So I was thinking: Weapon Focus

[argo]

This post is a bit long-winded but bear with me.

My current campaign is winding down and as I'm thinking ahead to the next one I'm considering what has worked and what hasn't and if there's anything I can do to improve my game.

One thing that I think has really worked is severing the character's ties with their equipment (not easy considering my entire group is made of DnD vetrans). Frequently in this campaign I have moved the characters around between adventures; you know "its six months later and now you find yourselves in Iranistan ... ", that sort of thing. Usually this is accompanied by me simply telling them what equipment they have gained and lost. I enforce the rule of "Easy Come, Easy Go" so their wealth never lasts. Furthermore I pounce on any opportunity to have their gear get destroyed, lost, stolen or dropped ... always at a dramatically appropriate moment of course :twisted: Replacement gear is what's appropriate to their situation. When they are in Kush they can scrounge for spears and clubs, when they are in Iranistan they can look for scimitars, when they are in prision they can use the broken femur bone of the last inmate. The whole thing has added a lot of good swords 'n sorcery flavor to my game and my players are really digging it. This is a good thing. This is something I don't want to give up.

But there is a down side too. I was up front with my players about what they could expect in terms of their equipment list and they caught on quickly. They have divested themselves from their gear. But they have also divested their character's from their gear as well. My group has turned out about twelve different characters over the last year or so including four or five who were soldiers or soldier multi-classes, and not one of them, including the soldier's, took the weapon focus feat. Nobody wants to waste a feat on an ability when they have no real way of knowing wither or not they will be getting any use out of it. And who can blame them? This is not a good thing though, at least not IMO. I like weapon focus and its related feats (specilization and improved crit). I think that they are prety fundamental feats on the level of power attack or expertise. I think that they represent (potentially) the core of an entire character build. I think that they are supposed to be a major advantage of the soldier class, in fact that the Soldier is balanced in part on the knolwedge that they are available to him. I want these feats to be viable.

But there aint no way I'm gonna stop breaking my player's things, its just too much fun 8)

So here's what I'm considering for an answer. Introduce the idea of "weapon groups", a list of weapons of similiar design and use such that they can logically benefit from the same trainning. From now on the feats (Greater) Weapon Focus, (Greater) Weapon Specialisation and (Greater) Improved Critical will work for an entire weapon group instead of a single weapon.

The weapon groups will be
Knives: (light and one-handed knives) Dagger, Knife, Yuetshi Knife, Stiletto, Ghanata Knife, Poniard and Zhaibar Knife.
Swords: (one and two-handed swords) Short Sword, Broadsword, Cutlass, Scimitar, Arming Sword, War Sword, Sabre, Greatsword and Tulwar.
Axes: (heavy axe-blades of all sizes) Hatchet, Axe, Battleaxe, Bardiche, Bill and Pollaxe.
Clubs: (bludgeoning weapons of all sizes) Club, Light Mace, Heavy Mace, Staff, Warhammer and War Club.
Spears: (piercing weapons of all sizes) Hunting Spear, War Spear, Javelin, Light Lance, Heavy Lance and Pike.
Missile Weapons: (ranged weapons of all sorts) Hunting Bow, Arbalest, Crossbow, Sling, Hyrkanian Bow, Shemite Bow, Stygian Bow and Bossonian Longbow.
Fisticufs: (using your body as a weapon) Unarmed Strike, Natural Weapon, Gauntlet and Pommel.

So now I open the floor to you guys. What do you think? Is this a good counterbalance for a Conan game where a character might have a Nemedian arming sword today and a Shemitish scimitar tomorrow? Would this make Weapon Focus too good? Too easy to gain the benefit from? Thoughts? Oh, and if Vincent is reading this I would be very interested to hear what he has to say as well.

I'll be watching.

 

[throrII]

I've been considering something similar myself. I think it is a fair trade off, especially since in the REH stories, conan always endears himself to whatever local weapon is present (cutlass, scimitar, broadsword, etc).

Conan is a world of versitile characters, why shouldnt the feat represent that?

 

[Mayhem]

Well in truth, Conan is a world of versatile *barbarians*, and the rules already represent that.

I'm happy with weapon focus the way it is - if they take it for a common weapon like broadsword or warspear, they are very rarely going to be without onefor long - and how long is entirely within the control of the GM.

And, of course, it allows you to put a weapon in the hands of an enemy that the PC really, really want's to get his hands on. I had great joy seeing unarmoured characters scramble over each other to reach the guy with the scale corselet, having at least one equally determined to get that perfectly ordinary broadsword will suit me just fine

 

[Trodax]

I like the idea, it's something I've thought about myself (not specifically for Conan, but for other d20 games). I just think it makes more sense that a character be an expert "swordsman" rather than an expert "broadswordsman".

Of course, this depends very much on how many different weapons there are in the game in question; the longer the weapon list, the worse (and strange) Weapon Focus becomes. What I mean is that if your choice of a sword consists of Shortsword, Broadsword or Greatsword, then I think Wepon Focus is fine as it is. If, however, people are forced to narrow it down to Weapon Focus (longsword with a broad blade and heavy pommel), then I think the feat becomes to focused ( ) to be believable (and useful).

As for game balance, its hard to really say, but I would think that it wouldn't mess around with things to much. In D&D, I don't think that much would change, since its pretty much assumed that you have the weapon of your choice anyway.
For Conan, yeah, I think this could be a nice way of somewhat alleviating the fact that you never hold on to your equipment. It also gives a slight boost to the Soldier, which many people seem to consider nerfed.

 

[René]

If you have access to a copy of WotC's Unearthed Arcana (or Arcana Unearthed?), there is something about weapon groups. Can't remember exactly though...

 

[InsomNY]

Mayhem's comment about "versatile barbarians" raises an important counter-argument: while the current state of affairs lessens the value of a soldier's bread-and-butter, switching unilaterally to weapon groups will do the same thing to the barbarian's class features.

Here's a happy medium you can try. In addition to the rules as written, add a feat like this:

"Close Enough"
Pre-requisites: Weapon Focus, BAB +4
Effect: Choose any group of weapons in which you have Weapon Focus for one of those weapons. You may use Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, Weapon Specialization and the higher-level versions thereof with any weapon in that group.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you select it, the benefit applies to a new group of weapons. The effects do not stack.

 

[sanseveria]

I also have a group of players who have the D&D mentality when it comes to equipment. A few players in particular have to seek out superior equipment and armor first chance they get. Luckily I'm a cheap DM so they haven't had the money yet.

I like the idea of weapon group proficiencies, however I agree with InsomNY. Just implementing it as Argo suggests might demean the barbarians versatility. Adding his "Close Enough" feat (perhaps with a slighlty more imaginative name :shock: ) would make it possible, but not as easily. I like it and might try it for my game.

SS

 

[sbarrie]

When looking to replace lost items, my PCs with Weapon Focus tend to be luckier at finding their prefered weapon.

So Weapon Focus (broadsword) doesn't just give you a +1 to hit, it also helps you pick out who's carrying a broadsword in a busy market, find a scimitar with the heft (and other characteristics) of a broadsword, or convince a merchant to check the back of his shop one more time.

It does not guarantee they'll have the weapon 100% of the time.

(And while it hasn't come up yet, I allow Weapon Panache from Shadizar as a substitute for Weapon Focus wrt combat maneuvers and qualifying for other feats.)

 

[Maximo]

I think the Weapon Focus should be let alone to avoid messing barbarians. A new feat for using Weapon Focus with "close enough" weapons as InsomNY says seems quite a good idea

 

[Trodax]

I don't really agree that widening Weapon Focus would belittle the barbarians abilities all that much. The barbarian will still be king of versatility. I mean his powers function with anything you could possibly use in melee, while Weapon Focus will still cover only one out of seven weapon groups.

I think the soldier is penalised much more severely than this in a campaign like argo described; where you very often have to make due with what you have. Of course, this penalty could be lessened by running things in a more lenient way, as sbarrie proposed, so that could be another way to go.

My gut feeling is that barbarian players wouldn't complain that much if you made these changes. A specialised soldier, on the other hand, could easily feel f****d over if he only very rarely got to play around with his favorite weapon.

 

[J-Star]

I've always felt that to represent a strong, skilled, civilised warrior in the Conan RPG, the soldier class should've been built from the ground up and given original strengths and weaknesses... instead of being a direct parallel to the D&D fighter class. Other than Bossonian longbowmen, Gunderland pikemen, and Nemedian Adventurers, soldiers of the Hyborian age don't limit themselves to a single weapon. Poitainian knights, Turanian cavalry, Vendhyan kshatryiahs, Shemite asshuris, members of the Free Companies, and especially pure freelance adventurers all have to be able to fight with a variety of weapons.

Obviously the Conan RPG was designed to favor barbarians because Robert E. Howard's whole premise was that barbarians are stronger than civilised men.

That being said... Other than Conan, most barbarians tend to remain in Cimmeria, Nordheim, the Black Kingdoms, Ghulistan, etc, while soldiers, especially mercenaries and freelances, are more likely to travel all over Hyboria.

SO... I personally would think that versatility, not specialization, is more appropriate for high level soldiers!

As for single weapon feats like Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical... those are great in D&D for distinguishing one hack-&-slash fighter from another, but in the Conan RPG I think they're perhaps better suited to prestige classes that represent specialized soldiers who are distinguished by their weapons, like the Gunderland pike-&-shield PrC.

Prestige Classes... I know, I know, overused and done wrong they can ruin an RPG, giving characters outrageous special abilities. But done right, they can actually enrich the flavor of a game. As the rules stand, Bossonian longbowmen and Nemedian Adventurers are nothing more than soldiers with the single weapon feats in their longbows and greatswords. However, like Gunderland pikemen, these are reknowned soldier types in the Hyborian Age, who could've been nicely represented with PrC's if the single weapon feats were not already one of the key strengths of the soldier core class.

 

[Maximo]

Jstar wrote:

SO... I personally would think that versatility, not specialization, is more appropriate for high level soldiers!

That's where a "Close enough"-like feat fits. If a character wants to reflect that he has travelled a lot and knows how to use a lot of different weapons, he just gets the feat and that's it.

From my point of view, there is a difference between regular soldiers of any Hyborian army, who get a fixed weaponry and specialize in it and mercenaries, who have most likely joined different armies in battle during their career.

This way, a mercenary would be able to get this limited versatility -getting the feat- where a regular Aquilonian soldier would not.

The other option would be giving this ability for free to all soldiers at say 10th level or so.

PS:By the way, does anybody know if the Weapon Focus in pike applies to the Gunderland Pike from Aquilonia as well? I think the latter is just like sort of an improved version of the regular pike, like an Abkitanan sword is just a sword. But I'm not sure about the Weapon focus stuff in this case.

 

[J-Star]

With all due respect I have to disagree about the "close-enough" feat, but that's simply because I don't like the single weapon feats in Conan. I don't have the creative genius needed to design RPG's, but I just feel the soldier's strengths should have been something other than the D&D fighter's weapon specialization. It works for Bossonian longbowmen and Nemedian Adventurers but not other soldier types, particular well-traveled mercenaries. I do respect your point of view on a "close-enough" feat, but I personally feel it's more like a "patch" to repair a "bug"... video game talk for those who might not know

 

[Trodax]

I've always felt that to represent a strong, skilled, civilised warrior in the Conan RPG, the soldier class should've been built from the ground up and given original strengths and weaknesses... instead of being a direct parallel to the D&D fighter class. Other than Bossonian longbowmen, Gunderland pikemen, and Nemedian Adventurers, soldiers of the Hyborian age don't limit themselves to a single weapon. Poitainian knights, Turanian cavalry, Vendhyan kshatryiahs, Shemite asshuris, members of the Free Companies, and especially pure freelance adventurers all have to be able to fight with a variety of weapons.

I dunno, I think its fine that the soldier can be a specialist. And you've always got the option to totally skip the specialization-feats and just pile all those feat-slots into general stuff like Power Attack, Cleave, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes etc. That could give you a pretty versatile warrior.

Granted, Weapon Specialization and Improved Critical are pretty damn good, and they are probably one of the soldiers strongest cards.

 

[InsomNY]

With all due respect I have to disagree about the "close-enough" feat, but that's simply because I don't like the single weapon feats in Conan. I don't have the creative genius needed to design RPG's, but I just feel the soldier's strengths should have been something other than the D&D fighter's weapon specialization. It works for Bossonian longbowmen and Nemedian Adventurers but not other soldier types, particular well-traveled mercenaries. I do respect your point of view on a "close-enough" feat, but I personally feel it's more like a "patch" to repair a "bug"... video game talk for those who might not know

Well, since I proposed the patch to repair what argo perceived as a bug in his game, I'd say we were on the same page. I don't intend my suggestion as a change to how the Conan RAW work, just an option for people to use. Even assuming I had a campaign of my own (which I don't), I'm not sure I would use my own idea, or perhaps I'd tone it down so that several feats were required to get the full benefit.