Weapon training provides power instead of access

[AeroDm]

A while ago I developed a system to try and help understand the tradeoffs inherent in 4e weapons. The system was discussed in this thread. It got me thinking in general about how weapons work and playing around with different options.

I decided to see what would happen if weapon training (i.e. military, superior) changed the way weapons worked instead of providing access to better weapons. Results are attached. The only thing you need to know to understand the document is that the three entries for each weapon correlates to no training, martial training, and superior training. If you have martial training you have it for all weapons. If you have superior training you have it for a weapon group.

I am generally pleased with the results but feedback is appreciated.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=13650]AeroDm[/MENTION]
So it's the wielder - not the weapon - that makes a weapon deadly (beyond its inherent deadliness)? How would a monk work under such a system?

How are you working racial weapon proficiencies and feats in to your new group system. For example, dwarves getting hammer proficiency? Or feats requiring hammer proficiency and referring to powers using hammers?

About the weapon properties...

'Duelist': This is your tuned down version of 'defensive' weapons like the parrying dagger?

'Cutting': exploding damage dice, potentially game-breaking but fun nevertheless

'Lethal': ...you've renamed High Crit, I'm guessing for narrative reasons.

Btw, What's your reasoning behind giving an untrained user an attack bonus? If I'm getting your system right, a character untrained in a "longblade" gets a +3 attack bonus regardless if they're untrained, have martial training, or take superior weapon training. In other words, an idiot with a pitchfork is more likely to hit you than an idiot without.

Just some thoughts off the cuff, but I like what you've done.

Your idea seems to be hinting at a way to create a more flexible combat system, and it sure would be nice to see some moves like disarming, pinnining, and such. Maybe superior weapon training could 'unlock' extra moves?

 

[AeroDm]

Grr. The system was created for an alt-4e system I am making but I tried to change most of it back to 4e centric rules. Some of it slipped through because I'm too accustomed to the change like Lethal (high crit) and Duelist (should benefit AC as well).

I wouldn't look at it as giving untrained characters an attack bonus as much as making simple versions of all weapons. For some weapons that "feel" like they'd be complex, I left damage higher but reduced proficiency bonus to +1 at the basic training level. Since an attack bonus is generally worth more than damage, this discourages their use by characters without at least martial proficiency (but does not preclude it).

The base system (no bonus if not proficient) is too punitive, in my opinion. My alternate system already incrementally incents a character to wield a weapon they are most proficient with, but removing all bonus transitions from incrementality to cliffs. The types of scenarios where a character might have to wield their non-preferred weapon are interesting and the base system discourages them too heavily.

I hadn't really put much thought into monks (nor even ranged weapons) just yet. One thought that crept up, though, would be to allow monks to customize their fists under the system linked in the other thread and give them more "points" as they progress in levels.

Finally, with regards to races, I have been toying with the idea of just allowing races to treat all weapons of a certain type as having a feature. So, for instance, dwarves might treat all weapons of group "chop" as high crit. This would reliably provide a benefit since I tried to sync high crit to piercing, cutting to slashing, and brutal to bashing weapons.

Anyhow, thanks for the comments. Gives me lots to think about.

 

[AeroDm]

[MENTION=13650]AeroDm[/MENTION]
'Cutting': exploding damage dice, potentially game-breaking but fun nevertheless

I ran some quick math on High Crit, Brutal 1, and Exploding damage dice. The following limitations are assumed for simplicity:

• Hit rate of 50%
• Exploding dice only explode once
• No multi-[w]
• Damage is per attack attempted (whether or not it hits)

The expected incremental damage by die is as follows:

              d4   d6   d8  d10  d12
High crit    0.13 0.18 0.23 0.28 0.33
Brutal 1     0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25
Exploding    0.31 0.29 0.28 0.28 0.27

If you focus on median damage dies, the three methods of adding additional damage really aren't significantly different. On d8, the difference is 1 damage over 20 attacks. Changing the assumptions in the limitations increases the variation, but not by an order of magnitude (or 1/2 dmg/atk).

 

[Quickleaf]

The following limitations are assumed for simplicity:

Exploding dice only explode once
No multi-[w]

Uh huh. A 2[W] martial power isn't exactly a fringe case. And it's the multiple explosions that I was in particular referring to.

I've seen strong villains go down prematurely with exploding dice in a 4e homebrew. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but it absolutely changes the game, giving combat a more *volatile* feel.

 

[AeroDm]

Uh huh. A 2[W] martial power isn't exactly a fringe case. And it's the multiple explosions that I was in particular referring to.

The math isn't hard to calculate it is just hard to format into a table that one can easily post. The table is per die, so a 2[w] is just 2x. On a d8 longsword, exploding on a 2[w] power is 0.56 or 0.33 over a high crit power. So if you attack each round of a 4 round combat and let's even give you a couple of OA or extra actions from somewhere for a total of 6 attacks, all at 2[w], we'd expect you to deal an average of 2 damage more than the guy wielding the weapon that has high crit and 3 damage more than the guy with just a d8 weapon.

That is the total damage variance spread across all attacks against all targets.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yeah your math is spot on, and an extra 30% to average damage is no small boost.

Btw, How do you handle critical hits with exploding weapons?

 

[AeroDm]

For a crit the max damage component isn't rolled so it wouldn't trigger exploding. I'm not seeing how you got to 30%, could you walk me through it? Unless your characters are routinely only doing 1-2 damage I think there might have been a decimal misplaced or something.

 

[knightofround]

I think one thing you need to consider is that the features "Brutal" and "Cutting" vary dramatically depending upon the die value.

Like your Quarterstaff is 2d4 Duelist Brutal 1. The "Brutal" tag on this weapon is powerful because it means a 25% chance for a reroll. (in reality closer to 30% because of doubled rerolls)

But then with Flails, its 1d10 Brutal 1. The "Brutal" tag is comparatively weaker because it only means a 10% chance for a reroll.

I also think the "Cutting" tag is a bit weird. With the Greataxe at the lowest level of proficiency it has a 10% trigger rate, but when you get superior focus it shrinks down to an 8% trigger rate.

Like with the 1d12 Greataxe, you have an 8% chance to deal 6 extra damage, and a 0.6% chance to deal 12 extra damage. That comes out to being less than 0.6 extra damage on average. Compare that to Versatile, which is a flat +1.

Have you considered trying to streamline weapons in simpler way? Like:

1H Weapons (Simple) +2, 1d6
1H Weapons (Martial) +3, 1d6
1H Weapons (Special) +3, 1d8

2H Weapons (Simple) +2, 2d6
2H Weapons (Martial) +3, 2d6
2H Weapons (Special) +3, 2d8

And then make keywords like [Light Thrown] [Heavy Thrown] [Reach] [High Crit] [Brutal] [Cutting] unlocked by feats, rather than attaching them to weapons themselves.

 

[AeroDm]

[Good stuff]

I really like the idea of having abilities unlocked by feats and it is something I'll have to give more thought towards.

All good input. Cutting (or exploding) actually scale really well such that the damage is about equal regardless of the die. My post a few lines up demonstrates this; the variance is hundredths of a point of damage per attack. You're correct that Versatile is much more powerful, but it requires a tradeoff of giving up your off-hand. If you were willing to give up the off-hand permanently, the system this is predicated on would return 1.5 damage.