I wonder what the people who got rid of it would think about all the modifiers of third edition.
You're preaching to the converted here!
Same question I had playing 1ed: which modifer do I use for bracers of armor AC 2?
Is there any sage out there willing to adapt it to Pathfinder?
Now that just makes sense! Remind me why this was dropped?
Because 99% of people didn't play with it.
Too much extra math for not enough benefit.
Same question I had playing 1ed: which modifer do I use for bracers of armor AC 2?I wonder what the people who got rid of it would think about all the modifiers of third edition.
You're preaching to the converted here!
it isn't srmour so you use 10.
This was for ARMOUR types, not total AC
So Ac 2 was plate mail and a shield, that was the only way to have that Ac with armour.
It was poorly explainened in the player book, but they clariied it either in the DMG or the Unearthed Arcana--- regardless, the AC rating was listed on pg 36 right before the list of weapons, it wasn't that hard to figure out.
No that's your opinion that you use 10 I have my pdf's of the books find me a page number to back that up.
That was part of the problem. That issue breaks verisimilitude to get the same bonus against a being encased in a semipermiable field of force as an unarmored opponent there is no vulnerability to exploit, no driving the pick between the rings of chain mail etc. it is an armor in that it deflects or other wise hampers the ability to land a blow. It is this poor editing that made so many people not use that part of the system and lead to its eventual abandonment.
Don't get me wrong I actually look at a lot of the discussion on these forums (IE poor ac scaling vs attack) and go well when I wonder if we did it like 1-2ed and you only got half the bonus to attacks that you did to damage would that work better? Seems like a lot of going back to the original for certain things would better address some of the critiques of this version, but like the bracers thing with the bonus chart or even the PF line better editing and trouble shooting needs to be done.
Yea I'm looking at YOU No-dachi.
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It was poorly explainened in the player book, but they clariied it either in the DMG or the Unearthed Arcana--- regardless, the AC rating was listed on pg 36 right before the list of weapons, it wasn't that hard to figure out.
In the same way that creatures AC didn't count for the chart either. A humaniod may have had a natural AC + armor, say AC 8 natural + leather for an AC of 6, but for the to hit modifiers the AC was 8 (i.e. leather armour). These number were how effective the weapon was against this type of material. Something sorely missing from editions 2e onwards (note: 2e had a simplied system which didn't work as well - only slashing vs piercing etc).
S.
There were 1e PDF's available? Are they still? I would be interested in purchasing such things.
No that's your opinion that you use 10 I have my pdf's of the books find me a page number to back that up.
They were a labour of love by a good friend of mine and a scanner after my originals got water damaged
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They were a labour of love by a good friend of mine and a scanner after my originals got water damagedThere were 1e PDF's available? Are they still? I would be interested in purchasing such things.
No that's your opinion that you use 10 I have my pdf's of the books find me a page number to back that up.
That's awesome. I have the OSRIC pdf but it doesn't have that Gygax-language that makes the 1e PHB/DMG/MM magic to read.
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The congo throwing iron or 'hunga-munga' should definitely have better damage stats than the chakram, which weighs 1/3rd as much.
It's supposedly been seen to take a man's leg off at 30 paces, and the idea that a sharpened 1 lb. frisbee is not only a quarter the cost and a third the weight, but does a higher die type damage, gives me agita. (The chakram, being lighter and more aerodynamic, having twice the range, on the other hand, seems totally appropriate.)
I kinda think that the katar or punch dagger might perhaps, instead of having a different critical range / multiplier, use a higher Str modifier. (full Str if used off-handed, or 1.5x Str if used in the primary hand) Only the fancy three-bladed punch-daggers, which would count as exotic weapons (and weigh more) would get the extra crit multiplier.
Also Pg 28 of the DMG states that the adgustments apply to specific types of armour not armour class.
Right specific types of armor which bracers are not listed therefore the mod is 0, because you are not wearing a type of armor listed but are not unarmored.
As I said, and my whole point is just as we complain about poor editing in PF, don't rose colored glasses earlier editions. I like the modifier chart but it does serve as a good point that not everything was as clear as it could be.
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AD&D had that built into the game in the form of weapon speed and pluss and minuses to hit versus specific armor type. The problem was that for most people it was complications that they refused to use so it was chucked out of the game at 3.0.
They should have kept weapon speed at the very least.
That was a rule I always used in my campaigns.
As for weapon effectiveness vs specific armor types: I preferred the system used by Rolemaster.
They should have kept weapon speed at the very least.
That was a rule I always used in my campaigns.
As for weapon effectiveness vs specific armor types: I preferred the system used by Rolemaster.
I actually liked the Everquest d20 version of weapon speed where it determined when you got iterative attacks. Most weapons were as normal (BAB-5) some were BAB-4 some were BAB -6 with the max number of attacks (barring off hand or haste and such) was 4. Mixing weapons (long sword dagger for instance) used the worst of the two iterative determinations. I have no idea if it would totally shift things too far from 2 handed to TWF optimized builds but would love to hear if someone decides to try it out.
The modifier chart... I thought my old foe was dead and here it is back in pog form. The lack of the modifier chart was one of the reasons I jumped on 3.0. It was the result of both poor editing and bad content. It might be closer to some folks opinion of how real world weapons worked but it just isn't worth the time.
I really wish that exotic weapons were just included in proficiency at 1st level. A fighters starts with x of choice, a rouge with y, so on and so forth. That way there's no need to drag them up to the being cool enough they need to be worth a feat.
BULL HOCKEY! I am not talking about fighting in a phalanx I am talking about using a spear and shield, THE most common weapon system combo in history. YES any warrior can do it.Save that not any warrior WAS able to do so. Phalanx fighting took specialised training of a group of warriors to act in sync and on command, something that the masses of barbarians that they fought couldn't just pick up.Well you can have a spear and shield fighter if you take the Phalanx Fighter archetype... but I find it hard to imagine that you could get enough of these guys to, you know, form an actual phalanx, considering PC classes are supposed to be the rare 'best of the best' and all that...except that Archtype is weaker than a fighter. and any warrior whould be able to do this.
Any warrior can use a spear and shield now, short spear is a one handed weapon. Long spear and shield is only useful in formation.
The trident was not really a significant military weapon, it was mostly used as a gladiatorial weapon for one build.
If someone can find a way to make a whip not suck without spending ANOTHER feat on the lynx paw, they will be my personal hero
Spiked chains are an absurd weapon, but they don't suck
Apparently you're still playing 3.5. Check them in the Pathfinder rules, remembering that you have to burn a feat for proficiency.
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I actually liked the Everquest d20 version of weapon speed where it determined when you got iterative attacks. Most weapons were as normal (BAB-5) some were BAB-4 some were BAB -6 with the max number of attacks (barring off hand or haste and such) was 4. Mixing weapons (long sword dagger for instance) used the worst of the two iterative determinations. I have no idea if it would totally shift things too far from 2 handed to TWF optimized builds but would love to hear if someone decides to try it out.
The Scarred Lands Players Guide to Fighters and Barbarians used the same rule, and it seemed like a neat way to improve the use of two dagger using archetypes.
Let's see...
Bucklers that work like bucklers, not things strapped to your arm.
Spears and longspears you can use in one hand.
Tridents with reach.
... and, of course...
Falcatas which aren't better than every other possible weapon option.
I don't see what Falcatas are that great. Yes, they have extra crit , but compared to a battle-axe then compared to a long-sword vs a bastard sword. It's one extra crit range really worth a feat, as opposed to a extra one point of damage per hit?
I don't see what Falcatas are that great. Yes, they have extra crit , but compared to a battle-axe then compared to a long-sword vs a bastard sword. It's one extra crit range really worth a feat, as opposed to a extra one point of damage per hit?
As flat top bonuses can easily exceed the max damage roll and they get multiplied yes generally it is well worth it.
Anything that isn't an Asian weapon
Seriously, eastern STICKS are better than western ones? Come on.
(the bo staff has the defending property while quarterstaves do not)
Which is an oversight on the part of quarterstaff design, but an oversight that has utility. It allows you to define your characters weapons more. Is he a wizard who carries it mostly as a walking stick? Or is he a staff fighter who's spent years training
Quarterstaff = long walking stick.
Bo staff = fighting staff
Shepards on both sides of the world us Quarterstaffs, and staff fighters on both sides of the world use Bo. The differences is that in west, both are called staffs, and in the east, both are called Bo.
I am more than happy to have 'western' and 'near-eastern' ninja, because at the end of the day, Ninja as depicted in the class, is just one of the best known expression of the idea of the 'mystic assassin'. The class works well for depicting the hassansin order, thuggee(some depictions there of), assassins of fate (as such as the euthanatos from mage).
"Quarterstaff = long walking stick.
Bo staff = fighting staff"
Oh, please. ((Edit - I think I initially misread part of your post)) To say the user's skill should be reflected in the base weapon stats is like saying there should be separate stats for a dagger worn by a farmer and an assassin. There is already a term for weapons made better than the norm - the masterwork quality. If you want to go the other direction, a really crude long stick would be an improvised weapon. From then on it's not about the stick, but what the user can do with it. For that matter, the concept of a skilled warrior using a "peasant" weapon for various reasons is certainly a valid option for characters, and not one they need to blow an exotic proficiency feat on.
The difference between the two, as per the PF system, is almost non-existent. The bo staff is described as almost identical to a quarterstaff anyway. I don't see how this "slightly" justifies it being made into an exotic weapon, or significantly different stats. Otherwise we are just cluttering the system with minute differences. The "variant eastern weapons and other assorted BS" part of the UC book really wasn't necessary.
Back to the original point:
- slings could use a minor boost, or at least have the option for a rapid reload feat
- tridents or similar spears should have x3 critical or 19-20 threat range to have a piercing 1d8 one-handed martial weapon on par with the longsword/battleaxe. I think we can eliminate their throwing option, though - I don't see how tridents are inherently easier to throw than, say, light maces or hand axes.
- most exotic weapons right now aren't worth spending a trait on, much less a feat; they should be buffed or folded back into the simple/martial weapon they are most similar to. Apart from fluff reasons, is there any reason to take, say, a butterfly knife?
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The difference in Pathfinder between a quarterstaff and a bo staff is that the former is a simple weapon, without the blocking quality, and the latter is an exotic weapon with the blocking quality. Oh, and the quarterstaff weighs a pound more but costs a gold less...
... Yes, it makes no sense. I understand the game balance issues - spend a Feat on staff 'b' instead of just using staff 'a' and you get the blocking quality - but why not just have a Feat which allows you to count all staff weapons as having the blocking quality, instead of making the bo an exotic weapon? Wouldn't that make more sense? I mean, how 'exotic' can a stick be? You can be better at using it, sure, but the stick itself? Put another way - if a guy just trained in using simple weapons (or even just using a quarterstaff) picks up a bo he suffers a non-proficiency penalty for trying to use the thing? Really? It's that different and complicated? The mind boggles... :/
As for the Pathfinder trident, it's 4 feet long - that's not a gladiator's trident by any stretch of the imagination. As I understand it, the fighting style of the retarius (as far as anybody knows) was to keep the heavily armed and armoured guys out of reach with his his trident, whilst trying to ensnare or trip the big guy with his net. The Pathfinder trident isn't keeping anyone at bay...
For retarius-style fighters I'd suggest using an ranseur in place of the Pathfinder trident, to represent their weapon of choice. It's easy to see guys with a weapon in either hand and automatically assume 'must be two weapon fighting', but that's not necessarily the case - nothing says you can't hold the ranseur in one hand whilst using the net in the other (and UC does have a bunch of Feats so that you can net fight properly now), then go in two handed once you've cast your net. The dagger you carry is to cut the line between the net and your wrist if you need to. Just my take on it, of course.
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Part of the problem is just that a higher crit range is better than a higher multiplier in most people's minds (especially when it comes to crit feats).
A cool solution would be to add feats that work off of a weapons higher critical multiplier. Prerequisites would be something like; Weapon focus in selected weapon, weapon has a critical multiplier of x3 or higher.
Honestly it's all balanced in terms of *weapons*, manufactured that is.
The big imbalance issue comes in with natural attacks being chained with: Improved Natural Attack and Vital Striking.It's even worse if the character using these is a Monk.
Honestly (manufactured) weapons do need to be more powerful than unarmed strikes and other forms of natural attacks but in my opinion, the weapons do not need an increase in power. It's the natural attacks that need a nerf.
It would help alot if Vital Strike was defined as (only works with manufactured weapons and never with monk unarmed striking)
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Firstly, I'd just like to say, I'm pleased to have started a thread that got people passionately citing 1st/2nd edition rules at one another. You don't see enough of that.
I think main reason that armor vs. weapon rules were not used more universally was just their placement in the book. When me and my friends were teaching ourselves the system, if we wanted to know what a longsword did, we flipped to the equipment chapter, not the combat chapter. By the time we noticed the armor vs. weapon rules, we were already used to doing it without so it seemed like too much trouble for too little pay off. Plus we were coming off of the non-advanced old school D&D, which I don't believe used these rules, so we thought we already knew how combat worked. Add to it that the D&D computer games seldom if ever mentioned these rules, and it was pretty easy to just not know about them or pretend they weren't there.
If you want to check out a system with a hardcore commitment to weapon/armor simulation, I recommend finding an old copy or PDF of the Rolemaster book called Arms Law. They gave each weapon its own 150 line table with a separate column for each weapon type. Once you determined the initial result of an attak, if it was a critical, you were referred to a separate critical table (slashing/piercing/crushing/etc.) which was a 100 line table with 5 columns for 5 different levels of crit severity. Each result on this table specifically described the result of your attack, extra damage, wounding, auto-kills, bleeding, stun, etc.
All I want is a vague nod to simulation for all of the pathfinder weapons, and for all of them to have a meaningful niche in the game. And for it to be perfectly balanced. And for my favorite weapons to be super awesome. Hmmm. Maybe I have unreasonable expectations. Still... I want what I want.
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If you want to check out a system with a hardcore commitment to weapon/armor simulation, I recommend finding an old copy or PDF of the Rolemaster book called Arms Law.
The Rolemaster critical tables (and fumble tables) were always pretty funny, even though they meant that the character you'd just taken a week and a half to roll up (yeah, I used to play that system when computerised help was a sci-fi concept for the future of gamers...) would be gutted (amusingly!) by the first snot-nosed goblin which came along... :)
In the long term, all those tables with specific results also tended to restrict your freedom to describe combat as you pictured it. It got especially weird with martial arts - you'd say 'I'll punch him in the face' and a half dozen dice rolls and table references later it turns out you actually hit him with an axe-kick / backhand strike combo... As inspiration for describing fights, they're great stuff, but use them too much and it all gets a little tedious, IMHO.
Also, the greatclub is a tragedy...
I'd hazard a guess that's the gap the earth breaker is meant to fill in Pathfinder... So yes, the greatclub is completely pointless in that regard - its presence is just a legacy of 3.5.
HARPOONS!!!
in 3.0 they were awesome. my favorite character i ever played used 4 harpoons with adamantine chains, i used them to tie down a dragon lol. in this game they are worthless, you may as well just use a spear.
And then not even that since they cant compete with the myriad of adventurers with greatswords, falchions, rapiers, scimitars, falcatas and the occasional greataxe.
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And then not even that since they cant compete with the myriad of adventurers with greatswords, falchions, rapiers, scimitars, falcatas and the occasional greataxe.HARPOONS!!!
in 3.0 they were awesome. my favorite character i ever played used 4 harpoons with adamantine chains, i used them to tie down a dragon lol. in this game they are worthless, you may as well just use a spear.
A whip in real life can cut like a knife and strike incredibly accurately and quickly... does changing the damage to 1d3 lethal, keeping trip and disarm, and giving it a +1 attack for the incredible speed(keeping the range as described) seem appropriate? Also, what source had harpoons statted?
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A whip in real life can cut like a knife and strike incredibly accurately and quickly... does changing the damage to 1d3 lethal, keeping trip and disarm, and giving it a +1 attack for the incredible speed(keeping the range as described) seem appropriate? Also, what source had harpoons statted?
a whip only does nonleathal because you cannot kill someone with a whip, unless it is bladed or has a hard blunt tip (metal stone bone etc...), yeah it should cause bleed damage but it cannot kill you technically.
the harpoon is in the 3.0 arms and equipment guide, and now in the ultimate combat.
Rolemaster is what the system is trying to avoid. I'd like to find out if i hit the orc or not before the player advances another age category.
Personally, I'd rather see the 3.x system get scrapped completely. Way too many individual rules and way too large a weapons list to keep track. Besides, half the weapons never see use in the first place thanks to outright being weak; in my experience, there are three or four weapons in each category that ever see use and the rest are just there to clog up random loot tables.
Just add a modular weapon system to allow players or DM's to construct weapons to their taste and call them whatever they want, that are mechanically on rough parity with all weapons of a given class.
Personally, I'd rather see the 3.x system get scrapped completely. Way too many individual rules and way too large a spells list to keep track. Besides, half the spells never see use in the first place thanks to outright being weak; in my experience, there are three or four spells in each level that ever see use and the rest are just there to clog up random loot tables.
Just add a modular spell system to allow players or DM's to construct spells to their taste and call them whatever they want, that are mechanically on rough parity with all spells of a given class.
Just add a modular spell system to allow players or DM's to construct spells to their taste and call them whatever they want, that are mechanically on rough parity with all spells of a given class.
Modular systems
1) Require more work, which is hard on casual players
2) Run into more rules interpretation problems
3) are INCREDIBLY hard to keep from being either cheesey or useless.
I remember the new age dragonlance card game had a modular system, and it took half an hour and a DM's call to figure out if casting a spell was legal.
Mage's advantage and problem is that the magic system is basically "DM says" , which puts a LOT of work on the DM and gets you vastly different results from table to table.
Regarding spears, I'd kind of like to see something like a Pike or a long Phalanx spear with longer reach than other reach weapons.+1
You would think that if we in our history developed them to counteract reach that a world where there are things that can reach out and smack you from 15 ft away this kind of weapon should exist as well.
Nah. Pikes were only useful in tightly packed formations, which in this game, is pretty much just asking for AoE death.
Very effective as long as there's no magic of any kind, alchemy or traps.
Please, please , PLEASE! No weapon init mods. They're great in systems with phased combat (ie everybody moves, then everybody attacks) but they just don't work in a system with sequential init like PF. There are too many problems... does my init change because my greatclub got disarmed, then again when I draw my backup dagger? Does that mage get to blast me even sooner cause he's got a rapier in his offhand?
The idea on modifying when iteratives occur is a lot better, but would take a MASSIVE overhaul of the weapon chart, and probably the way static modifiers work. You knock daggers down to BAB-4 and Greatswords up to BAB-6 and I can almost guarantee that daggers would come out way ahead.
As far as go, I'd give them the rule firearms have now, and give firearms a damage boost. Remember, the effect crossbows had on armour was so terrifying that they were banned by the Pope.
Overall though I think the biggest problem with weapons in general is the insignificance of the dice. After a certain point the only major differences between a dagger, a longsword, and a greatsword are one is one handed and finessable, one is one handed, and one is two handed with a 1.5* modifier on str an PA.
It might be interesting at some point to try doubling all HP related dice (HD, weapon, spell, etc) while leaving the static modifiers the same. I'd be curious to see how it changed things, I think it might actually make things like the Bastard sword and TWF worthwhile.