House Rule - Alternate Weapon Tables

[Demiurge]

I'm toying with some house rules to differentiate weapons and am thinking of introducing some additional factors such as:

• * Weapon speeds for initiative ties
  * Allowing some weapons to give bonuses to overbearing and disarming beyond those already listed. Examples would be the halbred for overbearing (+3 for being a 2-handed weapon) and the flail for overbearing and disarming (+1 for horsemans, +2 for footmans).

I read what csperkins1970 did in an old post and will crib some of that (thanks, Chris!). Is anyone else doing something similar?

[Relaxo]

I've always liked weapon speed since I started using it in 2nd ed. The idea being to strike first with a 1d6 or even 1d4 weapon and kill an enemy before they can swing their huge 1d10 or 1d8 weapon... gives a reason to choose the smaller die / faster one instead of just crunching numbers for maximum killing power.

In C&C, the simplest thing (other than using the weapon speed rule from 2nd ed) I found was something like subtract the EV of the weapon from your initiative roll (since a simple 1d10 highest wins in C&C).

Your idea of using it only to break ties is cool because then it's not a big deal on each roll until it comes up, much less intrusive. Simpler than mine, and simple is probably better

[MithrilKnight]

Your idea of using it only to break ties is cool because then it's not a big deal on each roll until it comes up, much less intrusive. Simpler than mine, and simple is probably better

I agree. I've been using simultaneous actions for initiative ties, but a weapon speed factor to break ties is intriguing. It doesn't come up that often, so it's not a huge deal if we have to look things up. (Although I'm really trying to be careful about rules creep -- it sort of defeats the reasons I went to C&C in the first place.)

Just thinking a bit further, what if it's a case of a tie and a spellcaster? Could you use EV vs. spell level or something like that?

[Demiurge]

Just thinking a bit further, what if it's a case of a tie and a spellcaster? Could you use EV vs. spell level or something like that?

IIRC, 2e used the spell level as the casting time for most spells, so that might work. Though I'm wondering if that would be too low. Maybe 1 or 2 + spell level instead.

I wholeheartedly agree about avoiding rules creep. The game is 100% playable as is, I just thought it would be fun to give players a reason to use an "inferior" weapon.

[Demiurge]

I've started work on a revised armor and weapons table on my new blog. Opinions & suggestions are welcome.