More "crunchy" weapon rules?

[TheNobleDrake]

If ya wanna make a rule for 2h weapons.... Why not just +1d for the critical chart when using s 2 handed weapon...
Quick easy... and to the point.

T

I would not want to encourage a Thief to use a two-handed weapon, which is what that would do considering Thief is the only type of character that can actually plan for critical hits.

[Ravenheart87]

If ya wanna make a rule for 2h weapons.... Why not just +1d for the critical chart when using s 2 handed weapon...
Quick easy... and to the point.

T

I would not want to encourage a Thief to use a two-handed weapon, which is what that would do considering Thief is the only type of character that can actually plan for critical hits.

A good thief doesn't wants to loose his initiative, never carries too heavy and big items, plus by default he isn't proficient in two-handed weapons as far as I remember.

[TheNobleDrake]

A good thief doesn't wants to loose his initiative, never carries too heavy and big items, plus by default he isn't proficient in two-handed weapons as far as I remember.

True enough, but a soon-to-be thief could gain proficiency with a two-handed weapon by getting his hands on one during 0-level by the rules - and many Judges have alternate methods to gain proficiency, myself included - and doesn't have to worry about initiative because their target never saw the attack coming.

As for carrying heavy and big items... it's not too heavy if it is all you need to guarantee a quick death to your enemies.

I do want what you say to remain true, and because of that I am making sure that no change I make results in a weapon even coming close to competing with a dagger or garotte in a thief's mind.

[Raven_Crowking]

If ya wanna make a rule for 2h weapons.... Why not just +1d for the critical chart when using s 2 handed weapon...
Quick easy... and to the point.

T

Well thought out, Sir!

[gandalf_scion]

DCC looks like a great system that returns to the roots of role (roll) playing. I like the simplicity, but also feel a need for a little more granola in melee weapons. Under the current system, across all weapons there is only one universal variable – the damage die. Yes, some weapons have variation by virtue of the need for two hands or potential to be leveraged in a mighty deed of arms. But, there’s a critical, missing variable – the ability to defeat armor. That was a fundamental driver of the medieval arms race. It’s the reason why so many different kinds of weapons evolved. Although swords dominated warfare for 1,000 years, they had to yield space to maces and hammers as armor protection increased and eventually lost out completely to highly leveraged missile weapons such as long bows and cross bows. The current system does not reflect that. In fact, because the damage die is the only variable common to all weapons, players have little incentive to choose weapons such as mace or hammer because their damage die is less than long sword. And, skeleton bashing should not be the only reason to have a blunt weapon.

I’m not pushing GURPS-like complexity or the armor adjustment matrix that so many of us ignored when playing AD&D in the 70s and 80s. But, it would be nice to have a single digit modifier for each weapon. This Armor Adjustment Modifier (AAM) would modify any to hit roll by that weapon against a target in metal armor, or natural carapace.

Here are some examples.

Dagger -1
Short Sword 0
Long Sword +1
War Hammer +2
Mace +2
Crossbow +3

This approach adds another universal variable – in addition to damage die – which demonstrates the relative strengths of the various weapons in defeating metal armor. With this variable, hammers and maces because much more attractive weapons because of their ability to penetrate or crush armor while long swords still maintain their place as “balanced” weapons in every sense of the word. And, as you can see, crossbows dominate because their introduction heralded the end of personal armor; they’re only a few points shy of armor-negating firearms.

[Nyarlathotep5150]

If your going to use armor penetration, I'd say its much less a case of "This weapon pierces armor better", and more a case of "This armor protects better against this type of weapon.
Each armor should just have a different bonus for Piercing, slashing and bludgeoning weapons.
Example,
Chainmail is Great against slashing attacks +5, it will probably save your life against most piercing weapons +3, and is only a slight buffer against bashing attacks +1.

As where, if you're in platemail a Scimitar will likely never hurt you (lets say +9 vs slashing), a Dagger or arrow might slip through a crack (+7 vs piercing), but a good (and I can't stress how hard this was to do, you needed some pretty specialized weapons) smack with a warhammer might just crush the armor into you (+5 vs Bludgeoning).

In all cases, the crossbow would be a wildcard that is hard to work into the rules though. Remember that it was only Heavy crossbows from the Hundred Years War (the giant ones that required a 2 handed wench and a foot brace to load) that had a good chance of piercing armor.
Other crossbows date back to the warring states period in China(Circa 450 BCE) and ancient Greece in the west (Circa 400 BCE), but they weren't really "armor crushers" until much later. So, maybe the heavy crossbow should just get a further bonus to hit on top of it.
The point being, I see it more as certain armor being better against certain types of attacks than certain weapons being better against all armor. Plus, calculating 3 different AC's once is lees of a hassle than adding another variable to attack rolls.

[Nerdwerfer]

If ya wanna make a rule for 2h weapons.... Why not just +1d for the critical chart when using s 2 handed weapon...
Quick easy... and to the point.

T

Very nice! Couldn't have said it better...on June 18 at 11:25pm....apparently. Perhaps I'm too wordy. Like your style T.

[Tortog]

Thanks for the help everybody, some really cools suggestions in here.

My players and I are currently leaning towards a variation of what Colin mentioned, but with a couple differences.

All one-handed weapons that deal a d8 damage, other than spear, need a little flavor related "bonus" that is roughly equivalent in power/utility to the spear's special ability of double damage on a charge.

Two-handed weapons will stay at d10 damage, but will either receive the double strength modifier benefit (battleaxe, two-handed sword) or grant a +1 AC bonus (all polearms). I am also considering dropping the initiative penalty associated with two-handed weapons - I think relative speed of the weapons should be represented well enough by the wielder's agility, and find it a bit "off" that an archer with an arrow knocked is not able to react just as quickly as a man with a knife in hand ready to throw... and especially strange that a loaded crossbow isn't the quickest weapon where initiative is concerned.

If I keep weapon modifications to initiative, I will likely give almost every weapon a modifier to initiative branching out from the baseline of spear/sword and based entirely upon likelihood of getting the "first strike" when having weapon ready upon encountering the event triggering initiative (meaning that the fastest weapons would be missile weapons, followed by larger weapons, and so on)

While I kind of like the solutions you and your players propose (emphasis added) it seems to me that you are attempting to re-invent the wheel... I direct your attention to "weapon specific deeds" on page 92. It is my understanding that these "default" weapon abilities are to be employed when ever a deed die rolls 3+, even if the warrior hasn't declared any M.D.o.A. It also seems that you could work out something along these lines without having to tinker with weapon damages, etc. In my games I am even considering making weapon specific deeds available on a 2+.

----------------------
Two handed sword, +5ft reach and eliminates the advantage of high ground and aerial attacks; on deed die of 2+ the wielder doubles their STR bonus.

Bastard Sword, when used 2-handed wielder gains +2 damage, and a result of 2+ on the deed die provokes a fortitude save by the target with failure indicating they are stunned for a # of round = to attackers level.

Staff, grants the wielder +1AC (defensive fighting); or, +1 to the deed die result for tripping and disarming M.D.o.A (attacking advantage)

plus the ones already there for war hammers, etc.

[smathis]

One way that OD&D handled this, for better or worse, is to give all weapons the same damage dice. (1d6 was what OD&D used.) While it messes with realism somewhat, it does bring weapons to the level of "pick what you like" instead of "pick which gives an extra bonus."

For two-handed weapons the biggest effect is that you can't use a shield, which effectively costs you an AC point.

This is my preference by a long shot. I think my suggestion early on (cribbed from someone else's D&D house rule) was to have 2-handed weapons roll two dice for damage and take the best die result. Not on crits. Just basic weapon damage.

I've used that in LotFP, C&C and regular D&D. It seems to work fine.

But I really like the simplicity of OD&D's 1d6 for all weapons. It really makes weapon choice a character flavor thing, instead of a crunchy bookkeeping thing.

Another option would be class-based damage, regardless of weapon.
* Fighters and dwarves do d8.
* Elves and clerics do d6
* Magic-users, halflings, thieves do d4.

Or you could do something like this to make use of funky dice:
* Fighters do d8
* Dwarves do d7
* Elves, Clerics do d6
* Halflings, Thieves do d5
* Magic-users do d4

I pushed for this to be added to DCC. And initially had written it into TA/TG. But the more I worked with it, the more I found that a similar sort of thing could be done by being careful with the Trained weapons for a class. That's how TA/TG does it now. Technically, damage output is defined by class. But it's sort of an end-around way of doing it.

If I were to add any combat rules to DCC, I would focus more on turn order, initiative and such. Maybe not something as involved as "segments" from AD&D. But something along those lines. I didn't put anything like that in TA/TG because I tried to introduce rules "enhancements" that were as unobtrusive as possible to the gameplay of DCC.

But if I were to write an article for Crawl, it would be something along those lines. A turn order sort of thing that was fast, simple and helped people figure out when they went and what they could do.

I find the whole "It's my turn so I do five things" sort of Initiative round to be simple, sure. But I also feel it's over-simplified. Feels more like taking a turn in Monopoly to me, instead of modeling the chaos of a combat round. Frex, in most d20 games, it's your turn so you move, fire off an attack or spell or both or many and then pass the baton to whoever had the next highest Initiative round. But I'd prefer it if you got to the segment/turn-order-point and had to make a decision to move/attack/start-casting and then X segments later you did the other thing, then the other thing, spells go BOOM! Archers who have a move action left over take another attack. Roll Initiative for the next round. The benefit of that, for me, is it's more strategic. Sure, you could intend at the start of the round for these Orcs to charge the Wizard. But if the Fighter goes over and locks a couple of them down before they can move then... well it's just more interesting to me.

[TheNobleDrake]

While I kind of like the solutions you and your players propose (emphasis added) it seems to me that you are attempting to re-invent the wheel... I direct your attention to "weapon specific deeds" on page 92. It is my understanding that these "default" weapon abilities are to be employed when ever a deed die rolls 3+, even if the warrior hasn't declared any M.D.o.A.

That is where I started my explanations of how weapons differ from each other to my players, which was actually the first time they ever saw the weapon chart and one player (a guy with a very irritating tendency to have moments where he forgets there is more to the game than just the numbers) asked "So... why would anyone ever use a two-handed sword? A battleaxe is the same thing but costs half as much."

Deeds work to separate weapons that are equal, mechanically, from each other.

It also seems that you could work out something along these lines without having to tinker with weapon damages, etc. In my games I am even considering making weapon specific deeds available on a 2+.

----------------------
Two handed sword, +5ft reach and eliminates the advantage of high ground and aerial attacks; on deed die of 2+ the wielder doubles their STR bonus.

Bastard Sword, when used 2-handed wielder gains +2 damage, and a result of 2+ on the deed die provokes a fortitude save by the target with failure indicating they are stunned for a # of round = to attackers level.

Staff, grants the wielder +1AC (defensive fighting); or, +1 to the deed die result for tripping and disarming M.D.o.A (attacking advantage)

plus the ones already there for war hammers, etc.

Some interesting ideas there, thanks for sharing.

My current motivation to change weapons extends beyond Warriors - there are types of Clerics that are proficient with any type of sword, I'd like them to feel that it is just a matter of taste between Longsword+Shield and Two-handed sword.

Of course... that means, especially after spending part of a day mulling over how to make each weapon special, I am leaning more and more towards the OD&D approach of same-damage-ness... but with a few minor tweaks so that certain abilities (Halfling being able to wield two weapons of the same size springs to mind) still matter.

The idea, as it currently stands:

All melee weapons do a d6 base damage, have a range of 10/20/30 (and are modified by strength damage when thrown only in the first range), and can choose one of the following:
-d8 damage, larger one-handed weapon, range 5/10/20
-Backstab weapon: either d4/d10 or 1/3d4 and range removed
-Two-handed weapon: range removed and either d8 +1 AC or d8+2 damage

I have yet to address ranged weapons... and I am also wondering what would happen if I went with a d6 base for all weapons and then differentiated damage with flat bonuses instead - I will probably play with math on that one for a while.

[Tortog]

When I posted I was tired and and forgot to include that I feel that all characters should be given access to M.D.o.A starting at 5th level. I realize that this does not qualify under smathis' lite- touch meme. I also realize how unpopular this idea will be for a lot of folks {at least it has been so far} and some even consider it blasphemy. However... I figure that if 10th level is supposed to = demi-god (2-3 per epoch; p. 359) then anyone who is halfway to being a demi-god must be fairly mighty.

One of these days (when I have the time) I plan on running a test game of 5th to 10th level PC's using this tweak to see what happens.

PC
Lvl_____Deed die
5th:___+1d3/ +1d3
6th:___+1d3/ +1d4
7th:___+1d4/ +1d5
8th:___+1d5/ +1d6
9th:___+1d6/ +1d7
10th:__+1d7/ +1d8

Not sure which progression I'd pick, probably the first one for elves, thieves and clerics, and the second on for halflings. For wizards I'd use the first progression but start it at 7th level {because that's when they normally get their +3 attack bonus}. This variable attack die would replace the existing attack bonuses for all non- warrior classes.

With respect to two weapon fighting non-warrior Deed die only only applies to primary weapon. With respect to the ideas proposed in my last post, warriors would gain the weapon deeds at 2+ and everyone else would get them at 3+ on the deed die. This way everyone will eventually get a chance to do 'cool' things with their weapons while preserving the 'glory and vanity' of warriors by letting them have exclusivity for 5 levels and the fact that they will always be better at it than the other classes. Warriors & dwarves are still the only ones who can apply deed die to damage, but other classes may still do additional damage resulting from M.D.o.A.

now that I've clarified that... you'll excuse me but I need to go find my fire-proof underwear, because this is the point where I usually get torched....

[TheNobleDrake]

I think providing access to Might Deeds to all classes could be an interesting idea...

I wouldn't personally use such a rule without giving every class access to every ability at some capacity at a particular level benchmark - I believe too strongly in class niche protection above sense, and am an "all or nothing" sort of fellow (which is why everyone gets everything, or they stick with having their own "special" tricks).

[Tortog]

I think providing access to Might Deeds to all classes could be an interesting idea...

I wouldn't personally use such a rule without giving every class access to every ability at some capacity at a particular level benchmark - I believe too strongly in class niche protection above sense, and am an "all or nothing" sort of fellow (which is why everyone gets everything, or they stick with having their own "special" tricks).

(concerning the emphasized point) This is very egalitarian and quite noble, and always sounds good until it gets implemented... I've tried this approach before and it never goes well. I decided to abandon this over-broad brush in favor of the following standard response to proto-munchkin players:

Storyteller: "If you can come up with a story to make that plausible... are you willing to do the research and book-keeping required?"

player: "No problem!"

Storyteller: "Sure." {which translates as: "What? You're going to hand me all of these neatly packaged and irresistible ways to F%$%#K with your character? Foolish mortal... I accept your offering." }

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I've also wondered if it might be possible to allow non-warrior some kind of access to the non- weapon specific M.D.o.A. like Blinding, Pushbacks, Trips and Throws, & Rallying Maneuvers. The mechanism for access is up to the Storyteller, but anyone can grab some dirt and throw it in their opponents eyes... or come up with some rhetoric to inspire the masses... etc.
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You could always side step the who M.D.o.A thing for non-warriors argument {especially if you don't have fire-proof pants} by adding a rule to the effect that: "... in addition to any results from the critical tables, the character's attack invokes the "weapon deed" property for that particular weapon." As an adjunct to the critical strikes rules. {This is the direction I was planning on going for this aspect of DCC, like your players I too found the weapon offerings a bit... bland.}

I've also been considering the viability of invoking the old 'indoors'/ 'outdoors' difference for ranged weapons. For those not familiar with this, I believe it came in with 1ed D&D (but could be wrong on that one) but it simply means that when the players are out-side of the dungeon or other structures, the ranges of the weapons are multiplied by 10. In the DCC context I would multiply all ranges by 3. In the DCC context a sling would have the following out-door ranges: 120/ 240/ 480ft; and a long bow would have the ranges 210/ 420/ 630ft. I grant you that the longbow numbers are a bit large, but are still far closer to accurate than the standard listing on p.71. Let us not forget that a trained medieval archer {as opposed to a hunter or town militia} could get 5-6 arrows into the air before the first one hits its target, and still have a good chance of hitting their target, but it is exhausting and such a ROF cannot be maintained for very long. This kind of differentiation could also apply to a situation where you have a halfling out hunting with a sling {using standard ranges for extreme accuracy} or when you have 20 halflings with slings moving around a battlefield harassing 'biguns at maximum range. Oh, and I'd reset the x-bow ranges to 50/ 110/ 130ft for indoors & 150/ 330/ 390ft for outdoors... the listings in the core rules are fine... if you're using a small ballista or Springald.

Anyways... just a few more thoughts on the subject.