Excerpt: Weapons (MERGE)


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I am not very happy with this preview. I was excited by Paragon Paths and Tiers of Play, slightly positive on Multiclassing and neutral on races and racial feats. This preview, however, has me so disappointed that it's bordering on disguist. I doubt it would be enough to turn me off of 4e completely, but I found myself aghast at just about everything I read in that article.

* Two-Weapon Fighting is incredibly lame. I was afriad they were going to do it like this. So now, if you want to truly be able to fight with two weapons, you have to "multiclass" as a Ranger, which I think is extremely stupid. Great job, WotC, taking something that 3e made work pretty well and bringing us back to the contrived rigidity of older editions.

* Only light weapons can ever be used in the off-hand. The whole light-weapon for the off-hand thing has gone from being a way to reduce TWF penalties to an absolute requirement. So a character can't even dual wield longswords anymore? Thanks WotC, for not letting my fantasy hero do what can easily be done in real life (not to mention fantasy literature).

* Small characters can't use two-handed weapons. Um, what? Don't get me wrong, I was never a fan of the whole small version of every weapon thing in 3.5, but at least it made some sense. This, on the other hand, is just ridiculous. Thanks, WotC, for punishing small characters for being small, and for doing so in a way that doesn't even make sense.

* High crit weapons have a ridiculous advantage over other weapons, especially at higher levels. Thanks, WotC, I never thought I'd find myself wishing to have the 3e crit rules back.

* Light thrown vs heavy thrown. Why? Why not just have all thrown weapons use Dex for attack and Str for damage?

* Lack of proficiency doesn't give a penalty. Apparently, we don't believe in penalties in this game, instead, we just put people at a disadvantage by denying them bonuses. It ends up being the same difference, but you feel better about yourself when you don't have a minus on something. *sigh*

[edit] Oh, and versatile weapons? Weak. a *whopping* +1 damage is not in any way, shape or form worth giving up the protection of a shield.
 
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Observations:

Unarmed is apparently both an improvised weapon and it's own group. Make up your mind guys...

Reach weapon rules are much improved. I like it.

Two weapon fighting... remains to be seen.

The versatile property seems gimpy. A whole +1 damage? Be still my beating heart.

The weapon groups are a useful idea, but I agree than some of the categories seem arbitrarily narrow. A mace, a hammer and a pick are all very similar in shape and usage.

The new Spiked Chain is... not exactly a well designed weapon, but it's far less egregiously stupid than the 3e spiked chain. You could imagine a master of, say, Kalarippayatt using one.

I'm surprised to see a Katar in the lineup.

I'm not sure what the weapon in the upper left is supposed to be but it looks a damm sight like the ones the elves were using in the last alliance battle in the LotR movies.

There seems to be no non-proficiency penalty, the philosophy being instead that you reward skill rather than punishing ignorance. If the proficiency bonus is too minor I suspect we'll see a lot of non-fighters wielding the exotic weapon-de-jour.

I wonder if the weapon sizes aren't over simplified. For example it seems that we now only effectively only have the small, medium and large weapon catergories, now renamed to small, one handed, and two handed. This leaves open the question of what creatures outside the small and medium size categories use. Pixies? Giants? Are there no more shrinking or enlarging powers? Just how dumbed down is this game? :\
 


Darth Cyric said:
There seems to be a very fine line between TWF being the be-all, end-all (2nd Edition) and being utter crap (3rd Edition). Hopefully, once we know all about 4e in a month, it will land right on the line.
Really?

I played AD&D 1e/2e for years and never once came to the conclusion that TWF was the be-all and end all.

I also thought 3.x had an elegant and simple solution and mechanic for it.

Care to explain what you mean
 

Two-weapon fighting certainly wasn't crap in 3rd ed if you were a rogue.

Edit: Or took that dervish prestige class, man that was broken.
 

Andor said:
Unarmed is apparently both an improvised weapon and it's own group. Make up your mind guys...
In the same way a longsword is both a military weapon and a heavy blade.

One is category, the other is group.
 

Falling Icicle said:
I am not very happy with this preview. I was excited by Paragon Paths and Tiers of Play, slightly positive on Multiclassing and neutral on races and racial feats. This preview, however, has me so disappointed that it's bordering on disguist. I doubt it would be enough to turn me off of 4e completely, but I found myself aghast at just about everything I read in that article.

* Two-Weapon Fighting is incredibly lame. I was afriad they were going to do it like this. So now, if you want to truly be able to fight with two weapons, you have to "multiclass" as a Ranger, which I think is extremely stupid. Great job, WotC, taking something that 3e made work pretty well and bringing us back to the contrived rigidity of older editions.
Fair enough.
Falling Icicle said:
* Only light weapons can ever be used in the off-hand. The whole light-weapon for the off-hand thing has gone from being a way to reduce TWF penalties to an absolute requirement. So a character can't even dual wield longswords anymore? Thanks WotC, for not letting my fantasy hero do what can easily be done in real life (not to mention fantasy literature).
I guess it's part of the whole "no suboptimal choices thing".
Falling Icicle said:
* Small characters can't use two-handed weapons. Um, what? Don't get me wrong, I was never a fan of the whole small version of every weapon thing in 3.5, but at least it made some sense. This, on the other hand, is just ridiculous. Thanks, WotC, for punishing small characters for being small, and for doing so in a way that doesn't even make sense.
Pff, small characters do 1 die type smaller damage, like they always have. The details are just details.
Falling Icicle said:
* High crit weapons have a ridiculous advantage over other weapons, especially at higher levels. Thanks, WotC, I never thought I'd find myself wishing to have the 3e crit rules back.
I'm amused that you're saying this is overpowered, and Torchlyte in another thread is saying the feat which does a similar thing is an utter waster of time.

It's about an extra 1 point of damage per hit, per tier, not exactly a "ridiculous advantage".
Falling Icicle said:
* Light thrown vs heavy thrown. Why? Why not just have all thrown weapons use Dex for attack and Str for damage?
Because out of every attack we've seen, all except one have the same stat for attack and damage?
Falling Icicle said:
* Lack of proficiency doesn't give a penalty. Apparently, we don't believe in penalties in this game, instead, we just put people at a disadvantage by denying them bonuses. It ends up being the same difference, but you feel better about yourself when you don't have a minus on something. *sigh*
I actually like the way it gives weapons a bonus over magic and unarmed attacks, but hey, whatever.
 

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