Flurby Weapons No More
[12/23/2004] [Simon Blackfell and Arminius]Many changes have come to us from the 7.0 rules. Many good things have happened and a few bad ones as well. The spell homogenization has made the spells easier to understand and easier to use. The clearer rules on garb will make us look better than ever before. However, we have killed the creative weapons that used to be available on the field. All weapons now have to be swords; if they are not, they are utterly illegal. As flurby kind of guys, we like using weapons that people look at and go, “Wow! That is incredibly neat, how did you build that?” We like seeing axes, maces and other weapons that commonly are seen to have character. We build basket hilts on our weapons, and build weapons that look as close as we can get them to there real counterparts. Additionally we are huge proponents of safe weapons and go out of our way to make these weapons unquestionably safe. Minimum 2.5 inches? Just fine, great in fact. Make the weapons have a minimum area across, great stuff. Make the perfectly safe non-sword weapon illegal? This does not make any sense. Why use a mace anymore? If the entire weapon has to be strike legal why not make it a sword? Why create an axe? It won’t pass anyway. Homogenization is just fine, but it has gone too far. Want to get rid of the bitch sticks? Fine, but please do not take away the role-play aspect of these weapons. Even the book has made allowances for different weapon types that no longer exist according to the safety rules in page 98, the role-play aspects of weapons against certain monster types. Why build an axe? Hey wait, if all the swords are fun noodles, where are the edges? Does that mean that all these weapons are blunt? Hey wait a minute, any red weapon has to have 4 feet of striking surface; so that 9-foot pole arm has to have 4 feet of blade? What is the point? Make a great sword and call it a staff, or a glaive, or a spear. What is the difference now? Just change the thing you are calling it when you hand it to the reeve. If he complains say it is just extra safe padding on the whole shaft. We all know people who will do it, simply so that they can use their favorite weapon no matter what class they are playing and no matter what monster they are facing to get the maximum effect. Why remove the flavor of the role-play in the game for a slight convenience? Hey, on page 17, just under a third of the weapons shown (4 of them) as examples are illegal simply due to the rule that 2/3 of the length must be strike legal. Shaft style weapons have almost disappeared completely. With the 2/3 rules, we lose the latitude to create weapons other than clubs and pseudo-swords. So just as a simple fix, why not extend the rules to: 1/3 of the length padded to be strike legal at a minimum, 1/3 padding and 1/3 handle maximum? Perhaps even add in the red rule for the striking portion of a shafted weapon. Make the rule that the striking portion of a shafted style weapon must be minimum of 5 inches across the narrowest point, and all projections must be greater than 2 1/2 inches across to eliminate the aptly called “bitch sticks.” In addition, perhaps we could make the rule for pole arms slightly different for red category. Perhaps we could create a second category for slashing/bludgeoning pole arms? Currently the rules contradict themselves, saying that a pole arm only has to have the upper 1/3 padded, with only one foot required to be strike legal. Perhaps we could make the rule that 1/3 of the weapon’s overall length must be strike legal, 1/3 of the overall length must be padded, with half of the of the overall padding being at least 1 inch thick as opposed to ½ inch thick The weapon must still following all other basic great weapon statistics. Simply because of the playability issue, if more than half of the weapon has to be blade, the only difference between a red pole arm and a great sword is… well nothing, other than what you call it. So as a simple plea, please do not make our weapons become cookie cutter copies of each other. Please consider the thought that some of us play this game as stick flurbs, that we fight just as seriously but want to be able to fight playing that barbarian with an axe and have it look like, well, an axe. Please rethink this blanket rule and let us have a variety in our weapons once again.
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