Slight OT post regarding weapon groups: I've been waffling about this for over a week now, debating whether or not I really want to do it. Finally, I decided to make a list of pros and cons, and to see exactly how much work it would entail. As it turns out, not much - here's what I've got.
[[size large]]Weapon Groups[[/size]]
Weapons can be divided into several groups, as noted below.
[[div class="indent"]]
**Axes:** Battle axe, dwarven urgrosh*, dwarven waraxe*, greataxe, hand axe.[[/div]]
**Bows:** Composite longbow, composite shortbow, longbow, shortbow.
**Crossbows:** Hand crossbow, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, repeating crossbow*.
**Double Weapons:** Dire flail*, orc double axe*, quarterstaff, two-bladed sword*.
**Flails:** Heavy flail, light flail, nunchaku*.
**Heavy Blades:** Bastard sword*, falchion, greatsword, longsword, scimitar.
**Light Blades:** Dagger, kukri, punching dagger, rapier, sai, short sword.
**Maces and Clubs:** Club, greatclub, heavy mace, light mace, morningstar, sap.
**Picks and Hammers:** Gnomish hooked hammer*, heavy pick, kama, light hammer, light pick, scythe, sickle, warhammer.
**Polearms:** Glaive, guisarme, halberd, ranseur.
**Slings and Thrown Weapons:** Dagger, dart, shuriken, sling.
**Spears and Lances:** Javelin, lance, longspear, shortspear, spear, trident.
**Unarmed:** Spiked gauntlet, unarmed strike.
**Whips and Chains:** Spiked chain*, whip*.
*This is an exotic weapon and has additional prerequisites for proper use. See the individual description for more details.
All classes would, of course, get a set number of weapon groups on creation. PrCs do not get any. I think I'll add that you can get a new weapon group every 6 points of BAB (the fighter gets them every 4, AND he can specialize, whereas no one else can), to eliminate dipping into a martial class for a load of weapons while still enabling PCs to get more WPs if they want them.
As far as simple/martial weapons: The main problem I had was figuring out what to do with them. I finally came up with a solution, which removed the final obstacle to instituting this system. All characters can use simple weapons in their groups without penalty. Martial weapons, however, require the MWP feat - it grants proficiency with any martial weapons in your groups. For example: Josef the mage takes Slings and Spears as his two groups. Of the weapons in his groups, the shuriken, javelin, lance, and trident are all martial - he suffers a -2 penalty to use them (as opposed to -4 for a weapon outside of his allowed groups). If he took the MWP feat, he could use all those weapons without penalty.
This most closely simulates advanced training without the kludgy simple/martial weapons system - some weapons, while similar to what you know, are just different enough that they require a little extra effort to learn to wield properly.
And finally, here's a list of weapon groups. The druid was too hard to assign groups to, so I finally just stuck with the basic list (plus bows). Martial arts uses a wide variety of weapons, so I just gave monks a choice of groups instead of a limited selection. All martial classes and monks get the MWP feat for free.
Barbarian: Any four; MWP free (I'm ditching the barbarian, but it's included in case anyone else wants to use this system).
Bard: Light blades, Slings, and one of the player's choice.
Cleric: Any three of the player's choice.
Druid: Bow (long and short), club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, sickle, shortspear, sling, and spear, and natural attacks.
Fighter: Any four; MWP free
Monk: Any three; MWP free
Paladin: Any four; MWP free
Ranger: Bows + any three; MWP free
Rogue: Bows OR Crossbows, Light Blades, Slings
Sor/Wiz: Any two.
I was thinking of sticking it at L16 and making it once/combat instead of 3/day.
