Weapon speeds, parrying and two weapon fighting (houserules)

[InaVegt]

This is one new system for melee combat (I've got yet to figure it out for ranged combat.

First you assign every weapon a speed and a parry modifier, a fast rule is the following: Light weapons have a speed of 3 and a parry bonus of +0, Standard traditional one handed weapons have a speed of 5 and a parry bonus of +0, traditional one handed weapons usable with weapon finesse have a speed of 4 and a parry penalty of -1, standard two handed weapons have a speed of 5 and a parry bonus of +0. Exotic one handed martial twohanded weapons become one handed with a speed of 7 and a parry bonus of +0, reach weapons have the speeds of their previously explained category - and the parry bonus of their previously explained category +2.

Next you get rid of the distinction between light and onehanded weapons, we just call all of them onehanded

Rules for your primary weapon: You gain a number of normal attacks equal to your BAB/your weapon's speed (rounded up, at least 1), every additional attack having you weapon's speed less BAB. You also gain an out of turn attack with your primary weapon (at full BAB, explained later on)

Rules for your secondary weapon: Subtract 1+secondary weapon's speed from you BAB, this is you base BAB for all normal attacks with this weapon, if this would drop your BAB below 0 you gain no normal attacks with your secondary weapon. Then devide the rest of you BAB by both your weapon's speeds totaled (round down), this is the number of additional normal attacks you gain with your secondary weapon, every additional attack having your totaled weapon speeds les BAB. Finally add a bonus of +1 to all normal attacks with your secondary weapon. You also gain an out of turn attack with your secondary weapon (at full BAB).

Uses of normal attacks
As a standard action you can make an attack with one of your normal attacks for this turn, as a full attack action you can make an attack with all of them. Any normal attacks left over as your turn has ended will transform into out of turn attacks.

Uses of out of turn attacks
Out of turn attacks can be used for two things: Attacks of oppertunity and parry attempts.

Parrying
If you are attacked by a melee attack you can use one of your out of turn attacks to try and parry this attack, make an attack roll and if this is equal to or higher than the attack roll of your opponent you have succesfully parried the attack, or in other words the attack of your opponent doesn't hit.

Shields in this system
Shields work just like weapons. Light shields have a parry bonus of 4 while heavy shields have a parry bonus of 6. Light unspiked shields have a speed of 2 while heavy unspiked shields have a speed of 4, spiked shields have a +1 to speed.

feats which needed to be reworked
Weapon finesse works with all weapons with a weapon speed of 4 or below.
Two weapon fighting will be reworked later on.

[magnar]

I'm the first one to post? Oh goody.

I personally think this system is great, but of course will have to playtest it.

The only things I have objections to are the speed of shields (make them much slower - ever tried to do a shield bash? [to make them more block-oriented, maybe give them unused attacks*2 for defensive strikes, minimum 1])

Also, where did the parry bonus end up? If you could point that out for me, that would be great.

Once again, good work on an accurate and well thought-out system.

[That Lanky Bugger]

Looks well thought out, but a few balance issues crop up...

Under this system, there's no benefit to two-handed weapons or reach weapons. Someone with a BAB of +20 wielding a Greatsword gets to attack three times to a Dagger user's six times, though the Dagger-wielder gets to deal more damage AND gets more opportunities to parry enemy attacks... and the dagger wielder can snag a Shield for more parry attempts, or another dagger to up his attacks per round further. There's no benefit to the size of the weapon the Greatsword wielder is using, so he's just going to get his three attacks turned aside and then he's going to get slotted by the Dagger wielder's remaining three attacks. Likewise, the Dagger wielder can use an Out of Turn attack to parry the reach-weapon users AoO and then start stabbing when he closes the gap.

I like that you get a lot of parries with the Shields, though you may wish to modify things so that a parry with a shield is a lot quicker than trying to bash someone in the face with it.

I've got a couple suggestions, if I might?

First, I'd keep the weapon sizes and grant bonuses and penalties towards parry attempts based on the size. So someone with a Dagger trying to turn aside a Greatsword might get a -4 penalty (-2 per step away from the Greatsword's size) to their parry attempts. Likewise you may wish to invert the to-hit penalties and bonuses for size as regards parries. It might even things up for the larger foes (who have a size penalty to hit, but should have a bonus to the parry attempt should they connect). Another possibility might include making parries cost the heavier of the two weapons (with shields being an exeption): So a dagger-user turning aside a Greatsword is still going to lose out on attacks as if he swung a Greatsword himself.

Second, if you're going to introduce parrying, you may wish to allow the defender some zone control abilities (especially for reach-weapon users). Something as simple as allowing people the option of taking a five-foot step on a successful parry would greatly expand the usefulness of a longspear.

Third, you may wish to just go ahead and make the weapon speed a "cost". For example, you could start the round with a BAB of +17. You throw your dagger (a light weapon), which is Speed 3. You then draw your Longsword to continue your attack, which begins at BAB +14. Maybe have a secondary BAB of sorts (at half your true BAB) for dual-wielding and shields.

Overall, the system is very nice and has a sort of elegance I like to see in crunch heavy games. The only real problem I see with it is that it's elegance would probably be much better served by being converted into it's own magic-light system instead of being bolted onto the standard D&D combat. Good job.