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Deepbluediver
2017-08-30, 06:17 PM
This is intended as an alternate set of rules for weaponry in 3.5 or Pathfinder- it is a companion piece to this Armor system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor&p=15542620#post15542620). It's intended to work with a few other bits of homebrew I have, but it should be usable fairly easily as a stand-alone piece as well. A lot of this stuff is going to be little tweaks, if you want to see the BIG change, then skip down to HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22339292&postcount=3).

Historically, the human race tested out every conceivable method of smacking other people with sharp bits of metal, wood, and stone. It is NOT my goal to replicate every single real-world weapon, or re-stat everything found in the Arms & Equipment guide. My intent is to use real-life to inspire rather than limit, and make a weapon-system that is more suitable for a game. The original weapon list in 3.5 is all over the place; I set some basic rules and tried to standardize weaponry so that players have a better idea of what they are getting.

I'll save the rules-changes to combat for another thread, and try to stick to the stuff that is only relevant for how I statted out weapons.

The basic unit of damage for a one-handed martial weapon is 1d8, and for a two-handed weapon it's 2d6- everything else is based on this.
Light weapons decrease in size by 1 dice, i.e. a one-handed light martial weapon is 1d6.
Simple weapons also decrease in size by 1 dice, so a one-handed simple weapon is 1d6, and a light simple weapon is 1d4
Unarmed weapons (yes I realize it sounds contradictory) decrease in size by 2 dice, so an unarmed simple weapon is 1d3 because everything stacks.
Small and Large weapons also go down or up respectively by 1 dice, so a small one-handed martial weapon is 1d6, and a large weapon of the same type is 1d10.
Slashing weapons have their crit-range increased by 1 step (from 20 to 19-20); Piercing weapons have their crit-damage increased by one step (from x2 to x3), and Bludgeoning weapons have their damage increased by 1 size.
Any combat maneuver bonus (tripping, feinting, disarming, etc) is +2; dual-wielding two weapons that grant the same bonus does not double the bonus, though you can get the bonus to separate maneuvers if you wield different weapons.
There is no distinction between parts of a weapon as far as different damage-types. An axe, for example, deals 100% of it's damage as both bludgeoning and slashing with every attack.


Examples: Putting it all together, A medium-sized simple two-handed bludgening weapon would deal 2d6 damage. A large one-handed martial slashing weapon would deal 1d10 and crit twice as often. A small light martial slashing+piercing weapon would deal 1d3 damage but crit at x3 on a roll of 19-20.


Simple Weapons


Type
Cost
Weight
Small
Medium
Large
Critical
Range
Damage
Special


Unarmed Attacks


Brass Knucles
5 sp
1/2 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x2

—

Bg



Gauntlet
*
1 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x2

—

Bg



Gauntlet, Spiked
+5 gp
1 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x3

—

Bg/Pi



Push Dagger
5 sp
1/2 lb.
1d2
1d3
1d4

x3

—

Pi



Tiger Claws
5 sp
1/2 lb.
1d2
1d3
1d4

19-20/x2

—

Sl



Unarmed Strike
—
—
1d2
1d3
1d4

x2

—

Bg
non-lethal damage only


Light Melee Weapons


Club
5 sp
2 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x2

—

Bg



Dagger
5 sp
1 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x3

—

Pi



Kukri
5 sp
1 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

19-20/x2

—

Sl



Sap
5 sp
1 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x2

—

Bg
non-lethal damage only; see text


One-Handed Melee Weapons


Cutlass
10 sp
2 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

19-20/x2

—

Sl



Javelin
13 sp
2 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x3

25 ft.

Pi



Mace
10 sp
6 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x2

—

Bg



Two-Handed Melee Weapons


Greatclub
20 sp
8 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

x2

—

Bg
Bullrush bonus


Glaive
20 sp
10 lb.
2d3
2d4
2d6

19-20/x2

—

Sl
Reach


Mancatcher
25 sp
10 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

19-20x2

—

Bg/Sl
non-lethal damage only; Trip bonus


Quarterstaff
20 sp
5 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

x2

—

Bg
Reach


Spear
20 sp
6 lb.
2d3
2d4
2d6

x3

—

Pi
Reach


Ranged Weapons


Blowgun
3 sp
1/2 lb.
1d2
1d3
1d4

x3

10 ft.

Pi
non-lethal damage only; see text


Crossbow, hand
5 gp
2 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x3

10 ft.

Pi



Crossbow, light
10 gp
4 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x3

25 ft.

Pi



Crossbow, heavy
15 gp
2 lb.
2d3
2d4
2d6

x3

60 ft.

Pi



Sling
5 sp
1/2 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x2

25 ft.

Bg



Special


Spiked Armor
+5%
+3 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

—

—

Pi
see text



Shields


Type
Cost
Weight
Small
Medium
Large
Critical
Range
Damage
Special


Buckler
3 gp
3 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x2

—

Bg



Shield, Infantry
10 gp
8 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x2

—

Bg



Shield, Tower
20 gp
20 lb.
2d3
2d4
2d6

x2

—

Bg



Shield Spikes
+5 gp
+2 lb.
*
*
*

x3

—

Bg/Pi
see text



Martial Weapons


Type
Cost
Weight
Small
Medium
Large
Critical
Range
Damage
Special


Light Melee Weapons


Tomahawk
11 gp
2 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

19-20/x2

10 ft.

Bg/Sl
Sunder bonus


Rapier
7 gp
1.5 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x3

—

Pi
Feint bonus


Sai
9 gp
2.5 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x3

—

Bg/Pi
Disarm bonus


Scimitar
5 gp
2 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

19-20/x2

—

Sl



One-Handed Melee Weapons


Battleaxe
13 gp
4 lb.
1d8
1d10
1d12

19-20/x2

—

Bg/Sl
Sunder bonus


Falchion
10 gp
3 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

19-20/x2

—

Sl



Flail
13 gp
5 lb.
1d8
1d10
1d12

x2

—

Bg
Ignore shield AC


Longsword
16 gp
4 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

19-20/x3

—

Pi/Sl
see text


Morningstar
13 gp
5 lb.
1d8
1d10
1d12

x3

—

Bg/Pi
Sunder bonus


Shortsword
10 gp
3 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x3

—

Pi



Two-Handed Melee Weapons


Greataxe
30 gp
10 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

19-20/x2

—

Bg/Sl
Sunder Bonus


Greatsword
20 gp
6 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

19-20/x3

—

Pi/Sl



Guisarme
25 gp
10 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

19-20/x2

—

Sl
Reach; Trip bonus


Halberd
30 gp
12 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

19-20/x3

—

Pi/Sl
Reach; Trip bonus


Lance
25 gp
12 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

x3

—

Pi
Reach; see text


Pollaxe
35 gp
10 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

19-20/x3

—

Bg/Pi/Sl
Sunder Bonus


Ranseur
20 gp
8 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

x3

—

Pi
Reach


Trident
25 gp
7 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

19-20/x3

—

Pi
Reach; Disarm bonus


Two-Section Staff
20 gp
8 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

x2

—

Bg
Ignore shield AC


Zhua
20 gp
9 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

x3

—

Bg/Pi



Ranged Weapons


Shortbow
10 gp
2 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x3

25 ft.

Pi



Throwing Knife
1 gp/3
1/4 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x3

10 ft.

Pi
see text


Atlatl
5 sp
1 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

x3

25 ft.

Pi



Boomerang
1 gp
1/2 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x2

60 ft.

Bg



Chakram
1 gp
1/4 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

19-20/x2

10 ft.

Sl




Exotic Weapons
There is a jump in damage going from Simple to Martial weapons, but I intentionally avoided a similar increase for exotic weapons. My goal is to have these weapons do something DIFFERENT, and not just be "stuff from the oriental adventures book" or "bigger damage dice".


Type
Cost
Weight
Small
Medium
Large
Critical
Range
Damage
Special


Unarmed Attacks


Siangham
20 gp
1 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

x3

—

Pi
Flurry of Blows


Light Melee Weapons


Kama
25 gp
2 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

19-20/x2

—

Sl
Disarm Bonus; bonus stacks if used as a pair


Nunchaku
20 gp
3 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x2

—

Bg
Ignore shield AC; see text


War-whip
35 gp
2 lb.
1d4
1d6
1d8

19-20/x2

—

Sl
Reach; Ignore shield AC; Trip bonus; Disarm bonus


One-Handed Melee Weapons


Chain, Spiked
60 gp
7 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

19-20/x2

—

Sl
see text


Hooked Sword
60 gp
3 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

19-20/x2

—

Sl
Disarm Bonus; Trip bonus; see text


Two-Handed Melee Weapons


Bo-staff
60 gp
3 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

x2

—

Bg
Can use both THF and TWF feats simultaneously


Monk's Spade
105 gp
12 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

19-20/x3

—

Bg/Pi/Sl
Reach; Can use THF and Reach feats simultaneously


Three-section Staff
90 gp
5 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

x2

—

Bg
Reach; Ignore shield AC; Trip bonus; see text


War-scythe
75 gp
8 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

19-20/x3

—

Pi/Sl
Reach; see text


RangedWeapons


Bolas
30 gp
3 lb.
1d6
1d8
1d10

x2

25 ft.

Bg
non-lethal damage only; see text


Longbow
60 gp
3 lb.
2d4
2d6
2d8

x3

60 ft.

Pi
see text


Shuriken
3 gp/5
1/4 lb.
1d3
1d4
1d6

19-20/x3

10 ft.

Pi/Sl
see text


Weighted Net
30 gp
5 lb.
—
—
—

—

10 ft.

—
Disarm bonus; see text


Shields


Judicar's Shield
105 gp
30 lb.
2d6
2d8
2d10

x3

—

Bg/Pi
Trip bonus; Bullrush bonus; see text



These charts are huge- I'm sure I've made or will make mistakes somewhere, so if you see anything that looks out of place or seem wrong, please bring it to my attention


Ammunition
WIP

Other Weapons
This was a large, extremely powerful crossbow, usually requiring a winch or crank-system to draw back the cable in readyness for firing. I've seen it described as "a medieval rocket launcher", able to punch through plate armor at huge distances. Which, from other things I've read or seen, is probably at least a little exaggerated. Videos about tests being done with recreated weapons and armor mostly show that a crossbow bolts had difficulty penetrating through solid steel breastplates, because that's where the armor was thickest. Also, the metal used to fashion crossbow tips was often lesser quality than that used in armor, making it softer or more brittle. Anywhere else though, such as limbs or especially joint areas, would be vulnerable, as would anyone in leather or chainmail armor. That's what I've gathered from researching medieval weapons in my entirely amateurish way.

It came up one time in a thread about ranged combat when I was arguing over the maximum effective range of crossbows with another poster, and this was the sort of thing they sited for justifying huge ranges on crossbows. The caveat is that a good rate of fire with such a weapon was 2 shots per minute- it wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to have to stop and reload in the middle of a brawl. Ideally you'd probably prefer to have a castle wall in between you and whoever you were firing at so that no one ran up and melee'd you in the gonads while you reloaded

I haven't statted out an arbalest because it seems at best situational in D&D style combat. Wandering around a dungeon with a loaded crossbow seems like it's just asking for someone to jostle the trigger and shoot their teammate in the ass. Alternatively, I had visions of some player using a bag of holding and the quick-draw feat to turn themselves into a gattling cannon, popping off one shot each from a dozen separate arbalests in every encounter. Plus a heavy-crossbow is already statted like a 2-handed weapon, so unless I want to break my own system, the improvement in damage would likely be minimal.
AFAICT these are in fact things that existed, however they weren't exactly like they are typically presented in D&D. From my research, they mostly seem to come in two varieties- heavy ones which required at least two hands to operate, meaning you couldn't hold it and work the draw mechanism at the same time. From pictures it seems like they would be mounted on some kind of turret, either on a ship or a castle rampart. Either way, it's not the kind of thing you'd typically cart around the battlefield.
Light repeating crossbows were (again, based on my extremely amateurish knowledge) REALLY light. A crossbow normally makes up for a shorter draw-distance (compared to bows) with higher tension, meaning it needs more strength to pull back. If you want a crossbow that you can rapidly draw and fire you've got to reduce the tension even further, meaning range and power (damage) would be limited. It seemed that these weapons would mainly be effective through force of numbers- it was the kind of thing you could give to peasants who were hiding out in your castle during a siege and send them out to harass the enemy via death by a thousand pinpricks.

As for not including them in my chart, the issue was that I couldn't exactly figure out where I should put them. In the RAW they were both exotic and expensive, I guess to limit players access to them, but that doesn't mesh with that I was trying to accomplish. First, if you want more damage at higher levels, you can now just get a better quality regular crossbow without having to mess about with different rules for reloading clips and working the reload mechanism. Second, I don't want them to be exotic because I don't want exotic weapons to just be about damage- I'd prefer them to do something interesting, and I haven't been able to come up with any good ideas for how to make crossbows interesting. Their whole selling point is based around the simplicity of such a weapon.

If you want to include them though, by all means let me know how you worked it out.
Historically, infantry would sometimes use spears, pikes, or other polearms that were as much as 12 to 15 feet in length. This worked out relatively well for massed troop formations because it allowed several rows of weapons to basically stack on one another and form a nigh-impenetrable wall of pointy metal bits. In practice, massed infantry formations frequently ended up just pushing back and forth against one another until one side got tired (or was flanked).

Obviously such a weapon is not intended for 1-on-1 combat. Aside from the difficulty in hauling it around a dungeon with twisting corridors and tight spaces, it's not suited for attacking highly mobile targets. If anything gets past the point of your double-reach weapon, your only real options are to either drop it and draw something else, or try to keep backing up (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html).
AFAICT, double-sided weapons weren't ever really a thing. Certainly not the way they were presented in D&D at least. The double-sided idea in the PHB might be based on the fact that you occasionally had pole-arms with a metal spike on the back-end that served several purposes. One was as a counterweight, to make controlling the weapon-tip easier in combat. It could also be dug into the ground if you were bracing against a charge, or if your spear-tip broke off you could swing it around and it would be better than a bare stick. But it was in no way a primary weapon. And double-sided swords and axes? Those are right out- any time your trying to jab or swing at the enemy, you've got sharp bits of the weapon pointing right back at you.

Now, none of this is the problem. I am not beholden to realism, and I have no issues building something that runs strictly on rule-of-cool. No, the reason there are no double-weapons in my chart is because I couldn't figure out a good way to make them work. I tried several different versions, and they always ended up either overpowered, too costly in terms of feats, or simply redundant. Sometimes all three at once.

Currently the closest thing I've got is the exotic weapon Bo-staff. That's intended to be used with my Weapon-Style fix which has feat-chains for a bunch of different styles of combat, and lets you use both two-handed and two-weapon feats at once, which is normally impossible. That's very heavy on the feat-tax, but since it's just one weapon I consider it an acceptable option if someone wants to build that way. It's not an entire category of weapons, so most people will probably just ignore it.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-30, 06:18 PM
The format for this section is:
Weapon (alternative names) Pic or Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoxGEymA8ro)- description


Atlatl video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClLG2o6TcnQ)- It's basically a kind of sling that allows you to toss 3-foot long darts at your target.

Battleaxe pic (http://www.discountcutlery.net/assets/images/NewProductImages/BAT601005.jpg)-

Blowgun-

Bolas- This weapon deals non-lethal damage. On a succesful attack your target is entangled; you may also choose to make ranged trip attacks.

Boomerang-

Bo-staff- This weapon is shorter and lighter than a quarterstaff. If you are proficient, you may use both Two-handed Fighting feats and Two-weapon Fighting feats simultaneously.

Brass Knuckles-

Chakram (chakar) video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_cX1SwiC1Y)-
I basically included this just so I'd have a ranged weapon that dealt slashing damage.
Chain, Spiked- A length of bladed chain, which can be used in several different configurations. You may attack with the tips of the chain, wielding it as two light weapons; or you can fold it over itself and wield with one hand as a one-handed weapon; or you can grasp it from one end and wield it as a two-handed weapon with Reach. Additionally, on a critical hit, rather than dealing extra damage you may choose to Entangle your target.
When wielded as two light weapons, the damage becomes 1d6 (assuming medium size) and when wielded as a two-handed weapon it becomes 2d6.

Club (shillelagh)-
This is not a club (http://acimg.auctivacommerce.com/imgdata/0/1/9/3/9/7/webimg/8957403.jpg). That's a stick. An actual club used in war and combat might not be made from metal but they can require just (http://www.donsmaps.com/images32/img_8693clubsm.jpg) as much (https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4e/72/60/4e7260bfe18c0f3aa3535d00fb9acec3--primitive-hand-made.jpg) effort (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0a/84/09/0a84093745b9b305f7739a31fa52362d.jpg) to craft as a sword or bow.
Crossbow-

Cutlass (kopis, machete) pic1 (https://www.weaponmasters.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1200x1200/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/u/cutlass_sword.jpg) pic2 (http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/deadliestwarrior/images/a/a8/044-1-.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100706001759)-

Dagger pic (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/ReproMedievalDaggers.JPG/220px-ReproMedievalDaggers.JPG)-

Falchion (talwar) pic (https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/7/7c/Falchion.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110508142722)-

Flail pic (https://i0.wp.com/www.publicmedievalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Flail-1-ball-91-p.jpg?resize=800%2C521)- A flail has the unique ability that it can wrap around defenses, allowing you to ignore the AC bonus from any shield your target is wielding.

Gauntlets- Gauntlets are normally considered part of a suit of armor, and are not traditionally sold separately.
Gauntlets, Spiked- spikes added to gauntlets give them the piercing damage-type, increasing crit-damage to x3. If your gauntlets are of at least Superior quality, you can instead add Masterwork spikes for 300 gp. Gauntlet-spikes are not normally produced in other qualities.

Greataxe pic (http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/AH-3542.png)-

Greatclub (maul) pic (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/20/ee/6a20ee14af728b8411bc83946a2ff6d4.jpg)-

Greatsword (zweihander) pic (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4b/92/06/4b92069168f1f5b6a626f65ed8fcf97c.jpg)-

Glaive pic (https://www.freyhand.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/4//wpsg/wpsg_produktbilder/243/simon-larp-glefe-2.jpg)-

Guisarme-

Halberd pic (http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/MA-8503S.png)-

Hooked sword Picture (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41IV1rFneWL.jpg) - This weapon gives a bonus to Disarm and Trip attempts. Also, if you are dual-wielding (and are proficient) you may use the Whirlwind attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#whirlwindAttack). The price given is for a single weapon, although some smiths give a discount if you buy a matching set.

Javelin (shortspear)-

Judicar's Shield (dueling shield) video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9VG4ClQcJk) pic (http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/duelingshield.aspx)- A judicar's shield is an oversized shield with spikes and hooks around the edge and sharp ridge down the center. It has two methods of use- first it can be used as a spiked tower-shield that gives a bonus to Trip attempts. Alternatively it can be used as a two-handed weapon that keeps the AC bonus from being a shield, the bonus to Trip attempts, and gives a bonus to Bullrush attempts.
I could be mistaken about the name- I still can't find the original webpage I read about this on, and it might possible have been called a judicator's shield or adjudicator's shield or something like that. Most references seem to call it a dueling shield and indicate that it is Germanic in origin. Whatever it was called, it looks pretty crazy- i.e. the perfect thing for an exotic weapon.
Kama- These hooked weapons give a bonus to Disarm attempts. If you are dual-wielding them, you can double the bonus.

Kukri pic (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Polished_kukri.jpg/1200px-Polished_kukri.jpg)-

Lance- A lance is similar to a spear, but it's specialized for use when mounted. When mounted, you can use a lance one-handed. Attempting to use a lance unmounted and/or with two hands causes you to take a non-proficiency penalty.

Longbow- This bow is of significant size and power, and allows you to make ranged Trip, Disarm, and Sunder attempts.

Longsword (bastard-sword, katana)- A longsword is a one-handed weapon, however it can be used with two hands and gain any the associated benefits without the normal penalty (though it's base-damage remains the same).

Mace (warhammer) pic (http://www.epicarmouryunlimited.com/6555-thickbox/imperial-larp-mace.jpg)-

Mancatcher (sodegarami) pic (http://www.tameshigiri.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sasumata.jpg)-

Monk's Spade pic (http://www.totalmartialartsupplies.com/content/images/thumbs/0003793_shaolin-monk-spade.jpeg)- This weapon (if proficient) allows the wielder to use Two-handed and Reach feats simultaneously.

Morningstar pic (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mkwikia/images/5/56/Morning_Star_Mace.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110416182810)-

Nunchaku- As with flails, this weapon allows you to ignore any bonus to AC from a shield that your target is wielding. In addition, using 1 nunchaku permits you to use Two-weapon fighting feats. If you dual-wield nunchaku, you gain a bonus to feint (combat maneuver) attempts.

Pollaxe pic (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e2/8b/0f/e28b0fa95188037f48ade4b6e510cf6c.jpg)-

Push Dagger pic (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Push_dagger_2009_G1.jpg/1200px-Push_dagger_2009_G1.jpg)-

Quarterstaff video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em28n5sxqsg)-

Ranseur (pike)-

Rapier pic (http://www.medievalcollectibles.com/images/Product/large/AH-3342.png)-

Sai (swordbreaker, jitte) pic (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/2_antique_sai.jpg) link (http://www.blackbeltwiki.com/jutte)-
Most people's first sight of a sai was, I'm assuming, the same as mine- as the favored weapon of Raphael of the TMNT. In that setting, it mostly serves as a kind of 3-tipped dagger. Wikipedia, however, seems to describe this weapon as more like a blunt-tipped truncheon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_(weapon)#/media/File:2_antique_sai.jpg). When I was trying to make something interesting, I said to myself- "why not both?"
Sap (baton)- This weapon is a favorite of town guards who need to deal with drunks and unruly civilians rather than deadly monsters. This weapon deals non-lethal damage only, however on a critical hit the target is Stunned for 1d4 rounds; you must be within 1 size category of your target to gain this benefit.

Scimitar (saber) pic (https://www.reliks.com/products/3007/750x280/1.jpg)-

Shield-
Shield Spikes- Adding spikes to your shield adds the piercing damage type, increasing crit-damage to x3. It also allows your shield to be enchanted to like a weapon.

Shortbow-

Shortsword (arming sword) pic (http://www.swordhistory.info/wp-content/uploads/xiphos-greek-sword.jpg)-

Siangham- These unique weapons look like giant needles, and come as part of a matched set. If you are dual-wielding them (and proficient) you can use Flurry of Blows as a Monk equal to your level. The price given is for a pair.

Sling-

Spear-

Spiked Armor- Adding spikes to you armor (in addition to the fearsome appearence) causes you to deal damage to your target on a successful bullrush, overrun, or grapple check. Spikes can only be added to heavy armor.

Shuriken (throwing stars) pic (https://i.pinimg.com/736x/1c/fe/f9/1cfef975d0a0ffce4447f3188c690770--martial-arts-samurai.jpg)- Shuriken are small throwing weapons. They can be throw individually, but if you are proficient you can throw several with a single attack. If you do so you do not add your Strength bonus to damage; the number of shuriken you can throw at once is determined by your BAB (6+ = 2, 11+ = 3, 16+ = 4, etc).

Three-section Staff- As with flails, this weapon allows you to ignore any bonus to AC from a shield your target is wielding. Additionally, it gives a bonus to Trip attempts, and it has Reach but allows you to attack targets who are adjacent to you.

Throwing Knife (kunai) pic (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51zmpPbTO5L._SY355_.jpg)-

Tiger Claws (bagh nakh) pic (http://i.imgur.com/FlIpdg3.jpg)-

Tomahawk (hatchet)-

Trident-

Two-section staff (dire flail)- Like a normal flail, a two-section staff allows you to ignore any benefit to AC from a shield that your target is wielding.

Unarmed Strike- attacks with your bare fists deal non-lethal damage

War-scythe- This weapon has Reach. If you are proficient with this weapon, you can also use the Cleave feat; if your BAB if +6 or greater, you can use Greater Cleave.

War-whip (whip-sword) video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZL3HE_E-VY)- This weapon has Reach, gives a bonus to Trip and Disarm attempts, and allows the wielder to ignore shield bonuses to AC (like a flail).

Weighted Net- This weapon does not deal damage, but it grants a bonus to Disarm attempts. If you are proficient with this weapon, on a successful attack your target is Entangled.

Zhua (rake) pic (https://ugc.kn3.net/i/origin/http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/581640113_1/28-font-b-Kung-b-font-font-b-Fu-b-font-18-font-b-weapon-b.jpg) video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guGpm5EhW8k) -

Deepbluediver
2017-08-30, 06:19 PM
So here's how this works- weapons can be any one of 7 (SEVEN) different qualities, or grades. "Regular" is what's listed in the chart in the first post. In order to figure out what the appropriate damage for a higher (or lower) quality weapon is, find the damage listed in the Regular column for the weapon and size, and them move horizontally to the appropriate column to find that weapon's damage for that quality.

For example: a medium, regular shortsword would normally deal 1d8 damage; masterwork medium shortsword instead deals 3d8 damage.
Another example: a large regular guisarme normally deals 2d8 damage; an superior large guisarme deals 2d12 damage

Weapon Damage


Crude
REGULAR
Superior
Exceptional
Masterwork
Perfected
Legendwrought


1d1
1d2
1d3
2d2
3d2
4d2
5d3


1d2
1d3
1d4
2d3
3d3
4d3
5d4


1d3
1d4
1d6
2d4
3d4
4d4
5d6


1d4
1d6
1d10
2d6
3d6
4d6
5d8


1d6
1d8
1d12
2d8
3d8
4d8
5d10


1d8
1d10
2d8
2d10
3d10
4d10
6d10


2d2
2d3
2d4
4d3
4d6
5d6
6d8


2d3
2d4
2d6
4d4
4d8
5d8
6d10


2d4
2d6
2d10
4d6
4d10
5d10
7d12


2d6
2d8
2d12
4d8
4d12
6d12
9d12


2d8
2d10
3d10
4d10
5d12
8d10
10d12


I tried to stick to a few basic standards when building this chart. If the damage for a regular weapon is "1" (or 100% if you want to think of it that way) then the multiplier for Superior weapons is 1.5, for Exceptional its 2, for Masterwork it's 3, for Perfected it's 4, and for Legendwrought it's 6. This goes in roughly a +50%>>+33%>>+50%+33%>>+50% pattern, which is the best I could do working with rounded numbers. Also, I tried to keep the number of dice you'd be rolling in check- it would be really easy to get very consistent averages just by using tons of d3 and d4, but IMO that's boring, so I increased the size of the dice when I could, and rounded up a lot.

There are already some things in the RAW rules that can increase the damage you do with attacks, such as ToB maneuvers, certain feats, that shock-trooper build, special weapon enchantments, etc. A lot of them are non-core, and I get the impression that's because the designers only realized later that they had badly balanced the core melee classes, and they were trying to add in options to compensate. And while damage is powerful and important, IMO it's also extremely straightforward, to the point of becoming boring.
My goal, ultimately, is to concentrate the majority of damage-improvements in weapon quality, and allow players to reserve their class abilities and feats and magic items for other stuff that is more interesting.

For now, I leave it up to other GMs to determine how best to implement this fix (if they choose to use it) in their gameworld. You have a better idea than I do what kinds of shenanigans your players might get up to, and what level you want to allow. If you decide to cap weapon quality at Masterwork, for example, because you think the damage on Perfected and Legendwrought stuff is to high, that's just fine. I'd love to hear how it works out anyway.

Optional Rules

Combat Maneuver Check Bonus- as a weapons quality increases, so does it's damage but also so does the benefit to combat maneuvers you may make.
BAB Requirement- if you are concerned about someone in your group arming hordes of peasents with high-quality weapons and sending them off to fight dragons, implement a BAB requirement; anyone who does not have high enough BAB takes a non-proficiency penalty.
Suggested level- this is about where I think your campaign can utilize this quality of weapon without it drastically unbalancing things. Obviously it will vary a lot by group, and I encourage you to modify this system to fit with your group's playstyle.





Crude
Regular
Superior
Exceptional
Masterwork
Perfected
Legendwrought


Maneuver Bonus


+1
+2
+3
+4
+5
+6
+8


BAB Requirement


+0
+0
+1
+3
+6
+10
+15


Suggested Level


1-5
3-8
6-12
9-16
12-20
16-25
21+



Weapon Cost
I'm gonna take a moment to talk about Crude quality weapons.
Crude represents weapons that were made by unskilled labor, or from inferior materials, or were better weapons that decayed through lack of maintenance. It also represents improvised weapons. A kitchen-knife is not the same as a dagger. A blacksmith's hammer is not the same as a mace. Items intended for combat are specialized with that goal in mind- you shouldn't try to use a warhammer and brass knuckles to replace a carpenter's tools either. But sometimes you don't always have a nearby weaponsmith you can shop from, and you've got to march off to war with whatever sharp or heavy implements you scrounged up from around the farm.
So a kitchen knife can be represented in combat by giving it the stats of a crude dagger. A blacksmith's hammer is a crude mace. A stick you grabbed off the ground is a crude club, a rock is crude brass-knuckles, etc etc etc.

Ok, back to the cost in gold. The value of a crude weapons is 20% of a regular weapon of the same type. A superior weapon is 50 times the cost of regular weapon. After that point though, the individual differences in a weapon start to be less important than the skill and materials required to craft it. So from Exceptional upward, there is a base cost plus modifiers. The modifiers stack addidtively, not in a multiplicative manner, so for example two +50% modifiers make a weapon that is 100% more expensive (or double), rather than 125% more expensive.
[just to clarify, the modifiers would also apply to a regular or superior-quality weapon made from special materials]



QUALITY
COST


Crude
original x 1/5


Regular
default


Superior
original x 50


Exceptional
18,000 gp


Masterwork
56,000 gp


Perfected
172,000 gp


Legendwrought
~500,000 gp*




Modifier
Change


Unarmed
-50%


Light
-25%


Simple
-25%


Exotic
+25%


Two-handed
+50%


Silvered, Cold-iron
+25%


Darkwood, Krystal
+25%


Mithril, Adamantine
+50%


The prices given here are roughly based on 1/4th to 1/3rd of your WBL of the mid-point of the level range when I would suggest start having weapons of that quality appear in your game. However the WBL chart and the economy in general in 3.5 are severely bjorked, and I supplied this section only because when I first did my armor upgrade system some people asked for guidance at pricing gear. I would strongly advise people to use whatever WBL system they find works for them, and figure out ways to give or let players obtain gear as appropriate for the level of challenge the game is presenting.

*A note about Legendwrought weapons
Although there is a value listed for Legendwrought weapons, they are effectively priceless. There simply isn't a market for stuff of this rarity and infamy- it would be like trying to put a price on the Statue of Liberty or some other massively important cultural monument or familial icon. Anyone who possesses a Legendwrought weapon is already so powerful that material wealth is largely irrelevant to them (except, perhaps, as a way to motivate lesser beings). Anyone who comes into possession of a Legendwrought weapons who ISN'T that powerful is very rapidly going to become the target of every being within several plane's distance who IS.


Special Materials
Most weapons are made from iron (or steel) and wood, however high-quality weapons can be made from other materials that have special properties. Weapons crafted from special materials are usually found at Superior quality or better; exceptions might exist though.

Mithril
Mithril is as strong as the finest steel, but lighter, allowing it be worked and shaped more easily. Weapons made of mithril are more accurate, gaining a bonus to attack rolls made with them. This bonus is equal to the combat-manuever bonus some weapons get (i.e. +3 at superior quality, +5 at Masterwork, etc.
Mithril weapons weigh 25% less than an identical steel weapon would.

Adamantine
Adamantine is rare and particularly durable metal- weapons crafted from it can be honed to a sharper edge and a finer point, and deal extra damage on damage rolls. This bonus is +1 for light weapons, and +2 for one-handed weapon, +3 for two-handed weapons, or simply +25%, whichever is greater.
Adamantine weapons weigh 25%more than an identical steel weapon would.

Silvered, Cold-iron
Weapons forged from an alloy of alchemical silver or made using special ore and techniques can overcome damage resistance from certain types of creatures such as outsiders, fey, or werewolves.

Darkwood
Also called "ironwood" in some areas, these special trees can be harvested and treated to make them as tough as stone. Darkwood weapons get the same bonus to hit as mithril weapons.

Krystal
Krystal weapons look like glass but are as strong as steel. Whatever technique or magic was used to craft seems lost to time, making them exceptionally rare. However this material is easier and cheaper to enchant than normal, making them highly valued for both combat as well as their unearthly appearance.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-30, 06:21 PM
Reserved for enchantments, maybe, and other miscellaneous rules. Unless I decide enchantments deserve their own thread (along with armor enchants), which I might.

nonsi
2017-08-31, 01:30 PM
.
I like the general direction where this is going. A lot.

That being said, there are several issues I picked up at a glance:
1. More 1d<X> and less 2d<X>. More dice rolls = slower game. Save 2d<X> to d6s and higher an medium size. Rolling d3s and d4s is really annoying.
2. You really went overboard with the damage of some of the weapons (e.g. Mancatcher, Quarterstaff, Two/Three-Section Staff)
3. What in the world is Judicar's Shield?... and how does one wield 17 kilo in battle?
4. Some of the special abilities need some work (e.g. where did you get the notion that Nunchaku ignores shields)

AOKost
2017-08-31, 03:14 PM
I really love what you've done with weapons! And it goes along beautifully with your modifications to Armor.

You could continue the tiers with Epic, Mithic, Forgotten, Godly, From the dawning of Creation, Apocalyptical, etc... And they should have equally brutal Craft DCs lol

I really appreciate the effort you've put into this. I would love to see how you change other Special Materials to go with this system too!

More dice isn't always bad, especially when you've got electronic dice rollers.

Deepbluediver
2017-08-31, 08:55 PM
First, thanks to both of you for the feedback- I appreciate the effort.


1. More 1d<X> and less 2d<X>. More dice rolls = slower game. Save 2d<X> to d6s and higher an medium size. Rolling d3s and d4s is really annoying.
Really? I've never felt that way, but I concede other people might have different experiences. Part of it is that I like 2-handed weapons to deal a minimum of 2 damage- it makes them feel different from 1-handed weapons.


2. You really went overboard with the damage of some of the weapons (e.g. Mancatcher, Quarterstaff, Two/Three-Section Staff)
What exactly do you mean by that? A large part of this fix was aimed at standardizing most of the weapons- everything you mentioned should fit it with everything else in that same category. Part of my issue with the RAW weapons was that there doesn't seem to be ANY rhyme or reason when it comes to assigning weapon-damage and crit chance and crit-multiplier. Or at least I can't figure out what it was.
I'm more concerned about making a balanced and fun system than I am about realism.

My methodology is as follows: the standard damage for a 2-handed weapon is 2d6; bludgeoning weapons get an increase in dice-size, so it goes up to 2d8, or 2d10 for a large creature.

The way I think about it is this- if I reduced basic 2-handed damage to 2d4 then you'd have one handed weapons that deal 1d8 (average 4.5 damage, 4.73 if you include crits) and two-handed weapons that deal 2d4 (average 5, or 5.5 including crits), which seems like a very minor increase- barely above 15%. On the other hand, if I leave 1-handed weapons at 1d6 damage and move two-handed weapons to 2d6, then I end up with one-handed weapons that deal 3.5 (3.85) damage and two-handed weapons that deal 9 (9.45) damage on average- a 270% improvement. So the former setup seems like it has situations where there's not enough difference, while the later seems like there's to much.

I've gone back and forth on this a bunch of times and I'm not sure there's a perfect solution, but if you have specific suggestion(s) I'd be happy to take them into consideration.


3. What in the world is Judicar's Shield?... and how does one wield 17 kilo in battle?
I gave a basic description in the second post- unfortunately I can no long find the webpage I read about it on. If I ever come across it again I'll provide the link.

In the meantime, a tower-shield listed on the Equipment chart (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm) in the PHB is 45 lbs or 20.4 kilos, so explain THAT one to me. I'm not set on any of the weights, though. That was one of the things I considered to be least important when it comes to balance- what do you think a more reasonable weight ought to be?


4. Some of the special abilities need some work (e.g. where did you get the notion that Nunchaku ignores shields)
That quality is something I applied to all the flail-like weapons; however I'm not set on anything- if you've got other ideas I'm all ears.


You could continue the tiers with Epic, Mithic, Forgotten, Godly, From the dawning of Creation, Apocalyptical, etc... And they should have equally brutal Craft DCs lol
Crafting needs a fix too, yes, but I've got way less work done on that. In the meantime- just how many tiers do I need? I've already got 6 (7 if you include Crude), 2 of which go into epic gameplay. I think this works for me, but if you want to adjust any of the tiers or subdivide the categories further, be my guest. Feel free to post your own chart and I'll be happy to link it in my original post as another alternative.


I really appreciate the effort you've put into this. I would love to see how you change other Special Materials to go with this system too!
I picked the most common materials because I assumed that's what people would be familiar with. If there's anything specific you'd like me to try and include, give me a name and a source and I'll see what I can come up with.


More dice isn't always bad, especially when you've got electronic dice rollers.
That was my thought, too. In my experience people come in two categories with gaming dice- those people who have exactly one set and have to borrow from someone else or scrounge through boardgames to roll 2d6, and those people who store their dice collection in a bucket, tacklebox, or canvas sack. I don't really expect people to roll 9d12 of course, but once you get to that level it's not significantly different IMO from some of the stuff spellcasters have to calculate.

nonsi
2017-08-31, 10:40 PM
Really? I've never felt that way, but I concede other people might have different experiences. Part of it is that I like 2-handed weapons to deal a minimum of 2 damage- it makes them feel different from 1-handed weapons.


2-dice produce marginally higher averages, but at the cost of lower probability of scoring high damage (the bell-curve-roll syndrome).






What exactly do you mean by that? A large part of this fix was aimed at standardizing most of the weapons- everything you mentioned should fit it with everything else in that same category. Part of my issue with the RAW weapons was that there doesn't seem to be ANY rhyme or reason when it comes to assigning weapon-damage and crit chance and crit-multiplier. Or at least I can't figure out what it was.


I actually find most of what they did in RAW very intuitive. My fix for weapons is relatively short. I will admit that if I has more posting space, I would've added some of the weapons mentioned in BECMI that you specified (ah, nostalgia).

I'll just ask you this: If you're about to face an opponent and you can choose whether that opponent would be using a quarterstaff or a longsword, assuming he's equally competent at both, which would you choose?





I'm more concerned about making a balanced and fun system than I am about realism.


Then why work so hard? Simplify to weapon groups and reduce weapons within the groups to character description then. A lot less effort for what you're trying to achieve.





My methodology is as follows: the standard damage for a 2-handed weapon is 2d6; bludgeoning weapons get an increase in dice-size, so it goes up to 2d8, or 2d10 for a large creature.


You're trying to find a symmetry that doesn't exist. In reality, weapons with lower damage yield have special qualities that compensate for the loss.






I gave a basic description in the second post- unfortunately I can no long find the webpage I read about it on. If I ever come across it again I'll provide the link.

In the meantime, a tower-shield listed on the Equipment chart (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm) in the PHB is 45 lbs or 20.4 kilos, so explain THAT one to me. I'm not set on any of the weights, though. That was one of the things I considered to be least important when it comes to balance- what do you think a more reasonable weight ought to be?


Notice that "You cannot bash with a tower shield, nor can you use your shield hand for anything else (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm)".






4. Some of the special abilities need some work (e.g. where did you get the notion that Nunchaku ignores shields)
That quality is something I applied to all the flail-like weapons; however I'm not set on anything- if you've got other ideas I'm all ears.


Nunchaku used 2-handed could provide Grapple benefits and Feint bonuses. It already provides Disarm bonuses.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-01, 11:28 AM
2-dice produce marginally higher averages, but at the cost of lower probability of scoring high damage (the bell-curve-roll syndrome).
Good point- I hadn't thought of it that way. I'll take a look at the chart and see if I want to change anything, but smaller numbers of larger die also make for a less-smooth curve when I need to improve the damage of a weapon.


I actually find most of what they did in RAW very intuitive.
Could you explain it to me then, please.


My fix for weapons is relatively short. I will admit that if I has more posting space, I would've added some of the weapons mentioned in BECMI that you specified (ah, nostalgia).
If I can think of something unique that a weapon adds, I'd be happy to include it- and that can be as minor as a damage-type combination that's not already represented.

But here's the other thing- across the millennia humans have tried pretty much every conceivable version of pointy bits of metal to kill other humans with. If you collected medieval swords I'm sure you could find them in half-inch increments of every size from "fruit knife" to "what are you overcompensating for?!?!?". However, it's not necessary to list every single variant of sword (or other weapon) for a GAME. For example, while I'm sure an expert in medieval weapons can explain to me the difference between a halberd (a chopping blade on a pole with a spear-tip and a hook on the reverse side) and a guisarme (a chopping blade on a pole with a spear-tip and a hook on the reverse side) I don't see a reasonable way to differentiate those items in the game.


I'll just ask you this: If you're about to face an opponent and you can choose whether that opponent would be using a quarterstaff or a longsword, assuming he's equally competent at both, which would you choose?
I assume you mean in the game, but I'm going to go off on a tangent first because I am incapable of giving a short answer (it's a medical condition).
From everything I've read about RL combat, a quarterstaff is definitely NOT an army-type weapon. With soldiers packed into tight formations, a spear or sword was much better. However in a 1v1 situation (or even 1v2, 1v3, etc), where you have room to maneuver and get good lateral motion, a quarterstaff's effectiveness was frequently underestimated (in modern portrayals anyway). Think of how hard someone can swing a baseball bat. Of course if you watch videos of quartestaff combat on youtube people aren't swinging it like a bat, but a quarterstaff is also much longer and you can really get some good momentum going for a powerful strike. Without any knowledge of how to use a sword, me, the real-life person, would probably pick the quarterstaff.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand- a quarterstaff does more damage, yes, but a longsword can be used as a one-handed weapon and paired with a shield or something like a dagger. Also, a quarterstaff has reach, which can be both a benefit or a drawback depending on the situation. I'd say that both items have situational benefits.


Then why work so hard?
Because I prefer to do things right rather than do them quick.


Simplify to weapon groups and reduce weapons within the groups to character description then. A lot less effort for what you're trying to achieve.
Yes, I considered this- making the weapons a lot MORE similar so people can pick whatever they want for fluff reasons. But in the end I thought that was kind of boring. I actually really like the idea that a battleaxe is mechanically different from a longsword, etc.


You're trying to find a symmetry that doesn't exist. In reality, weapons with lower damage yield have special qualities that compensate for the loss.
Ok, good point, but I'm not talking about reality here, I'm building something for a gameworld. I try to use real-world information to inform and inspire my designs, so that most people accept it instead of going "this makes no sense", but I'm not trying to make a system that's 100% accurate. You could do that, if you wanted, with all kinds of weapon-based rock-paper-scissors advantages and such, but I don't think that level of minutia and complexity is beneficial for D&D 3.5.


Notice that "You cannot bash with a tower shield, nor can you use your shield hand for anything else (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm)".
Another good point- if I decreased the weight and removed that limitation, do you think people would complain that it's OP or unrealistic or whatever else they might come up with? I've been reading up on the weights of real-world shields and the long-and-short is that they varied highly, but none I've come across so far weighed 40 lbs. One of the largest (heaviest) examples I've read about so far is a Pavise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavise), which is less like a shield and more like a portable wall an archer would carry into combat to provide cover from enemy archers.

Of course, I'm not trying to be 100% realistic, and a giant wall-sized shield is a fantasy trope some people like to play with. When you say "tower shield", there's a lot of people out there who picture less of this:
http://www.aeroartinc.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/6/3/6339-3.jpg
And more of this:
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/small/69270.jpg

Nunchaku used 2-handed could provide Grapple benefits and Feint bonuses. It already provides Disarm bonuses.
I'm not really seeing how the grapple benefit works unless you're wrapping it around someone's neck in a kind of choke-hold.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-08, 01:08 AM
2. You really went overboard with the damage of some of the weapons (e.g. Mancatcher, Quarterstaff, Two/Three-Section Staff)
I've been thinking about this more (my "homebrew" is hardly ever considered finished, I just take breaks from messing with it for a while) and I've come up with a possible change.

We can discuss how much damage is to much damage- but in my experience modifying HP is one of the easiest things you can do to adjust a game. Either use the MM rules for increasing monster HD, or use one of several methods for increasing average HP, or even just turn up the CR a notch or two (and/or delay handing out better weapons- the suggested levels I gave aren't fixed in stone). I think if the weapons are reasonably balanced against each other, most groups will settle down pretty quick into a difficulty curve that works for them.


Anyway, I already went through all my reasons for not changing the damage dice on 2-handed weapons, but earlier today I was turning it over in my head and I was debating the merits of changing the dice for one-handed weapons instead. What if I upped my basic 1-handed dice from a d6 to a d8? And 1-handed bludgeoning weapons get a d10.

That makes the average damage from martial one-hander go from 4.5 to 5.5, while two-handers stay at 7-9. Once you add in crits, the ranges adjust slightly and become 4.95-5.775 and 7.7-9.45. That makes the largest gap a 90% difference and the smallest gap a 33% increase. That's a range I actually feel pretty comfortable with, but before I start messing about with the table (seriously, it's a pain in the ass) I'd love to hear anyone else's thought.


Some people reading this are probably thinking that this is pushing low level encounters into one-shot territory, and to some extent they're right, but maybe not as much as it first appears. First, there's my armor fix; the AC is about on par with the RAW but all the armor gets damage reduction, making hits less lethal. These two pieces where INTENDED to be used in concert and compliment each other.
Second, I know it's partially personal preference but I like to start my games at level 3 (as in, all adult humanoids have a minimum of 3 HD, which for PCs usually means class levels) specifically because it alleviates a lot of the risk of getting one-shot by a dire rat or a random housecat. Not everyone plays that way, but I can't help keep at least SOME of my personal bias of "the best way" from creeping into my homebrew, and design with that in mind.
Finally, if you are starting at level 1 and think Regular damage is to high, feel free to give your players Crude quality weapons, and make them earn their way up.

To conclude, of all the things that can cause problems in a game, I feel like "to much melee damage" is one of the easiest to address and work around.

nonsi
2017-09-08, 08:48 AM
Some people reading this are probably thinking that this is pushing low level encounters into one-shot territory, and to some extent they're right, but maybe not as much as it first appears. First, there's my armor fix; the AC is about on par with the RAW but all the armor gets damage reduction, making hits less lethal. These two pieces where INTENDED to be used in concert and compliment each other.


So, you're increasing damage and then offset it w/ DR.
The main problem with armor DR is that it adds calculations to each hit vs. the majority of PCs and roughly 40% of all opponents, slowing down gameflow.





Second, I know it's partially personal preference but I like to start my games at level 3 (as in, all adult humanoids have a minimum of 3 HD, which for PCs usually means class levels) specifically because it alleviates a lot of the risk of getting one-shot by a dire rat or a random housecat. Not everyone plays that way, but I can't help keep at least SOME of my personal bias of "the best way" from creeping into my homebrew, and design with that in mind.

To conclude, of all the things that can cause problems in a game, I feel like "to much melee damage" is one of the easiest to address and work around.


. . . or you could say that everybody starts with something before class levels kick in (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18777385&postcount=6).
Achieves the same result w/o throwing levels 1 and 2 out the window.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-08, 11:29 AM
So, you're increasing damage and then offset it w/ DR.
Ultimately my goal was to develop a better system for upgrading weapons and to give players and GMs more options. With both of these in play, you can equip the party (and your monsters to some extent) with whatever variation suits you.


The main problem with armor DR is that it adds calculations to each hit vs. the majority of PCs and roughly 40% of all opponents, slowing down gameflow.
Only marginally, I think. But that's part of the price you pay for a dice-based system, which I believe most people like. I'm sure we could develop a system where each weapon dealt a fixed amount of damage with every hit, if that was something the group preferred.



. . . or you could say that everybody starts with something before class levels kick in (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18777385&postcount=6).
Achieves the same result w/o throwing levels 1 and 2 out the window.
Yes, definitely, that looks interesting as well. I particularly liked the Ogre's backstory.

nonsi
2017-09-08, 12:01 PM
Ultimately my goal was to develop a better system for upgrading weapons and to give players and GMs more options. With both of these in play, you can equip the party (and your monsters to some extent) with whatever variation suits you.


Ok, I won't argue personal taste.





Only marginally, I think. But that's part of the price you pay for a dice-based system, which I believe most people like. I'm sure we could develop a system where each weapon dealt a fixed amount of damage with every hit, if that was something the group preferred.


No. don't do that. It will kill the element of randomness of battle.






Yes, definitely, that looks interesting as well. I particularly liked the Ogre's backstory.


Credit for the Ogre race goes to Amechra. I took it as his approval and tweaked it to fit into my system.



Btw, I forgot to comment on your proposed weapon quality upgrade.
I don't like it because it further puts emphasis on gear and WBL over char-level.
If you go over my classes, you'll notice that they're significantly more capable than any core class. This was done with the intent of almost eliminating gear dependency as levels go up and freeing players and DM from worrying about WBL. I much prefer level to play a far more significant part than gear in determining a character's worth.

Also, if you put some thought to it, how much sharper and more effective can you really make a weapon by squeezing craft into it?
Weapons are already designed to be effective. even a crude Katana will be at least 1/2 as effective as the best Katana ever crafted in the hands of someone proficient with this type of weapon.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-08, 01:29 PM
Credit for the Ogre race goes to Amechra. I took it as his approval and tweaked it to fit into my system.
The rest of it looks pretty good, too.



Btw, I forgot to comment on your proposed weapon quality upgrade.
I don't like it because it further puts emphasis on gear and WBL over char-level.
If you go over my classes, you'll notice that they're significantly more capable than any core class. This was done with the intent of almost eliminating gear dependency as levels go up and freeing players and DM from worrying about WBL. I much prefer level to play a far more significant part than gear in determining a character's worth.
With regards to classes- I totally agree with you. I haven't posted a class-fix in a long time, but for the stuff I still fiddle with on my own that is a definite goal. Fixing the class features that have issues is step one, and then buffing everything at tier 4 and below up to about the tier 3 level is steps two through ten. Giving non-magic-users more power more easily is one part, but also giving them more versatility and more options for various builds. This is a piece of that- if you can get the damage and defense you need from just your armor and your weapons, we can skip the Ring of AC and instead wear a ring that lets you fly, or pass through walls, and sneak-attack ghosts or whatever else if lying around.

I can't homebrew in a vacuum though- I've got to post things one bit at a time. Also, I admitted the WBL system is bjorked; ideally you'd work out a way to give PCs upgrades when they needed it and not just have millions of gold worth of weapons sitting around a shop somewhere.

Also also, in my ideal world spellcasters would have items to spend their gold on that were also important for their effectiveness. Whether your entire party has taken the Vow of Poverty or is lit up likeChristmas trees, so long as everyone does it equally it should work out for game balance.



Also, if you put some thought to it, how much sharper and more effective can you really make a weapon by squeezing craft into it?
Weapons are already designed to be effective. even a crude Katana will be at least 1/2 as effective as the best Katana ever crafted in the hands of someone proficient with this type of weapon.
What exactly do you mean? The RAW rules already allow for Masterwork weapons (i.e. higher quality) and upgrading your gear has long been a trope of fantasy games- I just took those two concepts and ran with them, because the RAW weapons kind of peter out after level 5, except for involving magic.

AFAIK, a "razor-sharp sword" was never actually a thing. A sword honed to such a fine edge would quickly dull and/or chip in battle, rapidly rendering it useless; smiths needed to find a balance between a cutting edge and one capable of taking the beating a sword (or other weapon) was likely to see in battle. In a game where characters are already capable of superhuman feats and outright magic, assume that they've also developed techniques for simultaneously giving weapons the sharpness of a surgical scalpel and the toughness of blacksmith's anvil. I don't think that strains credulity to much, right?

nonsi
2017-09-09, 12:03 AM
With regards to classes- I totally agree with you. I haven't posted a class-fix in a long time, but for the stuff I still fiddle with on my own that is a definite goal. Fixing the class features that have issues is step one, and then buffing everything at tier 4 and below up to about the tier 3 level is steps two through ten. Giving non-magic-users more power more easily is one part, but also giving them more versatility and more options for various builds. This is a piece of that- if you can get the damage and defense you need from just your armor and your weapons, we can skip the Ring of AC and instead wear a ring that lets you fly, or pass through walls, and sneak-attack ghosts or whatever else if lying around.

I can't homebrew in a vacuum though- I've got to post things one bit at a time. Also, I admitted the WBL system is bjroked; ideally you'd work out a way to give PCs upgrades when they needed it and not just have millions of gold worth of weapons sitting around a shop somewhere.

Also also, in my ideal world spellcasters would have items to spend their gold on that were also important for their effectiveness. Whether your entire party has taken the Vow of Poverty or is lit up likeChristmas trees, so long as everyone does it equally it should work out for game balance.


I think that going the other way around will make things easier for you to figure out.
You should start with the classes and figure out what you want them to be able to do at which levels. That way you'll be able to play around with everything else and see how the other game elements interact with one another. Figuring things out separately for each game element will most surely force you to go back to the drawing board once you try to put them together.

As for "lit up like Christmas trees"... I don't remember heroes or villains in literature that were like that.
Special items are always pivotal in making a story. If you have hoards of them, then they're not in the least pivotal.





What exactly do you mean? The RAW rules already allow for Masterwork weapons (i.e. higher quality) and upgrading your gear has long been a trope of fantasy games- I just took those two concepts and ran with them, because the RAW weapons kind of peter out after level 5, except for involving magic.

AFAIK, a "razor-sharp sword" was never actually a thing. A sword honed to such a fine edge would quickly dull and/or chip in battle, rapidly rendering it useless; smiths needed to find a balance between a cutting edge and one capable of taking the beating a sword (or other weapon) was likely to see in battle. In a game where characters are already capable of superhuman feats and outright magic, assume that they've also developed techniques for simultaneously giving weapons the sharpness of a surgical scalpel and the toughness of blacksmith's anvil. I don't think that strains credulity to much, right?


I get what you're saying, but upgrading a weapon that does 2d10 to deal 10d12 is:
1. Nuts.
2. Too much WBL-oriented.
3. Will make it problematic to control the power-differences between characters.
4. Will slow down the game because of too many dice rolls.

Just have them mimic magical plusses. +4 to attack and damage practically doubles one's martial prowess, unless the character already had an average of 80%+ hit probability with iterative attacks.
Take it from someone that had some experience in taking things the wrong way (in previous incarnations of my overhaul project).

Deepbluediver
2017-09-09, 10:26 AM
I think that going the other way around will make things easier for you to figure out.
You should start with the classes and figure out what you want them to be able to do at which levels. That way you'll be able to play around with everything else and see how the other game elements interact with one another. Figuring things out separately for each game element will most surely force you to go back to the drawing board once you try to put them together.
In some sense, I already have. I haven't posted a class-fix in a long time but I've got lots of stuff saved on my computer (mostly as Excel spreadsheets) so I've got a pretty good idea of where I want to go with a lot of the classes.

Some of my older homebrew is out of date but the Monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?266147-Monk-Fix-2-0), Cleric (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?230136-Clerics-Now-in-Three-Flavors!), Paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?292856-Paladin-Fix-PrC-3-X-PEACH), and the Wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?247265-The-Wizard-and-his-Familar-(3-5-3-PF)) (this last one needs a little tweaking) are mostly good examples of the kind of thing I'm aiming for.

However I'm not going to say, "PEACH, but read all my other homebrew first." That's just not going to happen. If it helps, assume that the system this is intended for has no classes that are lower than tier 3.

One of my long-term goals is to give martial classes more freedom to spend their resources (choices in special abilities, feats, magic-item slots, gold, etc) to do things other than "hit it really hard with a stick". In order to do that, though, I first need to make sure those classes are competent at their core function (which, lets face it, is frequently "hitting stuff really hard with sticks") without using up every spare feat and copper piece they get a hold of. In my ideal world, the Fighter gets a big boost from his weapon and armor so that doesn't need a Ring of +2 AC and a Belt of Giant's Strength and a Helm of Bonus to Attack Rolls. I want my Fighters and Barbarians and Monks to be able to choose (or be happy with) stuff like a magic ring that lets you use Burning Hands 3 times per day or a belt that lets you phase into and out of the ethereal plane and a helm that gives you free 20's on skill checks and stuff like that.



As for "lit up like Christmas trees"... I don't remember heroes or villains in literature that were like that.
Special items are always pivotal in making a story. If you have hoards of them, then they're not in the least pivotal.
Yes and no. I'm gonna spoil the rest of my answer because it's long and rambling and kind of off topic. The most relevant bit is the last 2 paragraphs.

In novels you're not usually treated to an explanation of how the tagonists (pro and an) acquired every bit of bling because it's not necessary or even helpful to advancing the story. It's far more common to have the story about finding THE magic sword of the mystical magical mystery macguffin orb. In a setting where the consumer has no control over the characters and are simply following along, one long sequence of events with a major payout tends to be more satisfying than series of little vignettes.

There are counter-examples though; think of some of the old folktales. The hero often sets out on a journey, doing good deeds for every cute critter and old woman they meet along the way, and each one rewards them with some items or bit of knowledge. So by the time they reach the giant's castle they've got seven-league boots, a pot that produces infinite amounts of food, a magic ring that turns them invisible, a bottle that can hold an entire lake, a sword that transforms into a flock of geese... etc etc etc. And it turns out that every item is the solution for some problem the hero encounters later.

On the other end of the spectrum you've things that are nearly pure game, like Tetris or Super Hexagon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mDjFdetU28). Most "games" though are somewhere in between- IWBTGTG (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy)'s plot is really just an excuse for a long series of increasingly unfair action sequences, but it sets the scene. RPGs, by contrast, often have half an hour of unskippable custscene before you gain control of your character just long enough to walk out of your house and watch another half-hour of unskippable cutscene. But you keep going because there's the promise of a game in there somewhere.

Tabletop games can have more or less story (4 adventurers meet in front of a dungeon vs. a multi-session campagin, etc) but it ALWAYS has some game elements. No one joins a D&D group to listen to "The Adventures of Skippy the Wondergnome, the GMNPC with a song in his heart and a railroad plot in his pocket". Unlike a novel or even a videogame, the storyteller in a tabletop game DOES NOT have complete control over everything; they form the setting and then let 3-6 murderhobos loose to try and ruin it all. And murderhobos (aka PCs) usually like to feel that as they progress through the gameworld, they are getting more powerful. They want to fight badder and badder enemies and steal more loot which they in turn use to overcome yet-bigger threats, etc etc etc. These improvements can come from class features, or items, or both, but when you're talking about BALANCE, small, incremental improvements are usually easier to work with than rare but huge jumps in power. Particularly when you are dealing with multiple characters at the same time.

And that's what this is- it's a series of incremental improvements. You don't make someone use the exact same longsword from levels 1 to 10, and then at 11 hand them a legendwrought longsword. That is bad for balance and a bad loot-distribution system. Assuming you keep the same type of weapon, each upgrade in quality increases the damage from your weapon by about 30-50%. It says nothing about ability scores or feats or class features, but every couple of levels getting a weapon that hits harder seems like a good system to me. It's the same system that they tried to use in the RAW, just cranked up a bit.


I get what you're saying, but upgrading a weapon that does 2d10 to deal 10d12 is:
1. Nuts.
2. Too much WBL-oriented.
3. Will make it problematic to control the power-differences between characters.
4. Will slow down the game because of too many dice rolls.
Keep in mind that:

It's only 6 weapons out of the entire chart, 4 of which are exotic.
2d10 is only for large size weapons and in turn large-size creatures, which not everyone will play.
10d12 damage is literally epic play- the suggested level for legendwrought weapons is, like the drinking age, 21 and over.
Dice rolling programs exist and are quite common- you can get them on your phone.
The game already has stuff like Meteor Swarm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/meteorSwarm.htm) which requires rolling 4x6d6 plus 2d6 for any creatures struck by explosions plus separate saves for each creature for each explosion that creature is caught in.
Stuff like the thousands-of-damage-per-turn Shock Trooper (http://ihititwithmyaxe.tumblr.com/post/5994449301/the-charging-fighter-breaking-35-dd) build already exists and is legal by RAW; I want to be able to ban or fix that kind of cheese while still allowing my players high-damage options.
In my experience, high level characters tend to make full attacks much less often than the designers thought they would (and don't hit with all their attacks when they do).
And finally, keep in mind that everything is a SUGGESTION. The "suggested levels" are ranges to allow the GM a measure of control, even if he's following the charts exactly. Masterwork quality stuff goes all the way up to level 20, and if you find your players don't need more damage for the moment, let them keep whatever weapons they've already got.



Just have them mimic magical plusses. +4 to attack and damage practically doubles one's martial prowess, unless the character already had an average of 80%+ hit probability with iterative attacks.
Take it from someone that had some experience in taking things the wrong way (in previous incarnations of my overhaul project).
I appreciate all your feedback, I really do. That's why I reopened this conversation; I was thinking about what you said about the damage and I'm looking for ways to improve it. But the whole point was that the RAW system did not provide a sufficient variety or power for my characters. Doubling a ****ty value still gives you a ****ty value. The RAW system for mundane equipment improvements basically caps out around level 5, and for the next 15 levels it all comes down to magic, which your low-tier martial characters don't have access to on their own.

You were the one who pointed out that taking the dice-rolls out of combat is usually bad, or at least boring. But the RAW system leads to issues where the Fighter spends every resource he has to boost his strength score, and ends the game rolling 1d8+26 for damage.

I do not want a system where the dice-roll is an afterthought.
I do not want a system where the Fighter has to beg the Wizard for an enchantment to stay relevant.

How does your version of the fix address those two problems?

nonsi
2017-09-09, 03:07 PM
Some of my older homebrew is out of date but the Monk, Cleric, Paladin, and the Wizard (this last one needs a little tweaking) are mostly good examples of the kind of thing I'm aiming for.


Now I remember that it was your Wizard fix that had inspired mine. My school selection formula is based on the realization that Conjuration and Transmutation are superior to the other schools, so each is worth 2 schools if you choose it as a banned school, and costs you an extra banned school if you focus on it. That seems to me like a reasonable equilibrium between the different arcane specialists.





However I'm not going to say, "PEACH, but read all my other homebrew first." That's just not going to happen. If it helps, assume that the system this is intended for has no classes that are lower than tier 3.


You might wanna consider an overhaul project of your own. That way you won't have to note that things are related to other things and your entire project will be in one place.





One of my long-term goals is to give martial classes more freedom to spend their resources (choices in special abilities, feats, magic-item slots, gold, etc) to do things other than "hit it really hard with a stick".


Just don't have magic-item slots increase with level. That solution is lame IMO.





I want my Fighters and Barbarians and Monks to be able to choose (or be happy with) stuff like a magic ring that lets you use Burning Hands 3 times per day or a belt that lets you phase into and out of the ethereal plane and a helm that gives you free 20's on skill checks and stuff like that.


Ethereal phasing is actually quite powerful.
Free 20's on skill checks is something I'd prefer leaving in the characters' ballpark rather than have magical gear grant.





Game vs. Story
. . .
Most "games" though are somewhere in between- IWBTGTG's plot is really just an excuse for a long series of increasingly unfair action sequences, but it sets the scene. RPGs, by contrast, often have half an hour of unskippable custscene before you gain control of your character just long enough to walk out of your house and watch another half-hour of unskippable cutscene. But you keep going because there's the promise of a game in there somewhere.


Actually, when I installed Might & Magic 6/7/8 a long time ago, it took some time before I skipped the intros. I really liked them.





No one joins a D&D group to listen to "The Adventures of Skippy the Wondergnome, the GMNPC with a song in his heart and a railroad plot in his pocket".


1. I've known some that do.
2. "Railroad" depends on player & DM.






Unlike a novel or even a videogame, the storyteller in a tabletop game DOES NOT have complete control over everything; they form the setting and then let 3-6 murderhobos loose to try and ruin it all. And murderhobos (aka PCs) usually like to feel that as they progress through the gameworld, they are getting more powerful. They want to fight badder and badder enemies and steal more loot which they in turn use to overcome yet-bigger threats, etc etc etc. These improvements can come from class features, or items, or both, but when you're talking about BALANCE, small, incremental improvements are usually easier to work with than rare but huge jumps in power. Particularly when you are dealing with multiple characters at the same time.


If the DM awards XP for:
1. Defeating opponents rather than only killing them.
2. Saving NPCs that need saving even in combat situations (including taking hits when necessary).
3. Diplomatically solving problems.
4. Riddles/puzzles
Then the "murderhobos" syndrome decreases dramatically.





And that's what this is- it's a series of incremental improvements. You don't make someone use the exact same longsword from levels 1 to 10, and then at 11 hand them a legendwrought longsword. That is bad for balance and a bad loot-distribution system. Assuming you keep the same type of weapon, each upgrade in quality increases the damage from your weapon by about 30-50%.


Gear gets damaged/ruined.
Gear gets stolen.
Gear gets lost.
Gear gets confiscated.
If those never happen in a campaign, credibility diminishes and so does the experience of the campaign.





You were the one who pointed out that taking the dice-rolls out of combat is usually bad, or at least boring. But the RAW system leads to issues where the Fighter spends every resource he has to boost his strength score, and ends the game rolling 1d8+26 for damage.

I do not want a system where the dice-roll is an afterthought.
I do not want a system where the Fighter has to beg the Wizard for an enchantment to stay relevant.


You have a point there.
I just came up with an idea. What if Weapon Spec and greater Weapon Spec were to increase damage dice as if you've gained size increase, as well as Weapon Focus granting increasing attack roll bonuses with leveling?
That's more emphasis on character leveling and less on gear... but then how do you make it not a must-have for practically every single fighter?
And now that I think of it, it's not necessarily a bad thing that every fighter puts resources on one or two signature weapons, but merits more overall character-build resources.
My caveat with such an approach is that once again a badass knife fighter is not an option (unless you don't mind shooting yourself in the foot).

Deepbluediver
2017-09-09, 08:16 PM
You might wanna consider an overhaul project of your own. That way you won't have to note that things are related to other things and your entire project will be in one place.
I mean, that's kind of what I'm doing, but it's never going to be simple enough to put everything in one place. I'm all for simplifying things like feats, or class features, or special abilities, or subsystems, but that doesn't mean my fixes will be short and simple. Especially since a lot of the class-fixes really call for adding stuff.

Anyway, do you know how some people have project cars? Broken vehicles they'll spend tons of time and hundreds if not thousands of dollars to fix up, and yet they never seem to actually finish working on? That's a bit like me and homebrewing 3.5 (not counting the money). I do it because I find it fun to actively be working on stuff, even if I never reach a point of completion. And I post it because there are lots of other people who have tried to fix the same problems, and reading their responses or seeing what they did often gives me further inspiration.



Just don't have magic-item slots increase with level. That solution is lame IMO.
I'm not exactly sure what that means. I tend to prefer flexible, organic systems where as much as possible is available from the start. I'm NOT looking to put arbitrary limits on how many magic items a player can use or when you open up certain slots, if that's what you're talking about.



Ethereal phasing is actually quite powerful.
Free 20's on skill checks is something I'd prefer leaving in the characters' ballpark rather than have magical gear grant.
Those were just random examples. A better way to put it would be that I want power to come from Armor and Weapons, and everything else to be available to increase versatility. What exactly that means can vary from player to player and group to group....which is kinda the whole point.



If the DM awards XP for:
1. Defeating opponents rather than only killing them.
2. Saving NPCs that need saving even in combat situations (including taking hits when necessary).
3. Diplomatically solving problems.
4. Riddles/puzzles
Then the "murderhobos" syndrome decreases dramatically.
I definitely support all of that- my point was only that PCs want a feeling of agency, and usually the sense that they are improving and getting stronger as the story progresses. For D&D style games, you can have everything from E6 to Exhalted, and I'm not going to make judgement about which is best. There's plenty of flexibility (I think) even within my proposed system for various power levels.



Gear gets damaged/ruined.
Gear gets stolen.
Gear gets lost.
Gear gets confiscated.
If those never happen in a campaign, credibility diminishes and so does the experience of the campaign.
I think we're back to the "power from a class" vs. "power from gear" discussion- this is good, I wanted to comment on this.
If you ask D&D players to picture a fighter, I suspect 9 out of 10 of them would immediately imagine someone with some kind of weapon. Either an axe or a spear or damn-big sword. Most of them would also probably imagine some kind of armor- some might go for the knight in shinning mail (https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-08/7/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-1487-1502137063-5.jpg) archetype, while others might envision more of sellsword in dark leathers (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/Bronn-Jerome_Flynn.jpg), but very few people are going to imagine a buff gymrat in streetclothes.

My point is, your gear IS your character. Or at least part of it anyway. Some classes might not use weapons (monks) and some might not use armor (casters) but having some sort of item(s) that improve what you can do as a participant in the gameworld is pretty standard, AND a good way to adjust balance AND fill in gaps in a class' repertoire AND provide universal access to certain functions. I'm sure you could design a gameworld where gear was entirely inconsequential. Depending on the genre that might be more or less believable to your players, but it's certainly a thing you could do. It's just not my preference.

Anyhow, yes, all of that stuff you mentioned can happen, but you can take it to far the other way as well. If the BBEG has an endless stream of thieves he can send after the wizard's spellbook for no adequately explained reason, if every monster you meet has improved sunder, if every time the party tries to enter a new town they are immediately accused of murder and thrown in jail, it can start to feel vindictive. Challenging your players to not rely on WBL to just brute-force their way through every problem is good, but so is letting them feel powerful and flex their muscle on occasion.



I just came up with an idea. What if Weapon Spec and greater Weapon Spec were to increase damage dice as if you've gained size increase, as well as Weapon Focus granting increasing attack roll bonuses with leveling?
That's more emphasis on character leveling and less on gear... but then how do you make it not a must-have for practically every single fighter?
The concepts isn't bad- there's already a feat (Monkey Grip, I think) that lets you just flat-out wield larger weapons.
The question that this first raises for me though is how do you stretch it over 20 levels? I don't mind players have to occasionally shell out gold to upgrade their gear because (1) gold is far and away the most flexible resource, and (2) it seems reasonable that you give your PCs some avenue to dump their loot into. Having to re-buy what are effectively the same feats over and over again is much harsher (IMO) in terms of leveling up. To me, offering weapon upgrades feels like I'm giving my players options, while doing the same thing with feats feels like a tax. And no one likes taxes.



And now that I think of it, it's not necessarily a bad thing that every fighter puts resources on one or two signature weapons, but merits more overall character-build resources.
Building on that, sinking 100% of your wealth into a single super-good item is always a bad idea. Even beyond that normal perils of adventuring, making your character so dependent on a single variable is like walking about with a giant red button strapped to your back that says "this will hurt me so please don't push it". It's a temptation for GMs (and some other players) to want to push that button.

The fact that you CAN liquidate most of your assets and buy a single super-awesome sword doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good idea to do so. Having one pretty-good sword and a few decent backup weapons might be the smarter plan. And you should feel free to punish any player who makes dumb choices when it comes to gear, just like you should feel free to punish anyone who charges headlong into combat against overwhelming odds without a plan, and expects plot-armor to protect them.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't make the system available to intelligent (or cautious) players.



My caveat with such an approach is that once again a badass knife fighter is not an option (unless you don't mind shooting yourself in the foot).
What exactly do you mean by that? I like the idea that there are different combat styles with different benefits (two handed=damage, sword-and-board=defensive, dual-wielding=hybrid, etc), but the Fighter class is going to have sufficient weapon proficiency that he can pick better weapons than a dagger. However, I'm not saying that you need to protect players from their own stupidity (or sub-optimal choices). Let them figure it out as they go.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-09, 09:00 PM
I wanted to make another post about two separate points which I haven't had the chance to respond to directly much.


First, the price of weapons and relevancy of gold to your character. Let me start by saying I believe the WBL chart and the economy in D&D 3.5 are, by RAW, bjorked. Messy. Broken. Unbalanced. Messed-up. Poorly-designed. And Silly.
If I had to fix it, I'd starty by lopping a zero off everything that's measured in gold pieces and then really delve into it from there. I provided values only because when I posted my armor fix without them originally, at least one person wanted me to list prices as a form of guidance. On top of that, I've never liked the magic-mart style of item distribution. Just because it's listed in a book somewhere doesn't mean you'll be able to buy it in the next city you visit.

As far as quality goes, I'd imagine that regular tier stuff if pretty widely available; the world is a dangerous place afterall. Superior quality weapons can mainly be had in large cities, though it could take a bit of searching- not every weaponshop will be stocked with every variety of weapon, and you might have to settle for something like an axe instead of sword. Beyond that though, it's a tossup. There might be one Exceptional quality weapon in the entire city, provided you know the right guy to give the secret handshake to, and are willing to pay the exorbitant prices the thieve's guild charges. Or it's in possession of a noble family who won't part with it for any price, but might be willing to give it to someone who proved their worth. Etc etc etc.

Higher quality weapons could each involve their own miniquest just to find someone with the skill to craft them. Ditto for anything involving special materials. Of maybe you find some other way to give players an upgrade when the time is right. For example, they are deep in a dungeon-delve and come across the last party to attempt this passage, now slightly more corpse-ified, but with remnants of their gear strewn about. Or the enemy who tore through your party and nearly TPK'd you was wearing some really snazzy armor. Or the demon general you slew had a really cool bow in his warchest and wasn't using it because it's good-aligned and burns the flesh when anyone evil who tries to wield it.

You can expand the same philosophy to almost anything- the PC's don't get a castle because they slew a dragon and looted it's hoard, they'd get one because they earned it through their actions. If the PCs want to build a stronghold, let them spend a session or two negotiating for land, assembling materials, designing plans, and attracting or hiring minions to staff it. That's the sort of junction of story and mechanics I've always liked.



Second- about upgraded weapons. Whenever I picture masterwork quality stuff and other high-damage variants, it's not JUST like-a-normal-sword-but-sharper. Often they can appear weirdly designed or oddly shapped, like this (http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/swords-tsa.jpg) or this (http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Dark-Dragon-Blade_2999.jpg) or this (https://oscaraguirreplay.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/d7675fd439b13ede0f75efc0fb427fbe.jpg). I picked pictures of swords because their the easiest to find, but the same thing can apply to spears (https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fa/d5/44/fad544cf96c46b7c71ec6d44d5e144d6--fantasy-weapons-spear-design.jpg) or axes (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=12894&stc=1) or bows (http://dotamods.ovh/wp-content/images/trax/bow8.jpg).

A while back I used to play World of Warcraft, and the top-tier raiding guilds would often have unusual talent-builds on their characters. A common example was using PvP builds for PvE, because going from a 6-ability rotation to a 14-ability rotation (or something like that) allowed them to eke out an extra 1% DPS (damage per second). Then some schlub would read on a website that the PvP build was the "highest DPS build" and they'd try to do it, but because they couldn't manage the timing they'd end up doing way less damage than if they'd just used the normal, intended PvE DPS build. It's the same concept- really high quality weapons have weird, almost nonsensical designs, but a master of weaponscraft can adjust their fighting style to actually benefit in unexpected ways (i.e. deal more damage), where a novice would be completely befuddled (i.e. is non-proficient).

Another way to look at it is this: a level 1 Fighter (http://freepngimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/roman-soldier-transparent-background.png) is fairly realistic in that you can picture him doing stuff that you yourself could theoretically accomplish, with a lot of practice and training. A level 20 fighter (http://wallfon.com/walls/fantasy/the-mighty-warrior-with-a-huge-sword.jpg) is superhuman, which is why he can wield a sword that lets him turn enemies into chunky salsa with a single swing.

nonsi
2017-09-10, 12:58 PM
I mean, that's kind of what I'm doing, but it's never going to be simple enough to put everything in one place. I'm all for simplifying things like feats, or class features, or special abilities, or subsystems, but that doesn't mean my fixes will be short and simple. Especially since a lot of the class-fixes really call for adding stuff.


You could break things down to threads by topics (races, skills, feats, houserules etc.)





I'm NOT looking to put arbitrary limits on how many magic items a player can use or when you open up certain slots, if that's what you where talking about.


That.





Those were just random examples. A better way to put it would be that I want power to come from Armor and Weapons


I'm for it to, but I'd prefer it that Mr. Blademaster Joe was awesome with any longsword than radically superior with "my trusty Dragonbite".





I definitely support all of that- my point was only that PCs want a feeling of agency, and usually the sense that they are improving and getting stronger as the story progresses.


Absolutely. I'm all for it to. In fact, if anyone notices a level advancement in any of my classes where the improvement is not obvious and meaningful, I'd sure wanna know about it.





I think we're back to the "power from a class" vs. "power from gear" discussion- this is good, I wanted to comment on this.
If you ask D&D players to picture a fighter, I suspect 9 out of 10 of them would immediately imagine someone with some kind of weapon. Either an axe or a spear or damn-big sword. Most of them would also probably imagine some kind of armor- some might go for the knight in shinning mail archetype, while others might envision more of sellsword in dark leathers, but very few people are going to imagine a buff gymrat in streetclothes.


Ever seen "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"?





My point is, your gear IS your character. Or at least part of it anyway.


Of course. I've offered plenty of ways for noncasters to circumvent any dependence upon casters, should that pose an important issue for the player.





Some classes might not use weapons (monks) and some might not use armor (casters) but having some sort of item(s) that improve what you can do as a participant in the gameworld is pretty standard


Just noting that some classes are meant to become gear-independent by definition (e.g. Soulknife).





I'm sure you could design a gameworld where gear was entirely inconsequential.


When this is what a player wants, the option should be available, but I'm equally against imposing gear inconsequentiality.





Anyhow, yes, all of that stuff you mentioned can happen, but you can take it to far the other way as well. If the BBEG has an endless stream of thieves he can send after the wizard's spellbook for no adequately explained reason, if every monster you meet has improved sunder, if every time the party tries to enter a new town they are immediately accused of murder and thrown in jail, it can start to feel vindictive.


I absolutely agree. If the DM is obsessive, it's probably better not to play at all.





To me, offering weapon upgrades feels like I'm giving my players options, while doing the same thing with feats feels like a tax. And no one likes taxes.


You can regard any feat selection as tax, or regard it as inherent improvement.





What exactly do you mean by that? I like the idea that there are different combat styles with different benefits (two handed=damage, sword-and-board=defensive, dual-wielding=hybrid, etc), but the Fighter class is going to have sufficient weapon proficiency that he can pick better weapons than a dagger. However, I'm not saying that you need to protect players from their own stupidity (or sub-optimal choices). Let them figure it out as they go.


But I wanna play a badass unfettered knife fighter. How do I accomplish that successfully with such massive dice disparity or stat shifts?










As far as quality goes, I'd imagine that regular tier stuff if pretty widely available; the world is a dangerous place afterall. Superior quality weapons can mainly be had in large cities, though it could take a bit of searching- not every weaponshop will be stocked with every variety of weapon, and you might have to settle for something like an axe instead of sword. Beyond that though, it's a tossup. There might be one Exceptional quality weapon in the entire city, provided you know the right guy to give the secret handshake to, and are willing to pay the exorbitant prices the thieve's guild charges. Or it's in possession of a noble family who won't part with it for any price, but might be willing to give it to someone who proved their worth. Etc etc etc.


What if BAB dictates how far one can practically exploit his weapon's high quality?
Example: you gave 5 weapon-grade improvements (7 grades overall). What if a character couldn't exploit the next level of mastercrafting w/o obtaining +3 BAB increase? That way a 5th level fighter could be sent on a quest to retrieve the legendary legendwrought longsword "Dragonbite", but in his hands it will only function as a superior longsword. Just a thought.
In any case, if you make it constant increments (e.g. +1 to hit and +2 to damage) per quality grade, you'll drastically narrow the gap between a knife fighter and a fullblade executioner As levels go up.





Higher quality weapons could each involve their own miniquest just to find someone with the skill to craft them. Ditto for anything involving special materials. Of maybe you find some other way to give players an upgrade when the time is right. For example, they are deep in a dungeon-delve and come across the last party to attempt this passage, now slightly more corpse-ified, but with remnants of their gear strewn about. Or the enemy who tore through your party and nearly TPK'd you was wearing some really snazzy armor. Or the demon general you slew had a really cool bow in his warchest and wasn't using it because it's good-aligned and burns the flesh when anyone evil who tries to wield it.

You can expand the same philosophy to almost anything- the PC's don't get a castle because they slew a dragon and looted it's hoard, they'd get one because they earned it through their actions. If the PCs want to build a stronghold, let them spend a session or two negotiating for land, assembling materials, designing plans, and attracting or hiring minions to staff it. That's the sort of junction of story and mechanics I've always liked.


You got my vote on this one.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-10, 08:16 PM
I'm for it to, but I'd prefer it that Mr. Blademaster Joe was awesome with any longsword than radically superior with "my trusty Dragonbite".
Why not both? My goal is not to make martial classes all about their weapon- even without their gear they will still have a heaping pile of HP, great ability scores, skills, feats, and class abilities (yes, even something like the Fighter needs unique class abilities). Also, they should have sufficient proficiency so that even if they can't get to their weapon of choice, they can fall back on several almost-as-good options.

Maybe Joe wakes up naked in a cell and has to fight was way to freedom. He strangles the first guard to death and steals his sword, and then attacks 15 more guards which would be suicide for any normal person. The difference being that seρor Blademaster actually has to fight, whereas if he had Dragonbite he could simply cleave the entire group's top halves from their bottoms with a single swing.



Ever seen "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"?
I have- but the Fighter (capital F) as a D&D class does not need to represent every single martial archetype IMO. If you're trying to build a CTHD type of character, maybe what you really want is something more like a Monk, with a dip of Fighter for feats, a dip of Rogue for skills, a dip of Swordsage for the ability to run on water, a dip of whatever else.....etc etc etc.

Also, practically the whole movie was focused around a single really-awesome sword, which seems like a good example of this concept in action. Take this scene for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OxQ-2gR1DU
One character is using the super-awesome-cool-anime-legendary-sword-of-destiny, and the other is grabbing whatever she can get a hold of. Bother are concepts I want players to be able to exploit.



Just noting that some classes are meant to become gear-independent by definition (e.g. Soulknife).
There's a difference to my mind between REQUIRING gear to be competent at your core function, benefiting from but not needing gear, and not being able to use any gear that improves you at all. Ideally (IMO) for classes like the Monk* or Soulknife, they might not need weapons or armor but there would be other types of gear that they could sink their share of the loot into. And I'm using the term "gear" VERY loosely here. Maybe the monk spends his money on magical tattoos or the Soulknife hires a bunch of minions to help him out.

When you try to build a class that doesn't gain any kind of benefit from gear, I think it does weird things to balance; especially when placed alongside a class that was designed with the assumption that it would be using a lot of gear. Something like the Vow of Poverty should probably be at least a prestige class, and/or something your character does from a very early stage so you can work it into core gameplay and loot distribution.

Plus, I think that gear is a great way to customize your character. It differentiates you from all the other Monks and Soulknives and whatnot out there.

*My monk fix actually includes options to use weapons and armor for just these reasons.



You can regard any feat selection as tax, or regard it as inherent improvement.
Yes, I suppose, though in this case I prefer to do it via weapons than feats (at least somewhat). Because damage is so straightforward and any character can pick up any weapon at any time, it feels right to me that that's what we focus on for boosting damage. I'd prefer to reserve feats for something like a character's weapon-style, with different benefits to each one. Some weapon-styles, like 2-handed fighting, might gain more benefits to damage from their feats than something like a sword-and-board style, but that makes it a combination of gear and character.



But I wanna play a badass unfettered knife fighter. How do I accomplish that successfully with such massive dice disparity or stat shifts?
I'm still not exactly sure what the problem is- I need more details about your proposed fighting style and why you think it won't work. Are you saying you can't play Fighter (capital F, the class) but use daggers as your weapons because they deal less damage than things like longswords and battleaxes?



What if BAB dictates how far one can practically exploit his weapon's high quality?
Example: you gave 5 weapon-grade improvements (7 grades overall). What if a character couldn't exploit the next level of mastercrafting w/o obtaining +3 BAB increase? That way a 5th level fighter could be sent on a quest to retrieve the legendary legendwrought longsword "Dragonbite", but in his hands it will only function as a superior longsword. Just a thought.
In any case, if you make it constant increments (e.g. +1 to hit and +2 to damage) per quality grade, you'll drastically narrow the gap between a knife fighter and a fullblade executioner As levels go up.
In the third post I've already got a suggestion for a BAB requirement, with anyone who isn't at that level suffering a non-proficiency penalty. You can feel free to tweak that or modify it as necessary.

If you're really worried, your idea would work too I think, but the question to me is if you don't want the Fighter to have that good of a weapon yet, why did you give it to him in the first place?


Also, remember when you where talking about improving damage via the Weapon Focus feats earlier? I had a thought- even if you make the categories really broad, isn't that kind of making your character dependent on his gear anyway? If your character has invested heavily in Weapon Focus: Swords, but he's just broken out of jail and all the guards are carrying spears, you're kind of screwed. Personally I don't really mind- if my character has taken a whole bunch of sword-n-board feats and suddenly has to fight with a halberd for a while for whatever reason, that's ok to me. Sometimes characters are strong and sometimes they have to struggle a bit; it also gives a character an incentive to either retrieve or replace their gear. Maybe your character will decide to improvise with a sewer grate (shield) and candle-stick (club) because it means he can use his feats again, which outweigh the benefits of an actual weapon. But if done right your character shouldn't be forced to sit and wait for rescue just because he doesn't have his favorite sword right this very moment.

You seem to be much more concerned, however, that taking away a character's gear can suddenly make them useless. Just keep in mind that issues with over-specialization can arise from feats and from your build just as easily as they can from gear, and in general replacing your gear is a lot easier than replacing all your feats and class-features.

Agent 451
2017-09-10, 09:10 PM
Your Judicar's shild wouldn't happen to be either a lantern shield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_shield), or targe (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%87_(%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81 %D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%82)), would it?

Deepbluediver
2017-09-10, 11:08 PM
Your Judicar's shild wouldn't happen to be either a lantern shield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_shield), or targe (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%87_(%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81 %D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%82)), would it?
It is not- I still can't find the original webpage I read about them on and it was driving me bonkers, but after many fruitless searches I found something close! A video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9VG4ClQcJk) and a different webpage (http://www.freelanceacademypress.com/duelingshield.aspx). I knew I hadn't just imagined this crazy **** at 3 in the morning- apparently it's also called a German dueling shield. Seriously though check it out, those things are nuts.

Edit: And another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QpyrKxO6PQ&mode=related&search=bad+janny)!
Once you have the right name, this stuff is easy to find! That being said, I might possibly be mistaken about what the original webpage called it. It could have been a judicator's shield or an ajudicator's shield. When I looked for those though all it turned up was videogame stuff (mainly from Dark Souls I think). Oh well, I found it now!

nonsi
2017-09-11, 10:10 PM
Also, practically the whole movie was focused around a single really-awesome sword, which seems like a good example of this concept in action. Take this scene for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OxQ-2gR1DU
One character is using the super-awesome-cool-anime-legendary-sword-of-destiny, and the other is grabbing whatever she can get a hold of. Bother are concepts I want players to be able to exploit.


First of all, I want to state that this is my all-time favorite 1-on-1 scene ever. The elder fighter is a goddess. Skillful, graceful and sexy :smallbiggrin:
Second, if you pay close attention, she held back 3 times and gave the younger one time to recover… and you saw how it ended.
Yes, green destiny was indeed legendary, but in the end li-mu-bai didn't need it to dominate the fighting scene – eventually, level and skill mattered more than super-awesome-cool-anime-legendary-sword-of-destiny.





I'd prefer to reserve feats for something like a character's weapon-style, with different benefits to each one. Some weapon-styles, like 2-handed fighting, might gain more benefits to damage from their feats than something like a sword-and-board style, but that makes it a combination of gear and character.


Which requires a set of rules in and on itself.





Are you saying you can't play Fighter (capital F, the class) but use daggers as your weapons because they deal less damage than things like longswords and battleaxes?


By your weapon quality progression and proposed weapons, a masterwork dagger does 3d3 while a masterwork poleaxe does 4d12.
Even wielding 2 daggers, the damage diff is intolerable.





If you're really worried, your idea would work too I think, but the question to me is if you don't want the Fighter to have that good of a weapon yet, why did you give it to him in the first place?


Could be part of the story line, where he serves as a courier.





Also, remember when you where talking about improving damage via the Weapon Focus feats earlier? I had a though- even if you make the categories really broad, isn't that kind of making your character dependent on his gear anyway?


Yes, but again, even though he'd naturally prefer Dragonbite, he'd still be awesome with any arbitrary longsword and longbow.






If your character has invested heavily in Weapon Focus: Swords...


I was talking about one feet that improves with level progression.





But if done right your character shouldn't be forced to sit and wait for rescue just because he doesn't have his favorite sword right this very moment.


My claim exactly. If you check, you'll notice that my Warrior provides a lot of tools to do ok even while improvising.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-12, 12:10 PM
First of all, I want to state that this is my all-time favorite 1-on-1 scene ever. The elder fighter is a goddess. Skillful, graceful and sexy :smallbiggrin:
Second, if you pay close attention, she held back 3 times and gave the younger one time to recover… and you saw how it ended.
Yes, green destiny was indeed legendary, but in the end li-mu-bai didn't need it to dominate the fighting scene – eventually, level and skill mattered more than super-awesome-cool-anime-legendary-sword-of-destiny.
I'm sure there are multiple interpretations of the movie (and the bit with the hooked swords was my inspiration for them as an exotic weapon) but I do think it proves that there's room for both awesome classes and awesome weapons.

The damage from a weapon does increase dramatically if you look at the jump from regular weapons to much higher quality ones, but going from one quality directly to the next is much less significant. Also, keep in mind that as you level up your character their abilities and the strength of the enemies they face also increase dramatically. My goal is to keep weapons on-par with class advancement.



Which requires a set of rules in and on itself.
This was my first attempt: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?267778-Feat-Chains-THF-SnB-Reach-amp-Single-Weapon-PEACH

After testing it out, it needs updating, particularly the TWF, THF, Ranged, and SnB styles, but that's kind of where I'm going. Also to alleviate the feat-tax feel, nearly all martial classes are getting extra weapon-style feats. The Rogue gets 4, the Ranger gets 7, the Barbarian gets 10, etc, and I haven't decided how many the Fighter is actually going to get because I'm still working on that class.

Two-Handed Combat: extra damage; two-handed weapons are primarily all about the offense
Sword-and-Board: defense, including the ability to aggro (taunt) enemies and force them to attack you
Two-Weapon Fighting: a hybrid style, gaining extra AC (but not as much as with shield) and extra attacks (but not as much damage as THC
Ranged: another sort-of hybrid style that gains it's defense by virtue of not being in range to be hit
Reach: battlefield control, based on Attacks of Opportunity
Eihnhander: an alternative option for gishes


By your weapon quality progression and proposed weapons, a masterwork dagger does 3d3 while a masterwork poleaxe does 4d12.
Even wielding 2 daggers, the damage diff is intolerable.
I've got two entirely separate replies to this!

First, the math. A regular dagger is 1d3, average 2, when dual-wielding that's 4. A regular halberd is 2d8, average 9, or 125% more damage.
A Mstwk dagger is 3d3, averaged and dualed that works out to 12. The same quality Halberd is 4x6.5=26, which means it's only dealing 117% more damage. So on a percentage-basis, the gap is actually narrowing. Also, if I bumped up 1-handed weapons liked I talked about before, the dagger would go back to being 1d4, the same as it is in the RAW, and the gap would narrow further. (I've held off on updating the damage for the moment because I wanted to see if I changed my mind about anything else based on our conversation, and I didn't want to have to redo the chart twice)

Second, and far more important IMO, is the class-based answer. In my last reply I said that the Fighter, as a class, does not need to represent every single martial archetype. The Fighter is built around the assumption that they will have good weapon and armor proficiencies, and that they will want to use them. There is a cost to that proficiency though- I haven't gone into it because I wanted to keep this thread uncluttered, but my ultimate goal is to have it be much more costly to become proficient with a Halberd than with a Dagger. But it's not an expense measured in gold- it's measured in opportunity costs, i.e. what you give up to get something else. If you're not planning on using the Fighter's good weapon proficiencies, then maybe Fighter is not the class you're looking for. There are classes that have other ways to boost their combat damage (Sneak Attack, Skirmish, Rage) or compensate for lower combat proficiency by providing other benefits to the party.

I'm trying to think of some knife-fighters in popular culture and coming up blank beyond Peter Pan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fOpNCYZZY); daggers tend to have somewhat villainous connotations in literature and such. Jack Sparrow didn't wear armor though, and neither did Zorro. Maybe instead of a Fighter, the archetype you're looking for is more like Swashbuckler (assuming that class didn't suck in 3.5) or Barbarian.



Could be part of the story line, where he serves as a courier.
I don't know of many couriers who are allowed to use the goods they are transporting, but if that's an issue, do as I suggested and use the BAB requirements. The potential for extra damage would be compensated for, at least partially, by the fact that you miss more attacks.



I was talking about one feat that improves with level progression.
If you can make that work, then by all means let me know. I'm always happy to see what other people do and maybe pick up a new trick or idea for my own homebrew. Even if you don't like the concept of incredibly good weapons, maybe you could still use the chart. Have you feat say something like, "If your BAB is high enough, then instead of 1d6 a weapon deals XdY damage", or something like that.



My claim exactly. If you check, you'll notice that my Warrior provides a lot of tools to do ok even while improvising.
You know what else can provide tools for improvising? Actual tools (or weapons).
My character might favor a longsword and shield, but he's also carrying a bow, some daggers, flasks of alchemists-fire, smoke pellets, a can of grease, lots of rope, etc etc etc....

As a GM though, part of it falls to you to not set up situations that the characters can't resolve. It's entirely possible to have a formerly-trusted friend poison everyone with a sleeping-potion that has a ridiculously high Save, and then they all wake up in separate anti-magic cells, stripped and chained hand-and-foot. The DC to break the restraints or pick the locks is "Ha-ha it's funny that you tried" and everyone has been assigned their own watch-dragon in case they attempt any shenanigans. Saying "look the characters are helpless without their gear" is not a valid comparison here- you can set up any situation where the characters would be helpless even WITH gear. The point is that, if as a GM you've devised a situation where the characters CAN lose their gear, you don't make it so they required their gear to get out of it. Unless you're purposely trying to force the characters to talk their way through it, I guess.

There is a caveat of course- you don't need to protect players from their own mistakes or stupidity. If I've chosen to put all my wealth into one single ultra-awesome weapon and have no backup, that was dumb and if it comes back to bite me in the ass, that's my own fault. But it does not mean the system is flawed. It means I haven't managed to make a system that protects players from acting like idiots.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-20, 01:50 PM
9/20 Update: I've changed the damage on the charts and the base number for a one-handed martial weapon is now 1d8. One-handed and light weapons have all been moved up, unarmed and two-handed weapons remained where they were. (ranged weapons were adjusted only if they were stat'ed like one-handed and light weapons)

I'm sure there are people who will think that 1d10 is a lot of damage for a medium-sized one handed weapon; I know I sure did at first. But it's not really new- in the original rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm) both the Bastard Sword and Dwarven Waraxe could be used as one-handed weapons dealing 1d10 damage. They were exotic weapons, admittedly, but from what I read the Bastard Sword was generally not considered a great investment, being both boring and a modest damage increase for the cost of one of your precious feats.


Edit: Added the Zhua (or Rake) as a 2-handed martial weapon with the Bg/Pi damage type. Now I just need something with Bg/Sl damage to have all the combinations represented in that category. I already turned the Greataxe from RAW into, effectively, my version of the Pollaxe though, so I'd love something else slightly more interesting. I haven't been able to come up with anything better yet, so I just added in a Greataxe for now and tweaked the Pollaxe slightly.

nonsi
2017-09-20, 10:28 PM
.
I could live with most of what's in here, even though I think some of the weapons (like Nunchaku) behave differently IRL.
What I would not adopt under any circumstances is the weapon quality progression.
A Legendwrought War-Scythe does 7d12 base damage. On a crit that's 21d12. With Imp. Crit, you're gonna crit on average every 2 out of 3 rounds. At the intended levels, a fighter will probably be hitting 3 out of 4 times per round with all modifiers, making it 35d12. And we're not even taking character build, magical buffs and circumstances into account yet.
No. I wouldn't wanna play like that. With certain 9th level maneuvers that deal approx. +8d8 damage, you're dealing with more than 250 hp per round (with modifiers) before cheese builds get into the equation.
Now check out a large Monk's Spade in the hands of a goliath.
No. A far saner solution would be to grant +1 to hit and +2 to damage per weapon grade. The added damage is still multiplied on a crit, and that's more than enough in my view. That would also allow you to drop the prices to a much saner level.

nonsi
2017-09-20, 10:32 PM
Now I just need something with Bg/Sl damage to have all the combinations represented in that category.


Morningstar w/ blades instead of spikes, or Hammer-Axe.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-20, 10:56 PM
.
I could live with most of what's in here, even though I think some of the weapons (like Nunchaku) behave differently IRL.
What I would not adopt under any circumstances is the weapon quality progression.
A Legendwrought War-Scythe does 7d12 base damage. On a crit that's 21d12. With Imp. Crit, you're gonna crit on average every 2 out of 3 rounds. At the intended levels, a fighter will probably be hitting 3 out of 4 times per round with all modifiers, making it 35d12. And we're not even taking character build, magical buffs and circumstances into account yet.
No. I wouldn't wanna play like that. With certain 9th level maneuvers that deal approx. +8d8 damage, you're dealing with more than 250 hp per round (with modifiers) before cheese builds get into the equation.
Now check out a large Monk's Spade in the hands of a goliath.
No. A far saner solution would be to grant +1 to hit and +2 to damage per weapon grade. The added damage is still multiplied on a crit, and that's more than enough in my view. That would also allow you to drop the prices to a much saner level.
Ok, I understand someone not liking or not wanting to use a particular piece of homebrew, but I don't really get your reasons here, which I really want to do.

How many of your games actually get into epic-level (21+) play? Because that's what Legendwrought weapons are intended for.
I feel like you're not paying attention to the suggested levels or anything except the extreme far-end of the damage chart and assuming that people get weapons way earlier than I anticipated that they would. It's like saying that powerful magic or items can't be allowed to exist in the game world because you, as the GM, might not be able to prevent players from getting their hands on them.

Regarding crits and such, as I said earlier in my experience high-level players don't usually get to stand still making full attacks round after round. If your party is good at battlefield control, then you might get to make full attacks about half the time. Also, I get the impression that some of the non-core material, such as ToB manuevers, were added specifically because base weapons DIDN'T enhance damage well enough for player's satisfaction. Something like +8d8 to an attack's damage is almost exactly like what I'm doing, just from a different source.
And pointing out potentially broken interactions is good- that will put more stuff in my mind for potential homebrewing later.

For game mechanics, both HP and weapon-damage are adjustable, but IMO HP is the much simpler mechanic, which means it should be the dependent variable. If after I get weapon damage where I like it, if I find that monsters are going down a little quicker than is preferred for dramatic tension, it's really easy to use the creature-improvement stats given in the MM and increase the monster's HD, or add in a few of his friends and tune the encounter CR up a little.

Finally, adding flat numbers doesn't do what I want to do, which is roll dice- why do you think high level characters rolling 1d8+26 for damage is a good system? It also doesn't seem to account for things like different sized or designed (simple vs. martial & exotic) weapons very well, when a Gnome with a dagger and a Minotaur with a halberd are getting the same +2 to damage.


Edit: I use my limited knowledge of real-world weapons and armor to inspire interesting things, but I'm not really wedded to any of it. I designed stuff so that it would be workable and balanced in the game, but if someone made a good explanation for why a weapon should work a different way or suggested something else interesting for the game, I'm happy to adjust the chart or re-homebrew whatever is necessary.

rferries
2017-09-21, 02:11 AM
I quite like this; whatever flavour/tradition has been lost from weapons' different damage die (in prior editions) is more than made up for by the streamlining. Legendwrought etc may be powerful but its only keeping things fair compared to 9th-level/epic spells. Bravo to this, and to your armour thread too.

nonsi
2017-09-21, 03:01 AM
How many of your games get into epic-level (21+) play? Because that's what Legendwrought weapons are intended for.

You're counting on standard WBL. That's quite an unsafe assumption.





I feel like you're not paying attention to the suggested levels or anything except the extreme far-end of the damage chart and assuming that people get weapons way earlier than I anticipated that they would.

You shouldn't plan stuff for others, relying on them doing things the way you intend.
+5 weapons are usually available by level 15. Nothing's to stop a DM from handing out +5's at 9th party level, but those extra +2 averages won't change the way the game is played.





It's like saying that powerful magic or items can't be allowed to exist in the game world because you, as the GM, might not be able to prevent players from getting their hands on them.

You already know that I'm no fan of making the party's level of power rely heavily on gear, so I'm not the ideal target to address with this.





Regarding crits and such, as I said earlier in my experience high-level players don't get to stand still making full attacks round after round. If your party is good at battlefield control, then you might get to make full attacks about half the time.

Usually, parties that adopt homebrew stuff are likely to adopt improved mobility and action economy for melees.





I get the impression that some of the non-core material, such as ToB manuevers, were added specifically because base weapons DIDN'T enhance damage well enough for player's satisfaction. Something like +8d8 to an attack's damage is almost exactly like what I'm doing.

Those materials may not be core, but they're official nonetheless.





Also, HP and weapon-damage are adjustable, but IMO HP is the much simpler mechanic, which means it should be the dependent variable. If after I get weapon damage where I like it I find that monsters are going down a little quicker than is preferred for dramatic tension, it's really easy to use the creature-improvement stats given in the MM and increase the monster's HD, or add in a few of his friends and turn the encounter CR up a little.

And then you might easily find yourself in an arms race that spins out of control, and by the time you get things into equilibrium, the result takes a heavy toll off your gameflow.





Finally, adding flat numbers doesn't do what I want to do, which is roll dice- why do you think high level characters rolling 1d8+26 for damage is a good system? It also doesn't seem to account for things like different sized or designed (simple vs. martial vs. exotic) weapons very well, when a Gnome with a dagger and a Minotaur with a halberd are getting the same +2 to damage.

Shocking (Burst), Vicious, aligned weapon, Leap Attack, Spirited Charge . . .
Plenty of ways of getting more dice into the equation. According to my assessment, you're putting too much of them as standard.






Edit: I use my limited knowledge of real-world weapons and armor to inspire interesting things, but I'm not really wedded to any of it. I designed stuff so that it would be workable and balanced in the game, but if someone made a good explanation for why a weapon should work a different way or suggested something else interesting for the game, I'm happy to adjust the chart or re-homebrew whatever is necessary.

See post #5.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-21, 12:32 PM
I quite like this; whatever flavour/tradition has been lost from weapons' different damage -die (in prior editions) is more than made up for by the streamlining.
As I've alluded to, across all time periods and cultures there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of different named types of weapons. From a game-perspective though, I believe a good many of them are redundant. So I'm sure that there is plenty of stuff I've left out of the chart, and if anyone asks me about using it my response would be "what's it most similar to? Stat it like that." However, if someone wants to invent a new weapon which currently doesn't have any analogous examples with odd combinations of damage types or bonuses or difficulty of use, they have the rules to do so.


Legendwrought etc may be powerful but its only keeping things fair compared to 9th-level/epic spells. Bravo to this, and to your armour thread too.
Thanks!
When I was first estimating damage for the higher-end stuff, like Legendwrought, I had recently read the book of Elder Evils. The boss-monsters all presented have hundreds of HP, DR of 10, 15, or 20, and either fast-healing or regeneration in any amount between 5 and 50. Plus you fight them in super-deadly environments after having to chop through hordes of high-level minions. Maybe that's not the best metric to compare things with, but I know if I had to fight a living undead moon that was trying to kamikaze itself into the planet Majora's Mask style, this is the kind of gear I'd want.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-21, 01:25 PM
You're counting on standard WBL. That's quite an unsafe assumption.
On the contrary, I said that the WBL system is bjorked, and that groups shouldn't use it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22339292&postcount=3). What I'm counting on is the GM being able to determine when it's appropriate for players to start having access to broad categories of gear. Even if every item is always available, i.e. the magic-mart gameplay-style that I'm not fond of, the GM can still control how much treasure players receive and therefore what sort of things are reasonable for them to buy.



You shouldn't plan stuff for others, relying on them doing things the way you intend.
I'm not- I'm giving people (GMs) options and letting them introduce it as early or as late (or not at all) as they want.
You're the one who seems to be assuming that my system is unworkable because players will (somehow) always get gear before it was intended for them to do so.


+5 weapons are usually available by level 15. Nothing's to stop a DM from handing out +5's at 9th party level, but those extra +2 averages won't change the way the game is played.
I'm not exactly sure how that's different- I guess a player with a weapon intended for a much higher level character sort of turns the game into rocket-tag, where they can deal a lot of damage but don't have the AC or HP to tank hits from high CR monsters. That concept isn't new though, and its countered by just not giving the players absurdly OP weapons in the first place.

Giving characters weapons one category above what they should have would increase weapon damage 33-50%, not taking into account Attribute scores and things like that for overall damage. Is it good? Yes, I suppose it would make them feel powerful. But is it gamebreaking? No, I don't think it is, especially since I de-linked the bonus to hit from damage. Not any more than giving a player a +4 weapon when they should only be wielding a +3 anyway; and if you really go overboard, giving giving a +5 weapon to low level characters could easily have a large impact on the game, too, since it effectively doubles damage in many situations.



You already know that I'm no fan of making the party's level of power rely heavily on gear, so I'm not the ideal target to address with this.
On the contrary, as someone with a different gameplay philosophy I think you're perfect person to critique a system, because you won't get drawn in by the stuff like you and will be wary of traps or potential issues.
So let me ask- DOES powerful magic and items exist in your gameworld? Or do you play everything more like 6e? What is your response when players express a desire to possess powerful items?



Usually, parties that adopt homebrew stuff are likely to adopt improved mobility and action economy for melees.
I can't do balance on the assumption of what other homebrew groups MIGHT adopt- that's several layers of "maybe" that I just can't account for.

In the RAW though, most melee classes really only had 3 options when it came to combat: (1) Move, (2) Attack, or (3) Do nothing. In a system where melee classes have other options for actions they can take, you don't necessarily need a way to let them be full-attacking every round in order to feel powerful or useful. Ideally a full-attack might be something you spend most of an encounter setting up, and then unload on the enemy all at once.



Those materials may not be core, but they're official nonetheless.
The fact that they're not-core wasn't the point. The point was that someone else looked at the game and said to themselves "we need a way to let players roll more dice for damage in combat". That was the exact same thought I had- the difference though is that in RAW it's a tacked-on option to replace a lot of the core melee classes that are to weak. I'm making it a part of the core rules, and then I'll build other stuff outward from there.



And then you might easily find yourself in an arms race that spins out of control, and by the time you get things into equilibrium, the result takes a heavy toll off your gameflow.
In my experience, it's pretty easy to tell if your encounters are to easy and the party needs more of a challenge, or if they are to tough and risk a TPK. Also, we're not talking about totally redesigning everything (changing monster types, introducing new mechanics, having extra SLAs, etc), all I'm saying is that you can give your existing enemies a few more hitdice so they last a little longer when the party is whaling on them.



Shocking (Burst), Vicious, aligned weapon, Leap Attack, Spirited Charge . . .
Plenty of ways of getting more dice into the equation. According to my assessment, you're putting too much of them as standard.
If so many ways already exist, then what's wrong with one more? Actually though, my ultimate goal is to have most of the boosts in damage be concentrated in weapon quality, which frees up feats and enchantments to do other, MORE INTERESTING things. IMO, damage is really powerful, but it's also straightforward to the point of being boring.

Weapon-availability is largely limited by gold (or miniquests if you go that route) but since it's the most flexible resource, then it gets the most basic game mechanics attached to it. Things that are more limited, like feats or class-abilities, should be directed toward customization and versatility for your character. I don't want people to have to pick a feat or enchantment based on what gives them the biggest boost to damage. I want people to pick feats and enchantments based on what they feel best fits their backstory or looks the coolest when they stand atop a mountain of corpses, posing for heavy-metal album covers.



See post #5.
I did- Feinting might be more appropriate than (or in addition to) Disarming, but I said I couldn't quite see how the Grappling bonus would work, and asked for clarification.

nonsi
2017-09-23, 06:27 AM
and if you really go overboard, gving giving a +5 weapon to low level characters could easily have a large impact on the game, too, since it effectively doubles damage in many situations.

I need you to spell out that one for me.
+5 equals +3 w/ Bull's Strength (melee) or Cat's Grace (range).
You're saying that the above effects are game changers in terms of character power?





So let me ask- DOES powerful magic and items exist in your gameworld? Or do you play everything more like 6e? What is your response when players express a desire to possess powerful items?

My game philosophy says that:
1. There are no magic marts. Period.
2. To gain above-CR-appropriate gear, you have to overcome above-CR-appropriate opponents – except where the story line dictates otherwise.
3. Creating magical gear costs a lot more than core and has reasonable chances of failure.
The core ranger gains +10 to damage vs. a single group of opponents. I see nothing weak about a mundane weapon that grants +5 to hit and +10 to damage – especially if it stacks w/ magical bonuses – this already pushes the RNG well into the red zone.





In the RAW though, most melee classes really only had 3 options when it came to combat: (1) Move, (2) Attack, or (3) Do nothing. In a system where melee classes have other options for actions they can take, you don't necessarily need a way to let them be full-attacking every round in order to feel powerful or useful.

Evasive Reflexes, Spring attack (and derivatives), Travel Devotion, Undefoot Combat, Whirlwind Attack, ... all are official feats that improve mobility. You can't fight those.
A few levels in Swordsage can also do wonders for mobility.
There's also Lion Totem Barbarian (meshes really nice with Dismount Attack skill trick).





The fact that they're not-core wasn't the point. The point was that someone else looked at the game and said to themselves "we need a way to let players roll more dice for damage in combat". That was the exact same thought I had- the difference though is that in RAW it's a tacked-on option to replace a lot of the core melee classes that are to weak. I'm making it a part of the core rules, and then I'll build other stuff outward from there.

Then you should state that – at least in the post where you present your weapons-quality table.





In my experience, it's pretty easy to tell if your encounters are to easy and the party needs more of a challenge, or if they are to tough and risk a TPK.

TPK is usually the point where it's too late.





all I'm saying is that you can give your existing enemies a few more hitdice so they last a little longer when the party is whaling on them.

At a risk of giving the party opponents that are not CR-appropriate. Some DMs are OK with that; most are not.





If so many ways already exist, then what's wrong with one more?

Nothing beyond having too many of them.





Actually though, my ultimate goal is to have most of the boosts in damage be concentrated in weapon quality, which frees up feats and enchantments to do other, MORE INTERESTING things.

A decent goal as any. Just don't neglect stating the things that enhanced weapon qualities don't mesh with.
And to avoid balance problems, you really should put a hard limit on minimum levels (or BAB) that allow optimal usage of high-quality weapons (4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 seems reasonable to me – racial HD not included).





IMO, damage is really powerful, but it's also straightforward to the point of being boring.

I totally agree that there are more interesting things than damage.
When using official materials w/o cheese-builds, damage is usually not an OP issue.





I don't want people to have to pick a feat or enchantment based on what gives them the biggest boost to damage. I want people to pick feats and enchantments based on what they feel best fits their backstory or looks the coolest when they stand atop a mountain of corpses, posing for heavy-metal album covers.

Then don't leave that door open.





I did- Feinting might be more appropriate than (or in addition to) Disarming, but I said I couldn't quite see how the Grappling bonus would work, and asked for clarification.

Leverage.
Imagine sticking a stick under someone's armpit and twisting in the direction of his spine while you have that arm pinned to his side with your legs. There are plenty of other applications with short sticks (and even more so if you have a pair connected with a chain).



Oh, and one thing that really stands out that I neglected to state: Legendwrought Daggers shouldn't be anywhere near as expensive as Legendwrought Poleaxes.
And again, I can't shake that uncomfortable feeling when I see that Bo-Staff does more damage than Greatsword.

Deepbluediver
2017-09-24, 12:21 PM
I need you to spell out that one for me.
+5 equals +3 w/ Bull's Strength (melee) or Cat's Grace (range).
You're saying that the above effects are game changers in terms of character power?
Yes. A regular Shortsword deals 1d6 damage, or 3.5 on average. A +5 Shortsword is dealing 1d6+5, or about two-and-a-half times as much damage. That's right in between the multipliers I used for Exceptional and Masterwork quality, so while I buffed weapon-damage overall, the fundamental mechanics are the same.

Also, the plan is NOT to have people jump straight from regular weapons to Legendwrought, it's to have people get new gear every couple of levels or so, which should give both players and GMs plenty of time to adjust. Yes it does scale up quite high at the upper end, but you get there in small, incremental steps.


My game philosophy says that:
1. There are no magic marts. Period.
2. To gain above-CR-appropriate gear, you have to overcome above-CR-appropriate opponents – except where the story line dictates otherwise.
More on CR in a bit, but those are both rules I'd expect to see used with my system.



3. Creating magical gear costs a lot more than core and has reasonable chances of failure.
I have not attempted any kind of writeup for fixing the crafting system, so all these are really just ideas in my head at the moment- don't press me to hard for details.

I'd like to try and heavily disassociate the crafting from your other leveling stuff, make it it's entirely own subsystem. There has to be some cost, but I'd prefer adventurers reserve most of their feats and skill points for other things.
I actually don't like the d20 failure/success system for crafting. I'd prefer that any dice-rolling I did was more of like a progress bar, determining how quickly you could get something done. The idea that we would be encouraging players to gamble their money and risk getting nothing for it just doesn't sit well with me.
I REALLY don't like the idea that you need to be a spellcaster to craft powerful items (because you need to know the spell first). Part of that is this fix- everything here is explicitly mundane- or I guess you could say it requires something like smith-magic to forge legendwrought weapons, but you don't need to cast spells. Also, a big part of crafting a magical weapon might be because you can't perform that magic yourself. A wizard with a sword that throws fireballs is redundant. A fighter with a fire-slinging sword is pretty cool. So I'd prefer a crafting system where the requirement for making a fire-sword was not that you could cast fire-based spells, but that you used a dragon's gizzard or phoenix talon or a salamander tongue mixed into the metal to give it it's special properties. Something like that.



The core ranger gains +10 to damage vs. a single group of opponents. I see nothing weak about a mundane weapon that grants +5 to hit and +10 to damage – especially if it stacks w/ magical bonuses – this already pushes the RNG well into the red zone.
I don't see how it affects the RNG- adding a static bonus shifts the damage curve one way, but the curve itself remains the same. And the larger the static bonus, the less important the roll actually becomes. 1d10+1 for damage means the dice roll will be somewhere between 50% and 91% of all the damage you do. 1d10+10 means the roll is 50% to 9% of all the damage you do.
I want a system where rolling the dice for your weapon retains it's importance throughout the course of your adventure.



Evasive Reflexes, Spring attack (and derivatives), Travel Devotion, Undefoot Combat, Whirlwind Attack, ... all are official feats that improve mobility. You can't fight those.
A few levels in Swordsage can also do wonders for mobility.
There's also Lion Totem Barbarian (meshes really nice with Dismount Attack skill trick).
I'm not trying to fight them, but I can re-homebrew them. I'm not really satisfied with every single melee character needing to dip a specific class or spend their feats on specific stuff just to stay relevant. I'm actually more comfortable with the feats like Spring Attack and Whirlwind Attack that's a chain that requires investment as oppose to the one-and-done things, like Lion Totem Barbarian.



Then you should state that – at least in the post where you present your weapons-quality table.
I will do so. When you start talking about combat there are a lot of directions you can go in and I was trying to keep the main posts uncluttered. A little more clarification here couldn't hurt though.



TPK is usually the point where it's too late.
I honestly don't really see that as being an issue. I'm not recommending you start off implementing this in a high level campaign or changing the rules on your players halfway through something unless you are super-confident in your ability to judge challenge ratings. I expect people to start off at a low level (if not necessarily first). And my regular quality weapons have the same damage as the stuff in the RAW equipment chart. Then you upgrade weapons slowly, giving the GM time to learn how to factor in this stuff as you go.



At a risk of giving the party opponents that are not CR-appropriate. Some DMs are OK with that; most are not.
The CR system is already as much art as science based simply on the fact that not all classes are of the same power level. Two groups of 4 characters each can have drastically different responses to the same challenge based on what classes the players picked, their build, and their equipment.

Add to that the individual monsters that are badly mis-CR'd, and, well...
If you are already struggling, then I don't think this is really going to make stuff worse, and if you've got a good handle on it, then I don't see "more damage" as being the thing that screws you up.



A decent goal as any. Just don't neglect stating the things that enhanced weapon qualities don't mesh with.
And to avoid balance problems, you really should put a hard limit on minimum levels (or BAB) that allow optimal usage of high-quality weapons (4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 seems reasonable to me – racial HD not included).
I think that's kind of outside the scope of my abilities- I am definitely NOT a walking encyclopedia of every resource ever printed for 3.5.

Also, I don't like dictating to other GMs how they should be running their games. If someone sees my homebrew and decides to use it, I assume that they have a better handle than I do on what resources are available to their players, what level of optimization they tend to play at, and where to draw the line (if necessary) and say "we're only using the 30% of this homebrew because the rest won't work with our setup".



Then don't leave that door open.
I'm not really sure what the means.



Leverage.
Imagine sticking a stick under someone's armpit and twisting in the direction of his spine while you have that arm pinned to his side with your legs. There are plenty of other applications with short sticks (and even more so if you have a pair connected with a chain).
Yeah, I can see that being effective. It feels more like something that's helpful once you have someone grappled vs. getting them into the grapple in the first place, but I'll definitely consider it.
If you have any pictures, videos, or manuals that you can link me depicting this technique, I'd love to take a look.



Oh, and one thing that really stands out that I neglected to state: Legendwrought Daggers shouldn't be anywhere near as expensive as Legendwrought Poleaxes.
I'll add some more clarification for Legendwrought weapons, too. I put a value for them, but they are essentially priceless; they are artifact-level. This stuff is so rare that there just isn't a market for it. Anyone who manages to posses one is already so powerful that material wealth is almost inconsequential to them. Anyone who manages to come into possession of such an item that ISN'T that powerful, is very quickly going to become the target of everyone for several planes in every direction who IS.

Also, I don't know exactly how you define "near". Currently the modifiers for high-quality weapon price mean that a dagger, as a simple weapon, gets a 25% discount, and a pollaxe, being 2-handed, gets a 50% premium. So the way it finally shakes out, a dagger is half the price of the pollaxe. I've been thinking about prices though (gonna tweak them a tad, both here and in my armor fix) and I'll add another category with a discount for "light" weapons. This means the dagger should end up as 1/3rd the cost of the pollaxe instead.



And again, I can't shake that uncomfortable feeling when I see that Bo-Staff does more damage than Greatsword.
I am building a system for a game with a certain amount of abstraction, so I'm not surprised there are a few quirky bits. I'm sure I (or someone, anyway) could build a weapon-system to accurately mimic all real-world combat, I just don't think that's either necessary or helpful for D&D.

In game-terms, the Bo-staff has a larger damage dice but the Greatsword has much better crit-multipliers, so once you factor that in the former only does about 1 more damage on average than the latter (with regular quality weapons). As weapon-quality increases the difference grows in absolute value, but actually narrows PROPORTIONALLY. A regular bo-staff is doing about 18% more damage on average, a masterwork quality one is only doing about 9% more.
The staff is also more expensive proficiency-wise, so I figure it somewhat balances out.



P.S. Sorry for making this reply so long- I have a thing where if someone takes the time to write out a response, I feel obligated to respond so almost everything they say.