I'm going to end my involvement in this with this. Your "vision" for this game would turn all characters into the same thing. Everyone would train and use the same weapons, and there would be nothing unique about them when it came to their skill/weapon choices. It would change this game for the worse, and in the end make everyone generic.


>>Equine Cemetery anyone?

Please.

No...you differentiate yourself via feats. All the customization and characterization moves to a system that actually gives you flavorful differences. The only difference now between your ME and your HE is that they are two different skills; they serve the exact same purpose. Your basically just training the very same skill 5-10 times (depending on the player) to use different templates with a better 'to hit' ratio.

What I'm saying is remove the need to train X skills that effectively do the same thing for what is basically the same physical action and instead move the differentiating pieces to a feat system. That way over time someone who wants to be a great knife fighter will pick up all the feats that making them excellent knife fighters, while someone else may choose to get different feats. You further break that down with supplementary skills and feats that work on a broader basis (like feats for particular maneuvers that are independent of weapon type, others that work over groups of weapons (like all hafted weapons would work on axes and hammers, etc)).

The issue now if you all see character customization in places that actually provide in my opinion, pretty terrible mechanics. Its almost akin to us having to have a different climb skill weather we are climbing a tree, a wall, or some other obstacle. They all require different skills, but as a group of people we agree sub consciously "its all really just climbing". With weapons, by and large fighting is really fighting, and while I could see some logic to say a bladed weapon would be sufficiently different form a pike weapon, we have over segmented the weapon skills (even in a 3.0 world) that make certain things just comical. I'll refer to Jamie Lannister again; if he was in a fight and the only thing available to him was a knife, and he had no "LE" training in DR 2.0, he would still be a terrifying opponent with it, because the tenants of fighting reside far more with the individual and far less with knowledge of a particular weapon which is what we have. I would go as far as to say GS4 is the very same, you have different skills for extremely similar types of weapons, which to me seems just strange.

Really for the same reason you see Athletics, Stealth and other bridges skills in 3.0, I would love to see the weapon skill set for 'what weapon em I holding' condense and instead see new skills around 'what STYLE of combat em I using'.

Anyhow, I think I agree we might be at dead horse levels, unless people are having fun having a civil discussion:)

I'm not sure what my ideas have to do with the 3.0 release. I have many times stated I did not expect them to make any impact. I'm bringing up ideas to discuss, pointing out logical flaws (as I see them) for future consideration. Being its DR, I have no doubt that even if staff agreed with me that would at best mean 2015, but the point of the discussion was merely to have one.

No one is forcing you to respond or treat it like a hostile debate;)

Fair enough, i dont disagree, however the approach to it I feel is more a bandaid. Thats not an insult, because within the frame work you had to work in its a brilliant band aid, a silver bullet almost, but I still think the general idea around weapons and armor is rather problematic and peculiar given the rest of the skills in dr.

In DR a skill floats around what you are doing, not what you are doing it with. I dont have separate skills for climbing rocks and another for trees, in fact all athletic stuff is being smartly pulled into a single skill.

With weapons, the focus the make the ranks focus on weapon familiarity instead of style familiarity seems peculiar in the modern day, but it made perfect sense to me many years ago (in the same sense that THACO and AC in D&D made sense to me once, but now seems like a terrible way of model the presence of Armor and Evasion in a single formula).

I'm not being delusional and thinking this would be picked up, but if i have skills that revolved around:

Melee Mastery: Your raw fighting capability, utilized in all contests.
Combat Acumen: Your ability to analyze and understand your opponents stance, favoring intelligence (Special Barb uses)
Feinting Maneuvers: Your ability to undermine and open up holes in an opponents defense via certain combat verbs, favors charisma
Positioning: Your ability to gain and retain positioning via certain combat verbs, favoring reflex
Probing Attacks: Your ability to land light power attacks via certain combat verbs, favoring agility
Powerful Strikes: Your ability to land hard blows via certain combat verbs, favoring strength
Stance: Your ability to move between stances in combat. Stances would be verbs that set the character up to receive certain benefits and draw backs, and degrade (in both directions) as they attack as they become 'neutral'.

Some ranged only ones are

Ranged Mastery: Same deal
Thrown Mastery: Same Deal. Since throwing a weapon is significantly different from firing a an arrow or quarrel, i feel this split is necessary. Would include LT/HT and Sling.
(the below skills are replicated for thrown attacks)
Snap Shots: The ability to quickly attack the target with key verbs, favoring reflexes and short range. Snap shots are ideal against stationary foes. (new verbs)
Targeting: Focused primarily on well placed shots, preferable against moving targets. Favors agility, more effective at long ranges. (new verbs)
Cover Fire: These attacks are primary meant to distract, hinder and disrupt advancing foes. Favors wisdom.

Anyhow the idea is then with weapon feats, you build them around the styles and people are free to pick the feats that make sense for their style (instead of weapon) of combat. An agile tricksy knife fighter will likely favor Feinting and positioning feats, giving them new verbs or better effects, etc. You also pull in more non standard attributes into the combat formula leading to more diversity in builds. Someone wanting to feint better is going to consider some more charisma maybe to meet a particular feat requirement (presuming attribute requirements are introduced).

In the end I feel having the skills relate around how you fight instead of what you fight with is healthier, leads to more diversity amongst players, etc.

It is however, unlikely. By and large the community would probably disdain the change.