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KitsuneSoup 09-11-07, 11:23 PM

Hello, everyone. As I'm beginning a new campaign, I've been looking over a number of sources. Like a thousand others and unlike a thousand more, I like the ToB as a balancing factor. However, I think that the styles could be a little more based on the weapon, and a little less on the thematic quality of the school. For example, the Desert Wind school is based on three distinctly different weapon groups with three completely different points behind them. I can realize that this was designed, in some degree, to avoid a Desert Wind Master from suddenly being in trouble just because an enemy has DR 15/(Desert Wind Damage Type Not Found). However, I'd like to look at that again. At the same time, I've been looking at Unearthed Arcana and it's Weapon Group series. I think that this makes more sense to me for the sake of Weapon Focus and similar feats. If you actually group the weapons together by theme and then assign feats to those groupings. If you combine the two ideas at once, you have a possible working idea, one I'm informed 4e is based on, in general. Stone Dragon is rewritten into (Weapon Group: Hammer Style), and so forth. With this combination in mind, I'd like to lay a small amount of groundwork with my thoughts, and I'd like some input, if people are willing to help. Please note that I don't want an argument about regional versions of weapons, or anything remotely historical. I'm looking at this from the viewpoint of mechanics and balance in a fantasy game, using the majority's preconceived notion of how a weapon is supposed to work. With that in mind, I'm going to list a number of weapon groups, and I'd like some input on each Weapon Group and how it should be handled in the following four categories: Speed: The weapons' rate of multiple attacking Mobility: The attacker's movement Damage: The average damage of the weapon Special: The "point" of the weapon group; what the weapon specializes in For example, you could look at: Weapon Group: Axes hand axe, battle axe, great axe, dwarven axe Speed: Medium Mobility: Low Damage: High Special: Defeat Equipment, Defeat Hardness Defeat Equipment meaning that the weapons are designed to Sunder, and Defeat Hardness meaning that the weapon are designed to smash wood, stone, or simply break through in other ways. So, in general, this assessment of Axes would mean that they are of average number of attacks per round, are not really designed for the "dancing about" of light weapons, and deal damage on the high scale. So, anyone care to assist in this idea? Here are the weapon groups, and rate the first three categories as Very Low, Low, Medium, High, or Very High. Everything should be compared to the other weapon groups; for example, in determining damage for Unarmed Combat, compare it to Hammers to give a rating. Axes (hand axe, battle axe, great axe, dwarven axe) Bows (short bow, long bow, composite short bow, composite long bow) Crossbows (heavy crossbow, light crossbow, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow) Flails and Chains (light flail, heavy flail) Heavy Blades (long sword, great sword, falchion, scimitar, bastard sword) Light Blades (dagger, punching dagger, rapier, short sword) Maces and Clubs (club, light mace, heavy mace, great club, quarterstaff, sap, war mace) Picks and Hammers (light pick, heavy pick, light hammer, war hammer, scythe, maul) Polearms (glaive, guisarme, halberd, ranseur) Slings and Thrown Weapons (dart, sling) Spears and Lances (javelin, lance, long spear, short spear, trident) Unarmed Combat Thank you. KitsuneSoup