based on piercing/slashing/bludgeoning, and, IME, their use was trivially easy in practice: GM: she charges at you and swings with her pick. what's your AC?player: <knows a pick is piercing, so looks at the pre-calced "Piercing" blank for AC> 4I'm really disappointed that bit was dropped in D&D3E, because it added a lot of verisimillitude, at the cost of almost zero effort. And it was easily ignored without breaking or skewing the system, if you didn't want the extra detail--just use the "normal" AC (ditto for attacks that had nothing to do with weapon type, like ranged energy spells)Can you articulate how it is better? Do you mean more realistic, or simpler mechanics? Because it seems like at least one axis of comparison (difference of piercing/bludgeoning/slashing vs. armors) was tossed out, and the only thing added in (different crits) addresses a distinctly different issue, and isn't necessarily any simpler. From my POV, they're different, with neither one doing a better job, overall, of modeling weapons--2nd ed is missing the fact that a good blow with a piercing weapon is devastating, while 3E is missing the fact that a sword kinda bounces off plate armor.</blockquote>

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