With all the recent debate on handedness/TWF/THF, I hope an eventual pathfinder 2 just drops it. I hope they make something like this instead:
You have two (physical) hands that work like the magic item slots, basically. Two-handed weapons occupy two physical hands to wield. One-handed weapons occupy one hand. Nonhanded weapons occupy no hands to wield. You always wield your unarmed strikes. The "light" weapon category disappears completely, but the weapons currently in it get a "finesse" trait that works like what rapiers have.
Then in combat, instead of having two-weapon fighting, different bonuses depending on how you hold the weapon etc, and instead have this:
Strike: Select one weapon you wield. Make either one attack as a standard action or your full iterative attacks as a full-round action. Add your strength bonus to damage.
Heavy strike: Select one weapon you wield. Make either one attack as a standard action or your full iterative attacks as a full-round action. Add your 1.5 times your strength bonus to damage. You do not gain a bonus for wielding a shield for this round.
Double strike: Select two weapons you wield. Make either one attack each with these as a standard weapon, or one attack per weapon for every iterative attack you have as a full-round action. You take a -4 penalty on these attack rolls, and do not gain a bonus for wielding a shield for this round.
And simply have the feat two-weapon fighting reduce the penalty from -4 to -2.
This way, handedness only affects what weapons you can wield, and have no effect at all of what the weapons do. Hands are tied directly to physical hands, and a lot of unnecessary, balancewise meaningless restrictions are gone.
Some addtional rules would be needed for entities with an unusual number of arms, and of course the language would be different, but I think an approach similar to this would be far better than the current one.
so is heavy strike supposed to replace the the normal strength rules for two handed weapons, or is this for one handed weapons only?
so is heavy strike supposed to replace the the normal strength rules for two handed weapons, or is this for one handed weapons only?
It's meant to "replace" it sorta, yeah. "handedness", or the number of hand slots a weapon would occupy, has no effect whatsoever on it's usage in combat with this system.
So as long as you don't wield a shield, there's no real reason to use the regular "strike". But for the attacks, it doesn't matter whether you're using a greatsword or a dagger or a kick or armor spikes or whatever (except of course for individual weapon statistics in terms of damage, crit chance etc); the strength bonus and number of attacks is the same regardless.
I think I like that, if only to see less falchions in builds.
So doing a "double strike" with two katanas is the same as doing it with two daggers, or with a katana and a dagger? Talk about unintuitive...
So doing a "double strike" with two katanas is the same as doing it with two daggers, or with a katana and a dagger? Talk about unintuitive...
If you have four hands or can wield them in one hand, it's the same except for weapons damage, yes. How is that unintuitive? I mean it's a change from the current system, but it's much simpler (as in, fewer variables and parameters to adjust to).
Of course, individual weapons may have to be rebalanced a bit - this was just a quick draft on how to make the rules themselves more clear and simple. You are right that this makes light weapons less preferable in two-weapon fighting scenarios, but they also lose the drawback of not being able to get 1.5*str.
...katana are a bad example anyway, since only one class grants it as an exotic proficiency (unless there is a diety somewhere that has it as a favorite weapon), although the same point could apply to long swords...daggers would still be good for dex builds though.
Daggers are on the other hand the no doubt best light simple weapon (and among the best light simple or martial weapons too).
But yeah, some balance changes would be needed - as said, this is something I hope will be in an eventual next edition of pathfinder, not something you can just slap on the game as it is.
I used katana instead of long sword (assuming exotic proficiency) simply to drive home how confusing it would be to use two big, large swords as easily as one uses two daggers. Maybe longsword would be better.
This isn't a balance issue per se. It's a world continuity/intuition issue. Why do we have the iconic fantasy image of dual-wielding small weapons if there is no difference between small and large weapons?
Well we do have iconic fantasy images of dual-wielding large weapons too (see for example diablo barbarian imagery, or drizzt, etc), but I see what you mean. I think it's a case of weapon balance in between the weapons. But yes, mechanics could be used to differentiate that - for example, if the Finesse trait were given to all weapons that are now light weapons, and allowed one to use dex to attack rolls without spending a feat, that would make them preferable. Especially in a TWF context as the two-weapon fighting feat has a dexterity prerequisite.
But that's more in the details of implementation; the concept of separating handedness from combat actions was my main point with the thread.