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I simply separate them by culture.
Western and Eastern weapons. And let the player choose, by selecting a trait, which of them he wants. The default culture is western on my games, so he can pick a trait to swap that.Simple weapons are simple for everybody equally.
The western martial weapons become exotic with the trait, and the eastern martial weapons become regular martial weapons.
What good does that do, exactly?
Under your system, any character who really wants to fight with 'eastern' weapons can, without paying a cost. And the same for 'western' weapons. Why not just put them in the big Martial pool?
Separating them by culture makes little sense, because I have a hard time imagining that someone who knows how to use a longsword, greatsword, short sword, bastard sword (2-handed), scimitar, falchion, rapier, and dagger couldn't figure out how to use a katana. Or arguing over which swords are western and which are eastern. Or what to do with 'racial' weapons like dogslicers, and ogre hooks. Or what to do with a character that comes from the area between the 'East' and 'West' (i.e. the 'Middle East') Or weapons that are less 'exotic' and more 'ancient', like the khopesh or trident.
Yeah, separating by culture alone is a bad idea. However, with weapon groups, its possible to have cuturally colored weapon groups, which is nice for more meaningful use of some weapons. A blowpipe doesnt really fit with any other group mechanically, but maybe theyre used by jugle living kobolds, so you have a jubgle kobold weapon group that contains blowpipe, shortbow, spear andshortspear, net, and whatevetr elseweapons you feel fit.
Wait a minute. Let me get this straight: you decided that the scythe needed to be a weaker weapon and the falchion needed to be a better weapon?The scythe is a weaker weapon when used with Simple proficiency. The falchion is a better weapon when used with Exotic proficiency. Because every weapon ranges from not good to standard to better, based on your level of proficiency with said weapon, not solely based on the weapon itself.
The scythe is a weaker weapon when it has only the martial weapon bit (x3 crit only). It becomes the normal scythe only with exotic weapon proficiency. And the ability to improve one's proficiency with the falchion later makes it a more attractive option than it already was (and the falchion was probably the best two-handed martial weapon already).
Looking back to the original post, my question is: what exactly is broken/doesn't work right that we are trying to fix? Are we trying to make weapons make sense with regards to real life? Are we trying to make weapons make sense with regards to the existing system? Are we trying to come up with a consistent approach to weapons? What are we trying to do?
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These are the things I was trying to fix:
1) Exotic weapons really cover two things: Culturally 'exotic' weapons and 'weapons that go up to 11'. One of those need a feat, the other doesn't.
2) Ranged weapons seem sorted according to a whole different level of complexity compared to melee weapons (a crossbow is more complicated to use than a pointy stick.) A secondary concern of this is the ubiquity of the longbow and making other ranged weapons more relevant.
3) Blanket proficiencies make no sense from a simulationist perspective. Inversely, weapon feats applying to single weapons, regardless of similiarity, are oddly anti-gamist by restricting what types of captured/found gear a character will be interested in. It's oddly schizophrenic of the game to simultaneously say 'you can use any of these weapons, but you basically only want to use one of these weapons'.
On some level I am okay with players limiting themselves to a specific type of weapon. In fact, I'd greatly prefer if the players stick with a single weapon and merely keep in enhancing it (I allow players to "repair" a normal weapon and make it masterwork). There is something inspiring about someone that still has the same sword they had at first level when they are 15th level and it has become a weapon of legend.
One thing to note about feats, in 3ed, weapon finesse had to be with a specific weapon (monkey grip was another feat like this iirc, but it isn't OGC). This was changed in 3.5 to be used with any finessable weapon that the character used. So changing some feats that originally only applied to a specific type of weapon to covering groups of weapons does have precedent.
These are changes I would make
1) Introduce a trait that grants proficiency in a single exotic weapon. Thematically, this makes sense because most exotic weapons exist for flavor or background for the character. Mechanically, this works because traits are valuable, but not as valuable as a feat.
2) Introduce a trait that grants proficiency in X amount of martial weapons.
3) Exotic Weapon Proficiency applies to X amount of exotic weapons.
4) Martial Weapon Proficiency applies to an entire weapon group.
5) Feats that apply to a single weapon now apply to a weapon group.
6) Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus work differently. You still choose only one weapon, but you receive the +1 bonus when wielding any weapon from the same group as that weapon. If the weapon belongs to multiple groups, you have to choose one of them. In addition to the attack roll bonus, your selected weapon also receives another benefit depending on its weapon group.
For example, let's say I choose Weapon Focus (longsword) and choose heavy blades. I get a +1 when wielding heavy blades. If I wield a longsword, I also get +1 damage if I wield it with two hands, which is a boon specific to focusing in a heavy blade.
7) Monks gain a static list of weapons as well as all monk simple weapons and monk martial weapons.
I like your idea of making class weapon proficiencies based on weapon groups, though that could create some problems and unintentionally bar character concepts. I kind of wish spell lists worked this way. I hate how they have to make a new spell list for each new class and each spell has to have its description modified to allow for them. I'd rather there be an "arcane spell list" and a "divine spell list" and each class draws from a subset of one or each list with a few class-unique spells.