Christopher V Brady's page

One thing about great weapons is that you pick them because you want to do a lot of damage. Let someone else try to hit more often, or be more defensive, when you hit, you aim to put the target down hard and FAST.

Not to mention that all weapon styles (even 'duellist', man I HATE one weapon, floppy hand. Modern Fencing is a SPORT, designed for one on one competition, not actual combat, because you rarely face a single foe...) should have their own feat trees, not just Two Weapon Fighting, so without further ado.

(For the record, this is not designed to fix anything, just add options. This is also free to use by anyone, should they wish to. And yes, I'm copying this from the D&DN playtest, just changing it to a feat.)

Reaper's Kiss (Combat)

You swing your great weapon so hard, so fast that even a miss does something.

Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +1, Power Attack, using a two handed weapon

Benefit: If you miss your target, you still do your strength bonus in damage.

Special: It still qualifies as a miss for the purpose of feats that trigger on hits or damage.

Improved Reaper's Kiss (Combat)

Your mastery of your own body and skill with two handed weaponry allows you do more, even when everyone else thinks you missed.

Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +6, Power Attack, using a two handed weapon

Benefit: If you miss your target, you now do double your strength bonus in damage.

Special: It still qualifies as a miss for the purpose of feats that trigger on hits or damage.

Now, first up, I'm on the fence for 4e, I also know very little of how it works outside the few tidbits, so nothing I'm going to suggest is going to try and incorporate anything of the sort.

First up, let's pick on the Races. Drop the racial free martial weapons. They're going to cause silly issues like in the Half-Orc case of being able to Sneak Attack with a Greataxe. They were a bad idea for elves in 3.0, they remain a bad idea. It especially hurts the human and half-elf races due to the fact that they don't have any such weapons

However, one GOOD thing about 3.5 is how you have exotic weapons that are considered martial for the races. Like the Dwarves and their Urgrosh, or the Orcish Double Axe (So I happen to like my fantasy weapons in a fantasy game, sue me.) Why not keep pushing those? Give Elves the Double bladed sword, and such. My only thing is that I don't know what to give the halflings, or just give them a +1 with slings and thrown weapons.

Step Two: Classes. And I'm speaking as a MASSIVE, MASSIVE fighter fan, but I think some of the armour feats are going overboard. Now, I'm FIRMLY in the camp that the casters need to be taken down a peg or two, but I'm not sure I like the direction the Fighter is compensating with... Time will tell.

Step Three: Feats. One thing in 3.x that has always bothered me is that feats are often underpowered and lame. Seriously, who uses Great Cleave at high levels? The odds of taking down something that STILL gives out XP at level 10 in one blow is VERY, VERY tiny.

However, The Complete Warrior, along with the Book of Iron Might, by Mike Mearls under the Monte Cook imprint, gave us good examples as to what can be achieved. And I'd recommend taking a look at them and stealing... Er, adapting some of them. The Tactical Feats from CW as well as the Fighting Style one's from BoIM have a lot of potential.

Step Four: Skills. This is a step in the right direction. But 2+Int skills at first level is just plain painful for some classes. Especially since certain ones (Barbarian) it doesn't make much sense. In fact I'd be tempted to swap that class with with Fighter, and give the Wizard +4 skills because they are supposed to be 'scholars'. Or so the popular perception of them goes.

Other than that, I'd have to see how it works out before saying anything on it.