Coyote_Ragtime's page

This is pretty unique. Definitely dotting.

Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. My god; it even has a watermark.

Minimum +1 bonus for two handing. Boom. No algebra required.

Large shields should provide the defense from AoE, but not small and under. And a successful roll with a tower shield should provide a cone of defense behind the player.

I really like that idea, especially as one who favors a dex brawler class and has no great way of showing how nimble he is vs a big lug with a club. I think I might suggest this in my next game!

It even adds the possibility for more weapon upgrades, such as advanced hilts allowing close grip, pommel spikes or even repelling tactics.

I have a brainy type group in meatspace that might enjoy playtesting this...

One thought though, The creature's size category should be added in to his weapon's. (Medium being 0, small -1, tiny -2, large +1, etc...)

So glad you mentioned that. Had some ideas for reach and size categories. You have to factor in what reach for a fist fight between different size categories would look like as well. So a medium character has an inherent reach of 3 feet. Each size category above or below medium adds or subtracts 2 feet respectively. This inherent range does augment their weapon 's reach, but their dead zone also grows proportionately.

I was also thinking of adding two new size categories that players could choose to give characters more variation, Big and Little, which fall between Small and Medium, and Medium and Large. They half the bonuses and penalties for Small and Large categories, including range bonuses, and are obviously race exclusive. Humans and Half-Elves can be Little-Big, Elves and Dwarves can be Little-Medium, Half-Orcs can be Medium-Big, and Halflings and Gnomes can be Small-Little.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKRDvSZ-igA

Tl;dw, Maxwell's demon. A thought experiment that shows how the second law of thermodynamics might be broken, using a "demon" (this is the mid 1800's when this was conceived, today it would be a computer or something, but Maxwell's Microchip doesn't sound as cool) that controls a door separating hot particles and cold particles. Whenever an exceptionally hot particle from the cold side, or an exceptionally cold particle from the hot side approaches the door, the demon lets the particle through, gradually making the hot side hotter and the cold side colder.

This could be really friggin cool if implemented in a fantasy/steampunk game. Devices powered by steam energy- the fuel source is a frosty canister that imprisons a demon, continually producing heat on one side, and ice as a waste product on the other, needing to be changed out before the heat makes the red-hot steel canister melt.

That's probably the best way I've heard to go about it with a grid system. I neglected to mention, though, that I'm referring specifically to a gridless system. My bad!

With a gridless system, unconventional measurements like these are much more viable, giving you more variation.

But I will definitely try your approach if my group decides to go grid.

Real life scenarios. Have you ever seen an absolutely stunningly hot person, then gone to talk to them and they had the most annoying personality on the planet? Sure it got them through the door, but if you were a shopkeep, would you give them special discounts if they looked like Jessica Alba, but laughed like Janice?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uMPguqlWhU

Clearly, they have a low Charisma, but where did their Beauty stat land them? What rolls did they succeed at? The feel-good message here is that in D&D, just as in real life, physical attractiveness only gets you so far, and not far enough to really deserve its own stat.

As a side note, studies show that women find social ability more appealing than physical attractiveness, so for females, at least, a high Charisma makes you sexier no matter what your Beauty stat is at.

So I got this idea while I was dinking around with roll20 for the first time, discovering what all I could mess with, when I discovered Token auras. I started thinking of creative ways to use these. What if we used auras to show a weapon's effective reach?

Here's what I came up with:
Each weapon has an effective length and a dead-zone that is typically 25% of the weapon's reach (will probably change the specifics of the dead-zone later). Any creature standing within the effective range of another creature is threatened. Any creature standing in the dead-zone of another creature cannot be attacked for the weapon's full damage bonus, instead receiving damage as if the attacker were unarmed.

For example: Helen has an 8 foot long spear, dead zone 2 feet. The goblin thug has a 3 foot long axe, dead zone < 1 foot. Helen's rad spear can pierce the Goblin from quite far, but if the Goblin advances right up to her, but still remains far enough so that she is not within his dead zone, she has to retreat to be able to effectively damage him again. Certain combat maneuvers, such as brace, can prevent an enemy from advancing into your dead zone, or even repel them from it, as with bull rush.

This mechanic gives players who use smaller weapons, like daggers an entirely new tactic to try against foes wielding larger weapons- and even gives players a reason to pick up different weapons. In current rules, there is zero advantage to dual wielding daggers as opposed to dual wielding a sword-dagger combo, but in this idea dual daggers is viable and logical to use to take full advantage of an enemy's dead zone.

Thoughts?

I've been working on various systems to make different types of spell casting feel as different as possible. There are NO spells that overlap with other casting styles.

•Sorcery uses spellpoints and a very fluid system. The player gets to choose a specific damage type that cannot be unchosen without good reason. Once their energy has been drawn from a pool, they can wield it in multiple ways, hurling it, making a touch attack, adding energy damage to their weapon, etc. Bloodline abilities and more powerful ways to use their energy (rays, cones, etc.) can be unlocked as they level up.

•Wizardry is entirely resource dependent. Spells are performed by mixing reagents in specific ways, drawing complex symbols with chalk, or implementing magic items. Every spell effect can be customized using a system closer to a programming language than a spell list. Instead of spells per day, a Wizard gains spells that they can prepare without reffering to their spellbook.

•Divine Magic is performed with a difficulty check that is affected by previous passes or failures, status effects, and variables that occur from roleplay. Spells fall on the alignment axis, and campaigns are designed to make players make tough decisions that effect their ability to cast spells from from those axes. Ie; a Paladin type may be forced to choose between a 'Lawful' choice and a 'Good' choice, which will in turn determine how well they cast healing spells vs. throwing lightning bolts.

•Druids gain an amount of spell points whenever they commune with nature, and choose to level specific domains (or skill trees. Hee hee) seperately. These domains include flora, fauna, weather, and earth. They also receive bonuses from places of cultural or spiritual significance (since you are on Eagle-Eye Mountain, the party's ranged attacks can go an extra 10 feet without penalty, or double that if you choose not to share this bonus). They can choose wether they would like to shape-shift into something from their chosen domain, or gain control of it.

(Will update more later. Gotta work.)

Here's the skippy: I want running from cover to trigger an attack of oppurtunity from ranged weapons. That's what started this mess. I'm running a western campaign where cover and ranged combat play a heavier role, but I think there are many standard fantasy scenarios that could benefit from this, the only problem is you have to kind of fajigger the whole attack of oppurtunity thing for ranged weapons for it to make sense. Does entering a weapon's range threaten? How about moving at all while within range? There's a lot to think about, which is probably why AoE's are melee only, but lets tinker a bit here, guys. What are your thoughts?

Elven Absinthe: Loosens your lips and your wallet. Makes anything a player says out of character into things they say in character.

Made for hilarious play when a player accidentally picked a fight with a fat drunken dwarf, then was broadcasting his attack strategy to said angry dwarf.

We can rename Linguistics to something like Scribe, Transcribe, or Forgery to avoid confusion. :D

To avoid a solid nerf of the Linguistic skill, I suggest you to hallow two «language» ranks by skills rank in linguistic, and to do as you sayed and remove 1 step in the language ranks. Actually, the linguistic skill is 5 times weaker than before (this change is very flavorfull, but why would a player put one point in linguistic in opposition of any knowledge ?).

Why keep Linguistics in at all in a system like this?

I had a similar idea for a system that treated languages as skills, 'Language (Blah)'. Yours is simultaneously more streamlined and meatier than mine, so good job. I likey.

I had a similar idea that involved letting players make more attacks if they moved fewer spaces.

Well this might be slightly off-topic, and I've expressed this before, but I always thought spell point systems would be perfect for Sorcerers, but I never thought it fit the bill for Wizards and Divine casters. I always thought it would be awesome if Wizards were either totally dependent on limited use items and spell reagents or used a skill check to cast, and an activation roll for Divines.

Both systems would depend more on roleplay than mechanics- a GM may have to pull certain reagents off a store shelf to curb a spell that would overpower a player in an area or leave the player a surplus of a specific one as a hint, and a divine would have penalties and bonuses applied to his activation roll based on the choices he has made in the story, but it would still be a rad system nonetheless.

Just my 2cp.

Or would this just be negated by a high attack bonus?

How do you guys feel about a Strength based 'Break' skill. Some people are much better at kicking down doors than others. Or should the act of breaking stuff never be more than a vanilla Strength check?

I like this idea alot. So who gets this as a class skill?

As I see it, you aren't suggesting a re-skin of pathfinder. You are suggesting a different game.

Making it work would require you to rewrite the entire game. Changing the hp, would require you to change the damage score of everything, included any spells that deal damage directly or indirectly.
Making these changes to hp and damage, puts an altogether different importance on AC and to-hit bonusses, which need to be adjusted as well.

My suggestion, is that you take a look at Savage Worlds as an alternate system. Having a set amount of HP (3 for main characters, 1 for minor characters), and exploding dice, so the lowly goblin might just succeed against all odds, sums up to a system that might give you what you want. Being simple and easy-to-learn as well as relatively cheap, makes it something you could try out without to great an investment on you and your players.

Like I said, thought experiment. Let's say we took the monumental amount of time to adjust all those things. Is that a system you'd be interested in playing? Why or why not?

Also, I've been meaning to look into Savage Worlds for some time now. Might as well do it today...

It would either seriously overpower giant monsters or open up for the possibility of a lucky commoner killing an ancient dragon with their pitchfork.

How is this minimalist re-skinning. Or even re-skinning at all?

A commoner would have to be really lucky to kill a dragon with a pitchfork, as the dragon would have a Constitution in the 40's and up, as well as Damage Resistance. It would, however, overpower giant monsters, requiring players to put a lot of thought and planning into taking them down.

What would happen if you re-tooled the game to nerf down the insane amounts of damage that you can do with high level abilities, and eradicated hit die so that your HP was simply your Constitution score? The idea here is to make a gritty feeling system that makes you seriously weigh the situational pros and cons of getting into combat, because a critical hit can be an instant kill. A game where a lowly goblin thug can kill an experienced knight if he lets his guard down.

But mostly this is just a thought experiment, so let's hear your thoughts.

What if you could bypass DR by rolling an attack that exceeds an opponents AC by a number greater than their armor bonus?

For example guy in chainmail's Defense Score is 12. Roll a 12-16, apply DR, roll a >16, no DR. This combines the normal rules AND the armor as DR rules WITHOUT adding sn extra roll, with the bonus of simulating the difficulty of nailing an armor's weakspot.

I'm having trouble finding an activation roll system as an alternate for X/day spells. I heard Savage Worlds had a good one, particularly Deadlands had one that I'm interested in, but next to no material exists online that I've found.

So basically, I'm looking for a system that lets you roll to try to use your spells, makes it harder when you fail, and doesnt have an X/day mechanic. Anylinks or resources you guys can find would be super helpful.

Talcrion wrote:

(snip) I'd like to completely remove it as a skill and break it down among other related skills. Though I do still see a need for a generic perception check at times, as such I'm thinking of making it just a plane ol wisdom check.

anyone else have any alternate ways to deal with perception and it's king of skills status.

Depending on your willingness to houserule, you could make Perception a 4th save (along with Fortitude, Reflex and Will), and revert to the Search skill for active use by players.

If you like the idea of Perception as saving throw but don't want to create a 4th save, fold perception into Reflex. Typically, the classes granting good Ref would be those you'd give good perception.

I do something pretty similar, except I have the DM roll it in secret! :D

You should eliminate scenarios from your game where the DM says "alright, everyone roll Perception," because in real life, you can't actively try to notice stuff. Searching is fine, as long as they know what they're searching for. You can't just search a room for whatever plot devices god secretly hid in it. Whether you use old school perception, a fourth save, or Monkerdoodle's fantastic idea of gettin funky with the skills, I think its best to keep the rolls secret to the DM.

To mesh them, I would simply drop the Armor Defense roll, and grant DR as per normal. I'd also add deflection bonus to the other rolls. I actually really wanna try this.

Found it. No rules for variable DR or weapon vs armor, but it breaks AC into 4 different Combat Defense opposed rolls.

Armor Defense = Armor Bonus + Natural Armor Bonus + Deflection Bonus + 1d20.

Block Defense = Shield Bonus + BAB + 1d20.

Dodge Defense = Dex bonuses - ACP + Ref Save + 1d20.

Parry Defense = Max Attack for weapon used (i.e. BAB + Str or Dex bonus + magic weapon bonuses + 1d20).

You can use AD even if other defenses are tried and fail. BD can be used once per round for each attack you can make. DD is a free action, even if Flat footed, but each use in the round after the first is a cumukative -2 penalty. PD can be used for blurry hands, but both are at -2 penalty unless using the Off Hand and having TWF.

This prevents having gigantic ACs that are impossible to hit. I've but evaluated how rid would affect Armor ad DR.

Thats a pretty neat take on it. Do you actually roll all four of those in one round or choose one? Because that seems like a lot of rolling.

I really want to resurrect those rules. I'd give a chain shirt something like DR 6 against slashing, 2 against piercing, and 0 against blunt.

I had an idea for Golems made of various materials, who might double as a playable race.

Straw- Think scarecrows. Basic all around stats, as enemies, they attack in clusters.

Wood- Nut crackers. Big brutish golems used as soldiers.

Porcelain- Porcelain dolls. Used as house servants. Good with magic.

Stone- Gargoyles. Used to guard major churches and clergy. Adept with divine abilities.

There's a few more, but I won't drown you with em. Lol.

Thanks a bunch Oceanshieldwolf, I'll check er out!

I don't know if its been done in 3.5 or Pathfinder but its been done before in similar environments. The board game Descent has something that could be ported over. the only obstacle would be dealing with swift actions and standardizing how full round actions convert.

Well, with a system like this, I could see converting a swift action into something insignificant, like two Battle Points, and a full round action into something huge like 10 or more. While Descent did have a fun stamina system, it's not exactly what I'm looking for. Theirs was only for moving extra spaces or doing special abilities, but it is somewhat along the same lines.

I'm thinking that to make an attack should cost the max damage of the weapon, so for instance a dagger would cost four points while a greataxe would cost 12. As a side effect, smaller weapons would gain extra attacks faster than heavier ones as a player levels up. I'm not exactly sure how many points moving a space should cost, but let's say 2 per 5 feet. The advantage this system would have is that it would let you move more than a five foot step and still let you have some extra attacks.

Please feel free to slap me upside the head with links if this, or something similar has been done before.

The idea is to see what would happen if you replaced the standard action system with one where you had a limited number of points you could spend each round. Each action, whether it is moving a space, pulling a lever, casting a spell, or swinging a weapon costs a certain amount of points. How many points you have would vary from class to class and with levels. There may be a stamina system in place that you can use to go beyond your battle points at a penalty.

What do you guys think? Has it been done before? Is it a waste of time?

Include repurcussions for using explosive weapons (friendly fire, civilian casualties, wooden structures burn, loot gets destroyed, cover he could've used to hide from archers gets nuked, cave-ins, etc).

Dude. You GOTTA call them Kappa.

Give them a natural DR with the caveat that they can't wear armor.

This is a pretty cool idea. The simplest way to go about doing this, I think, would be to give players bloodline abilities as if they were leveling in Sorcerer, regardless of their actual class. Not a stand alone class, but more of a character path or add-on ability.

If it were up to me, Sorcerers would use a mana pool, Faith characters would use an activation roll, and Wizards would do everything using limited resources. Those just make more sense to me as far as roleplay goes, but then again I have no idea about the complex algebra that goes into designing this stuff.

I actually considered something similar in my campaign, and this seems like a really easy way to implement that idea. I never would have thought of that. I LIKE IT.

Just steal directly from the Diablo games. Wouldn't even take much work.

I do agree, good sir! I also had another thread about weapon proficiencies.

What is par and sub-par as far as skills go greatly depends on the campaign and the DM running the campaign. In this game, not knowing Orcish may be twice as crippling as not knowing spellcraft. And if there is absolutely no way to make a skill quite as useful as another, or one that a player would have to be brain-dead not to pick, then you have an element that should be removed or altered.

And Tongues is totally fine. Language (blank) could be a set of skills similar to Craft, Profession, and Knowledge. The game wouldn't break if there was a spell that gave you omni-proficient access to those (I apologize if there is such a spell and it slipped my mind. I failed my Knowledge (Arcana) check).

Madclaw wrote:

Ilja wrote:

I know two languages fluently and im certainly not 20th level.

But having fluent speaking require more levels than creating demiplanes or surviving a drop from orbit feels kindasilly.

English is my first language and I studied it in college. I still don't completely comprehend it at times. Then again, English is a crazy language and probably an exception.

Not being able to completely understand every single word is different from not being fluent though. I mean, literally no-one knows every single word of a language because words come and go all the time.

But those rare circumstances rather seem like cases where you apply Knowledge skills or perhaps linguistics, not just check if you know the language. Just because someone speaks spanish doesn't necessarily mean they know what a chupacabra is.

But we don't need mechanics to differentiate when someone knows a language fluently enough to communicate with unhindered with people in general and when they can pick out the etymology of a word in an odd dialect. And we don't need specific mechanics to do that separately for every language you know.

Coyote_Ragtime wrote:

I was considering allowing fluency in multiple languages (at GM discretion) for scenarios like yours. We could also just as easily remove the player level cap on skills, which was mostly put in there for game balance anyway. Theres no reason a level 1 farmboy couldn't be insanely skilled at, say, lock picking, just as theres no reason a low level character couldn't be proficient with two languages.

And suddenly, every fourth level wizard will have 18 ranks in perception and 10 ranks in acrobatics...

The max rank cap serves both as a balancing point and to enforce spreading skill points around rather than hyperspecializing. Skills are not created equally, and by removing the cap you'll make sure that only the absolutely most useful skills will ever be taken. You know what no PC will ever put points in? Linguistics. When...

Well I'm of the opinion that if a character wants to screw their character up by dropping 1000 points in just acrobatics you should let them, but thats off-topic. I didn't mean to compare being bilingual to being super talented, I was just making an irrelevant comment about level caps, and now Im thinking it would make much more sense to offer being bilingual as a trait at character creation, anyway.

But the goal here is to give a slightly more realistic way to learn languages in the game as opposed to instantly comprehending several at a time. Something that allows for partial success.

I know two languages fluently and im certainly not 20th level.

Honestly, there are two mainreasons not to do this:
1. With tongues and comprehend languages available (among many other options), noone would bother with languages.
2. Many people can speak several languages well enough to not be hindered by it. Some people can speak 13 languages fluently. Since people in real life are about lvl 1-6, and the limit for a 6th level human character with 18 intelligence is 5+6+2 (cosmopolitan) that makes sense. With your system, most people in my neighborhood would have to be at least 10th level since most speak their native fluently plus decent swedish and decent english.

If anything, Id add to the current system that if you live in an area where the dominant language is one you dont know, you may make a DC19 linguistics check at end of each month, and once theyve succeeded at at least three they know the language well enough. This would mean an untrained person will learn it on average after thrirty months while someone who is skilled in languages might pick it up in half a year.. Thats in addition to the current system, not as replacement.

But having fluent speaking require more levels than creating demiplanes or surviving a drop from orbit feels kindasilly.

I was considering allowing fluency in multiple languages (at GM discretion) for scenarios like yours. We could also just as easily remove the player level cap on skills, which was mostly put in there for game balance anyway. Theres no reason a level 1 farmboy couldn't be insanely skilled at, say, lock picking, just as theres no reason a low level character couldn't be proficient with two languages.

In a level based system, every ability just spontaneously appears. Whether languages, new spells, or some of the more obscene feats (or skills for that matter), the system expect training time to be included between levels, even though there isn't any mechanics for it.

As a GM I've some times asked players to do some training (with other characters, or sources) before actually using a language. I don't think I'd use a more complicated system than that.

To do so, I would suggest something like:

1) The linguistics skill determines you aptitude for learning languages, and sets the limit of how many languages you can learn (possibly lower than 1 to 1, but idk).
2) Each language has a base DC to learn based on complexity (assuming you are humanoid), setting DCs at around 15, 20, and 25 (Perhaps, haven't tried examples to see if the DCs work).
3) The DC has a modifier based on the sources you have availiable, such as:
No sources at all +10, written sources only +5, exposed to the language +0, tutoring -3, and other tools for learning languages (like the rosetta stone) -X.
4) The DC is further reduces by 2 or so by knowing a similar language (so we would need to determine which languages are similar to eachother).
5) There might an increase DC for knowing a lot of languages in advance, not realistic, but it might help keep the system relevant for characters with a high linguistics score.

Alternatively, it might be done as crafting. Requiring a specific number of successes based on the DCs, over an extended period of time. This would surely make a more realistic in terms of learning time, but the game need significant portions of downtime if is is going to be useful (just like the crafting system.

It could look something like this:
1) The linguistics skill determines you aptitude for learning languages, and sets the limit of how many languages you can learn (possibly lower than 1 to 1, but idk).
2) Each language has a base DC to learn based on complexity (assuming you are humanoid),...

Its so convoluted.... I LOVE IT.

I'm gonna try my idea first, then I'm going to try to cram yours through my players skulls. If no one drops dead from a hemmorage, we have a winner.

In current rules, players begin play with as many languages as they have intelligence modifiers, and gain more later on, not by studying them, but by tripping over them. In comparison, how many languages are you fluent in in meatspace? And how suddenly does comprehension of entire languages come to you?

A realistic suggestion is to play languages as skills. Figuring out a language you do not know is perhaps a DC 20 skill check plus your ranks in the given language plus Intelligence. Maybe make a feat where you can substitute you Charisma for this check instead of Intelligence (or Dex if you're one of those guys who talk with their hands. Lol). When you reach 20 ranks, you become fluent and you dont have to roll.

An optional idea is to include a language like latin. No one speaks it, but taking it lets you add half your Latin bonus to checks for all other romance languages.

Seems legit?

Best part about the Active Defense Rolls suggested above is that if they bog down gameplay too much, you can just use the normal rules by 'taking 10' on your Defense Roll.

My group was especially happy with the critical defense AoO's, which is kinda like what you're looking for in a parry system.

I had a similar idea and came up with this: basically, at the start of each day, a player can pray for specific "blessings". These blessings are passive, acting all day, and grant subtle bonuses, like a +1 to perception, or a +2 to Slight of Hand, or a +2 against Fear checks. A player can have as many active prayers in a day as they have Wisdom modifiers.

I like that idea a lot. Ill have to try that. :D

Leonardo Trancoso wrote:

Max HP for players and monsters

I see the Hit Points as a specific component of a character's class design. They get maximum Hit Points because if they did not, their particular class choice would be penalized. Besides, it is also very mean spirited to penalize someone just because they rolled crappy when the character leveled up. They forever bear the mark of that single die roll.

Before someone asks, I prefer point-buy for attributes for the same reasons. A person can either roll really good or really bad, or just plain average, and it has a long-term effect.

A houserule we use is to re-roll all your Hit Die at the start of a new day, adding bonuses or penalties for things like where you slept, how well you ate last, sleeping in armor, that kind of thing. That way, a low roll doesnt screw you for life, and you can blame it on a bad nights rest.

Honestly, it seems like you've failed at your own goal. You're attempting to design a classless system, and instead you're using occupations, which is really just a broader sense of a class.

If you really want a classless system, then go totally classless. Let the players create their characters by purchasing whatever abilities, and then let them decide what their occupation was/is.

If you want to tie certain abilities together so that it is easier to focus on certain aspects, it can be done with packages of abilities instead of occupations.

Really good points. Ideally, though, these professions are meant to be no more than just packages of abilities, like you said. The key difference between the jobs and classes is that the occupations don't level up with you. And theres nothing saying you can't implement a skip-the-fluff system that lets you simply build a jobless character. :D

I was also considering Athlete as a tenth occupation, but that could fit under Entertainer. Thoughts?

I like it! Makes more sense to have a woodsy guy with spear and net skills than dual swords like the ranger. You ever see someone chase down a deer with swords?

And syntax aside, I know exactly what you meant by Natural Traps. :)

So I've been dinking around with classless systems, where skills and feats are bought a-la-carte, and I came up with an idea that I'm sure has been done somewhere else: Occupations.

Basically, you pick from 9 broad occupations, that determine various crap at the start of the game (the amount of skill points you have in a given area, feats, starting gear, starting gold). After that you narrow it down to what exactly you do in your occupation (You're not just a Craftsman, but a Blacksmith), and you have a nice and neat package of feats, skills, gear, and gold to start the game with.

The 9 Occupations are:

Lawman
Military
Clergy
Craftsman
Hermit
Alumni
Outlaw
Elite
Entertainer

The appeal, to me at least, is that none are strictly related to any single class- Military could mean anything from Chaplain to Sniper to Battle Mage. Instead, they offer various degrees of broadness and specializations, a neat way to determine starting gear and gold, and great for role play.

This idea is still in the womb, so I haven't really fleshed out the stats, just general ideas of what occupation should have more of this or that than the other, which is why I was hoping to get some feedback or ideas from you guys. Tell me what ya think! :D

I know what you're thinking. Say whaaaa? I get an extra attack at just a -5 at the bare minimum? Why wouldn't everyone just dual wield something? And that's where a good DM would create more scenarios where the players miss having a free hand and encourage combat maneuvers. Also, the enemies are able to do the same, so a shield would save your bacon more than the extra damage would. Unless I'm totally missing something. Lol.