Troll Lord Games

I offer this alternative:

When using the Weapon Mastery rules from the Rules Cyclopedia (RC), the following table will be used instead of the Attack Roll Bonus and Weapon Mastery tables listed in the RC:

WEAPONS MASTERY BONUS TABLE

LEVEL OF MASTERY----BONUS FOR FIGHTERS *--BONUS FOR OTHERS

Unskilled **------------No Bonus--------------------No Bonus

Basic--------------------No Bonus--------------------No Bonus

Skilled------------------+ 2---------------------------+ 1

Expert------------------+ 4---------------------------+ 2

Master------------------+ 6---------------------------+ 3

Grand Master----------+ 8---------------------------+ 4

The bonus may be split however the character desires between the attack roll, damage roll, or as an bonus to AC, in any combination as long as the total does not exceed the characters mastery bonus. For example, if a Fighter is wielding a weapon that he has Expert Mastery in, he could add + 2 to his attack roll, + 1 to his damage roll, and + 1 to his AC while wielding that weapon. These bonuses may be changed and redistributed each round as long as the character continues to wield that weapon. A character can only benefit from single mastery bonus in a given round, so even if a Fighter is wielding two weapons and has Expert Mastery in both, he only gains a total bonus of + 4 for the round, not + 8.

* Includes Barbarians, Knights, Paladins, and Rangers

** Unskilled attacks only do half the listed damage for that weapon and any missile weapons also receive a -1 penalty to hit

Just something I am considering as a house rule for my game. Let me know what you all think.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

Sorry for any who may have been trying to read while I was submitting edits, had to fix the table.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

I think a moderator should move this to Rules before commenting further.

I also use the RC weapon mastery in my game. Those charts were some of my favorite D&D rules growing up. Let me offer some comments and constructive critcism.

Aladar wrote:
The bonus may be split however the character desires between the attack roll, damage roll, or as an bonus to AC, in any combination as long as the total does not exceed the characters mastery bonus.

This sounds like it might lead to a lot of calculation at the table, kind of like power attack does in d20. What if the bonus had to be applied entirely to one of the three choices? Personally, I think I would prefer to play with the original WM rules, rather than this chart. The original rules made each weapon distinct from every other weapon, while there's really no difference between them in your system. Although, if you are striving for simplicity before diversity, your system is much better.

Aladar wrote:
A character can only benefit from single mastery bonus in a given round, so even if a Fighter is wielding two weapons and has Expert Mastery in both, he only gains a total bonus of + 4 for the round, not + 8.

That's a good rule. Nice and elegant way to handle two-weapon fighters.

Aladar wrote:
* Includes Barbarians, Knights, and Rangers

If it were up to me, I'd extend the fighter bonuses to paladins before barbarians. Why did you choose to leave them out?

Tank,

Simple typo on my part. Paladins should also be included. Fixed.

And yes, I was going for something more simple. Much as I like the Mastery tables in the RC, it was a bit cumbersome to have to constatntly keep refering to all the tables during combat. With this simple table, we only need one.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

I don't know what I was thinking, of course this post should have been under the Rules section. Sorry.

Could one of you nice moderators please move this thing?

Thanks.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

Tank,

One other thing. Another reason I went to this table was because I found the original bonuses/increases to damage and AC on the RC Weapon Mastery Tables to be a bit too powerful for use in C&C.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

Yes, the bonuses are quite considerable, though, for high level play, perhaps required, or combats will take forever (or the spellcasters will just kill everything...)

serleran,

You know, that is a good point, and one that I may have to reconsider.

It just seemed to me that the extra damage on the Mastery tables was especially powerful in relation to a monster's HD. A fighter could be a Grand Master with a long sword at level 11th level using the rules from the RC and therefor be doing 2d6+8 points of base damage per hit.

I guess at higher levels, that extra damage might be needed if the characters are fighting monsters with very high hit points and don't want the spell casters to have all the glory. I will need to look more on this.

Thanks.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

Aladar wrote:
serleran,

You know, that is a good point, and one that I may have to reconsider.

It just seemed to me that the extra damage on the Mastery tables was especially powerful in relation to a monster's HD. A fighter could be a Grand Master with a long sword at level 11th level using the rules from the RC and therefor be doing 2d6+8 points of base damage per hit.

I guess at higher levels, that extra damage might be needed if the characters are fighting monsters with very high hit points and don't want the spell casters to have all the glory. I will need to look more on this.

Thanks.

I agree with you that the bonuses are way too high in the RC. I've scaled them back to this:

Weapon Mastery Bonus to Hit Table

Level .........Primary Foes Secondary Foes

Unskilled ..........-1 -1

Basic ..............+0 +0

Skilled ............+1 +1

Expert ............+2 +2

Master ............+3 +2

Grand Master ..+4 +3

Serl might be correct about them being necessary for fighters to keep up with magic-users at high level, but you have to think about context too. The RC is designed for play up to level 36, whereas I expect my games to run no further than level 14-15, so the smaller bonuses are justified.

One other thing you mentioned is that a fighter could end up with grand mastery by level 11. In practice, this is relatively unlikely given the training costs, the time involved, the necessity to find a grand master to train you, and the high chance of failure. I wouldn't be surprised if no one in my campaign ever reaches that level of mastery.

One other thing I wanted to mention: since my game focuses on lower levels than the RC, I've also modified the levels that different classes gain weapon slots. Here's my table:

Weapon Slots per Level Table

Level Fighter Bard Magic-User/Cleric/Thief/Monk

1 4 3 2

3 5 4 3

6 6 5 3

9 7 5 4

12 8 6 4

15+ See high level table in appendix

Sorry the table alignment is so bad.

EDIT: By the way, if you are using parts of the RC in your game, be sure to check out Mr. Reaper's RC companion document. It's incredibly useful. http://web.newsguy.com/a_doom/RCerrata/

Cool. Thanks for the RC Companion document link Tank.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/