Weapon Groups

[Griffith Dragonlake]

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.

I really like the inclusion of firearms with rays as well as gauntlet & shield bash with natural.

I hadn't addressed double weapons in Grymwurld™ but I like the way you've done it.

As far as MWP, adding one per three levels for fighters seems a bit harsh for my taste. I'd rather add one each time the BAB is increased and apply that rule for all classes. In my personal experience with the SCA it was only a matter of investing the time to train and practice the new weapon groups to become proficient. Some took more time than others but for me, the once per BAB increase is a better reflection.

Are you suggesting that it is possible to wield a double-bladed sword as a longsword without penalties? I could accept that with a minium penalty of -2 Attack/-2 Damage. That's because having a sword means that you've got to ensure you don't cut off your own leg!

 

[Spatzimaus]

I really like the inclusion of firearms with rays as well as gauntlet & shield bash with natural.

Both of those have worked really well. The firearm/ray concept (i.e., the "point and click" aiming system) originally came about because we just had them in sepearate categories separately, but only casters took Ray, and only non-casters took Firearms. So we merged them for bookkeeping purposes, but then realized that they fit together surprisingly well.

As far as MWP, adding one per three levels for fighters seems a bit harsh for my taste.

Well, here's the catch. There are only 8 weapon categories, right?
Fighters start with 2 categories, and at level 3 they add a third. But, that's misleading, because any "Simple" weapons don't require a proficiency... they're just lumped into the martial categories for purposes of Weapon Focus, etc. And practically ALL weapons in the "Natural" category are simple, so he effectively gets that one for free. And what are the chances that a low-level character will be using Firearms? So, by level 12, the Fighter will have 6 of the 8 groups, and will effectively be proficient with everything.

Originally, we had Fighters getting an MWP at every odd level (so that they'd get something at every level) plus two at level 1, with Rangers, Paladins, and Barbarians (the other "Full BAB classes) getting one every 3 levels and one at level 1, the Rogue and Bard got one every 4 levels and one at level 1, and Monks didn't get anything but the EWP(Monk Weapons) feat and the Simple weapons. But in practice this resulted in weapon-using characters becoming proficient with all of the weapons they needed very quickly. See, most classes don't use every weapon type. If someone's using swords predominantly, they don't really need to also have the Blunt and Hafted groups as well. And Thrown isn't used often if you've got Projectile, and vice versa. Most characters only need two categories (one melee, one ranged), and the Simple weapons. By level 8 or 9, proficiencies had become a non-issue, and we didn't like that. Of course, if you prefer that sort of proficiency rate, then our old system is what you'd want.

I'd rather add one each time the BAB is increased and apply that rule for all classes.

That's just far too much, if there's only 8 categories. All weapon-using classes would be proficient with everything by level 10 at the absolute latest, and they'd have all of their "essential" groups by level 3. See previous discussion.

Are you suggesting that it is possible to wield a double-bladed sword as a longsword without penalties?

Sort of. You'd still be wielding the double-bladed sword, but you'd only really be attacking with one end at a time; the other end would only really be used for parrying and such, although you could switch offensive ends as you went. You're not totally untrained with the weapon (you DO have the Martial proficiency, after all); you're just not good enough with it to be able to shift it back and forth fast enough to use both ends offensively at the same time, which is what the extra attack represents. So, in game effect it'd be effectively the same as a longsword (1d8 damage per "attack", 19-20/x2, no extra attacks for the other end), but you're not wielding it the same way you would a longsword. Less slashing, more jabbing.
Think of the quarterstaff. Someone without the EWP could still smack someone with it, or jab with it, or whatever, but someone with the EWP could do far more with it.

We did that with all of the EWPs. In most cases, there's no real "penalty" for lacking the EWP, but having it gives extra abilities to the weapon. (I qualified the "penalty" part because in some cases we added a penalty to the weapon itself, and then have the EWP's "bonus" offset the penalty). The only EWP with an actual -4 nonproficiency penalty is EWP(Mercurial).
Take the Bastard Sword as an example; in our world, it's a Large weapon, and can be wielded as one without any EWP. But, if you have EWP(Heavy Weapons), you can wield it as if it was one size smaller (Medium). That EWP group also includes a dozen other weapons, some of which are smaller; for instance, the Wakizashi is Medium, so with the EWP it'd be treated as Small, meaning you could dual-wield it without a size penalty. And the Fullblade is Huge, normally, so with the EWP it'd be treated as a Large, meaning a Human could use it with two hands. Three different ways to benefit from the single Feat.