Rebuilding the weapons list

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have long been dissatisfied with the weapons list as written for Fantasy Hero.  They don't feel distinct enough, have clear winners, not enough variety of characteristics and don't well represent some of the nuances of weapons in real life which of late we've seen gigantic upgrades in knowledge and information.

 

One thing that helps is using killing attacks built so they work like normal attacks instead of a separate mechanic.  This gives weapons a better feel for small differences (this dagger does 2d6, this one does 2½d6, etc.

 

Another thing is to put a speed on weapons.  This is often messy and difficult to implement well without making it excessively complicated.  I have a few ideas, but the one that appeals most to me is this:

 

In the vehicle rules there is a system in which you as the operator cannot function with the vehicle with more DEX and CV than the vehicle has.  In other words, if a speedster is driving a tank, then they cannot make the tank act faster than its 9 DEX and 2 speed no matter how fast they are.

 

This could extend to weapons.  Put a DEX max on them; this huge hurking axe just cannot get into action as fast as that quick little dagger.  If you want to use it faster, you take penalties.

 

Now, as anyone who has actually used these weapons (or facsimiles) the slow weapon aspect isn't as pronounced as you might think.  You can get a zweihander into action much faster than one might assume, if you know the techniques and proper use of one.  But there is a very real, and very important distinction in speed: the fastest warrior in the world cannot stab as quick and as many times with their halberd as someone with a stiletto.

 

So my thoughts are these:

Weapons have a DEX rating.  You can use them normally up to that DEX rating, and take a penalty after that.

The penalties affect things like Multiple and Combined attacks.  Trying to use such a maneuver takes a -1 penalty if you try to exceed that DEX Rank for the weapon.

If you exceed a weapon's DEX rating, maybe you pay 1 extra END?  

 

I'm kind of musing through ideas right now.  I want the penalties to exist, but be easy to use, and the penalties to not be too awful, just noticeable when you try very quick actions.

[Spence]

You are not wrong 😁

 

But I think the issue isn't as much the existing weapons list not being 100%, as it isn't actually a complete package in the first place. 

 

Just like the Bestiary (any version). It contains hundreds of creatures, but they are not necessarily good for every game.

 

In my opinion, a good weapon build is directly tied to the setting it will be used in.  The Fantasy Hero weapons list gives you the raw stock.  You have to forge the actual weapons that will be used. 

 

A weapon list for a Three Musketeers style game, how they are built plus skills/maneuvers will be drastically different from a weapons list for a chivalrous knights in shining armor game. 

 

Hero's supplements are highly detailed and very very complete raw material books.  But they are not actually ready to play. 

 

I personally think this is why Hero is fading away instead of gaining traction.  If a group of players manage to get a handle on the core rules without running away like an investigator that just met a great old one, they will then try to use the gear (weapons) and creature straight out of the Hero supplements without any adjustment.  And when things are off, they generally decide the game is broken and it's on to D&D.  

 

D&D is a great example.  The standard weapons list is not that great.  Non-leveling characters can wield them but the weapons are limited in effectiveness.  Only when wielded by a character with access to classes, skills and feats do they really become a force to be reckoned with. 

 

Just my opinion, but adjusting the weapons won't really do much by itself.  Taking the weapons plus the skills/abilities plus the setting and adjusting them as a whole will achieve something. 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well here's where I am at the moment: each weapon will have a DEX rating that you cannot exceed.  This means that if you have a Heavy Mace which has a 11 DEX rating (just making a number up out of the blue), then you act as an 11 DEX at most with this weapon (for the purposes of who goes first in the same phase).

Also, weapons will have a rating that dictates how awkward or heavy they are to get into attacking, such as a flail or a polearm.  These weapons might have a penalty to combed/multiple power attacks to represent that they aren't as easy to use for fast, multiple blows as a smaller, lighter weapon.

[theinfn8]

Interesting ideas. Are you soliciting thoughts? Builds? Personal experiences? Just ruminating on the situation?

 

The Weapon Dexterity idea brings some possibilities with it that could make weapon specialists more unique. Talents for "Dex only to meet weapon Dex", "Increase weapon Dex when you use X weapon", etc. How tied together do you want the penalty and the dex relation? What if someone has a Dex lower than the weapon Dex and wants to multiattack? Penalties if you don't meet the number, but the equivalent of a PSL based on how much you exceed it?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah any thoughts would be very welcome.  My goal is to really make weapons more interesting for players to choose from and feel more distinct.  Watching Doug Marcaida use and critique all those weapons on Forged in Fire has gotten my interest.  There's noticable differences even in different builds of the same weapon.  More of that without excessive complication would be terrific.

[Scott Ruggels]

One runs into this with firearms in the Heroic games. In that there are few things that delineate differences other than caliber and range mod. Pistols cluster around 1D6 plus or minus, rifles 2D6 plus or minus wit a 1to 3 add to range mod if braced. You may have a clue here with the dex mod, BUT, with those weapons there is a trade off between damage and Dex level. Now I can easily see a weapon limiting a character’s action to the Dex of the weapon, but that being said, do you see this effecting OCV, because I do not. ( remember, I don’t do 6th edition). I also think that the weapon would have no effect on the character’s speed. Daggers are fast, but only add to the strength of the character. Pole arms add reach, and can be leveraged. The heavier the weapon, the more additional damage it can add to strength ( at the cost of dex). The only downside I see is switching weapons in combat is going to change the dex order, and most online systems don’t seem to handle that well. It’s not a bad idea you have, just try to keep the extra book keeping to a minimum. 

[Duke Bushido]

What Scott said.    

 

Because HERO is Champions, it's geared toward the high end-- the superhuman end.  Of course, we all know that.  What we tend to not want to accept is that because, even after genericizing and genre-flipping, it's geared for the high end, it doesn't do the low end very well at all.  At least, in terms of differentiation.

 

 

That being said, I _think_ what Christopher is after here-- more or less-- is getting away from "this is 1die killing, as are those other forty things."  I myself have toyed with converting by DCs to something that would use dice read "normally," just to introduce a little variation:  2d6RKA would become 6d6 "normal" damage-- that is, count body as normal; count stun as normal (and sometimes with a small multiplier-- like 1.5 or something, but not always) and make it "killing" by applying it against resistant defenses as per Killing Attack.

 

In the end, it's not too terribly dissimilar to 1d6KA-1; 1d6KA; 1d6RKA+1; etc.   It _does_ allow a bit more granularity by virtue of the fact that you can still do half-dice and +1 / -1, but it never really added enough granularity to make it worth pushing for as a serious optional rule: at _best_, it was like adding half-steps between whole numbers 0-5: you've doubled the number of options, but the difference is negligible. 

 

I think what Christopher proposes is interesting enough to see where it goes.  if, like me, you play more Heroic than you do Superheroic, there's a good chance you've wanted to see some tweaks at the normal human end of the scale, too. 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

On 11/28/2021 at 8:33 AM, Spence said:

 

I personally think this is why Hero is fading away instead of gaining traction.  If a group of players manage to get a handle on the core rules without running away like an investigator that just met a great old one, they will then try to use the gear (weapons) and creature straight out of the Hero supplements without any adjustment.  And when things are off, they generally decide the game is broken and it's on to D&D.  

 

D&D is a great example.  The standard weapons list is not that great.  Non-leveling characters can wield them but the weapons are limited in effectiveness.  Only when wielded by a character with access to classes, skills and feats do they really become a force to be reckoned with. 

 

Just my opinion, but adjusting the weapons won't really do much by itself.  Taking the weapons plus the skills/abilities plus the setting and adjusting them as a whole will achieve something. 

 

 

I would really like to see this elaborated on, as I am running into résistance to trying Hero, from other players. Everyone is defaulting to 5e, and those that aren't are going to minimalist systems I can't stand. Maybe start this in another thread as I don't want to derail this topic either?

[Ockham's Spoon]

Having weapons affect DEX order makes good sense, but rather than assign weapons a DEX, I think I would assign them a DEX penalty (or bonus perhaps for a particularly quick or magic weapon).

[dmjalund]

some 'elaborate' weapons might have a DEX minimum

[Duke Bushido]

17 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

some 'elaborate' weapons might have a DEX minimum

 

 

Yeah!

 

Like the oh-so-useful nunchucks!

 

[theinfn8]

1 hour ago, Ockham's Spoon said:

Having weapons affect DEX order makes good sense, but rather than assign weapons a DEX, I think I would assign them a DEX penalty (or bonus perhaps for a particularly quick or magic weapon).

 

This is actually a mechanic that would be simple to apply and could, in theory with no testing, apply to the multi/combo attack as well. You want to multi attack, you start off the second attack with the DEX penalty to the additional attacks. Would make it significantly more difficult without completely blocking a determined player.

[Chris Goodwin]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Yeah!

 

Like the oh-so-useful nunchucks!

 

 

That is a Flailhammer!

[Christopher R Taylor]

The reasons I'm leaning toward an absolute maximum DEX are that it meshes well with an already in use Hero mechanic (vehicles) and that its a lot easier to check at a glance.  How fast can I be with this weapon?  13.

[theinfn8]

That's fair. You mentioned vehicles limiting speed as well, would that carry over or would that just make things more complicated than they need to be?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't like the idea of limiting speed because while DEX changes are annoying in the speed chart, speed changes are a nightmare for the GM.  Plus, there's no weapon that a human can wield that realistically would have that extreme a change on attack speed and combat.  You can attack surprisingly fast with even huge weapons if trained well and wielded properly.

[Duke Bushido]

Zweihander.

 

That is all.

 

 

 

 

[theinfn8]

I am a fan of the Montante, but same diff

 

Where do we start assigning DEX to weapons? What's the baseline?

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, theinfn8 said:

Where do we start assigning DEX to weapons? What's the baseline?

I'd think the Dex would be determined by some mathematical interaction between the weapons' weight by type, it's length, and multiplied by the character's strength.  But I can't do math, so someone else will have to figure that out.  An alternative method would just be assigning speed ONLY on it's weight, and assume only for Heroic campaigns. The value would be arbitrary. like Epees, rapiers  would be Dex 20,  Daggers would be Dex 25, two handed weapons would be Dex 15. Combat Skill Levels cannot be added unless one can beat the STR minimum by 5, and for every by five you can add one CSL to raise fhe dex, but never past your inherent Dex.  Just some thoughts.

[dmjalund]

Just as some weapons don't have STR minimums, most weapons wouldn't have DEX minimums

[Duke Bushido]

13 hours ago, theinfn8 said:

I am a fan of the Montante, but same diff

 

Where do we start assigning DEX to weapons? What's the baseline?

 

 

Again:  what Scott said.

 

I would think a relationship between STR Min compared to the STR left exceeding that Min, etc.

 

However, this moves it away from being a "per weapon" calculation and makes it a per weapon per person calculation.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I would think any superheroic weapon would only have a DEX Max if it was purchased that way (maybe a -¼ limitation).  But you could extend this into firearms as well, for some more older or more awkward designs.  Even a pump action weapon might be slower to use.

 

I am trying to think of other little things to do to make weapons feel more distinct as well.  I have some rules (as does the FH book) for variants on how well a weapon is made already.  This one has slightly lower BOD, this one is better balanced and has slightly lower STR Min, etc.

[Duke Bushido]

Ooh: have STR Min greater than x2 to avoid penalty.

Have STR Min x 1 to x2: penalty.

 

 

Just thinking.

[Scott Ruggels]

It would have to be a calculation of per weapon and per man, you wanted small differences.  This is how you get them. I would limit this rule to heroic, like hit locations. Superheroes are complex enough on their own. 

[theinfn8]

I work with swords mostly, so that is my typical baseline. So do we assume that "fists" means no DEX limit then and proceed from there? Most knives are probably in the same speed category as a punch. Larger knives moving slightly slower, then moving to short swords, rapiers, arming swords or back swords, long swords, and then the bigger two handers. How much of a drop is reasonable without seriously (or unrealistically) limiting a character? And are we attacking that from a perspective of real life emulation, cinematic/fiction emulation, or just making the weapon differences more interesting than it currently is? There might be some overlap, but they all seek different end states.

 

I absolutely loved the discussion on firearm rounds and body armour in the Dark Champions forum. I've adopted that model (mostly) when I implement modern weapons in a game. It would be awesome to have something similar for melee weapons.