Weapon proficiency - more a house rule than homebrew

[Rock Stone]

I've got a player that wants her cleric to be able to use a war hammer with proficiency. I'm considering having her use it 20 times successfully to gain proficiency. I don't use feats, and the training system in the DMG/PHB doesn't seem right.

What do you think?

[jjordan]

I've got a player that wants her cleric to be able to use a war hammer with proficiency. I'm considering having her use it 20 times successfully to gain proficiency. I don't use feats, and the training system in the DMG/PHB doesn't seem right.

What do you think?
What will the player have to roll in order for the character to use the war hammer successfully? How long, in game time, between each roll?

I mean, I'm fine with this approach because it fits with my skills-based mindset and it's a reasonable way to address the desires of the player. For more mainstream D&D it probably works better if you were using feats.

[heavyfuel]

Honestly, I'd just let them.

It's not like a Cleric hitting for 1d8+3 damage is stronger than a Cleric hitting for 1d6+3 damage. The first Cleric might actually be weaker, given that they're more likely to spend their actions attacking for chump damage rather than casting one of their awesome spells.

Edit: If you're strongly against the 1 point of extra damage, just tell them use a mace and call it a warhammer. The PHB explicitly suggests such changes. It's now a warhammer that deals 1d6 damage.

[nickl_2000]

Introduce the chosen weapon system from old versions of D&D. Any Cleric to a deity automatically gets prof in the deities chosen weapon. Problem solved.

As others have said above, it not a huge difference overall.

[GaelofDarkness]

Personally, I'd be in the "just let them" school of thought. It's not a huge change and the extra damage probably won't matter as much with a cleric as it could with other classes because I'm assuming they'll have to split their time hitting with being support.

But if you really want to do a skill-based thing I'd suggest having it be based off failures instead of successes - I find folks feel that kind of a system is less frustrating. You could have it so that they increase their proficiency bonus one point every two or three misses until they have a full proficiency bonus.