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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Azlan" data-source="post: 173726" data-attributes="member: 2340">Given the way initiative, number of attacks per round, and reach work in 3E D&D, it seems we should not involve weapon speed with these particular game mechanics. However, weapon speed should still count for something! With all other things being equal, a combatant with a fast, balanced weapon should have some kind of advantage over a combatant with a slow, unbalanced weapon.After much thinking, devising, and playtesting, here's the idea I finally came up with...Each weapon should have a speed factor, based primarily on how quick, easy, and opportune it is to bring that weapon's focal point -- its "business end" -- into play. This considers such characteristics as the weapon's weight, length, balance, form, usage, etc.With 3E D&D, weapon speed should not modify initiative rolls, so it does not affect attack order. (Thus it does not interfere with 3E D&D's cyclic combat rounds.) Nor should weapon speed affect the rules for weapons with reach. (A combatant with reach will still have a certain advantage over one without, even if the former's weapon is slower and less balanced than the latter's.)However, weapon speed should come into play when a combatant is able to make multiple attacks per round; in which case, he applies his weapon's speed factor as a cumulative penalty to each additional attack after his first. (This, rather than the the flat -5 penalty, cumulative, that 3E D&D applies).Consider the following weapons and their speed factors...Shortsword, Size: Small, Damage: d6, Speed: -3.Longsword, Size: Medium, Damage: d8, Speed: -4.Bastardsword (2-handed), Size: Medium, Damage: d10, Speed: -4.Greatsword (2-handed), Size: Large, Damage: d12, Speed: -5.Hand Axe, Size: Small, Damage: d6, Speed: -4.Battle Axe, Size: Medium, Damage: d8, Speed: -5.Dwarven War Axe, Size: Medium, Damage: d10, Speed: -6.Great Axe (2-handed), Size: Large, Damage: 2d6, Speed: -6.Notes: Axes and swords of similar sizes are pretty much equal when it comes to reach and damage. But swords are better than axes when it comes to speed. This is due to 1.) a sword being a balanced weapon, and 2.) a sword's focal point -- i.e. its blade -- being available for 3/4 or more of the weapon's length, from either side. An axe, on the other hand, is a hefting, unbalanced weapon; most of its weight is at its end, where its focal point is available only for the final 1/4 of the weapon's length, and from only one side. In this way, swords are better -- quicker, easier, and more opportune -- than axes when it comes to making multiple attacks per round.With these rules, if a 12th fighter with a total attack bonus of +16 was armed with a longsword (speed -4), the bonuses for his three attacks per round would be +16/+12/+8. If that same fighter was armed with a battle axe (speed -5), the bonuses for his attacks would be +16/+11/+6.So, a weapon with a good speed factor doesn't give a combatant any additional attacks per round; not with the way combat rounds and numbers of attack per round work in 3E D&D. What a good weapon speed does is make it easier for a combatant to make successive multiple attacks -- but only if he's able to make multiple attacks per round, to begin with.</blockquote>

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