More related to D&D than other systems obviously, but for the sake of my homebrew system I have been reading up on historic weapons and armors to make sure my equipment tables are accurate.
And obviously stuff like "Rapiers aren't light" comes up when you spend hours doing research on the subject.
So that all said, What weapons do you feel could, should, or even need to be classified as "Finesse-able", and which ones don't?
I like to think of finesse, and wielding weapons with dexterity, as a representation of high skilled sword play. An orc with high strength wields a longsword and does lots of damage because he's swinging it with incredible force. An agile human wielding the same sword does lots of damage because he knows how to exploit weaknesses in his opponents armor and hit sensitive targets.
All weapons should be finesse-able, just to different degrees. There aren't a lot of ways to wield a club, but a monk with high dex would obviously do more damage with it than a peasant, because she could use the club to hit pressure points.
Ironically, the only weapon that makes no sense to be affected by dex is a bow. Everything about a bow is dependent on strength. Want to put more force behind the arrow? You have to pull back further, which requires more strength. Want to aim better? I hope you have the strength to keep an arrow drawn back long enough to aim.
Any weapon can be used with finese if you train enough with it.
In addition to this, every weapon should have a strength requirement. Even if someone is really dexterous, they wouldn't be able to apply their dexterous fingers if they don't have the strength to easily maneuver the weapon.
In the perfect system, both dex and str apply to weapon rolls.
An example of a (semi) perfect system is dark souls weapons. Sure, a claymore is heavy, but you need to level dex to use it properly don't tell anyone you leveled that stat though
Dragonquest works well with this too. Every weapon in the game has a PS (phyiscal strength) and Manual Dexterity minimal requirement. Fall below the requirement in either and you can't gain ranks in the weapon at all, and have to eat some pretty hefty penalties in both to hit and damage.
Go above the minimum requirements and you do get some bonus, but not all that much. The main advantage in being really strong is the ability to use heavier weapons, not hitting harder with lighter ones.
Yep. I love this about the dark souls system. The fact the longswords are best with 40/40 str/dex is A+
You got to move away from the system that d&d set up
Str, dex, cha , int
Having stuff like these will just make your system another "why would I bother " system.
Unless you have a usp people won't even look at it.
Sounds to me like I could get along just fine using "Dexterity as an all in Attack Roll Stat, and Strength as an all in Damage Stat" And Honestly I'm fine with that. For stuff like Compound Bows, or Cross Bows they have a "Fixed" Strength Score.
Yea, clearly still working on that. I'm not even using the typical stats you would expect to find its just easier to say terms like Strength and Dexterity because literally everyone gets it.
>So that all said, What weapons do you feel could, should, or even need to be classified as "Finesse-able", and which ones don't?
If you're looking for realism then the underlying idea that some weapons are and others aren't is a flawed premise I'd say. Pretty much any and all weapons that you could reasonably use in close combat would benefit from both strength and finesse. One apsect often found under dexterity, rapid changes in speed, is even primarily dependent on strength. Go to a track and field competition and it's most likely the shot put behemoths who'd win a five meter dash. Weapon finesse, and splitting things between str and dex (or your equivalents) seems like a "gameist" thing you have there in order to allow match certain weapons with certain builds. Same with the Dark Souls approached mentioned here really, where this weapon scales more off of that stat and so on, that's basically just a more fine grained Str-or-Dex system. (This isn't to say such is bad of course, you may find this bit of mechanics involving, and not care much for the slight loss in realism. Choose what you want, just keep in mind what you've chosen and why.) I will give some ground though in that, yes, you do need sufficient strength to wield a weapon, meaning heavier ones (not necessarily counted in pounds, balance compared with intended method of use is of immense importance) will be poor choices for those without
As for melee weapon use in general, distance, timing, accuracy, geometry, leverage, biomechanics, psychology, all of these fundamental things will apply to any weapon. Applying them to any specific weapon would seem to be a minor task compared to learning them in the first place. See for example how Roland Warzecha does in many cases the same things with sword, spear and shield, because the same principles apply in all these cases. Most aspects of their use and demands are very similar.
Works with me, as long as you represent attacks on vital areas in some way as doing more damage (e.g. rogue sneak attack)
That's exactly the kind of thing I was needing to hear. Starting off in 3.5 has given me a very Skewed perspective of how a tabletop game is supposed to work.
Easiest way to do that is to Improve Critical Hit chances or just add both modifiers together, or even both.
/thread
>Rapiers aren't light
arent they usually in the 2-4 pound range?
Yea but so are "Longswords"
Well putting aside changing strength to muscle or power or raw makes no difference in the grand scheme of things
What is the usp of your system, why would I play this over D&D or Whrpg or rollmaster (merp) ?
the legend never dies
... Basically, the "most pro Football players were QBs in high school" approach
If there's a damage roll then that would seem to cover such to quite some degree, rolling high means you hit something important. But for the sneak attack or such a situation where you can carefully choose your target spot then some kind of bonus could of course be warranted. (In normal combat your target of choice will most likely just be whatever ends up being available, choosing beyond that is a luxury you're unlikely to have.) Some games also let the result of the to-hit roll directly influence the damage roll, giving us an "analogue" alternative to the digital approach of critical hits seen in DnD etc, that could eb a mechanic worth keeping in mind. Though judging by Vampire et.al, if matched to then it may become hard to keep the dexterity stat from ending up clearly superior in combat. Personally I'd prefer a game where the ninja and the strongman are both equally viable character concepts, but such is of course subjective.
Just keep in mind that there's two dimensions to it, the purely game design one where one game may not work properly and another does, but without that meaning either fit reality any better than the other. And then there's the realism angle. So you should ask yourself if 3.5 skewed your views about the game side, the realism side, or both.
Here's the weights of most of the rapiers in the Wallace collection if you want some hard data. Each dot is one rapier, there's no X-axis. Average weight 1.220 kg, median weight 1.225kg.
My eternal beef with that game was that Pyromancer didn't start with Dex 10.
You could make Dad without leveling Dex and twink runs would have more versatile weapon choice.
Dave... that's a spear.
Too late it's on the chart
A574, at 110cm it isn't even a long one, as the sample there ranges from 940mm to 1397mm, with an average of 1162mm. A good example I guess of how a slim profile doesn't mean a light blade.
A Streamlined polyhedral dice system centered around a D10 (at least for the time being) With more open and free form character progression. (Not having to take 5 level in a "Fighter" to get a random ability that may have well been a Character talent)
Just small thing, Still a work in progress, mostly addressing common complaints with D&D above all else.
Have you played open d6?
I love the system it'd got its flaws but it works well for the way I run games.
Maybe daggers, but even then real knife-fighting styles involve grappling and takedowns as much as they do actually stabbing the other guy.
>Dexterity as an all in Attack Roll Stat, and Strength as an all in Damage Stat"
That's how D&D used to work
D&D and fantasy games in general are trope simulators.
The trope of the "fast but not particularly strong swordman with a light weapon like rapier or daggers" is a strong one.
To make such a trope competitive with "strong guy with big weapon" you need something like finesse.
I think the actual mechanic of weapon finesse is lazy, because it just makes DEX function like STR. If you do something like that, you may as well do away with stats and just assume the same level of competence at hitting/damaging things and differentiate with other things (secondary effects of attacks, for example).
I've played more tabletops than I would like to count, but I dug out an old concept book from middle school of a tabletop rpg concept, which was from before my D&D days, and over the past couple of years its turned into a bit of a passion project for me to update it and finish it.