Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Quijenoth 02-28-05, 07:36 AM	The basic idea around proficiency and weapon types is that a simple weapon is a weapon designed for combat if its not then its an improvised weapon... A club to be made suitable for combat needs to be chopped from a strong tree, the wood seasoned, sanded and treated, and a leather grip placed around the end. plus you can add small metal studs. A quarterstaff also needs special wood and the ends need to be metal shod to prevent the wood from splitting. I personally feel that the 0 cost of these weapons is wrong and should be changed to at least 5sp. Even the PHB is very inconsistant with these rules... A Quarterstaff is a 6ft long pole designed for combat use - Cost 0 A 10 ft Pole is a long piece of wood NOT designed for combat use - Cost 2sp! To say anyone can walk into the woods and pick up a stick and use it as an effective quarterstaff or club is just wrong in my eyes. At the most it should be an improvised club or quarterstaff and would suffer the -4 to hit. The moment you apply any form of work to make the "stick" into an effective weapon you are effectively applying some form of cost - be it material cost or labor cost.
quetzyl 02-28-05, 09:27 AM	I have always interpreted the 0gp cost of staffs and clubs as meaning that they can be made with a DC 10 Craft check, which can be done untrained. Hence any character who wants one can make it himself, hence no one bothers manufacture them for sale. Cheers, quetzyl
FriendoftheDork 02-28-05, 09:44 AM	I think quetzyl has a good point there, in this quasi-medieval everyone can find a decent piece of wood (survival DC 10) and craft it into weapons (craft DC 10). That means that every farmer is going to have at least a club, no matter how poor. It also assumes that wood is very common. Desert peoples may not have one, or must make one out of bone. I'm not sure if that is as effective weapon. Of course, in modern day world survival is not an untrained skill for most city dwellers. A spiked well balanced club is essentially a morningstar, perhaps the most efficient weapon in the game.
Keenath 02-28-05, 10:08 AM	I don't think there's any such thing as an IMPROVISED club. A sufficiently heavy stick is a club automatically -- the improvised weapon thing only comes into it if you're talking about something that's particularly awkward to weild, like a chair, stool, or similar. Of course, in modern day world survival is not an untrained skill for most city dwellers. I don't think that's quite fair. Most people could work out enough to survive. I feel confident that I could locate a tree branch, cut it down, and pretty quickly produce a club of reasonable length.
Quijenoth 02-28-05, 12:38 PM	I have always interpreted the 0gp cost of staffs and clubs as meaning that they can be made with a DC 10 Craft check, which can be done untrained. but crafting (even with DC 10) requires some degree of time, time = labor cost which means the club should still have a value. I don't think there's any such thing as an IMPROVISED club. there is a big difference between a club with a handle shaped to fit a medium sized creatures hand and a large heavy stick with notches of wood from the cut off branches and leaves that hurts your hand every time you swing it. also a square table leg used as a club is gonna cut into the wielders hands every time he swings and successfully hits a hard object The idea that even the poorest farmer should have an effective weapon usable on the battlefield is a bit far fetched. Sure a farmer could have an improvised club, that when the fighter sees he rolls on the floor laughing at, but for all intense and purposes the stats of the club listed in the PHB are for a club made for war - strong, hard and able to crush flesh, bone, and break shields. Anothing thing that i find totally crazy (and is mostly why i brought this up) is the costing of the Longstaff described in the Complete Adventurer... to quote the dscription... Longstaff: As its name implies, the Longstaff is a longer version of the quarterstaff. The extra length makes the weapon much more difficult to use, but those skilled in its use are better able to protect themselves from multiple attackers when fighting cautiously... The stats are as follows: 1d6/1d6 20/x2 - Cost 15gp !!! Now is this a long quarterstaff or is it a 10 ft pole? and why the huge pricetag? i mean its the same price as a longsword except its just a piece of wood anyone can pull of a tree and make right?? and dont give me that "its an exotic weapon - thats why its more costly"- the sai is a manufactured exotic weapon made of metal and only costs 1gp. Rather than me being negative to this im gonna suggest a possible change to the weapon tables... Ccreate a new subcategory of weapons - Tools Any weapons that are in this sub-category are considered household tools that although are not designed for war can still be used with a certain degree of skill. Any weapon with the Tool sub-category can be made at a fraction of the cost but suffer a -2 to hit when used in combat. Effectively these weapons are improvised but because there use as weapons comes so naturally they suffer only a -2 instead of a -4. For example: An improvised longsword would carry a -4 penalty and would be called an improvised longsword. An improvised Quarterstaff would carry only a -2 penalty and would be called a staff. Military Equivilent - Cost ___ Tools - Cost War-club* - 5sp ___ Club - Free Quarterstaff - 5sp ___ Staff - Free Sickle - 6gp ___ Grain Sickle - 6sp Flail - 8gp ___ Grain Flail - 1gp War-scythe* - 18gp ___ Scythe - 2gp Light Pick - 4gp ___ Mining Pick - 1gp HandAxe - 6gp ___ Axe - 1gp Light Hammer - 1gp ___ Hammer - 5sp Spear, Shortspear or Trident - 2gp, 1gp, 15gp ___ Pitchfork - 2sp Dagger - 2gp ___ Knife - 5sp * Note: change PHB Scythe to War-scythe and the Club to War-club
Titan W 02-28-05, 01:23 PM	you forget... the two types of calsses most likely to have a quarterstaff are: Monks - who usually would forgo this anyway, however it may be used - They train constantly to maintin peak physycal condition, as a result they would therefore have the time to freely find and craft a quarterstaff if need be. Wizards & Other Spellcasters - I like to keep the good old spell storign quarterstaff around whenever I have a spellcaster, espceially the arcane varieties, and these people can ether have he sense to make one themselves, or jsut conjure one up with a ritual, on their own, and it's usually going to have some magical benefit, once again, unnecicary to bother selling it to someone who already has it... Clubs - Clerics and paladins of appropriate faith will ahve these weapons, and will probably have them given by the church, or in many cases bestowed upon them by their diety.
Quijenoth 02-28-05, 02:27 PM	whats that got to do with it? If you wanna look at classes take the commoner from the DMG - quoted as being what a typical farmer is yet they only have proficiency in 1 simple weapon - so no farmer can use a scythe with any skill (martial weapon) or a flail - both of which are considered a farmers tools of his trade and something he spends most of his life around. The automatic proficiency from classes simply refers to what weapons that class has TRAINED in - a wizard has trained to fight with a sling, dagger and quarterstaff, if hes an elf hes also trained in bows and longsword. This means he knows how to defend himself and can kill effectively with these weapons. It has nothing to do with the quality of the weapon at hand and thats the big crunch here... If someone was to swing a table leg at me i would be more inclined to try and grab it than dodge out the way of it. Now if someone was to swing a baseball bat at me I'd sure as hell not try to catch it because its got more force thanks to its design and is likely to break every bone in my hand if i try to.
Tony Vargas 02-28-05, 09:22 PM	so no farmer can use a scythe with any skill (martial weapon) or a flail - both of which are considered a farmers tools of his trade and something he spends most of his life around. The martial versions are almost nothing like the tools. A scythe used on a farm would be much lighter (you have to swing it for hours on end), and flimsier (it only has to cut through stalks of wheat, not armor and people), and the grip is designed for swinging near ground level - really the martial weapon called a 'scythe' is almost more of a gigantic pick (statistically - 2d4 20/x4). A farmer's flail is a pair of unequal-length sticks tied together with a leather thong used in threshing grain, the warrior's is a handle with a spiked metal weight connected to it with a length of chain. Statting the agricultural versions as (rather ineffectual) simple or improvised weapons would be reasonable, though.
Quijenoth 03-01-05, 04:24 AM	Exactly tony and the same should apply to clubs and quarterstaffs - one designed to withstand the harshness of war and another to work as a tool used in everyday use. To simply pick up a stick about 6 ft long and say its a quarterstaff worthy of use on a battlefield is just wrong. something else to consider with quarterstaffs - some martial artists use the staff as a mini pole vault to lauch themselves into a flying kick - with a simple stick this tactic would more than likely break the stick as its not gonna be strong enough to support your body weight.
Tiddles 03-02-05, 11:26 PM	Your probable right about the cost factor however much of the prices for weapons on page 98-99 of the PHB don't make a lot of sense. However, unless your character is stripped naked its rarely an issue if things cost 0,1, or even 2 gp. The lowest starting gold is the druid (other than monks) with 2d4 x 10 gp which is a minimum of 20 gp. I guess the major problem with these costs comes from PC's trying to arm their peasant armies in a large scale battle. Unfortunately, none of the books really deal well with large scale battles. I would love to see book on large scale combat involving hundreds/thousands of troops (or better yet a web suppliment) on this subject. I'd probable consider this as one of the rules like falling damage that doesn't really hold up under close scrutiny but is close enough to reality to function.
Quijenoth 03-03-05, 02:51 AM	My problem with this cost is that some of my players consider the 0 cost meaning that if ever they where removed of their weapons they could make a fully functioning quarterstaff or club in no time at all. If the cost is 0 then there is never an improvised version of these 2 weapons unless the DM rules otherwise. Since the cost is Free then it must be just a stick right? and what of a masterwork club or quarterstaff? how can you conceive a better stick that warrents the 300gp (600gp for a quarterstaff since its a double weapon) increase in price if all it is is a stick?! Maybe its an issue to deal with the crafting system but i find that totally flawed too (but thats another topic entirely).
Tenzhi 03-03-05, 04:06 AM	there is a big difference between a club with a handle shaped to fit a medium sized creatures hand and a large heavy stick with notches of wood from the cut off branches and leaves that hurts your hand every time you swing it. The difference is about thirty seconds with a sharp knife or a piece of leather. Having the callused hands of a fighter/farmer/peasant/typical medieval citizen helps, too.
Greyman 03-03-05, 06:44 AM	I have always interpreted the 0gp cost of staffs and clubs as meaning that they can be made with a DC 10 Craft check, which can be done untrained. Hence any character who wants one can make it himself, hence no one bothers manufacture them for sale.No, the craft DC is set by weapon type, not cost, and a simple weapon has a craft DC of 12. Also, Craft is not a trained only skill. Cost establishes how long it takes to craft a weapon. Since a club or staff cost 0cp it doesn't really take any time at all to wittle one out of a branch of wood; you just have to beat the DC of 12. A masterwork club though, would be an especially well-balance, harden, smoothly polished, and oiled piece of carefully choosen timber.