Talk:Weapon Proficiencies That Work (3.5e Variant Rule)

Feats Instead

Rather than call them "proficiency points", just call them feats. Fighter BAB classes would get 10, Rogue BAB classes would get 7, and Wizard BAB classes would get 5. Have your entry read, "in addition to the feat a character earns every third level (hit die), he or she also earns a feat every second point of BAB they gain, which can only be spent on weapon proficiencies (simple, martial, or exotic). A character cannot take proficiency with a weapon they do not have physical access to (DM discretion advised)."

Just makes more sense to me.--Tavis McCricket 21:44, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

I just call them proficiencies myself. I think you are referring to a section where I mock the munchkin mentality that might suggest a "refund" of "points" spent, when that is not how the rule works at all.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Teh Storm (talk • contribs)

Exotic Weapons

How do you compensate for the higher power that many exotic weapons might have? Are you basically giving all character EWP for free? --Ghostwheel 21:54, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

If he kept the "point" system, he could always price EWPs at two points, rather than one.--Tavis McCricket 21:56, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

That would still effectively make them free, since characters usually pick one weapon and stick with it--especially if it's stronger than other weapons they could wield. --Ghostwheel 22:10, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

With the ever expanding list of weapons anyway, what is the point of making exotic weapons cost more anyway? In this site alone, how many weapons have we added? and some were to simple and martial weapons to boot. not to mention the "official" game material that adds to all three groups indiscriminantly. Thus, weapon proficiencies are not the issue. It is about NOT forcing player to give up a valuable feat to learn how to use a ogre sized shaving razor.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Teh Storm (talk • contribs)

The point is due to the same original point that there was always to make weapons exotic--they're generally stronger. Just two the come to mind from the core books are the spiked chain and kusari-gama (the other exotic weapons in the core books are fairly crap), but there are others outside of those (an example) that one shouldn't just get for free. --Ghostwheel 18:19, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Stronger in what sense? From what I can tell exotic weapons are just more unusual, forming interesting opportunities. The Harpoon is my favorite example. It allows you to impale a target and control its motion. However, it opp operates assuming you are stronger than your victim. If you try using a harpoon on a dragon, it will drag you away and eat you! Exotic weapons are just weird. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teh Storm (talk • contribs)

Firstly, exotic weapons are purely optional. There is nothing wrong with the existing list of martial weapons. That being said, any player that wants to utilize the option of an exotic weapon needs to be willing to "pay" the price, in this case being a feat.

Secondly, some exotic weapons are quite good. A spiked chain is a reach weapon that can be used on adjacent targets. That's a huge boon to any melee character. Likewise, many exotic weapons have larger damage dice (full blade), or larger crit ranges (elven court blade), bigger crit multipliers (mercurial greatsword). Things that are worth the investment of a feat.

Really it just seems like you need to read more source books, and see watch options exist.--Tavis McCricket 21:36, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

@Storm: First, please learn to indent and sign your posts. Secondly, that's a good example of a weapon that gives you an extra option, one that's VERY respectable to a controller-type character. It's demonstratively stronger than a longsword or greataxe, and is good enough that people are willing to pay a feat to get it. This variant makes it so that there's no difference whatsoever in investment to get an exotic weapon or a martial weapon. You may as well say that everyone can use any weapon, since people choose one weapon and stick with it. --Ghostwheel 22:51, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

All excellent arguments, ladies and gents. Now allow me the opportunity to address them all. Travis, excellent point regarding my limited library. And I do recognize that many of the exotic weapons are flavor weapons that add extra options. After, who hasn't liked the idea of a fighter toting a full blade? However, I do NOT consider them worth a feat. What is the point of your fighter buddy being able to use a full blade if he was never able to max out the Power Attack branch? Why should the halfling rogue have to choose between spending experience to become an elf, become proficient with the longbow or get the Defensive Archery feat?

Ghostwheel, excellent point about the expanded options that exotic weapons provide, until you consider the uneven spreading of the class proficiencies. Monks start with almost no martial weapons but a wide selection exotics. I know I keep coming back to them, but rogues have their proficiencies cut down in such a way that leaves almost every two handed weapon out of their reach but leaves the best and most concealable exotic in their grasps. Bards start play with whips, one my favorite multi-use trapper from hell weapons.

I thank you all for your concern and advice. Please continue.--Teh Storm 23:30, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Bad example, since monks don't care about weapon proficiencies--the ones that they have suck, especially the exotic weapons they get free. That's why they get them for free--they suck and don't give any new options. Furthermore, a decent monk's unarmed damage is going to easily be greater than any base weapon of his size at most levels. Whips also suck compared to spiked chains--note their inability to damage unarmored foes, and their uselessness in a tripping build since you can't take AoOs with them. --Ghostwheel 04:33, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Here is my point exactly: exotic weapons are just WEIRD. The only thing you can do with a spiked chain that you can't do with a whip (don't forget whip-daggers, which you get for free with whips) is be targeted by heat metal. I have played with monks that preferred weapons when fighting anything but humaniods and animals because of nasty abilities that happen to weapons that hit creatures. And ye forget that you cannot reforge a monks fists into vorpal flaming fists.--Teh Storm 23:46, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

@storm actually you can http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Vorpal_Strike granted, you gotta be epic, but you can have vorpal fists. and theres a variant classs ability that can let you have flaming. i get what you mean, but you exactly picked bad examples--NameViolation 05:06, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Why Does This Work?

Talk about begging the question. How is this better than the Races of War way, where you can get proficiency by just using it for a week? Weapon proficiency is not something that's so important that you should have to really keep track of it beyond lump sum. Surgo 22:24, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

But we already do. In "realistic" game, first level characters would start out with no proficiencies in anything, and have to practice constantly with what ever they come across to keep sharp. Try this at home: learn to throw a knife. After a few hours you will find out how to sink it in the target reliably. After a week you can do so in a variety of distances and positions. Now stop practicing for a week or so. You will be once again miserable at throwing knives. While realistic, it is less fun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teh Storm (talk • contribs)

Not that I've mastered much of anything, but I'm still just as good at archery, fencing, and target shooting as I've ever been, regardless of how long it's been since I last did them. Are you speculating, or speaking from personal experience?

Also, magic dude, freakin' magic. A wizard can etch a fireball into his mind for later use, but a fighter can't remember how to wield a weapon he used two months ago? Why does realism need to factor into it?--Tavis McCricket 19:02, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

To the person who responded to me: uh, that did not answer my question. At all. In fact, it didn't even address my question. Surgo 19:06, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

I speak from personal experience. I feel some of the permanent changes to my body that make relearning easier. From my ground fighting I have the signature "turned in" toes that mark ground fighters. My foil fencing has resulted in an outward point in my right foot and made the "at ease" position my natural resting stance. But I also realize that while these changes are mostly permanent, should I ever not practice I will have to retrain my body back into that state. Teh Storm 23:38, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

That has...what to do with Dungeons and Dragons, exactly? Surgo 04:41, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

There are limits to a game trying to be reality before it becomes unfun. If I wanted I could write a game that perfectly replicated reality, but it would be thicker than War and Peace, half of it would be a mix of physics equations with dice rolls and the other half would resemble a horrible hybrid of a physicians desk reference with a encyclopedia of the history of killing people. And it would be boring beyond belief. This isn't a game about the real life tall skinny fencers or the refined art of making a perimeter scan every time you visit a familiar place; it is a game where someone the size of your ten-year-old brother can kill a biologically impossible creature by conjuring fire out thin air. I think that we as gamers forget that sometimes. I came here because I thought I had ideas that make the game more fun. I'll leave it to the rest of you to decide if they are. Teh Storm 23:56, May 11, 2010 (UTC)