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Button Jockey
2008-01-10, 01:29 AM
Where did these go? No one has ever given me an acceptable reason they didn't make it into third edition.

For anyone who doesn't know what speed factor is, it is a representation of how fast you can wield and attack with a given weapon. It is a modification to your initiative, it also sequenced your secondary attacks.

6th lev fighter wielding a short sword who rolled a 14 for initiative would have:
primary attack: 14+3(short sw speed factor)=17
secondary attack:17+3=20

This gave lighter weapons an advantage over heavier weapons, though the latter does more damage. What's the use of a two-handed sword (10 speed factor) if the guy with the short sword (3 speed factor) kills you before you land a blow?

I mostly wonder because I tend to see people go for the higher damage weapons, and there is really no reason to use a lighter weapon without speed factors.

Button Jockey
2008-01-10, 01:30 AM
Aw man, my avatar sucks.:smallannoyed:

Nebo_
2008-01-10, 01:37 AM
I mostly wonder because I tend to see people go for the higher damage weapons, and there is really no reason to use a lighter weapon without speed factors.

There are plenty of reasons to use light weapons. Weapon finesse for dex based builds would be the main one.

Talic
2008-01-10, 01:45 AM
Most likely reason is that it unduly complicated combat.

Swordguy
2008-01-10, 02:06 AM
There are plenty of reasons to use light weapons. Weapon finesse for dex based builds would be the main one.

Now let's be honest - that's about the only one. As it stands, there's no reason not to use the biggest weapon in each category (1-H martial, 2-H martial). Weapons speeds make that not an automatic choice anymore.

I, for one, am all for putting weapon speeds back into the game. For those people complaining that it's too complicated, it's one extra number you write on your sheets as a modifier to initiative. No. Big. Deal.

Draz74
2008-01-10, 02:09 AM
"Because you don't declare your action before rolling initiative anymore" is the most obvious and unavoidable reason. (And if you did, it wouldn't make much sense, since you keep your same initiative score for the whole combat.)

"I always walk around carrying a dagger in my hand."
"But you're a Greataxe fighter!"
"Yeah, but I need to roll good on initiative. Then I can use my turn and my Quick Draw feat to drop my dagger and draw my greatsword."
:smallconfused:

"OK, what's your initiative count, Mugg the Mage?"
"17."
"Hey, no it's not! You're holding a quarterstaff! That's a -3 to initiative!"
"But I'm not using it! I'm just casting a spell!"
"So? You could attack with the quarterstaff if you wanted. For all we know, you're bluffing and you're planning to switch to that on your turn. So you still take -3 initiative just in case."
(Just as ridiculous, if slightly different, if spells also modify initiative.)

So if you switch weapons, does your initiative score change? So everyone has to recalculate their initiative every round and re-do the order? Ick.

Besides this main reason of "initiative doesn't work that way any more," here are some other reasons:

- People who can fight say that the heaviness of your weapon really doesn't affect whether you can strike with it before your opponent; weapons are all close to the same speed, and if one is slower, you'll start swinging it sooner and end up with a similar result. See this link (http://www.theriddleofsteel.net/whatis/jccombat.htm) from the recent debate on this subject on the Wizards 4e boards.

- Makes combat more complicated, and does it really make things more fun in any way?

- As Sean Reynolds is happy to rant (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/weaponspeeds.html), if you consider the speed of a dagger, you should really consider the superior reach of a longsword by comparison at the same time. Or you could just assume that the two factors cancel each other out, and not worry about it.

Talic
2008-01-10, 02:54 AM
Exactly. The weapon speed rules assumed that you declared your actions at the beginning of the round and followed them through when your init came up. They didn't allow for flexibility in how the round unfolds. I mean, you have a longbow, and modify your initiative for it. But someone that beats you in initiative (unarmed), dashes up and tackles you, entering grapple. Does the bow still modify your initiative? What about if your weapon is sundered and you draw the backup? Or you're disarmed? Or Two weapon fighting with different weapons?

Matthew
2008-01-10, 03:38 AM
Weapon Speed Factors didn't make much sense in AD&D 2e, but they made quite a bit more sense in 1e where they were only used to decide on a draw.

I much prefer the simultaneous action resolution available in previous editions, but since that's not available for D20, I don't really see much point in Weapon Speeds.

Charity
2008-01-10, 05:50 AM
One day Matthew I will work out a way to include standard actions in an impulse based movement system, then you can have your simultaneous action resolution for third ed... we may be on 6th ed by then but still.

wumpus
2008-01-10, 08:25 AM
If you know anybody with a really old collection of Dragon magazine, there was a 1e system for initiative that worked pretty well (well before 2e came out). Of course, it might not make you too happy: light fast weapons only got bonuses once the were in range. There were two systems, "closing" were longer weapons and size got bonuses, and "closed" were small fast weapons got bonuses. It worked pretty well.

There was also that bit were you could be penalized for rolling a higher initiative. The example given was a halfling (with short sword) vs. gnoll (with bastard sword) where the halfling rolled higher, got his hit and was killed in the reposte. Had he matched the gnoll, he would have gotten two hits in.

Sebastian
2008-01-10, 08:47 AM
Where did these go? No one has ever given me an acceptable reason they didn't make it into third edition.


the main reason was that the extra roll slowed combat and didn't really add something most of the tiime. Somebody also complained that it was not "realistic" because if I have a 2handed sword and you a dagger I should be able to hit you way before you have a chance to get near enough to attack me.

I miss mostly for the spells, in melee it really didnt do a lot, it was a neat way to balance high level spells (they were slower to cast and created some cool moments "the wizard is casting disintegrate, you are shootin you arrow, who'll hit first?"

if you want to introduce it I suggest a rule, as long as you keep doing the same thing you keep the same initiative, I.e. as long as keep attacking with your sword you keep the initiave you have rolled but if you choose to do something else (i.e drink a potion, shoot an arrow,etc) you must re-roll, and roll again when you go back to the sword, that way you can reduce the number of roll but still add a certain unpredictability to the flow of combat.

Matthew
2008-01-10, 08:51 AM
One day Matthew I will work out a way to include standard actions in an impulse based movement system, then you can have your simultaneous action resolution for third ed... we may be on 6th ed by then but still.

Heh, something to look forward to, anyway.


If you know anybody with a really old collection of Dragon magazine, there was a 1e system for initiative that worked pretty well (well before 2e came out). Of course, it might not make you too happy: light fast weapons only got bonuses once the were in range. There were two systems, "closing" were longer weapons and size got bonuses, and "closed" were small fast weapons got bonuses. It worked pretty well.

There was also that bit were you could be penalized for rolling a higher initiative. The example given was a halfling (with short sword) vs. gnoll (with bastard sword) where the halfling rolled higher, got his hit and was killed in the reposte. Had he matched the gnoll, he would have gotten two hits in.

Sounds like a stage somewhere between 1e and 2e. In 1e the length of a weapon is more important in the opening moments of combat than its weapon speed, which only matters when Initiative is determined and tied.

So, for instance, if two combatants charge one another, one armed with a Great Sword and the other with a Long Sword, the combatant with the Great Sword would automatically attack first. Once actually in combat [i.e. in the following rounds], the combatant with the highest Initiative strikes first; in the case of a tie, the combatant with the best weapon speed strikes first. In the last case, if one weapon speed is twice as fast as another or five factors better, the combatant is entitled to two attacks.

Button Jockey
2008-01-10, 09:01 PM
The need to start swinging a big weapon sooner than a smaller one is what speed factors represent. That is why a smaller one strikes faster. However I always saw the concept of reach a good counter for this fact. You can argue whichever side you like, but I have a hard time choosing sides as there are good arguments for both.

In terms of roleplaying, speed factors balance low damage weapons and high damage weapons, plain and simple. It makes a fighter without a high dex score still consider lighter weapons for their effectiveness. Roleplaying will never model reality with perfect accuracy or it would be no fun.

Also the fact that you were holding a weapon did not automatically change your initiative. It was dependent on whether or not you used the weapon in that given round. Therefor your initiative could change from round to round. You could say this makes a table top game played with multi-sided dice(that most people have never heard of), written on paper, guided by books, managed by a story teller more complicated...really.

Spells had speed factors too. A spells speed factor was it's level.

It's obvious changes would have to made to speed factors to put them in 3.5, because there were drastic changes to the combat round between AD&D and subsequent editions. The best way I can see it work is to roll your initiative, add your dex mod, and any modifiers for feats, this I'll call X for reference further in the text. Then you would add your speed factor if applicable. If you changed weapons or cast a spell you would keep your initiative X. You would add your new speed factor to X and have your result for the round. Think of speed factor simply as how long it takes to complete an action.

You would wonder what if any speed factors should apply to other things like potions. I don't know. This could be the reason they didn't carry it over. As I wrote earlier, however, speed factors are to balance high and low damage weapons.

zaei
2008-01-12, 03:09 AM
I think it would be very cool to see spell casting times make a comeback, but I think it makes combat too complicated. The only way I can figure to add them in, but still allow combatants to choose what they are doing when their initiative count comes up (instead of at the beginning of the round) is to use a mechanism similar to delaying an action. Spell casting time should probably be level*2 to approximate 2e initiative (which was on a d10).

Edit: It is important to note that a character's base initiative doesn't actually change. These speed rules only simulate when an action completes.

The wizard's init count comes up, and he decides to cast a fireball, declaring targets, etc. This provokes AoOs as normal, and then effectively delays his action by six counts. If someone has an init count between init and init-6, they can walk up and hit the wizard, forcing a concentration check. If the wizard has succeeded in all of his concentration checks by init-6, the spell goes off.

It's possible that he was aiming at where the guy who just walked up and hit him was at init, but that guy has already moved, so the fireball may miss completely.

This sounds like a fair balancing tool for spellcasters. You want to get that Meteor Swarm off, you have to wait 18 counts while people potentially come up and beat on you. The problem is that it creates a lot of round to round bookkeeping, and it's pretty complicated when compared to how spellcasting works now. It also requires additional rules to adjudicate what happens when e.g., a spell's target becomes invalid.

Similar rules could be put into effect for weapon speeds. For the sake of example, lets say a dagger has a delay of 1, and the character in question has a BAB of 11. At initiative count, the character declares a full attack. At init-1, the first attack is rolled. At init-2, the second attack is rolled. At init-3 the third attack is rolled. If the character is using a longsword, say, speed 4, first attack is at init-4, second at init-8, third at init-12. It is possible using this system that the target moves away (provokes as normal) or dies. In this case, the character can redirect subsequent attacks in her sequence at other valid targets. If no valid targets exist, the full attack ends.

At this point, you might as well add similar rules for movement. Add a delay of one count per 5 feet of movement. In the first example, the character who wanted to hit the wizard got the same init roll as the wizard, and was 10 feet away, with a dagger. At their init count, they move to the wizard (10 feet == 2 count delay), so at init-2, they can declare their attack on the wizard. This attack then occurs at init-3.

Once you've done that, you should probably modify the AoO rules to take weapon speeds into account, but I need to go to bed!