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Narsham wrote:In fairness, if I spent 5 feats on a single weapon type I'd probably go with an inferior weapon of that type. Weapon focus/Weapon specialization/Greater focus/Greater Specialization and Improved Critical represent a substantial specialization penalty if you then don't use the weapon type you chose. And with the ability to make your own, I'm not sure the choice between a +6 artifact weapon, perhaps with other modifiers which don't entirely fit my character build or party, and a +5 weapon I crafted myself is going to be a hard one.

You'd waste almost half of your feats on something that may not work when using the best weapon available?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm never too keen on taking weapon focus/specialization/improved crit/power crit. Certainly not before Power Attack/Cleave/Greater Cleave/Combat Expertise/improved knockdown/improved disarm/improved sunder/spring attack... hell, even whirlwind attack and improved grapple are more meaningful IMO than "+1 to BAB when using a certain weapon". The only part of the whole "using THIS weapon, honest" chain that's meaningful is improved critical/power critical, since it's unlikely that you'll drop keen on every weapon you have, but it's not worth the useless prereq feat.

4.0 uses weapon classes (heavy blade, mace, axe, etc) and I don't think that breaks anything.

4.0 sucks in so many ways that it would be hard for one poor design decision to break anything more.

An alternative would be to allow a certain amount of feat retraining over the course of the game.

Ugh. That's even worse than weapon groups.

some_name wrote:You'd waste almost half of your feats on something that may not work when using the best weapon available?

Why have the feats if taking them is a waste?

I guess I'm not clear on why you don't like weapon groups. Is it because fighters are already good enough with weapons?

Why have the feats if taking them is a waste?

It's situational. It's USUALLY a waste. Consider the following situation, though-

Your fighter has just hit level 16. He's got the most important "here's a new action" feats, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, all of the Cleave variants, etc. He's got an amazing artifact that he's almost certain he's going to use for the rest of the game (like, say, a +6 Holy Wounding Bastard Sword, or a +5 Keen Dwarven Waraxe with +4d6 Destruction-style damage). At that point, it starts to make sense- weapon focus in the type of your artifact that's going to be THE weapon wielded by your character in 99% of situations, followed by Improved Critical at level 18. Taking it before you've found such an artifact may well be a waste, yes.

Also, although not implemented in KotC, if using D&D's "ancestral weapon" supplement (I think that's what it's called- it's the one that can create a weapon that gains new powers as the char levels up), it becomes a no-brainer.

As for why I don't like weapon groups- it removes a choice. If light mace and heavy mace are the same feat, for instance, there's no choice to be made. If they're not, and you've got an amazing artifact light mace, then you have an interesting decision- go for focus in the light mace, go for the better weapon type in heavy mace, or abstain from that feat altogether.

some_name wrote:As for why I don't like weapon groups- it removes a choice. If light mace and heavy mace are the same feat, for instance, there's no choice to be made. If they're not, and you've got an amazing artifact light mace, then you have an interesting decision- go for focus in the light mace, go for the better weapon type in heavy mace, or abstain from that feat altogether.

I can see the logic there. But if you see these feats as unappealing compared to a slew of others, why not make them better in order to create more interesting choices? If you're not going to take a Focus feat at all until 16th level, when you have all the other feats you need, and you're only taking it to match a weapon you expect to use for the rest of the game, how does the "heavy mace versus light mace" issue arise? If that great weapon is a light mace, wouldn't that pretty much dictate your choice to you? You'd need to have two comparable endgame artifacts of the two mace types before it became a decision, and even then the light mace would need to be marginally better or you'd take the heavy mace every time...

Ok, say you have an artifact Light Mace, a magical Heavy mace that isn't quite as good enchantment wise, and are level 16. You're taking your feat for the level. If there are groups, it's a no brainer- you take "mace" group, and can have them both. With no groups, there's an actual decision there.

The weapon groups make the fighter a bit more rounded... You could decide not to specialise, and get focus with most weapons. Or you could still ultra-specialise, and still have the choices you mentioned, but between weapons of different groups.
With the weapon feats as they are, there's no way to get focus in everything (even though the first focus is a very light specialisation, open to all character classes). And because they are "situational" as you say, they may seem inferior to dodge, cleave, two weapon fighting, improved bullrush, etc. Having inferior feats is not a good idea. But in fact these feats are necessary to the fighter, because some monsters have such a high AC towards the high levels that you just need the +2 from greater focus.

BlueSalamander wrote:The weapon groups make the fighter a bit more rounded... You could decide not to specialise, and get focus with most weapons. Or you could still ultra-specialise, and still have the choices you mentioned, but between weapons of different groups.

So are you saying you'd like to use weapon focus on a general group of weapons, then specialization/greater focus etc would be weapon specific? For example a fighter might take Weapon Focus: Axe and get +1 to all axe-class weapons, then take Greater Weapon Focus: Battleaxe which would give him an extra +1 to battleaxes only? I like that idea.

You'd have to re-prioritize the feat selections, though. Weapon Specialization would have to be specific and follow Greater Focus instead of just focus, I'd think. What about Improved Crit? That would have to be weapon-specific, wouldn't it?

No erkper, I'd just like the weapon groups for all weapon-based feats as described in http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/build ... pFeats.htm, including all the proficiency, focus, specialisation, improved critical.

Ah, in that case I'm back to preferring the standard 3.5 Ed system. I don't mind the weapons groupings for proficiencies and maybe weapon focus, but when you're getting into the level of expertise associated with Specialization, the Greaters, and Imp. Crit, I really think there is enough difference between a handaxe and a greataxe to disallow one feat to cover both weapons.

Personally, I'd get rid of the specialization based on weapon types all-together.
Now, I know 3rd ed has them, but I feel it greatly limits the, well, coolness of the character.

Fighters should simply have "Combat focus" and "Combat specialization", and they'd get the plusses to all attacks, regardless of the weapon. This way you would actually change the weapon the character is using, which I find is appealing. If you are specialized in a single weapon, you will just use the same exact weapon throughout the game, especially if you can simply always enchant a better version of it at will, which I find boring.
Would this make fighters too powerful? Not really, since they'd be using the weapon of their specialization anyway if they had to choose. It just removes choice.
But if there's no crafting, or crafted weapons are inferior to artifact-weapons found in the game, you'll feel bad if you've taken weapon focus/specialization to a different weapon from the artifact. In a sense, you've wasted your precious feats.