Differentiating Weapon Types

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

The more sophisticated solutions I've seen offered here have their attractions but they seem overkill for a system for which simplicity has always been a core strength.

My preference is to leave axe/mace/hammer weapons as they are. Swords can be made different by giving them some kind of limited defensive ability, to represent parrying, and a lower damage to compensate.

I'm thinking something like: blocks some damage against weapons which do damage less than or approximately equal to the damage of the parrying weapon. So a main-gauche can parry a light weapon but not a great sword. The parry ability gets more powerful as the weapon damage increases, so it can replace a percentage of its offensive ability. But I'm not sure about the details.

The main-gauche is already limited to blocking a hit from one-handed weapons, so it has the "light weapon" limitation built in.

But if you add a defensive bonus to swords and no bonus to Ax/Mace, then the problem for Ax/Mace is exacerbated. Already, there's a benefit to Sword, namely the Knife talent for free. This is why none of the PCs in my game have seen fit to use Ax/Mace at all.

I suppose the built-in benefit for Ax/Mace is that you can throw some of them and they do more damage than a thrown dagger, but that hasn't been persuasive in my game.

Still, I agree that simplicity is a key feature of this game, so perhaps best to leave well enough alone.