School specializations for fighters. (a bit long)

[Hellzon]

Aryan peeked to his right. Next to him, the brutal warrior Nanoc was fearlessly shooting arrows at the assaulting orcs. Strangely, he seemed to hit everytime, even though he had barely touched a bow before in his life. Nanoc used to swing axes, for Pelor's sake, but now that mean little goblin had stolen their stuff. And Aryan was had trained with bows since he was a child, yet his arrows hit only half of the time. It just wasn't fair!

Well, I figured one solution to the abovementioned problem would be to have specialization schools for fighters, just like wizards can specialize in schools of magic, so I made a little text on fighter specialization. Feel free to rip it apart.

And BTW, I'm new here. Hi!

Right, here goes (And yes, the first paragraph is stolen right from the PHB section on wizard specialization):

A specialisation is one of eight groupings of weapons, each defined by a common theme, such as brawling or stabbing. A fighter may specialize in one kind of weapons (see below). Specialization allows a fighter to fight better with the weapons from the chosen school, but the fighter then doesn't learn to use weapons from one other school. Essentially, the fighter gains exceptional mastery over a single school by neglecting the study of another school. The fighter must choose whether to specialize and how at 1st level. He may not change his specialization later.

The fighter is non-proficient (-4 to attack rolls) with the use of the weapons of the other school (chosen at the same time as the specialization school), but has Weapon Focus (+1 to attack rolls) with the weapons of his specialist school. The eight schools of fighting are Stabber, Slasher, Trapper, Archer, Crusher, Spearman, Brawler and Axe-wielder.

The schools:

Stabber
The stabber specializes in small, light weapons. Common among assassins and the like.
Weapons:
Dagger
Sword, short
Rapier
Kukri
Sickle
Dart
Shuriken

Slasher
The slasher uses large weapons that cut the enemies in pieces. Common in the military, and among paladins. The smaller axes are used by the axe wielder.
Weapons:
Sword, bastard
Sword, great
Sword, long
Sword, two-bladed
Scimitar
Falchion
Scythe

Trapper
The trapper is an expert with weapons that can be used to trap, disarm or trip his opponents, without hurting them much. Common among bounty-hunters and gladiators.
Weapons:
Net
Whip
Chain, spiked
Sap
Flail, dire
Flail, heavy
Flail, light

Archer
The archer specializes in all kinds of ranged weapons. Semi-common in the military.
Weapons:
Bow, composite long
Bow, composite short
Bow, long
Bow, short
Crossbow, hand
Crossbow, heavy
Crossbow, light
Crossbow, repeating
Sling

Crusher
The crusher specializes in blunt weaponry. Since this includes much modified mining equipment, it is common among dwarves and gnomes.
Weapons:
Club
Club, great
Hammer, gnome hooked
Hammer, light
Hammer, war
Mace, Heavy
Mace, Light
Morningstar
Quarterstaff
Nunchaku
Nunchaku, halfling
Pick, heavy
Pick, light

Spearman
The spearman specializes in spears, polearms, and lances. The third "leg" of the military.
Weapons:
Lance, heavy
Lance, light
Javelin
Spear, half
Spear, long
Spear, short
Glaive
Guisarme
Halberd
Trident
Ranseur

Brawler
The brawler specializes in fighting with his bare hands, or with small weapons that merely enhance fist-fighting. Common among fighters who lack the patience and self-control to become monks.
Weapons:
Unarmed Strike
Dagger, punching
Gauntlet
Gauntlet, spiked
Kama
Kama, halfling
Siangham
Siangham, halfling

Axe wielder
The axe-wielder specializes in swinging axes around. Common among dwarves and gnomes.
Weapons:
Axe, battle
Axe, dwarven war
Axe, great
Axe, hand
Axe, orc double
Axe, throwing
Urgrosh, dwarven (a.k.a. spear-axe)

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

Ok I'll take a stab at it and Hi yourself BTW! It's a good idea but it's way too overpowered right now. You need to re-read the spell specialization to give this a little more negativity I would say that any 1 school of specialization means a permanent -4 WITHOUT BAB bonuses to at least 2 other "schools" The rest are at normal. If a character wants to take 2 schools the -4 is for ALL other schools. You have to make it something that if the player wants that they sacrifice something else. The way it reads right now is that I can take slasher and weild my Longsword at a leve lhigher than normal and pick Trapper (which I don't like and would never use those weapons normally). Then by 4th level my -4 is offset by my BAB of +4. So I've been able to use my "weapon of choice" at a level higher while having NO penalties to anything. Now granted the DM can take away my sword have the hobgoblin throw it off a cliff or into a fire and then when I escape from the hobgoblin jailer with the whip I'm at a disadvantage (up to 4th level). But if that happened when I was playing I'd say it smacks of DM favoritism. Sorry to ramble; I like the idea you just need to make sure the negatives at least balance out the positives and it's always better to "give" something than have to "take" it away

 

[reapersaurus]

interesting ideas!

Where's the spiked shield? (Shield bashing)

 

[Hellzon]

interesting ideas!

Where's the spiked shield? (Shield bashing)

Hrm! Yeah, anything not in the PHB weapons list is also not here. That includes shield spikes, armor spikes and the garrotte. (from Song and Silence) The DM will just have to place them where they fit. As for spikes, they'd go into the crusher category. (being used for bashing attacks)

Valmur: Huh? Myself, I thought it was underpowered (-4 to a group of weapons for +1 to another group), but you have a good point.

Anyhow, this needs to be changed anyway. Using feats was not a good idea, since Simple Weapon Proficiency gives you proficiency with all simple weapons. I'm thinking of a plain -2 (or maybe -4) to two schools and +2 to one school. And maybe even more minuses and a bonus feat for the specialization school. (like: Archers get Point Blank Shot for free, Stabbers get Sneak attack damage) And with no Weapon Focus, you can take that later and get more +:s.

Anyway, have a nice day everyone. I WILL be back.

 

[XCorvis]

It's a tad overpowered, but not horribly so. The groupings are pretty good. Tweak it a bit more and see how it goes.

 

[Tonguez]

The answer to eveything - Make it a Feat

In fact I'd go even further and replace the current proficiency system (Simple-Martial-Exotic) with this one as it makes far more sense! Maybe give every fighter-type Simple weapons and then have them choose their weapon specialisation. Fighters get 2 specialisations.

Leave the Garotte and spiked sheild etc as further special-specialisations

 

[Anime Kidd]

Sounds like a great idea! But, a few things first.

1. The names...Have names that are somewhat related to the types of weapons being used. Like something dealing with the element of earth for the Crusher school. It just sounds wierd saying "Hi! I'm a 3rd-level fighter of the Crusher School!"

2. Take out weapons that would normally be associated with a certain race as well as the more rare exotic wepaons, like the Urgrosh or the orc Double Axe, or the Double-bladed Sword.

3. How about only half their BAB with the -4 penalty to unfamiliar weapons/schools? So even a 20th-level fighter would be at +6 without any bonuses and such.

Either way, you got me thinking about using it now.

 

[Hellzon]

Answers, and revised fighter system

Sounds like a great idea! But, a few things first.

1. The names... ...It just sounds wierd saying "Hi! I'm a 3rd-level fighter of the Crusher School!"

2. Take out weapons that would normally be associated with a certain race as well as the more rare exotic wepaons, like the Urgrosh or the orc Double Axe, or the Double-bladed Sword.

3. How about only half their BAB with the -4 penalty to unfamiliar weapons/schools? So even a 20th-level fighter would be at +6 without any bonuses and such.

Either way, you got me thinking about using it now.

1: Yeah yeah, I know. I'll try to come up with something better, but me and "comes up with good names" are not often in the same sentence.

2: Perhaps. I'll think about it, but that would make the "Crusher" school even more maxed. Crushers get a load of weapons, and hardly any would disappear with this change. See my reply to Toungez though.

3: You mean like: (BAB/2)-4 ? A little too mean, I think, but perhaps... Meself, I was thinking of letting the fighter advance on the "weak" BAB table ( the one that wizards use) for his neglected weapons, but then no -4. We'll see.

semi-4: Thanks!

Toungez: Nice idea. And yes, perhaps the garrotte and other odd weapons (like racial ones) should go into a "Universal school", like the Universal school of magic that you can neither specialize in nor take as an opposition school.

Anyway, I messed a bit with the system this afternoon. Odd weapons are still there, but I'll try to come up with better names as I post. Feel free to tear apart:

A specialisation is one of eight groupings of weapons, each defined by a common theme, such as brawling or stabbing. A fighter may specialize in one kind of weapons (see below). Specialization allows a fighter to fight better with the weapons from the chosen school, but the fighter then doesn't learn to use weapons from two other schools. Essentially, the fighter gains exceptional mastery over a single school by neglecting the study of the other schools. The fighter must choose whether to specialize and how at 1st level. He may not change his specialization later.

The fighter is practically non-proficient (-4 to attack rolls) with the use of the weapons of the other two schools (Called "neglected schools", and chosen at the same time as the specialization school), but has Weapon Focus (+1 to hit) with the weapons of his specialist school. He still counts as having the Simple Weapon Proficiency feat, though. To hit-bonuses of the other five schools remain unchanged.

A charachter who multiclasses into specialist fighter gets -1 to hit with the weapons of his neglected schools at that level and the next 3 fighter levels (totalling up to -4), and gets Weapon Finesse with the weapons of his specialization school at the same level as the penalties total -4. A charachter can not choose to specialize if he/she already has levels in Fighter (whether specialist or not).

A charachter who multiclasses from specialist fighter into another class doesn't get proficiencies from that class that would remove some penalties from the neglected schools. A Slasher with Stabber and Trapper as neglected schools, for example, doesn't lose the -4 penalty to the two neglected schools if he takes levels in Barbarian, even though the Barbarian is proficient with all Simple and Martial weapons, including for example the dagger.

The eight schools of fighting are Stabber, Swordsman, Man-hunter, Archer, Bone-breaker, Spearman, Brawler and Axe-wielder.

The Stabber specializes in small, light weapons. Common among assassins and the like.
Weapons:
Dagger, short sword, rapier, kukri, sickle, dart, shuriken, garrotte

The Swordsman uses large weapons that cut the enemies in pieces, mainly swords. Common in the military, and among paladins. The smaller axes are used by the axe wielder.
Weapons:
Bastard sword, greatsword, longsword, two-bladed sword, scimitar, falchion, scythe

The Man-hunter is an expert with weapons that can be used to trap, disarm or trip his opponents, without hurting them much. Common among bounty-hunters and gladiators.
Weapons:
Net, whip, spiked chain, sap, dire flail, heavy flail, light flail

The Archer specializes in all kinds of ranged weapons. Semi-common in the military.
Weapons:
Composite long bow, composite short bow, long bow, short bow, hand crossbow, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, repeating crossbow, sling

The Bone-crusher specializes in blunt weaponry. Since this includes much modified mining equipment, it is common among dwarves and gnomes.
Weapons:
Club, greatclub, gnome hooked hammer, light hammer, war hammer, heavy mace, light mace, morningstar, quarterstaff, nunchaku halfling nunchaku, heavy pick, light pick, spiked shield

The Spearman specializes in spears, polearms, and lances. The third "leg" of the military.
Weapons:
Heavy lance, light lance, javelin, half-spear, long spear, short spear, glaive, guisarme, halberd, trident, ranseur

The Brawler specializes in fighting with his bare hands, or with small weapons that merely enhance fist-fighting. Common among fighters who lack the patience and self-control to become monks.
Weapons:
Unarmed strike, punching dagger, gauntlet, spiked gauntlet, armor spikes kama, halfling kama, siangham, halfling siangham

The Axe-wielder specializes in swinging axes around. Common among dwarves and gnomes.
Weapons:
Battleaxe, dwarven waraxe, greataxe, handaxe, orc doubleaxe, throwing axe, dwarven urgrosh

 

[Avatar of the North]

Hellzon-
sorry to tell you but shield spikes ARE in the phb as are armor spikes. As i don't have a PHB at the moment someone else could probably quote you the page(s) if you really would like it, but here is the info from the SRD

Armor Spikes: Spikes can be added to armor. They deal 1d6 points of piercing damage (X2 crit) with a successful grapple attack. The spikes count as a martial weapon. If a character is not proficient with them, the character suffers a -4 penalty on grapple checks when trying to use them. A regular melee attack (or off-hand attack) can be made with the spikes, and they count as a light weapon in this case.

An enhancement bonus on a suit of armor does not improve the spikes' effectiveness, but the spikes can be made into magic weapons in their own right.

Shield Spikes: These spikes turn a shield into a martial piercing weapon that deals 1d6 points of damage (X2 crit) no matter whether the shield is small or large. Buckler or tower shields cannot have shield spikes.