"Heavy Weapons" Effort instead of "Guns"

#1

We don’t use any guns in our games, so I’ve been thinking about changing that to Heavy Weapons for D8 Effort dice. I’ve already made the switch on our character sheets… even though I haven’t really defined what a “Heavy Weapon” is yet… my initial inclination was to pretty much make all two-handed style Weapons = Heavy Weapons and make them occupy multiple equipment slots. But I’m not totally sold on that idea yet either.

Then I got to thinking about what real benefit there would be to splitting a category of Weapons into two categories. Why would a player choose to occupy multiple slots for a chance to only do 2 more points of damage? And here is where I got kinda stumped.

#2

I think you’re on the right path, maybe ignore the inventory slot side of things and focus on the lack of utility available to a heavy weapon user. No torches, no shields no off hand of any kind.

#3

When confronted with the same problem I decided instead to use simple dice notations/tags. In settings without GUNS (& TECH) I just ignore that effort (as in 1E/2E, where Magic was D8 and there was no GUN effort - the D10s were exclusively to roll LOOT).

In our games:
HEAVY & LARGE weapons (greatsword, for example) take 3 inventory spaces, require two hands to use, and deal double WEAPON EFFORT (essentially, 2d6 damage);
LIGHT weapons (dagger, for example) deal WEAPON EFFORT-2 damage (essentially 1d6-2) and are usually FAST (attack again on a modified 18+ roll) too;
MARTIAL weapons (longsword, for example) require specialized training (or attacks are HARD), and dead WEAPON EFFORT +2 damage (essentially 1d6+2) and so on.

There’s also a conversation going on about that here that you might like to take a look at.

#4

With my kids, we label them as One-handed and Two-handed, or light and heavy. A Magic Weapon would be a d10. A two-handed weapon doesn’t take up more space. You just can’t use a shield, torch, or whatever in the other hand.

#5

I was thinking of trying something like Heavy Weapons cause a negative modifier to DEX with the benefit of a modified D8 roll equal to the negative DEX.
I.E. Great Sword causes a negative 2 DEX but your damage effort is D8+2

#6

It’s a good idea, if you’re invested in using a D8. As an option, instead of including incremental modifiers, you could just make checks with the weapon HARD and give it a +1-3 bonus.

#7

You can do that, but is a two-handed sword more cumbersome than a long sword and a shield?

#8

I would like to use the D8, if for no other reason than to make sure we’re using all of our fun math rocks. I had thought about the HARD attempts too, but thought that might be a bit much. Makes the mechanic lifting simpler but kinda just feels “off”.

This is also one of the things I grappled with. Perhaps instead of a negative DEX modifier it could be applied to DEF instead?

Another idea I had for using D8s would be to use them for magic weapons instead of the D10. So magic spells are D10s, magic weapon D8, non magic weapon D6.
I pretty much play exclusively with my wife and kids (12, 10, 6) so as cool as I think the idea of TAGs are for each weapon, being able to keep that info easily remembered/conveyed is super important. I suppose I could write out a reference card listing the TAGs and their meaning but it would have to ve super concise.

#9

Similar. I play with 12, 10, 10. We switched over to a home-brewed version of EZD6.

#10

That’s a very cool one! Really like that one. In ICRPG 1E/2E, effors were basic d4, weapon d6, magic d8, ultimate d12… I love that because it makes Ultimate that much more powerful than the regular effort and also because d10s become only for loot rolls - as Hankerin once said, (I’m paraphrasing here) “it’s nice to see players drooling as soon as you touch the d10s”

#11

you can make 2H weapons be d8 or just ad d6 + 1 effort. You have to decide if you want to simplify weapons to being 1d6, then just having 2H ad flat dmg increases

#12

Just make the d8 the combat effort die for all weapons, then d6 and d8 have their own uses.

#13

This is what I do! I figure when Guns become more widespread in my setting they fit into the “Magic Weapon” category as well.