fighters, paladins, barbarians, and rangers, what has always annoyed me

[Crothian]

I like Crothian's idea, but I'd suggest that Fighters get 6 ourt of 7, Rangers, Paladins, and Barbarians get 4, Clerics get 2, and the Bard, Druid and Rogue get 1.

I can understand changing the guys who get all martial weapons, but why do you want to add weapons to all these other classes?

The reason I give fighters all, is becasue I use training rules and fighters are trained at guilds specifically in all weapons. This gives them a greater range of abilites. The others gettign three or four should be okay.

 

[Jeph]

I can understand changing the guys who get all martial weapons, but why do you want to add weapons to all these other classes?

The Rogue, Bard, and Druid all have specific weapon lists (so does the monkey, come to think of it), so I thought it might be nice to let them customize their list a bit. And the Cleric is supposed to be a pretty good combatant, but they don't get martial weapons as per the core rules, so maybe they should be dropped.

 

[Corlon]

I like Crothian's idea, but I'd suggest that Fighters get 6 ourt of 7, Rangers, Paladins, and Barbarians get 4, Clerics get 2, and the Bard, Druid and Rogue get 1.

Nah, I'd let em stick with their list, but if the DM wants to let them switch out, thats fine.

Rogues want to use bows AND short swords, now don't they.

 

[Kastil]

These classes might have access to using all the weapons in that category but how often do they a) have them or b) come across them? Most of the weapons are relatively the same size/weight so the balance of the weapon would be there. The DM can choose not to have those weapons available to the PC if they find the selection too vast.
No gaming system is going to be down to a science and certainly limiting your players is the DMs decision, but (as stated in a previous post) most classes have some formal training and would conceivablely have access to those weapons.
::shrugs::
I have also had characters come up with cool weapon variations. Now for that I insist they have burn a feat for Exotic Weapon Proficiency even if that's part of the class. I'm not THAT nice, after all

 

[Spatzimaus]

I've spent the last few days trying to balance out something based on some suggestions here. See what you think; it's based heavily on the 2E system. Kinda long.

All weapons are divided into 10 basic groups. Let's think of them as:
Slashing (swords)
Chopping (axes)
Polearm (spears and polearms)
Blunt (maces and hammers)
Piercing (daggers)
Projectile (bows and crossbows)
Thrown (darts and javelins, plus you use this proficiency when throwing any spear or dagger)
Flexible (flails, nets, and whips)
Natural (unarmed attacks, gauntlets, natural weapons, touch attacks)
Rays (ranged touch attacks or firearms, anything point-and-shoot)

Then, split the groups based on the PHB weapon size, into Light (smaller than your size), Medium (your size), or Heavy (one size larger). That is, Longswords are Medium Slashing, Greatswords are Heavy Slashing. Obviously, this varies with the size of the wielder; to an Ogre a Greatsword is a Medium Slashing weapon. (Special case: double weapons go as each end, so a double-bladed sword is Medium Slashing instead of Heavy, like two longswords; a quarterstaff is two light maces, and so on.)

Rays and Natural only have one possible size, Light.

When you gain a proficiency (with a Feat or by taking a class), you gain all three sizes, so it's one Feat to gain all Slashing weapons. Likewise, each class starts with a couple specific proficiencies, immediately picks 1 or 2 more, then gets a couple more as they progress.
So, Rangers might automatically get Projectile, plus 2 of their choice quickly and then a few more later. Paladins might start with Slashing and Blunt, and add one every four levels. Monks get Thrown and Natural. Fighters pick any 4 and gain another one every two levels until they have them all. The key is to spread them out over a few levels so that multiclassers don't get them all right away.
Clerics get the subgroup (group AND size) that contains their deity's favored weapon. All caster-types get Ray. And so on.
(Druids get a couple groups too, with the limitation that using nonorganic things add an Arcane Failure-type penalty, similar to Monks)

But, when you take Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization/Improved Critical/etc., they're only for one size of one group, and apply to all weapons in that subgroup. So, Weapon Focus: Medium Slashing will help with Longswords, Scimitars, Two-Bladed Swords, Gythkas, Wakizashis, etc., but not Greatswords (Heavy) or Kukris (Light). That gives 26 possible groups to put those Feats on.

Also, IMC every character automatically is proficient with all Light weapons (that's every weapon below your size), whether they picked that group or not. Frankly, it never made sense that certain weapons, like a small hammer, required that much special training. This mimics the Simple Proficiency rules, since that's what most of those weapons are: across the board, light weapons.

Exotic weapons are a special case. Each has two (or more) proficiencies. One is normal, and carries the usual -4 nonproficiency penalty. The rest are Exotic groups, each of which gives a certain benefit, and each Exotic Group requires an EWP. If you don't have that EWP you can still use the weapon, you just don't gain the benefit..
For example, the Double Weapon group is easy: without taking Exotic Proficiency (Double Weapons), you can't use it as a double weapon. You can still use it as a single weapon, using the stats of one end.
Other exotic groups: Monk Weapons (unarmed attack progression), Heavy Weapons (Bastard Sword and such), etc. Some classes get specific ones for free, like Monks getting (duh) Monk Weapons.

You can also bring races into this. Elves get the Projectile group for free, plus either Slashing (medium only) or Piercing (medium only) for the longsword/rapier thing. Half-Ogres get the Heavy Weapon exotic free. Gith get the Flowing Weapon exotic for free.

The nice part is, this means every weapon falls into one of only 10 mundane categories, plus 7 exotic categories that overlap. This makes it really easy to add new weapons to the game as treasure, since you don't get the "nah, I've got Weapon Specialization in longsword, I wouldn't use that" syndrome.

I'm still trying to balance out number of groups to give each class, though.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I like the idea of making all light weapons "simple", as that seems a sensible way of differentiating them.

All weapons are divided into 10 basic groups. Let's think of them as:
Slashing (swords)
Chopping (axes)
Polearm (spears and polearms)
Blunt (maces and hammers)
Piercing (daggers)
Projectile (bows and crossbows)
Thrown (darts and javelins, plus you use this proficiency when throwing any spear or dagger)
Flexible (flails, nets, and whips)
Natural (unarmed attacks, gauntlets, natural weapons, touch attacks)
Rays (ranged touch attacks or firearms, anything point-and-shoot)

I don't think you should have spears and polearms together, since they are significantly different.

Similarly I don't think you should have bows and crossbows together, as they are very different.

Why not divide like this:

Slashing (swords)
Chopping (axes)
Crushing (maces)
thrusting (spears)
Flexible (chains/flails/whips)
Close-up (daggers, gauntlets, natural weapons)
thrown
crossbows
bows

(or even keep a generic category of "simple" weapons, and then have subcategories for different types of "martial" weapon )

Cheers

 

[Spatzimaus]

I thought about splitting a few of these categories up, like you said. But, after a certain point you get a diminishing returns effect. If there's only one weapon in the group at a given size, you don't really gain anything over the old system. What I really wanted was to split everything into a handful of groups based on how they were used (is it a slashing action or a chopping action? Do you worry about ballistics or not?)

For example, Crossbows and Bows. They load differently, but they both fire arrow-like projectiles that follow a ballistic trajectory. So does a Blowgun, so I put them all in the same group. They could be three separate groups, but then you'd be back where you started. They may work a bit differently, but the skill required to aim them is similar enough that I grouped them.

Likewise, Katanas, Scimitars, Scythes, and Greatswords are in the same basic group, just at two different sizes. Knowing how to use one is similar enough to the others that you don't need a different proficiency. A Katana master could pick up a greatsword and still benefit from many of the combat moves he knows.

Now, about the Spear/Polearm thing, I was thinking about that. My concept was that the important part was knowing how to attack something further away than normal. But, it led to a situation I don't like. People would simply avoid the group entirely unless they intended to use a polearm (not a common choice.) So, get rid of the Polearm and Flexible groups. Spears and lances go to the "Piercing" group, slashing polearms go to the Chopping group. Picks go to the Chopping group also. Put the flails/whips/chains with the hammers and morningstars in the Blunt group.

I wanted to keep Simple weapons integrated to allow for Weapon Specialization and such. Weapon Specialization for a quarterstaff shouldn't help your attacks with a Light Crossbow. Saying "all Light weapons are Simple, and therefore everyone has them" has a few loopholes. You gain Short Sword, you lose Heavy Crossbow, that sort of thing. But it's still minor, IMHO.
You could just flat-out say "These weapons are Simple: club, dagger, quarterstaff, crossbows..." and give people proficiency that way, but I didn't want to do that.

We're left with 8 groups: Slashing (swords), Chopping (Axes, Picks, and polearms), Blunt (Maces, Hammers, and Flails), Piercing (Daggers, Rapiers, Spears), Projectile (Bows and Crossbows), Thrown, Natural, Ray (ray spells and firearms, anything that doesn't really worry about ballistics or armor). 5 melee, 3 ranged, and most have at least a dozen weapons.

Everyone gets Natural and Ray, since they're always Light. That leaves 6 weapon ones to be sorted by class. Let's say, Fighters start with 3 and get three more at levels 3, 6, and 9. Paladins start with Slashing and Blunt, and get two more at 5 and 10. Rangers start with Projectile and any one, and get two more at 4 and 8. Monks start with Thrown, they don't get any others.

You could split the proficiencies by size, too, making 12 groups to pick from (Medium and Large for each of the 6 categories, since the Small stuff you already get). I'm still considering that.

When taking Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, etc., you have 20 choices. Nice, round number that'll never change.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Well if nonweapon proficiencies were replaced with skill points, why not an upgrade of weapon proficiencies, say, "weapon points" or the like. They could work just like skill points, except that you devote them to particular weapons. Fighter types would get 8/lvl, rogue and cleric types 4/lvl, and wizard types 2/lvl. It wouldn't be quadrupled at level 1, because your max weapon rank would be your base attack bonus (minimum 1), and your weapon rank would be used as your attack roll. It would require reworking the proficiency feats, to be sure, but they could be replaced with cross-classing. For example, fighters have all martial and simple weapons as class skills, rogues and clerics have simple but not martial weapons as class skills, and wizards have both groups as cross-class skills. Exotic weapons take the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat and still use base attack bonus. What do you think?

 

[Ruvion]

IMC there is a variant system where you gain a Weapon Point, like the above poster mentioned, equal to your base attack bonus every level. Weapon Points can be placed on a martial weapon (or a Exotic Weapon that you have taken the proficiency feat) whereupon you gain an attack bonus equal to your Weapon Points allocation (but you cannot allocate more than your base attack bonus limit on a single weapon ). So at 18th level a fighter gains 18 weapon points and at 19th level the same fighter gains 19 weapon points and so on. This insures that you start with 1 or 2 weapons that you prefer and work your way to master various weapons later on. Kinda hairy to keep track but I think it's a neat system.

 

[green slime]

I have divided the weapons up according to culture, rather than class.

Then, each class within the culture has more or less access to weapons of the culture from which they are from.

The cultural groups are strongly aligned to races: Reptilians/Ophidians, Human (Barbaric), Human (Imperial), Dwarves, and Elves.

The Reptilians/Ophidians are a bronze age culture, using Khopesh, heavy spears, slings, short bows, and the like.

Human (Barbaric) use half-spears, swords, axes, composite short bows, and so on.

Elves use long knives, (a group of weapons, all finesseable) a variety of spears, composite long bows.

Dwarves use crossbows, firearms, axes, hammers, and crushing weapons galore.

Human (Imperial) A selection similar to the standard selection.

Fighter types gain access to most weapons within the cultural group they are from, except weapons that are rare within their own culture. These rare weapons, and those from other cultures are regarded as Exotic.

Due to the nature of the campaign, the rediscovery of a long-forgotten continent by the Empire, there is very little cultural "overlap".

I'd post a definitive list, but I'm at work