Is weapon and armor "proficiency" system REALLY necessary?

[Emirikol]

Our group got to discussing the various unnecessary aspects of D&D and one main one that arose was why space is wasted on armor and weapon 'proficiency.' Really? Is it that big of a deal that it needs to have space wasted for it?

We were only able to imagine weak and unnecessary band-aid rationale's for determining that a wizard can't wield a halberd or put on plate mail..game-breaking, I know..with all that spell-failure, massively incompetant comparitive BAB, encumbrance and whatnot...

Thoughts?

jh

 

[hong]

Apart from game balance, there's the issue of archetypes. Do you want rogues running around with greataxes and greatswords?

The real-world answer to this (to the extent that there is a real-world answer for D&D questions) is that you can't hide greataxes and greatswords as easily as you can hide a knife. But in D&D, hiding weapons is rarely that important. Even if it was, the rules for hiding stuff are pretty scanty.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I kind of agree. I'm not sure the idea of proficiency should be totally done away with, but the requirement of a feat or suffer a -4 is a bit ridiculous.

And it isn't a game balance thing. So what if the wizard has full plate and a great sword. His spells are probably going to fail and he probably can't even hit you. Not to mention that his Strength probably sucks.

As hong mentioned, it's an archetype thing. Which as far as I'm concerned, can be done away with. If a rogue wants to use a great axe, why not let him? It's a little silly, but does there really need to be rules for this?

 

[Klaus]

I like proficiencies and they should stay. It's also a matter of internal consistency. If the character is a Rogue, a greataxe shouldn't be among the weapons he learned to use based on his background.

 

[Emirikol]

Another thing along these lines is the huge variation on damage..although it gives me that 'special feeling inside' I'd like to see these other things changed:

Weapon damages should have a smaller spread (d6-d12) instead of (d2-2d8)
and
[sacred cow alert]
Any weapon should be able to be used two handed (else ditch the two-handed 1.5 strength bonus stuff)

I know, it makes the barbarian completely impotent and unable to even take on a lowly kobold, but somewhere around 3.0 that bit of escalation threw a lot of the game into "massive amounts of damage."..and again, back to weapon proficiencies..it takes up unnecessary space.

Remember when clerics could only use blunt weapons? When that "archetype" sacred cow died, only a few diehards had aneurysms over it.

jh

 

[Emirikol]

I like proficiencies and they should stay. It's also a matter of internal consistency. If the character is a Rogue, a greataxe shouldn't be among the weapons he learned to use based on his background.

Background is the problem. This forces very constrained roles on characters..which makes everyone look to expanding racial lists (to include Celestial-Tarrasque-Tieflings) just to make things interesting.

"Background" constraints are why many people are unable to create any kind of variation of character and new players quickly become bored after a couple campaigns. A fighter is a fighter is a fighter is a fighter..all named george...unless you bought the book with the feats..in case you have a fighter named george with two new feats..even though he's just george with a red bandana instead of george with a blue bandana.

Arent' they trying to get rid of some of that in 4E or do you think it will become "worse" because of the influence of one-size-fits-all-miniatures-gaming-concepts?

jh

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I like proficiencies and they should stay. It's also a matter of internal consistency. If the character is a Rogue, a greataxe shouldn't be among the weapons he learned to use based on his background.

Why not? It makes since that a street thug with some muscle on him might favor a big axe over a little dagger. You shouldn't have to blow a whole feat or take a level in fighter to make that happen.

 

[Slander]

If they want to encourage specific archetypes, then classes can have built in incentives to fulfill those archetypes. They don't need to be penalized for ditching the archetype, though, which is what the current proficiency system does.

 

[Umbran]

Why not? It makes since that a street thug with some muscle on him might favor a big axe over a little dagger. You shouldn't have to blow a whole feat or take a level in fighter to make that happen.

But then question is - is that sort of thug best represented by a pure rogue in the first place?

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

If they want to encourage specific archetypes, then classes can have built in incentives to fulfill those archetypes. They don't need to be penalized for ditching the archetype, though, which is what the current proficiency system does.

Exactly.