The Weapon Skill System, Updated, Clarified, and Improved.

[Sravoff]

EDIT: Updated The System
The Skills
Unarmed (Dex)
Clubs (Str)
Spears(Str)
Thrown(Dex)
Simple ranged(Dex)
Hammers(Str)
Small Swords(Str)
Shields(Str)
Big swords(str)
Polearms(str)
Bows(dex)
Monk Weapons(Str)
Exotic-(str, or dex)
Dodge(dex)
Spell directing(spellcasting attribute)

Weapon Level: Weapon Level represernts how good your character's geneal class is at using weapon skills. Your weapon level is equal to you base atttack bonus.
Exceptions: There are however two exceptions to this rule. These are the dodge skill and the spell directing skill. For the dodge skill, your weapon level is equal to your character level. For the spell directing skill, your weapon level is equal to your caster level.
Special: You may add ranks to dodge and spell direction whenever you go up a level. These weapon points are deducted from you new total when you go up a weapon level.
Example: Serven, a fourth level sorcerer with spell direction 4, and dodge 3 goes up a level to level five. She has an int of 15 so she puts one on spell direction and one on dodge. Later she level up to level six. Now she has three points. One for her weapon skill points, because she spent the other two on spell direction and dodge at level five, and two from her int. She opts to put one on dodge, one on spears and one on simple ranged.

Buying Ranks
A character may buy ranks in any weapon group in their class description.
However, when using a weapon inside their class weapons skill but their class is not proficient with they take -4 to all rolls. ie, a druid, 7/9 in, one handed swords, has the normal rating for a scimitar but only a 3/5 for a rapier. Characters may get weapon skills as cross class skills but their ranks are capped to one half class weapon skills. ie, at first only two ranks in the skill.

Skill Points
Weapon skill points go as follows.
(8+int mod)x4-Fighter
(6+int mod)x4-Ranger, Paladin, Barbarian
(4+int mod)x4-Monk, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Rogue
(3+int mod)x4-Sorcerer, Wizard
You also gain that many points when you go up a weapon level. You don't get the x4 though.

Using Ranks
Each Skill has the same max ranks as normal skills. 3+weapon level. Skills have two ratings, attack and defense. When a character buys ranks, they are evenly distributed for melee. ie.,at first level a fighter maxes out two handed swords, his ratings are 4/4. A character may change these points in respect to att/def. One may not be more than three times the other. Such as the fighter could have, 2/6, 6/2, 3/5, 5/3 or 4/4. Or any other combination. When ever the character gains new ranks, the character getts 2 "points" to place where he/she sees fit. ie At second level the fighter above could take, 4/4->6/4, or 4/6, or 5/5.
Also, any weapon group without skill point in at first level, the character is considered unproficient with. Example: A druid with skills point in, club,

New/Odd Skills
Dodge is a class skill for all classes. It has one rating, def, and one rating costs one point. This opposes all rolls except melee rolls. Exception. When using a ranged weapon, you may use this skill at half ranks to dodge a melee attack. Same with unarmed.
Bows, Simple Ranged and Thrown weapons- This has only one rating, attacking, one ranks costs one point. this is used to shoot people with bows, crossbows and/or throwing daggers, javalins ect. This is apposed by dodge.
Spell Directing- This skill is used by spellcasters to direct their magic, it has one side, attack. One rating costs one point. This is used whenever a character makes touch attack or a ranged touch attack. It is opposed by dodge.

Using the System
To attack: roll d20 and add your attack rating. If this is a ranged attack add dex mod., if a melee attack add str mod.
When attacked: Roll d20 add your defense rating, if it is a melee attack, add str, if it is a raned attack, add dex.
For every 5 points your roll exceeds the defenders roll, add 1d4 to the damage.

Shields: Shields add their AC bonus to your defense/dodge skill.
Armor: Armor functions as DR only, AC bonus is converted strait to DR. Max dex is now the maximum increase you can get from a high ability score. Armor check penalty now penalizes all your rolls by one half its numeric value, rounded down.
Example: Kreygen, a tenth level fighter wears fullplate. he has two handed swords, 12/14 and a str of 17. He has dodge of 13. To attack he adds 10 to his d20 roll. To block he adds 12, and to dodge he adds 11, he has a dex of 14.


Feats that are altered
Dodge- grants a plus one to dodge rolls.
Weapon focus/greater focus- Adds one to all rolls with weapon. att/def.
Combat expertise- Trade Att ranks for Def ranks. Max is your classes base attack bonus. Changes stay until you change them again.

New feats
Reckless Strikes
Prerequisite: Att rating of 4, def rating of 2, power attack
Benefit: Trade def ranks for att ranks until next turn. This can be to a maximum of your classes base attack bonus.

Counter attack
Prerequisite: Def rating of 8, combat expertise, Improve diasrm
Benefit: When blocking in melee combat ONLY, if you beat your opponents roll by five or more, you deal 1d4 damage for each five points you beat their roll by. This damage is unafected by DR.


-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

The weapons in the weapon skills

Unarmed
fist, gauntlet, spiked gauntlet
Small Swords
Dagger, Punching Dagger, Sickle, Kukri, Short Sword, Rapier, Scimitar
Clubs
Light Mace, Club, Heavy Mace, Morningstar, Sap, Great Club, light flail, heavy flail
Spears
Short Spear, Spear, Long Spear, quarter staff
Thrown
Dagger, Club, Short Spear, Spear, Dart, Javalin, Throwing Axe, Light Hammer, Shuriken
Simple Ranged
Heavy Crossbow, Light Crossbow, Sling, Dart
Hammers
Light Hammer, Light Pick, Heavy Pick, Warhammer
Axes
Throwing Axe, Hand Axe, Battle Axe, Great Axe
Big Swords
Long Sword, Great Sword, Bastard Sword(2 hands)
Shields
Guantlet, Spiked Gauntlet, Light Shield, Light Spiked Shield, Heavy Shield, Heavy Spike Shield
Pole Arms
Long Spear, Glaive, Guisarme, Lance, Ranseur
Bows
Short Bow, Compound Short Bow, Long Bow, Compound Long Bow
Monk Weapons
Kama, Nunchaku, Sai, Siangham,

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Concerning thrown/melee weapons.

A weapon used for thrown and melee has different skills for the two uses. The thrown att for a weapon skill in melee is one half the mnelee's att rating. Thus, dagger 6/8 has a throwing of 3. This 3 also limits the amount of dex that cn be used when throwing. Melee att/def is a little different. Att is equal to one half the thrown att. Same penalties as before. The def however is equal to one half your dodge rating.

Any one have comments?

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Rule Fix:
A characters level for the purpose of the weapon skills is equal to their base attack bonus. As such, the max ranks for a wizard's dagger would be 3, they have a zero base attack bonus. For the puprose of feats treat the character as if it had the regualr base attack bonus for a character of their level and class in all weapon skills they have ranks in.
EXAMPLE: a 4th level fighter with ranks in small sword and clubs but none in bigswords could not use quickdraw with the large swords.

A character is considered proficient with all weapons in their class description. They get no bonus however if they have no ranks in the weapon.

New feat:
Counter attack
Prerequisite: Def rating of 8, combat expertise, Improve diasrm
Benefit:When blocking in melee combat ONLY, if you beat your opponents roll by five or more, you deal 1d4 damage for each five points you beat their roll by. This damage is unafected by DR.

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Did I stumble past some 30-3.5 taboo or did I just post the tomb thread?

-Sravoff

 

[Medwyn]

My own approach

You're approach seems to add in a lot of complication, although I have only given a quick glance overview.

I have approached the a weapon skill system in an easier way.

I split weapon groups into groups, Melee, Hurled, Bows, Unarmed and Exotic.
Characters then got 6 points at first level to spend on buying groups, and then 3 more points per level as laid out in the table:

             WGP     WGP
             Class    Non-Class
Fast BAB     1           2
Med BAB      3          6     
Slow BAB     6          12

Characters are limited to max ranks of level +1

I then use a variant of the Spycraft system for Defense and Armour along with DR.

The weapon groups could then be broken down into Simple Melee Weapons, Melee Weapons, Simple Ranged Weapons, Ranged Weapons as well.

Hurled including for aiming spells.

Feedback welcome

-Medwyn

 

[Arkhandus]

Sravoff, one thing you should learn about these forums is that folks aren't constantly watching the Houserules forum and looking to post their opinion on every little thing they see. {:^D As you may notice, several threads on the front page of this forum are often one or several days old, because this forum doesn't get checked as often/by as many people as the General Discussion forum, for instance. Folks may only pop in here once or twice a week to look at stuff and comment. Some of us are more interested in houserule stuff though, and lurk around this forum more often. And not even all of us really feel like commenting on everything; I'll contribute if I have something worthwhile to say, or feel an impulse to correct something. If I don't really feel like it one day, I may come back to the thread a few days later and post something then. I suspect other Houserules forum regulars similarly only post once in a while, though like me they may lurk around and glance at various stuff to see what's going on and decide if it's interesting to them or not.

So in short, just be a little patient; sometimes, there just isn't anyone watching the forum for a few days (or longer) that has an interest in the sort of houserule or whatnot that someone has asked for comments on. If the post falls below the first page, it might even just go unnoticed by folks who don't check in here very often. Some of us check the older pages though once in a while to see if any old topics deserve dredging back up. And sometimes we just don't feel like it. {:^D

Right now I'm just not up to analyzing this stuff and forming an opinion. I've made several comments on the forums today and yesterday (not necessarily this forum) and been reading several more, so I'll check this out again later when I'm more inclined to analyze and comment.

 

[Sravoff]

Sravoff, one thing you should learn about these forums is that folks aren't constantly watching the Houserules forum and looking to post their opinion on every little thing they see.

I will keep that in mind. My apologies to any one who became annoyed.

I split weapon groups into groups, Melee, Hurled, Bows, Unarmed and Exotic.
Characters then got 6 points at first level to spend on buying groups, and then 3 more points per level as laid out in the table:

WGP WGP
Class Non-Class
Fast BAB 1 2
Med BAB 3 6
Slow BAB 6 12

A little confused on this one. Does putting points into one of these groups give you a rank in all weapons inside that group? With the exception of exotic. What does the chart mean?
-Sravoff

 

[Medwyn]

A little confused on this one. Does putting points into one of these groups give you a rank in all weapons inside that group? With the exception of exotic. What does the chart mean?
-Sravoff

My formatting is terrible. I'll try and explain the table. Any help on correcting my formatting is welcome.

You either are proficent or not in a weapon group. For whatever reason I put Class and Non Class where it should have been proficent.

If you have a Fast BAB and your class is proficient in the weapon group it would cost you one weapon point to up your attack up (gain a rank) or 2 points if you were not proficient.
Medium BAB the cost would be 3 points for gaining a rank while being proficient and 6 for not.
Slow BAB would cost 6 points to gain a rank while being proficient while not being proficient would cost a whopping 12 points.

Putting a rank in makes you proficient with EVERY weapon under that bracket, with the exception of Exotic weapons. If you want to specialise in a certain weapon take weapn focus or similar feats.

Does that help?

-Medwyn

 

[Sravoff]

So by proficient/not proficient means if it appears on your class weapon list? That seems to makes sense.
If the above statement is true then:
So do feats like martial weapon proficiency make those weapons "proficient" for you, ie., purchased ranks cost less?

That is much simpler, though at the expense of detail. So what is this spycraft defense you spoke of?

vb code is a good way to got for formatting. the "code" tag works weel for tables and such because it is monotype.

  +--------+
[  ]	  code
place "code" inside the brackets to open the tag. Then type what you want inside the tag.
then
  +--------+
[/ ]	  code
place "code" inside these brackets after the slash. This will close the tag.
Note: Omit all spaces inside the brackets

Hope that helps

-Sravoff