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So let's get a couple disclaimers out of the way.
- I was always going to be biased against a weapons table that has "longsword" and "bastard sword" as two separate weapons or an armor table that make biker gear the preferred armor compared to gambeson. It's not fair, but those are also annoying cliches.
- This is one of the first places I turned to in the book. I hate gear porn in games as a design philosophy, but it's something I generally enjoy looking at. There may be context that I am missing here.
The weapons table
Before I nitpick, I'd like to propose a larger change. Instead of separating weapons by Common/Simple-Martial , Uncommon/Simple-Martial-Exotic, I'd separate them first by category. Something that that looked much more like this in form but obviously not in style
That isn't an ideal solution, but that's partly because there are categories that seem to serve one weapon. Brawling is just variation of fist, hammers are just variants of the warhammer, picks are just variants of the pick. At least for myself, I find it an easier way to find the weapon I'm looking for than having to divine which proficiency a weapon is in.
That larger formatting suggestion out of the way, let's get to the petty nitpicks.
- Why are Bastard Swords only piercing damage? Are they a giant rapier? What?
- What is this? I'll let it slide that Katana are listed as a 1 handed weapon even though they aren't. However, Versatile P is absurd. They're a single edged sword. Oh also they're just a longsword that costs twice a much.
- There are too many polearms and too many knives. There are 6 different knives that deal 1d4 P damage. I understand that weapon traits make them different, but I don't care.
- In an edition where you want to simplify the game, having 31 weapon traits and 13 critical effects to consider for your weapon choice in addition to damage and cost and bulk maybe isn't they way to go. Many are repeats or do useful things, but it still feels overly complicated
- On cost: Don't have things priced 2, or 7, or 12, or 18 or 23. Just make it 1, 5, 10, 20, 25, etc. Some stuff needs to cost Copper. Fine. The math doesn't need to be this granular because weapons shouldn't be balanced by their base item silver piece cost. And this doesn't just make the initial purchasing of gear easier, it makes the bulk sales of weapons or bulk purchases that can occur after scavenging and bunch of thieves easier later on as well.
- Can we finally just call the Longspear a Pike?
I like a lot of flavorful weapons being moved out of the exotic category, though. That's nice.
The armor table
Why is it that the most expensive armors in each category are also the ones that have the negative traits? It's not for th sake of "realism" because otherwise all the heavy armor would also be noisy, and so would scale mail. Instead Chain shirts and Chainmail just have a detriment on them for some reason. I honestly don't understand how breastplate makes someone "clumsy" when chain mail and half plate don't. I'm not going to quibble over outdated the trope of armor being horribly clumsy or severely limiting, and I won't deny it should have some impact on the person's ability to swim and run or sneak around. However, that I can't seem to get rid of the trait my making the armor made of magical mithril or specifically tailored to my character's body is dumb.
[sarcasm]One thing I'm glad to see hasn't changed is Full Plate continuing to be overpriced garbage for the experienced adventurer. In previous versions of the game it was because the maximum dexterity bonus was so low that many character would accidentally eclipse it and gain the same overall armor rating and more valuable touch AC by switching to cheaper armor. Now we don't even have to wait to get a significant dexterity. We can just use Half plate from the word go! What wonderful efficiency[/sarcasm]
More seriously, though. Half plate has the same maximum armor value of 7, costs less, has the same TAC bonus, has a lower check penalty, weighs less, and doesn't have a negative trait like very other armor in its range. The lack of clumsy could be an editing error. In that case, just use splint mail which even cheaper and thus better than half-plate.
Can't the best stuff in each class off armor just be the best stuff in each class of armor?
I'll repeat the disclaimers again. I might be missing something here that will become apparent when I play it. I do plan to properly playtest the game with some experienced PF 1e/3.5 players once we've wrapped up our Divinity 2 Co Op campaign in a weekend or two.
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More seriously, though. Half plate has the same maximum armor value of 7, costs less, has the same TAC bonus, has a lower check penalty, weighs less, and doesn't have a negative trait like very other armor in its range. The lack of clumsy could be an editing error. In that case, just use splint mail which even cheaper and thus better than half-plate.
This is the astonishing part to me – if you have 14 DEX, Splint Mail is the end-all best heavy armor out there. Clumsy doesn't affect you at all and you get less ACP.
Something's f%#$y.
More seriously, though. Half plate has the same maximum armor value of 7, costs less, has the same TAC bonus, has a lower check penalty, weighs less, and doesn't have a negative trait like very other armor in its range. The lack of clumsy could be an editing error. In that case, just use splint mail which even cheaper and thus better than half-plate.This is the astonishing part to me – if you have 14 DEX, Splint Mail is the end-all best heavy armor out there. Clumsy doesn't affect you at all and you get less ACP.
Something's f+~!y.
Half plate is better, the clumsy trait is way worse than a single ACP. I do agree that the full plate is underwhelming compared to the half.
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Half plate is better, the clumsy trait is way worse than a single ACP. I do agree that the full plate is underwhelming compared to the half.More seriously, though. Half plate has the same maximum armor value of 7, costs less, has the same TAC bonus, has a lower check penalty, weighs less, and doesn't have a negative trait like very other armor in its range. The lack of clumsy could be an editing error. In that case, just use splint mail which even cheaper and thus better than half-plate.This is the astonishing part to me – if you have 14 DEX, Splint Mail is the end-all best heavy armor out there. Clumsy doesn't affect you at all and you get less ACP.
Something's f+~!y.
What's so bad about Clumsy?
"This armor’s Dexterity modifier cap also applies to Reflex
saves and to all Dexterity-based skill and ability checks that
don’t have the attack trait."
If I have DEX 14, it's not changing anything about my Reflex saves or skills. Having better proficiencies can compensate for having lower ability bonus.
I stand corrected, if you have no more than 14 dex clumsy is irrelevant, while the extra ACP hurt.
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I hate the weapon table.
Also, what is this fetish with d4.
It's not a dice, it does not roll.
20 out of 84 weapons are d4?!
ffs!
Also where are 2d6 or 2d8 weapons?
Now that 2handers do not get +1.5 str mod on damage, raise the damage dice.
Also put d6 as minimum damage dice except some few useless simple weapons.
Did I say I hate d4?
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I hate the weapon table.
Also, what is this fetish with d4.
It's not a dice, it does not roll.
20 out of 84 weapons are d4?!
ffs!
Also where are 2d6 or 2d8 weapons?
Now that 2handers do not get +1.5 str mod on damage, raise the damage dice.
Also put d6 as minimum damage dice except some few useless simple weapons.
Did I say I hate d4?
No, could you say it again, a little louder this time?
I hate the weapon table.
Also, what is this fetish with d4.
It's not a dice, it does not roll.
20 out of 84 weapons are d4?!
ffs!
Also where are 2d6 or 2d8 weapons?
Now that 2handers do not get +1.5 str mod on damage, raise the damage dice.
Also put d6 as minimum damage dice except some few useless simple weapons.
Did I say I hate d4?
There aren't any of those weapons because of the way certain features work with adding extra damage dice.
There aren't any of those weapons because of the way certain features work with adding extra damage dice.
Maybe... but a half-point difference in average damage-per-increment is negligible (the actual difference between rolling 1d6 vs. 2d3, or 1d12 vs, 2d6. The two-handed weapons could have all used double dice (giving them a higher minimum damage). It wouldn't really have affected much, we'll still be rolling piles-o-dice at high levels.
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...
- Why are Bastard Swords only piercing damage? Are they a giant rapier? What?
- What is this? I'll let it slide that Katana are listed as a 1 handed weapon even though they aren't. However, Versatile P is absurd. They're a single edged sword. Oh also they're just a longsword that costs twice a much.
- There are too many polearms and too many knives. There are 6 different knives that deal 1d4 P damage. I understand that weapon traits make them different, but I don't care.
- In an edition where you want to simplify the game, having 31 weapon traits and 13 critical effects to consider for your weapon choice in addition to damage and cost and bulk maybe
-I had the same thoughts about the Bastard Sword, especially when other swords of similar shape and use (Shortsword, Longsword, Greatsword) were all listed with versatility. Hopefully this was an oversight, especially since it costs more than buying a longsword and a greatsword combined. Also of note, but confirmed excluded due to balance issues, is the lack of versatility B, but I hope that a feat is added that allows for that (like the old weapon versatility).
-Katanas make no sense here, either for being one-handed (though I have seen them used like this it is not the way they are supposed to be used), or the piercing when almost every other single-edge sword (falchions and scmitars for example)lacks the versatility trait. The cost is a kicker too, just buy a longsword and handwave it. Added up, it is the opposite problem of the bastard sword above.
-I agree on the polearms and knives. Another issue, as someone else pointed out, the Kukri should have Deadly or Fatal, NOT Trip. Gurkhas don't use them to trip anyone; hack them dead in one blow yes, trip no.
-Agree on the simplification of the traits. Deadly and Fatal, seen above, have almost identical applications. Roll the redundant traits into one trait and get rid of the chaff.
-Costs I can live with, unless they don't make sense (see Bastard Sword and Katana above).
-Longspear = Pike, ok...I can buy that...
There aren't any of those weapons because of the way certain features work with adding extra damage dice.I hate the weapon table.
Also, what is this fetish with d4.
It's not a dice, it does not roll.
20 out of 84 weapons are d4?!
ffs!
Also where are 2d6 or 2d8 weapons?
Now that 2handers do not get +1.5 str mod on damage, raise the damage dice.
Also put d6 as minimum damage dice except some few useless simple weapons.
Did I say I hate d4?
I realize that.
But they buffed up HP and AC and dumped the damage in the basement.
Not all revolves around magic weapons.
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Seriously f&!! d4
I also hate that there are feats which improe basically all simple weapons but the martial weapons with a d4 stay sucky
and why put so many d4 in and suddenly make the kukri d6?
no i don't want more d4 weapons I just dont get why
d4 is also bad for magic weapons because it multiples 1) the LACK of damage and 2) these a#%$~~~s one has to throw that just slide over the table and dont roll at all
d4 make nice caltrops, they should do d4 damage and nothing else
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It's not a rules change, but there are alternative d4 designs that actually roll.
Crystal caste d4s are long dice, kind of like an elongated d6 with the ends so they can't be landed on. They roll well, and you can get 10 packs if you scroll down for $9.80.
These look odd but promise to roll.
These are twelve-siders labeled 1-4 three times I've seen Hmm praising them elsewhere.
There's these from Q-Workshop a bit decorative.
Chessex has an eight-sider labeled 1-4 twice They don't have a picture on their page though.
Another d8 labeled 1-4 twice
And finally this Kickstarter just ended, but they might be showing up on the maker's page when they're completed.
There's almost certainly others out there, but this is what I've found after a quick look and some memory. I'd probably just get a pack of the Crystal caste ones, those look to be the most cost effective for getting multiples, and I've handled them before.
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Monk attacks are also nonlethal. Apart from leaving a lot of prisoners or survivors, this basically has no effect. (Beating a skeleton unconscious is perfectly viable, and destroys them).
Animal totem barbarians are awful, partly for their overly punishing restriction. They're designed not to be able to contribute at all when archers are over there or flying creatures exist.
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The big problem with this weapon chart is most of these weapons are... bad.
Almost all characters have a choice about weapons, and there is not reason to take a smaller damage number, especially as you level.
Finesse: take a d6 weapon.
One hander: take a d8 weapon
Two hander: take a d12 weapon.
Since magic weapons give you more damage dice of the same type, taking smaller damage dice weapons gets more punishing as you go along, and a lot of the traits are marginal at best. Picking a smaller damage die weapon is just going to get more and more punishing over time.
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For armor, with the limited math, the check penalties are horribly punishing (far more than the +1 difference in AC and maybe TAC that you have to give up). This is especially apparent for low level characters- pop any pregen in medium armor or above and their bonuses with athletics, stealth and acrobatics vanish.
The armor table also looks like it was churned out an equation, rather than reflect the armors in any way. Everything is tweaked so AC+TAC+Dex cap equals out to the same point when off set by check and speed penalties. It produced really ugly results.
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Shield hardness really must be part of their table, not in a sorta nearby paragraph for reference. The Sturdy Shield magic item also reflects a significant difference in light/heavy shields hardness (2 points) which either doesn't exist for shields, or the difference isn't mentioned.
The materials/crafting sections also need to be clear if shields are supposed to use the 'thin' values or not.
I hate the weapon table.
Also, what is this fetish with d4.
It's not a dice, it does not roll.
20 out of 84 weapons are d4?!
ffs!
Also where are 2d6 or 2d8 weapons?
Now that 2handers do not get +1.5 str mod on damage, raise the damage dice.
Also put d6 as minimum damage dice except some few useless simple weapons.
Did I say I hate d4?
Multiple base dice weapons (I.e. Two handed swords in PF 1) are not compatible with the new magic weapon rules
Celestial Armor is one of the best armors now for a speed based build. It starts as +2 chain mail that does not hurt your speed. The armor is only expert so can be up graded to master and then legendary. Since it is possible to upgrade items now.
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My biggest armor gripe is that everyone seems to be wearing studded leather. It's hands down the best light armor and out of three characters made so far--a bard, alchemist and rogue, light armor is pretty much the only game in town.
It's just boring.
Isn't this edition supposed to be about emulating the fun of the Golarion setting and tying it more to the mechanics? Looking at the artwork there seems to be all sorts of crazy types of armor in the world. Look at the iconics! They all look rad in their cool armor. What is that stuff? I want my characters to get some of that. That's what gets me excited.
If the rules here dictated the artwork then most of the iconics would be wearing Merisiel's armor and they'd all look blandly the same.
Maybe we gravitate away from the D&D staple armor types? Maybe we throw in a bunch of armor modifiers like culture, race and materials that you can add to a base kind of armor to make them seem more distinct visually and mechanically so characters can feel a bit unique?
5e has a table for magic items in the DMG--somewhat of a throwaway but they devote pages to it, where they talk about where it was made, by whom, in what era, for what purpose, etc. It doesn't go anywhere, but it's a really interesting kernel of an idea: How is Taldoran armor different from Osirion armor? How is dwarven armor different from halfling armor? How is castle forged armor different from armor from a monestary or a pirate seaport? Add a couple of those together and you have something that starts to feel unique.
The playtest probably isn't the place to write up anything like that, but it's something to think about when the final version comes around. People want their characters to feel and look special. They want weapons and armor that advance that notion at least as much as they want mechanical optimization--at least that's the take from our small sample of gamers.
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Isn't this edition supposed to be about emulating the fun of the Golarion setting and tying it more to the mechanics?
Beyond numerical things, this.
I think we could do with crazy mundane armors with weird modifiers, like armors that help you climb or swim better, armors that can allow you to glide, armors that come with hidden utilities, and such.
And they don't need to be magic, just cool things people make.
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I'm not sure why they decided bastard swords are giant rapiers (or why they think they need to continue the bastard sword, longsword, greatsword trope when in real life all three of these weapons are the same weapon).
You can thrust with a katana. While making them one handed makes no sense considering they're not balanced weapons. But, you can definitely thrust with them, the thrust is a pretty basic technique. Though unless the sword has a weird design you should be able to thrust with them.
As for the comment about no knife having backstabber. What the hell does it even mean for a weapon to be a backstabber weapon? Like what is the defining trait for that. Agile seems to be small weapons. Finesse seems to be light weapons. Parry seems to be basket hilt weapons. Just feels like a quality they threw in for the sake of having such a quality.
Oh, and the way it reads. The Elven Sword and the Katana should just be the same weapon. 2 handed d8 with Momentum (not that I'm sure what Momentum even means, sounds like another quality created just because, unless that's suppose to be like a mercury sword or something).
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Isn't this edition supposed to be about emulating the fun of the Golarion setting and tying it more to the mechanics?
Beyond numerical things, this.
I think we could do with crazy mundane armors with weird modifiers, like armors that help you climb or swim better, armors that can allow you to glide, armors that come with hidden utilities, and such.
And they don't need to be magic, just cool things people make.
They had a good start in Merchant's Manifest 2 with all the extra stuff you could throw onto armor, just start taking some of those ideas and expand it out. Maybe throw in the custom weapon creation rules as well, people could get some mileage out of making a spear which can also be disassembled into a Climber's Kit or a weaponized crowbar.
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I'm not sure why they decided bastard swords are giant rapiers (or why they think they need to continue the bastard sword, longsword, greatsword trope when in real life all three of these weapons are the same weapon).
I think the P only is a typo. But as written could be a decent estoc. It might be a good idea to either lower it's Two-hand damage to a d10 or give greatswords a trait like Deadly or Forceful to help differentiate them.
Sorry to degrade into a pedantic rant, but I've got to disagree with the second statement. They most certainly were separate things, although names can be debated and can confuse things. Longsword covers all the straight, one handed swords that aren't really short (such as medieval European arming swords but also ones from other cultures like the straight middle eastern blades, African swords like the kaskara and takoba, Asian swords like the jian, as well as earlier swords like the Viking and migration era swords and Roman spatha etc). Bastard swords cover the intermediate length swords popular in the later medieval period that were mostly used two-handed but perfectly capable of being used one handed (HEMA practitioners and I believe weapon historians normally use the term Longsword to refer to these, sometimes bastard sword is used to refer to a sub-type with a shorter hilt). Greatsword represents the really big purely two-handed swords of the Renaissance like the Spanish Montante, German Zweihander and Italian Spadone. These were bigger, up to 7 feet long total and often had a secondary guard on the blade for half-swording. There were also purely ceremonial Bearing Swords that were just big oversized and overweight swords that are sometimes mistaken for these, but weren't intended for combat.
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I guess this is as good a place as any for me to put in my two cents on the weapons list and potential fixes. I do come from a point of view as a probably overly pedantic weapons geek (as shown above) so that likely flavors my opinions.
- Spears are one handed now. WOO! Now sword and shield is possible, which was really common throughout history and cultures. But perhaps a Two-hand d8 trait would be helpful. One handing was common, but so was using them in two if you din't have a shield.
- Morningstar having versatile P doesn't make a lot of sense. It's hard not to do piercing damage with them, they've got big ol' spikes coming off of it. But it looks like they're trying to go with single damage types for some reason instead of anything that does both at once. Maybe it could be a new item trait? Something like Spikey that says you treat it as both P and B on any hit. Or it could just have piercing as it's damage type.
- Bo staff is weird. Why not include quarterstaff but have Bo instead? They should be the same weapon, they're just a roughly 6 foot stick after-all, but it's weird to have the Okinawan/Japanese version instead of the much more widespread European one. I'd recommend renaming the simple weapon Staff to Short Staff and Bo Staff to Long Staff. And if we get text descriptions of weapons state the Short Staff represents magic staves and walking sticks when used as weapons as well as regional variants like the Japanese Jo, Irish Shillelagh or Zulu Knobkierie. While Long Staff represents things like the European Quarterstaff, Okinawan/Japanese Bo and Chinese Gun.
- Bastard sword covered above, but for completeness sake, make it 1d8 S versatile P, Two-hand d10. If not two-hand d10, give Greatsword some trait to differentiate it.
- Falchion as a two-handed weapon is still weird, they were one-handed. But at this point it's kind of ingrained into the game and I guess I can let it pass. There is design space for a Big ol' Chopper that I'm not sure another name works better with.
- Greatpick is an interesting one. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be like a big spiked polearm or something like a big mining pick. Maybe make it blunt, versatile P and rename it Great-hammer or Pole-hammer to represent things like lucern hammers and pollaxes that have a spike and hammer head instead of an axe blade.
- Hammers and picks in general could possibly be combined as historically they were generally hammers on one side of the head and spike on the other. Although this might be problematic with the fatal trait they're giving to picks to represent the deep penetrating wounds. Those would likely only apply to using it as a piercing weapon and could get confusing. Likewise hove for the hammer head. So leaving them alone isn't too big a deal.
- Hatchet combines handaxe and throwing axe, this is great. No changes, just want to give a thumbs up. I also like the name better, no confusion with the haft-less stone-age hand-axes.
- Lances are underwhelming. Deadly is good, but charge is pretty weak. Maybe have charge give a higher damage bonus if more movement was done, like 30 or 35 feet to represent a horse going flat out, but hard for someone to do on foot. Or just state the higher bonus comes with being mounted. Maybe shift deadly d8 to Fatal d10 when used mounted with the longer movement speed.
- Crossbows are still pretty bad. Slightly bigger damage die than normal bows, but slow and don't get a stat bonus to damage (except with that ranger feat, but they still fall behind because of the reload). I'd like crossbows to be a viable alternative to composite bows, but in different ways not just copies. My preferred version would be to have an effective strength bonus and spanning devices that let you use that bonus like strength for a composite bow. This might be a bit complex though. So alternately give them Deadly or maybe Fatal and maybe a new trait that improves accuracy and possibly damage for aiming. Crossbows did tend to be more accurate, so let them be the slow sniper weapon compared to the bow being a machine-gun. This makes it less one being better than the other and more that they're different tolls for different jobs. It's also strange that crossbows are cheaper than normal bows.
- Composite bows should go away. Just give propulsive to normal bows. There's no reason to use standard bows other than if you're first level and can't afford a real bow, or as cheaper trash-items for mooks. And besides, all bows are strength based, it's not some magical ability of composites. And the famously powerful English Longbow was a single piece of wood, not composite, and it was very hard hitting. Composite would just be a flavor thing.
- Volley seems pretty arbitrary. Longbows can be used perfectly fine in flat-shooting at closer range. 50 feet is pretty far too, I often don't see fights where many people are beyond that range.
- Shortbows probably shouldn't have deadly d10. Combined with Volley it makes shortbows possibly better than longbows except for long-range shooting. Maybe drop that to d8 and give shortbows Agile.
- The Clan Dagger is briefly described in the ancestry section, but with no S, does it lack a cutting edge? And versatile B, is that smacking with the gem in the pommel, or something else?
- I don't see why Kama needs to be it's own thing. It's just a regional sickle. And I'm not sure trip is really a good trait for the two of them. They're rather short, I generally think of something a bit longer with being able to rip.
- Kukri having trip is odd for the same reason.
- Katana is exactly the same as longsword but twice as expensive. If anything it should have the same stats as bastard sword (the corrected one, not the piercing only version as written). They were mostly used two handed.
- Sai aren't knives! They look kind of like them, but they aren't. They're more of a metal club than knife. Make the damage B by default and change versatile to P (they can be sharpened at the tip, but usually weren't). Parry would be a good fit here too because that's one of their main purposes, but that might be overloading it with traits. And disarm does cover some of that ground.
- So many knives. Do we really need them all?
- What exactly is an orc knuckle dagger or orc necksplitter? This is a good reason to include descriptive text, at least for some of the weirder things and made-up items.
- Halfling sling staff is nice to see isn't exotic anymore. I'd probably ditch the Halfling part of the name, but keep the halfling trait. They are a real-world thing and don't need to be the exclusive property of Halflings, even if they are good at using them. Since it has the trait, it doesn't need the name anymore like it did in PF1.
- Those silly double weapons are gone! Woo! Dire Flail may have been the silliest thing in the core book. Hopefully Gnome hooked Hammer will be reimagined to being a hammer with a long hook on the other side of the head, not the butt end.
The rest seems serviceable, although I might be missing something. Maybe I'll do armor later.
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I'm not sure why they decided bastard swords are giant rapiers (or why they think they need to continue the bastard sword, longsword, greatsword trope when in real life all three of these weapons are the same weapon).Sorry to degrade into a pedantic rant, but I've got to disagree with the second statement. They most certainly were separate things, although names can be debated and can confuse things. Longsword covers all the straight, one handed swords that aren't really short (such as medieval European arming swords but also ones from other cultures like the straight middle eastern blades, African swords like the kaskara and takoba, Asian swords like the jian, as well as earlier swords like the Viking and migration era swords and Roman spatha etc). Bastard swords cover the intermediate length swords popular in the later medieval period that were mostly used two-handed but perfectly capable of being used one handed (HEMA practitioners and I believe weapon historians normally use the term Longsword to refer to these, sometimes bastard sword is used to refer to a sub-type with a shorter hilt). Greatsword represents the really big purely two-handed swords of the Renaissance like the Spanish Montante, German Zweihander and Italian Spadone. These were bigger, up to 7 feet long total and often had a secondary guard on the blade for half-swording. There were also purely ceremonial Bearing Swords that were just big oversized and overweight swords that are sometimes mistaken for these, but weren't intended for combat.
Actually, I have several period texts on my shelf and stored on my computer that say otherwise. What is called the longsword in game was often called an "arming sword" or just "sword" (or "sward" depending on the text, Germans often used "swart"). It was occasionally refered to as a longsword, but the swords that fell between the arming sword and true two-handers (called by the Germans "zweihand") were the weapons most commonly called longswords (references being period (read Medieval & Renaissance) sword masters: Ringeck, dei Liberi, Marrozzo, Silver, Tallhoffer, and others).
In fact, Ewart Oakeshott, when he was trying to classify the various types of swords he was comming across, found that period texts were incredibly useless for classifying the various types of sword depicted and the wide variation found within the range of weapons they referred to as "longswords". It was so bad that he had to create his own typology, which is better at defining the type of longsword you have, but is itself incredibly confusing for the layperson.
Much of the confusion surrounding sword terminology can be traced to the 1800s and early museum curators. They were more interested in pleasing their patrons than with historical accuracy. Longsword became used for the arming swords because they were longer than the small-sword which their patrons were familiar with from gentleman duels. The term bastard-sword shows up when they couldn't figure out how to describe the actual longswords, but they saw them as a bastardization between the "longswords" and the "greatswords". Richard F. Burton's book "The Book of the Sword" (1884) helped to spread the misinformation to the masses with the help of fencers of the time (predecessors to today's Olympic Fencers). They also helped to spread to confusion about HOW these weapons were used (all the swords I have mentioned are Slashing/Piercing(through thrusting and half-swording)/Bashing (through use of the murder-stroke) weapons).
Sorry about my rant, but with too much time on my hands, I spend WAY too many hours researching swords in particular, armor, and other medieval aspects of life.
All of that said, I do NOT see the terminology changing with this iteration of the game.
Actually, I have several period texts on my shelf and stored on my computer that say otherwise. What is called the longsword in game was often called an "arming sword" or just "sword" (or "sward" depending on the text, Germans often used "swart"). It was occasionally refered to as a longsword, but the swords that fell between the arming sword and true two-handers (called by the Germans "zweihand") were the weapons most commonly called longswords (references being period (read Medieval & Renaissance) sword masters: Ringeck, dei Liberi, Marrozzo, Silver, Tallhoffer, and others).
Agreed, the names were a big mess. Longsword in particular is a convoluted one, I've mentioned similar info in previous posts I was just saying there was a distinction between one handed swords, really big two-handed swords and ones intended to be used either one or two handed. But I fully agree with everything you said and was trying to state some of that. I might have worded things badly considering your response indicates disagreement.
And yeah, I doubt they'll change, mostly because of inertia of tradition. And suddenly seeing what used to be called a Longsword called an Arming Sword and the name Longsword now applied to what used to be called the Bastard Sword would likely confuse some people. Maybe a good common ground for us pedantic sword nuts and common players would simply be rename Longsword to just Sword and leave the rest. A straight, one-handed cut and thrust sword with a roughly 30 inch blade (give or take) is a pretty universal thing, as I tried to point out in my original post. We've got examples all through the 'Old World' of Europe, Africa and Asia. So just using the generic name Sword would be totally appropriate, leave the more specific names to more specific weapons. I think this is actually what they did way back in old Basic D&D.
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Some Suggestions for Revamping Weapons
Fist is replaced by Unarmed Attack, since it can represent kicks, flying elbows, or even head-butts. It does not require a free hand, unlike conventional weapons. It still only deals 1d4 damage baseline.
Simple weapons deal 1d6 damage if Light, 1d8 if Bulk 1, or 1d12 if Bulk 2.
Martial weapons deal 1d8 damage if Light, 1d10 if Bulk 1, or 2d6+1 if Bulk 2
Light weapons can only be used with one hand.
Bulk 1 weapons can be used with one or two hands. If used in two hands, their damage die is stepped up twice (1d10 for Simple, 2d6 for Martial).
Bulk 2 weapons require two hands. All bows and most crossbows require two hands, with the exception of the Hand Crossbow that (naturally) only requires one.
Creatures below or above Small and Medium treat weapons as having higher or lower Bulk for the purpose of hands required; a Tiny fae creature might need both hands to swing a Mace, while a Troll could wield a greatsword in one hand, but wouldn't be able to even use a Dagger effectively as a weapon since it's the relative size of a toothpick.
Simple Weapons have 1-3 Traits and Marital Weapons have 2-4 Traits. Some Traits are better than others so the more powerful ones count as 2 or even 3 traits. Other traits, like Nonlethal, probably count as 0 and are more for flavour than anything else. In certain cases you could reduce the die size of the weapon by one step to gain an additional Trait, such as with the versatile Main-gauche or Starknife.
Remove Fatal trait (Deadly overlaps too much). I'm considering whether removing the Racial traits would be good; on the one hand it's good for future weapons because you can indicate that they're an Elf weapon or a Dwarven weapon or whatever. On the other hand, if you create a new race (like, say, the Goliath) and they include the Greatclub as an Ancestral Weapon, then you run into problems because it's not listed in the Rulebook as a Goliath weapon.
Forceful might need to be evaluated against the power of a two-handed Martial weapon, but I feel like the extra boost they get is fair. You lose the potential benefits of a shield or dual-wielding when using such weapons, and frankly a huge greatsword or maul is going to build a lot more momentum than a Club by virtue of being a lot heavier.
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Lower damage dice weapons are /incredibly/ punitive at higher levels, with the way magic weapons work.
They can have magic weapons add extra dice, the concept is fine. But standardize it. +1d8 per plus if no-reload projectile or one handed melee/thrown, +1d12 per plus if reloading projectile or two handed melee/thrown, regardless of the base weapon's dice.
Lower damage dice weapons are /incredibly/ punitive at higher levels, with the way magic weapons work.
They can have magic weapons add extra dice, the concept is fine. But standardize it. +1d8 per plus if no-reload projectile or one handed melee/thrown, +1d12 per plus if reloading projectile or two handed melee/thrown, regardless of the base weapon's dice.
Magic really does make the die type much more important. In PF1 the die type wasn't all that important, it was all about your pluses. In PF1 as you add magic, the difference in damage output ratio between die sizes decreases. In PF2 it increases. Your solution makes the ratio go up faster than PF1 if they're both 1 or 2 handed, while it goes up much slower if they're different handedness.
Ratio of d4 vs d12 average damages with +5 strength mod
Base +1 +2 +3 +4 +5
PF1 0.65 0.68 0.70 0.72 0.74 0.76
PF2 0.65 0.56 0.51 0.48 0.47 0.45
FP1 0.65 0.75 0.80 0.84 0.86 0.88
FP2 0.65 0.67 0.67 0.68 0.68 0.68
FP3 0.65 0.78 0.84 0.87 0.89 0.91
FP1 is your method when the d4 is one handed and d12 is two handed
FP2 is your method when the d4 is one handed and d12 is two handed
FP3 is your method when the d4 is two handed and d12 is two handed.
I only checked with d4 and d12 because they're the biggest difference, but I'd think the trend would be similar with other die types. So the difference between a magic dagger and longsword or a magic Bo Staff and magic Greatsword gets smaller with higher pluses, wile the difference between a magic one handed weapon and magic two handed one stays pretty flat.
I'm not sure what is better though. When the die size doesn't matter, you can ignore it and just pick whatever has the best traits, while when it matters a lot there is more distinction between weapons, yet it's very advantageous to go for that bigger die.
What is this? I'll let it slide that Katana are listed as a 1 handed weapon even though they aren't. However, Versatile P is absurd. They're a single edged sword. Oh also they're just a longsword that costs twice a much.
You can stab with a katana and that was the preferred way to use them against well-armored targets. It was historically only used as a slashing weapon against poorly armored opponents, and as a piercing one otherwise.
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Chain mail is noisy.... realy!?! And plate isn't!?!
I think we have different notions about what is noisy and what isn't.
I don't like the fact I have to spend an action to use a shied either....
I don't see the point unless it's to make me use an action, which only leaves me with two.
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So let's get a couple disclaimers out of the way.
- I was always going to be biased against a weapons table that has "longsword" and "bastard sword" as two separate weapons or an armor table that make biker gear the preferred armor compared to gambeson. It's not fair, but those are also annoying cliches.
- This is one of the first places I turned to in the book. I hate gear porn in games as a design philosophy, but it's something I generally enjoy looking at. There may be context that I am missing here.
The weapons table
Before I nitpick, I'd like to propose a larger change. Instead of separating weapons by Common/Simple-Martial , Uncommon/Simple-Martial-Exotic, I'd separate them first by category. Something that that looked much more like this in form but obviously not in style
That isn't an ideal solution, but that's partly because there are categories that seem to serve one weapon. Brawling is just variation of fist, hammers are just variants of the warhammer, picks are just variants of the pick. At least for myself, I find it an easier way to find the weapon I'm looking for than having to divine which proficiency a weapon is in.
That larger formatting suggestion out of the way, let's get to the petty nitpicks.
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- Why are Bastard Swords only piercing damage? Are they a giant rapier? What?
- What is this? I'll let it slide that Katana are listed as a 1 handed weapon even though they aren't. However, Versatile P is absurd. They're a single edged sword. Oh also they're just a longsword that costs twice a much.
- There are too many polearms and too many knives. There are 6 different knives that deal 1d4 P damage. I understand that weapon traits make them different, but I don't care.
- In an edition where you want to simplify the game, having 31 weapon traits and 13 critical effects to consider for your weapon choice in addition to damage and cost and bulk maybe
Yes I think a lot of the weapons have been nerfed! Especially the maces, give them back their damage ability. The mace (or heavy mace) 1d8 damage and the light mace 1d6 damage and light maces can be similar to the light hammer and the mace is like the warhammer but the maces are easier to use. There is to many 1d4 type of damages in the simple weapon group, SERIOUSLY!
I like playing a cleric with a nice heavy hit blunt weapon to knock some sense into the bad guys.
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The armor table really bothers me and contains all the same issues as the current game. The heavy bias against heavier armor is infuriating.
If you are going to penalize people for wearing heavy armor then you need to add absorption. Light armor wearers focusing on dex will once again rule the game. Dex to damage...dex to hit...dex to ac...high reflex saves. The one stat to rule them all!
I feel like the developers think heavy armor acts like those sumo suits you see at the fair. The reality is heavy armor ruled the medieval battle fields for a reason...it was better and could absorb hits.
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The armor table really bothers me and contains all the same issues as the current game. The heavy bias against heavier armor is infuriating.
If you are going to penalize people for wearing heavy armor then you need to add absorption. Light armor wearers focusing on dex will once again rule the game. Dex to damage...dex to hit...dex to ac...high reflex saves. The one stat to rule them all!
I feel like the developers think heavy armor acts like those sumo suits you see at the fair. The reality is heavy armor ruled the medieval battle fields for a reason...it was better and could absorb hits.
Good point: have medium and heavy armor have damage reduction to certain type of damages deal to it.
While we are talking weapons: As a Barbarian (not Animal Totem), wouldn't you practically always go for a two handed d12 weapon, simply because one handed does not appear to ever catch up in damage? Did I miss any potential advantage that one handed weapons have?
You can use a shield (except barbarians aren’t trained but I hope that was an over site). You can use your free hand to cast spells or manipulate tasks or even to hold a lantern. You could hold an agile weapon in your other hand for less penalties on your iterative attacks.
But for a barbarian, I agree, they seem to be the two handed weapon class.
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It's not a rules change, but there are alternative d4 designs that actually roll.
Crystal caste d4s are long dice, kind of like an elongated d6 with the ends so they can't be landed on. They roll well, and you can get 10 packs if you scroll down for $9.80.
These look odd but promise to roll.
These are twelve-siders labeled 1-4 three times I've seen Hmm praising them elsewhere.
There's these from Q-Workshop a bit decorative.
Chessex has an eight-sider labeled 1-4 twice They don't have a picture on their page though.
Another d8 labeled 1-4 twice
And finally this Kickstarter just ended, but they might be showing up on the maker's page when they're completed.There's almost certainly others out there, but this is what I've found after a quick look and some memory. I'd probably just get a pack of the Crystal caste ones, those look to be the most cost effective for getting multiples, and I've handled them before.
Nice list, but let me add the d2/3/4 MultiDice from The Dice Lab at MathArtFun.com. I purchased a pair at a mathematics conference for d3 rolls and sometimes use them for d4 rolls. The 12 numbers on the faces of the rhombic dodecahedrons serve as a d3, the 4 numbers outlined in triangles on some vertices (one such vertex will always be on the top face) serve as a d4, and the 4 numbers outlined in circles on some other vertices serve as a d2.
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I was always going to be biased against a weapons table that has "longsword" and "bastard sword" as two separate weapons or an armor table that make biker gear the preferred armor compared to gambeson. It's not fair, but those are also annoying cliches.
I have to strongly agree with the general sentiment in this thread: The Weapons & Armor tables in PF2e are a mess.
I do like some of the ideas going into the Weapons, giving plenty of traits to make weapons a potentially interesting tactical tool rather than just a damage-die procurement implement. However, it suffers from a combination of old, silly, outdated fantasy tropes that need to go away (the old short sword / longsword / bastard sword / greatsword really needs to just be updated to the more sensible and correct nomenclature of short sword / arming sword / longsword / greatsword), and some weird balance issues that are hopefully just misprints or oversights, like the oddity of bastard swords' damage dice and damage types and other such inconsistencies. I think the Weapon chart could be pretty cool, if it just gets some much-needed cleanup to outdated fantasy tropes and some balance improvements.
The Armor table... oh boy. Why is the D&D-style fantasy RPG married to this old relic of 1970s fantasy misconceptions about medieval armor? One of the things I liked about D&D 5e is that it finally started to fix this -- it has a MUCH better armor chart, putting chainmail into Heavy armor where it belongs and cleaning up some of these other old misconceptions.
A lot of the balance and design problems can be pretty easily fixed if these ancient D&D tropes are done away with. Reality is a wonderful balancing tool: try to make things resemble real armor and weapons and how they actually worked, and a very natural balance tends to come out of the woodwork as a result, with only minor tweaks required to make it play well. Currently, the tables (especially Armor) are trying too hard to force weird fantasy brain bugs to make logical sense, and unsurprisingly, they don't work well.
Absolutely agree about the piercing bastard sword. We were all so confused about that one, trying to imagine the fight. XD
As for weapon traits and critical specialization, it does bring some complexity in choosing your weapon when creating a character (or if you decide to switch weapons at some point), but I think they have very interesting effects (mainly the traits) and let the choice actually matter, rather than everyone who can use it getting a falchion... Overall, it didn't give us too much trouble.
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It seems to me that the morphology problem with swords in PF is created or at least exacerbated by the game's complete disregard for the historical (on earth) evolution of the weapon. Perhaps the nomenclature would be better defined as:
shortsword: A one-handed sword with a blade 2 to 3 feet long, single or double edged, usually with a sharpened point. Designed primarily for slashing, but those with a point can also be used for piercing. Weight 1.5 to 2 lbs.
longsword: A one-handed sword with a blade 3 to 3.5 feet long, usually double edged, often with a sharpened point. Designed primarily for slashing, but those with a point can also be used for piercing. Call it an arming sword if you like. Weight 2.5 to 4 lbs.
bastard sword: A longword with an extended grip, to allow for two-handed use.
greatsword: A two-handed sword with a blade more than 4.5 feet long, possibly as long as the height of the wielder or slightly longer, double edged, possibly with a sharpened point. The hilt will be some 10 or more inches long because the sword requires both hands to use. Weight 4.5 to 7 lbs.
NB: I'm a layman in this area. You experts will probably object to this nomenclature, or at least parts of it, but I'm just trying to make sense of what some people who are probably less concerned than I am with any kind of historical accuracy (<cough>game designers<cough>) have promulgated. And I daresay even the experts don't all agree in this area.
Note that historically, these things evolved, at least on Earth, over a period of several centuries at least, if not millenia.
I would add that falchions, rapiers, and scimitars are somewhat specialized weapons. The falchion is a thick-bladed single edged shortsword; the rapier is a thin bladed shortsword designed for thrusting; the scimitar is a single edged shortsword with a curved blade. Like the sabre, it originally evolved as a weapon for mounted combat. The other swords in the current list are basically "not from around here" - that is, not in the European tradition.
Nice list, but let me add the d2/3/4 MultiDice from The Dice Lab at MathArtFun.com. I purchased a pair at a mathematics conference for d3 rolls and sometimes use them for d4 rolls. The 12 numbers on the faces of the rhombic dodecahedrons serve as a d3, the 4 numbers outlined in triangles on some vertices (one such vertex...
Those are pretty cool, thanks for sharing.