Weapon Speeds


Combat & Magic


I would like to see a return of weapon speeds, in second ED there was a good reason to get a short sword or a dagger, in 3rd ED there's really no reason to take any weapon smaller then a long sword or rapier, nor is there a great reason to select a great axe over the great sword other then crit mod and 1 dice vs 2 die the damage range is still the same.

So if its possible I would like to see something along those lines returned or a similar mechanic that made weapon choices more then "OK whats going to give me the greatest damage range and best crit modifier".

Any thoughts?


While weapon speeds are a realistic mechanic that I would enjoy, methinks they just add complexity to the game.


B.T. wrote:
While weapon speeds are a realistic mechanic that I would enjoy, methinks they just add complexity to the game.

Depends how it's handled I guess

Big heavy weapons have .5X the iterative attacks, light weapons (daggers) like weapons have 1.5X, middle of the road have 1X

Buuuuut, what do I know, probably gimps fighter and favors rogues, so I should be ignored ^_^;


I actually just posted some musings on this in my Thoughts from another system - Suzerain thread. I do think a workable system could be created to incorporate weapon speeds (and speeds for other actions) for d20. However, I'm not sure those would be something core to Pathfinder RPG...


Thats what I was thinking as well, it would be nice, but luikely not feasable for this gaming system, and Rogues will almost always be better then Fighters IMO, so no worries there ;)

Maybe this is just hopeful dreaming on my part but it was something I liked about 2nd ED and was thinking it would be nice to bring over if possable.

I was thinking of something along the lines of the way it was done in 2E, with a modifier to Inititave based on the weapon used, but that would modify almost every round if someone kept switching between weapons. Anyway, Ill keep thinking about this and I might come up with something to submit and see what people think about it.

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Well, I wouldn't suggest it for a Pathfinder RPG thing, but if you want to house rule it, here's what I would do ...

- If you draw a light weapon, you move up +2 on the Initiative Track
- If you draw a two-handed weapon, you move down -2 on the Initiative Track.

Done.


Tivfus Ardwynor wrote:
I was thinking of something along the lines of the way it was done in 2E, with a modifier to Inititave based on the weapon used, but that would modify almost every round if someone kept switching between weapons. Anyway, Ill keep thinking about this and I might come up with something to submit and see what people think about it.

This has been discussed many times since 3.0 came out. There is no good solution. Because of the cyclic nature of initiative, weapon speed is a non-issue. It only factors in if you roll initiative every round, like in the old days.

Same thing with Improved Initiative. I sometimes waste that feat on an NPC, but never on a PC. It's a slight gain to maybe go first on the first round, then moot after that. OTOH, if you're rolling every round it really becomes an advantage.

The only other thing to do in the current system is cycle initiative throughout the round, so if you have a slow weapon you move downward each round until you drop below 1 and have a round with no actions, then start again at 20. Same with fast weapons, where you cycle up, then when you beat 20 you get an extra action at the end of that round and start again at 1 the following round.

The issue here is the massive amount of book-keeping that really becomes incumbent upon the Players, but it's a terrible pain for the DM with a large number of enemies in an encounter, unless you have some automated way of tracking it, and I hate bringing my laptop to the game table.

Much as I loves 2nd Ed. weapon speed modifiers, in 3rd Edition I put them to bed. Now Crit-ranges and multipliers, Reach and other factors have to differentiate weapon choices.

Rez

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Radiun wrote:
B.T. wrote:
While weapon speeds are a realistic mechanic that I would enjoy, methinks they just add complexity to the game.

Depends how it's handled I guess

Big heavy weapons have .5X the iterative attacks, light weapons (daggers) like weapons have 1.5X, middle of the road have 1X

Buuuuut, what do I know, probably gimps fighter and favors rogues, so I should be ignored ^_^;

Scarred Lands setting had an optional Weapon Speeds rule that broke weapons down into Fast (daggers, etc), Medium (longsword, mace, battleaxe) and Slow (polearms, greatswords). Medium speed weapons used the normal rules. Fast weapons had an Iterative factor of 4, Slow weapons had an iterative factor of 6.

So a 12th level Fighter with a Longsword would go +12/+7/+2 while the same fighter with a Dagger would go +12/+8/+4 and with a Halberd he'd go +12/+6.

Seemed like not enough oomph for the extra work, so I never really used it, even 'though I ran a Scarred Lands game for a few years.

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