Redesigning weapons (thinking out loud)

[Ashtagon]

Part of my ongoing war with the 3e weapons system.

I was analysing the weapon damage table. There's a strong pattern of "add a die size type each time you increase the weapon one size level". But the table has some odd regularities. I'm here to fix it (tm).

The new sequence - for all weapons - is:

* 1 - 1d2 - 1d3 - 1d4 - 1d6 - 1d8 - 1d10 - 2d6 - 2d8 - 3d6 - 4d6 - 4d8 - 6d6 - 6d8 - (+2d6)


Going through the weapons list with a toothpick has made me realise there are a number of regularities in the system. Most weapons have damage ratings that can be reliably predicted based on their size and type (eg. one-handed is generally 1d8, with "clubs" doing one die size lower). But there are odd jumps (such as throwing hammers and warmaces doing less than expected). So, to regularise things...

* Tiny - 1d4
* Light - 1d6
* One-Handed - 1d8
* Versatile - 1d10 (2d6 if used two-handed)
* Two-Handed - 2d8

If this is combined with a list of standard weapon abilities for each weapon type, a certain amount of real regularity is possible.

* club - Bludgeoning, smaller die size
* club, monk's - Bludgeoning, smaller die size, monk (jo stick, bo stick)
* mace - Bludgeoning
* mace, spiked - Bludgeon/Pierce (morning star)
* hammer - Bludgeoning, impact
* flail - Bludgeoning, disarm +2, trip
* flail, stunning - Bludgeon, smaller die size, non-lethal
* straight sword - Slashing, parry
* curved sword - Slashing, high crit
* curved sword, sickle - Slashing, high crit, trip (khopesh)
* axe - Slashing, impact
* scythe - Slashing, high crit (sickle/kama, scythe, lajatang)
* whip - Slashing, smaller die size, trip, disarm +2, finesse, reach, non-lethal
* whip, chain - Bludgeoning, smaller die size, trip, disarm +2, reach
* spear - Piercing, reach, set
* thin sword - Piercing, high crit, finesse, parry
* Pick - Piercing, super crit, impact

Weapon properties are:

* finesse: You can always choose to use Dex n place of Str on attack rolls. No feat needed.
* parry - These weapons make excellent defensive weapons. You gain +1 on attack rolls with attacks of opportunity, and +1 AC if your off-hand is empty (must actually be empty, as you use it to help balance while dodging) or holding a shield.
* impact - These weapons have a centre of balance close to the head of the weapon. They ignore a small amount of DR.
* high crit - These weapons inflict x3 damage on a critical hit, instead of x2 damage.
* super crit - These weapons inflict x4 damage on a critical hit, instead of x2 damage.

Obviously, some weapons will not fit strictly into such a grid. Pole arms will almost always have the reach quality, while tiny and light weapons will almost always have the finesse quality.

[FlyingWhale]

Without spending a whole bunch of time going over and over and over in my head, this all seems fair and straightforward to me, good job! Have you tried it in a game yet? I changed a little bit of the armor and weapons system myself... There was a point when my whole party would be wearing breastplate or chainshirt and everyone had the same properties... Anyway, I wasn't too sure it would work, but then it did =D

My advice, test it, if it works, to heck with what anyone says :p

[Eldan]

It's certainly interesting and a good project.

Something to think about: quite a while ago, I started a thread on exotic weapons: basically, my idea was that spending a feat on exotic weapon proficiency wasn't worth the additional +1 damage you would get from some weapons. So the idea was to make exotic weapons those that actually had something unique, like the spiked chain with it's unique reach.

Oh, and you should add weapon properties like disarming and trippping.

[lesser_minion]

I'm not sure what Wootsie's rationale for changing it was, but I'd suggest starting from the 3.0 weapon system. It wasn't appreciably harder, but it was far more robust in a lot of cases.

As for martial/exotic/simple, I remember seeing several proposals along the lines of having every proficiency for every weapon, and having higher proficiencies unlock new options. I'd suggest going with that.

[Ashtagon]

I'm not sure what Wootsie's rationale for changing it was, but I'd suggest starting from the 3.0 weapon system. It wasn't appreciably harder, but it was far more robust in a lot of cases.

Who is wootsie? If their work is relevant, I wouldn't mind a link.


As for martial/exotic/simple, I remember seeing several proposals along the lines of having every proficiency for every weapon, and having higher proficiencies unlock new options. I'd suggest going with that.

The simple/martial/exotic paradigm is something I want to drop. In its stead, I want to use something roughly along the lines of Unearthed Arcana-style weapon groups. So, for example, a fighter might start with a choice of six feats to spend between weapon groups (at basic level only) or armour/shield proficiencies (plus the normal feats of course; other classes get fewer, some of which may be pre-selected or restricted).

Unlocked when a character reaches higher bab number would be, for example, "Improved Mace Proficiency" or "Greater Mace Proficiency". These would unlock special features of some of the weapons in that weapon group. A weapon that under core might be exotic may even *require* the Improved Weapon Proficiency to use.

For example, a dire pick (versatile weapon) suffers a -2 attack penalty when used one-handed; this penalty goes away once you have Improved Pick Prof. Once you have Improved Club Prof., you can use quarterstaffs as double weapons or as reach weapons. Improved Sword prof. could grant extra attacks of opportunity (just throwing out ideas here).

[Daremonai]

Who is wootsie? If their work is relevant, I wouldn't mind a link.


At a guess, I'd say that Wootsie would be WotC...

[Ashtagon]

At a guess, I'd say that Wootsie would be WotC...

doh, should have figured that one out.

I'd still rather use 3.5 as a base for weapons though. The 3.0 nomenclature led to the "fullblade" nonsense - a weapon that specifically could not be used by any of the (then-available) PC races, but existed purely to provide something that giants could use besides their fists and (for them) undersized weapons. It's easier to just say "huge club" than invent an increasingly-baroque series of names for larger and larger weapons.

[Zeta Kai]

My impression is that this would only shift the damage by one point in either direction, so I would have no qualms with such a minor change to the mechanics, especially if they led to a more intuitive, rational, & logical game world.

[lesser_minion]

The problem is that you now have three pieces of information to keep track of - who the intended wielder is, the handedness, and the size of the intended wielder.

Compared with the 3.0 system, where it was easy to see when the properties of a weapon changed as it was made larger or smaller, the 3.5 system is a complete mess with a whole pile of unnecessarily-duplicated information (and weapons which acquired rules they were never supposed to have, and 'consolidations' that removed potentially-useful information).

I think it's also a lot more logical to work out the handedness based on the size, rather than have it hardcoded into the weapon (worse, in such a way that you can use a 5 foot long spear to stab a guy who is 12 feet away).


The 3.0 nomenclature led to the "fullblade" nonsense - a weapon that specifically could not be used by any of the (then-available) PC races, but existed purely to provide something that giants could use besides their fists and (for them) undersized weapons.

This was some designer being an idiot. Giants used huge or gargantuan swords, there was never any need to make up a whole new weapon. And the name doesn't even make sense - all of the weapons are named from a human's perspective.

A human wouldn't call a fire giant's sword a 'fullblade', he'd call it a "freaking massive sword" or possibly a "holy-carp-look-at-the-size-of-that sword".

[Ashtagon]

The problem is that you now have three pieces of information to keep track of - who the intended wielder is, the handedness, and the size of the intended wielder.

That's two piece of information :smallwink:

It's actually the same as what 3.5 uses.

3.5 might call a weapon a "small warhammer" - a one-handed weapon made for a gnome.




Compared with the 3.0 system, where it was easy to see when the properties of a weapon changed as it was made larger or smaller, the 3.5 system is a complete mess with a whole pile of unnecessarily-duplicated information (and weapons which acquired rules they were never supposed to have, and 'consolidations' that removed potentially-useful information).

Given the choice between looking up the size of the weapon on a table, and looking up the handedness of a weapon for a medium-sized creature and then modifying the result depending on the intended wielder.


I guess we just see it differently. I found the idea of a Medium (6 ft tall) creature wielding a Medium (3 ft long) weapon confusing at best. I want to break away from using the same terminology for creature sizes as for weapon sizes (and no, I'm not happy about "Tiny" weapons I have either).