Weapon Groups

[Kerrick]

The main reason I'm doing this is that weapon groups are more realistic than "All simple and martial" – no fighter has time to learn how to use all those weapons, let alone train with them. They're going to pick one or two weapons and learn those; a weapon group simulates that if the fighter knows how to use one weapon, he would know how to use those of a similar type – either through training, or simply because they're pretty much the same and, even if he's never seen one before, he can pick it up, swing it around a few times, and get a pretty good idea of how it works.

Peasant weapons are kind of the exception to this rule. These weapons were chosen because they're all things that a commoner would be able to use, and would have at hand – clubs, sickles, pitchfork, knives, etc. They're all simple weapons anyway – it's just that the list got trimmed down a bit - heavy crossbows are a soldier's weapon, as are javelins, and while heavy maces aren't much different than light ones, you don't see too many commoners using them - they're too heavy.

Axes: battle axe, hand axe, dwarven waraxe, greataxe, pick (light/heavy)

Bows: Short, long, composite

Crossbows: hand, heavy, light, repeating

Hammers and Maces: Flail (light/heavy), greatclub, light hammer, mace (light/heavy), morningstar, sap, warhammer

Light blades: Dagger, punching dagger, kukri, rapier, sai, short sword

Large blades: Bastard sword, falchion, greatsword, longsword, scimitar

Monk: Kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham

Peasant: Club, crossbow (light), dagger, dart, light mace, quarterstaff, morningstar, sickle, sling, spear (normal, short)

Rogue: Dagger, dart, hand crossbow, rapier, sap, short bow, short sword

Shields: Shields, spiked shields

Small Thrown: Dagger, dart, shuriken, throwing axe

Spears and Polearms: Javelin, spear (all), glaive, guisarme, halberd, ranseur, scythe, trident

Whips and chains: Whip, spiked chain

How this works is, instead of granting, say, "All simple and martial weapons" you get a number of weapon groups. High BAB (barbarian, fighter*, paladin, ranger) get 3 groups; mid-BAB (bard, cleric, druid, rogue) get two, and low BAB (sorcerer, wizard) get one.

*Fighters actually get 4 groups, since they are the generic "master of weapons and fighting" class, and don't get any special class abilities.

When multiclassing, you can choose one weapon group from the new class, subject to the restrictions noted below.

In some cases, this obviates specific lists of weapons but those classes get specific weapon groups instead, which gives them more or less the same weapons (mages actually get a better range of choices, and druids lose the scimitar). If you want to use a weapon that's not in one of your groups, you take the usual -4 nonproficiency penalty. You can take a feat to gain a new weapon group.

There is, obviously, some overlap here – spears, for example, are in both the Peasant group and the Spears and Poleams group. This is mainly because they fit in both groups.

A few weapons aren't in a group – most of them are exotic, and are too odd to fit into a specific group. As before, you have to take a feat to gain proficiency with them, because they are so strange. Some groups have exotic weapons in them – Crossbows, Heavy Blades, Monkish, Small Thrown, and Whips and Chains. Unless you specifically get that group as a class proficiency, you have to have a martial class (high BAB) to take that group.

So how it works out is this:

Bard: Rogue and Peasant

Barbarian: Any three

Cleric: Any two from: Bows, Crossbows, Hammers and Maces, Peasant, Shields, Spears and Polearms

Druids: Bows and Peasant

Fighter: Any three

Monks: Monk and Peasant

Ranger: Any three

Rogues: Rogue and Peasant

Sorcerers/Wizards: Peasant

NPC Classes

Adept: Peasant

Aristocrat: Any two from: Axes, Bows, Hammers and Maces, Light Blades, Large Blades
(This list was cut down to simulate the fact that most aristocrats wouldn't be caught dead with a "peasant" weapon - a crossbow, or any weapon from the Peasant group. They have a mid-level BAB, but get all Simple and Martial, which is an odd dichotomy - they should've just gotten a limited list.)

Commoner: Peasant

Expert: Peasant

Warrior: Any three.

 

[Boss]

Unearthed Arcana already has rules for this, though not quite as broken out as you have it. Other than that, you are pretty close to the mark found there.

 

[jeffh]

The biggest difference between this and UA's system is that this version has the exotics mostly mixed into the other groups, while UA has exotics associated with each group, and taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency makes you proficienct with the exotic weapons associated with the weapon groups you already have. I like the latter system better.

Three groups is just few enough to feel like a real, game-mechanical limitation. In light of this, I would bump the Fighter up to four. He should be the guy who doesn't feel like he has to worry about this stuff too much.

How do you propose to handle multiclassing? I assume you only get the full proficiency layout at first (character) level. Maybe borrowing a page from SWRPG and giving a character one proficiency from the new class would be reasonable.

 

[Aries_Omega]

My group uses the UA Weapon Groups and loves it. Our house rule is Exotic Weapons is for one group. So...with our fighter he started with this.

Basic Weapons
Large Blades
Bows
Spears & Lances
Maces & Clubs

He then took EWP and added Exotic versions of Large Blades, hence why he wields a bastard sword one handed. If he wanted to learn....elven double bow then he would take EWP for Bows.

Anyhow...I like it, they like it...it works.

 

[Kerrick]

Unearthed Arcana already has rules for this, though not quite as broken out as you have it. Other than that, you are pretty close to the mark found there.

Oh, I didn't know UA had already done this. I'll have to take a look at theirs.

The biggest difference between this and UA's system is that this version has the exotics mostly mixed into the other groups, while UA has exotics associated with each group, and taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency makes you proficienct with the exotic weapons associated with the weapon groups you already have. I like the latter system better.

I thought about separating the exotics, where if you took, say, Weapon Focus (weapon group) you'd get access to the exotic weapons, but I ditched that idea, thinking that the exotic weapons in each group are close enough to their counterparts that you shouldn't really need an extra feat for them. I'll look at UA's version and see if it works better.

Three groups is just few enough to feel like a real, game-mechanical limitation. In light of this, I would bump the Fighter up to four. He should be the guy who doesn't feel like he has to worry about this stuff too much.

Just the fighter? Yeah, I could see that, since the group are kind of small...

How do you propose to handle multiclassing? I assume you only get the full proficiency layout at first (character) level. Maybe borrowing a page from SWRPG and giving a character one proficiency from the new class would be reasonable.

I hadn't thought about it, honestly - this was kind of quickly tossed together on the spur of the moment. I like the idea of being able to choose just one group from each additional class.

 

[Aus_Snow]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/weaponGroupFeats.htm - in case you don't have access to UA at all. . . which, it seems, you might not.

Linked to for reference purposes, not as a "use this instead!" type statement, incidentally.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

*Yawn* Yet another arbitrary weapon grouping that has more to do with a convenient catalog than how the weapons are actually used.

One-handed clubs, maces, axes, and picks are all basically short hafted weapons with a large and/or heavy head.

Likewise for two-handed clubs, maces, axes, and picks.

Greatsword and two-handed bastard sword are both used in almost the same way but are a far cry from fighting with a longsword.

Dagger, Shortsword, Rapier, Sabre, and Scimitar are close enough to keep in a single group. It's not unrealistic to include one-handed spears in this category also.

A one-handed flail is very different from everything else except the nunchaku.

A two-handed flail also stands alone.

Spears are very different from polearms, Polearms actually have more in common with two-handed maces, clubs, axes, and hammers. Spears are never swung. Thrusting with a polearm is a secondary attack and gets very tiring after a while.

Why are peasants proficient in any weapons at all? If they spend any time at all fighting in the militia then they most likely have levels in Warrior instead of Commoner.

Bucklers and spike shields are both punching shields. Medium and Large shields are not. If you allow characters to fight with tower shields then lump them in with the medium and large shields.

After 30 years of D&D, I'm just very tired of seeing the contintual academic grouping of weapons into proficiencies based on type (axe!, sword!, &c.). It's like saying I'm taking a proficiency in Israeli arms (uzi, desert eagle, galil) but I can't use a MAC10, Browning M1910, or an M-16.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Done it.

In our campaign, it works a bit differently than the UA system. As Griffith noted, it should break down more by how the weapon is used. Basically, our system goes like this:

There are 8 Martial Weapon Categories:
Bladed (slashing swords)
Hafted (axes, polearms)
Piercing (daggers, spears, rapiers, shortsword)
Blunt (maces and hammers)
Projectile (bows, crossbows)
Thrown (including thrown daggers and spears)
Natural (unarmed attacks, claws, gauntlet attacks, shield bashes, etc.)
Ray (ranged touch spells and firearms)

Every weapon has one Martial Category, with two exceptions: double weapons can have one for each end, and weapons that can be thrown (daggers, spears, throwing axes) use the Thrown group when thrown and a different category when used in melee.

The Martial Weapon Proficiency feat gives you one category.
Some Martial weapons are also tagged as "Simple" and can be used without the proficiency.
Exotic weapons are Martial weapons (sometimes Simple as well) that also have an additional Exotic category. You can still use them without the Exotic proficiency, but there's some specified penalty. For example, you can use a Quarterstaff without the double weapon EWP, but you can only use one end of it. A few exotic weapons have multiple Exotic groups; generally speaking these weapons are weak without the EWPs, but really strong with them.

Classes give MWPs at various levels (Fighters start with any two and add one per 3 levels, most other weapon-using classes start with one (which is set by the class; Rangers get projectile, Rogues get piercing, etc.) and add one per 4-5 levels). However, the MWPs given at class level 1 are a "Novice Weapon Proficiency" and can only be claimed once; that is, a Ranger 1/Paladin 1/Bard 1/Rogue 1 would only get the one proficiency for the first class taken, not four.

Within each Category, weapons get Grouped by size. So, Medium Bladed is a different group than Small Bladed. In most cases, the group corresponds to the weapon's size, but in the case of double weapons, it's the effective size of each half. That is, a double-bladed sword is two longswords, so it's treated as Medium Bladed (the longsword's group) instead of Large Bladed.

Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, etc. apply to all weapons within a Group. (So, if you've taken all these feats to use for a longsword, you can also apply the bonuses to a Scimitar, but not to a Greatsword.)

Anyway, it's worked really well in practice. The DM can feel free to give the players some exotic weapons as a reward without the Fighters complaining about how all of their Feats were for a different weapon. And you no longer have every melee class proficient with every weapon.

 

[Kerrick]

I probably should mention that I looked at the UA version, and I saw that theirs is better, so I've dropped this idea. It wasn't a major thing anyway - just something I'd whipped together.

 

[Nellisir]

I use the UA system, and like it -- my only change has been to add racial weapon groups.