Again, a valid assumption that I disagree with.

I’m not arguing against your mastery of real-world martial arts and history, I’m merely questioning it’s applicability to my game. I think you’ve got a well-formed argument, I’m merely dismissing it because I don’t feel it adds anything meaningful to my game world. Everything you’ve said I can roll into my sense of “proficiency means you’re trained to use it” and “the effectiveness of a rapier is based more on Dex than Str, regardless of proficiency.”

The French and Spanish adapted a Roman gladiatorial fighting style for use in duels and skirmish combat with a longer form of the rapier which is now known as an Epee. While that might be reasonable for an elf or rogue not so much for a fighter who gets their training from the military whochre in essence is still fighting with rank-and-file formations in with they would only be taught the basic hold here stab like this. If they were even taught to use a rapier at all.
You have to remember that the rapier was originally 1-1/2 feet long and only around an inch wide. It was a sidearm to a spear, halberd, glaive, or another polearm.

And that’s a valid assumption that I disagree with.

Two-Handed Damage: I don’t have strong feelings on this; at least in D&D/PF the assumption is “round down”), so half-scores are +0, +1, +1, +2, +2, etc. If I had any complaints, they would be that (1) Double-strength doesn’t have any meaning for most ‘regular’ people, and (2) How does this work with negative modifiers? Does a -2 become a -3 or a -1?

Throwability: It’s been a while since I checked, but I’m pretty sure Pathfinder also includes range increments; a lower increment means it becomes less accurate with distance, so things that have better “throwability” have better increments. I’d like to see it used to better effect, maybe, but I don’t think it needs to be more complex than that.

Finesse and Cleave Weapons: This is kind of a great idea, and that Jack fellow must be a fairly clever chap.

Speed: I’ve struggled with this one for quite a bit; it really comes down to “how abstract is combat.” I mean, a round is 6 seconds long, do you mean to tell me you only swing your dagger once in 6 seconds? I suppose that could be true — I’m not an expert knife fighter, so I can’t really say — but it feels wrong. What seems more likely is that an attack roll sums up an entire maneuver, possibly a series of swings depending on your weapon, and the outcome of those “attacks.” Or maybe it is just one-roll-one-swing, I don’t know.

Space To Use: I like this idea, but I think it needs to be considered pretty carefully. As noted elsewhere, stabby/piercing weapons probably don’t need much space at all to use effectively as long as your pointing it the right way. And if we start considering how your weapon is pointing now we start to get into questions about Facing rules, and is that really where we want to take this?

Strength/Dexterity To Use: I generally like this idea on it’s face, but I think it needs to be considered carefully. See my recent post on Ability Score Assumptions to see what I mean — a 14 is essentially “genius level” ability, and that’s kind of a steep requirement to levy for swinging a piece of metal. Although, the idea of having DEX or INT requirements interests me…

Training Time: Not a bad idea, but not one I’m really a fan of. I am kind of interested in limiting the proficiencies available to characters, though; I can understand a Fighter being proficient in pretty much every weapon, but I think I’d like to see Rangers, Rogues, Paladins and the like choose a small handful instead of just getting everything. Bonus for making Fighters once again the real weapons experts.

Weapon Vs. Armor Type: I haven’t read Delta’s post, but I’ve been interested in this for a while. Either reduce Armor’s bonus against certain damage types (ie, maybe chain is -1 vs Bludgeoning, or +1 vs Piercing), or change Armor from an AC bonus to Damage Reduction, and reduce or bypass the reduction with certain damage types (less a fan of that idea, I think). Different armors were made to counter different weapons, after all.

Hold at Range: Meh. I figure this is already assumed with the Reach quality (that they’ll stay back or get hit, not that you can make free AoOs). I guess it makes more of a difference if a foe can get in behind your guard, to where you can’t effectively hit them with your spear, etc.

Parry Bonus to AC: I’m also not too keen on this idea, but that may just be because I don’t care to think about it. My knee-jerk reaction is that there’d be too much rock-paper-scissors to keep track of, or do you think a dagger will effectively parry a Morningstar?

Weapon Damage and Repair: I like the idea of weapon and armor damage, I don’t like the idea of tracking it or determining when it applies. Pathfinder has the Sunder maneuver, and I figure that’s good enough.

Alternate Attack Surfaces: I thought this was another thing already included in the Pathfinder (if not 3.X) ruleset. Something like “take a -2 to hit to change damage types”? So you could stab for piercing, or hit with the flat of the blade for bludgeoning or something. I think it might be neat (if impractical) to have certain weapons do less damage if you’re using them “wrong”, and I think some weapons simply can’t change types (how do you deal slashing or piercing with a quarterstaff?).

“Feats represent the training and practice to perform things that aren’t exactly easy.”

While that may be true in general, I don’t feel it’s true in this case. After all, Classes in Pathfinder/D&D3.5 all have a list of Weapon Proficiencies, which means they’re trained with those weapons. So someone with Weapon Proficiency – Rapier is already proficient with the rapier (that feels like it should be obvious). Why would a fencer ever use his strength rather than his finesse? And even if you’re untrained in using the rapier, it’s effectiveness is going to be based more on your DEX than your STR (and the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing is included in the -4 penalty to hit for using a non-proficient weapon).

What im getting at is theories are meant to help design final product. If the theory would require reworking much of the system then it most likely wouldnt be very usable in practice. This is something i learned from trying to build my own gaming systems.

Look at your parry bonus to ac you say it has the potential to be the mid-sized weapons biggest advantage against other weapons despite the fact that in reality any weapon can be usession to parry. In fact most shorter weapons and Polearms actually are better for it than say a longsword. Though this style of combat is represented already in the found of fighting defensively or even going total defense. The theory behind it is already there in the R.A.W.

The space to weild is counter intuitive as a spear is more effective down a constricted hallway than anywhere else as the enemy has a harder time dodging it effectively.

What I’m saying is these are good ideas, but as the old saying “there III s nothing new understand under the sun.

An old RPG had it to where you could choose to take a negative to hit in exchange for a parry bonus on your defense rolls for a turn. This actually evolved into it’s modern day fight on the defensive action.

Look closer at the rules and you see most theories have been tested in the past 80 years that pen-&-paper games have existed en masse. Once you discover what has been done you can find the few that haven’t been done. At least not in said system.

I am using Pathfinder as a platform to theorize. It’s just the structure which is most convenient for me as I ponder various mechanical possibilities.

Other posts on this blog relate more directly to Pathfinder, and how it can be played. But this post is about theory.

In eccense the concepts while creative lack any real input from real practices used with the theories behind them.

And i really hope that makes sense. In the end most of these rules would require an entire book similar to Unearthed Arcana to discuss all the changes required for these rules. Heck put these changes into effect and change them throughout the system and you could have Pathfinder 2nd Edition. But they actually feel more like something for D&D 4E. don’t know if this was intentional or not. And sorry about comparing them to 4e but I get a similar feeling with these rules as I got when I read the versatile weapon rule in 4e.

They make sense in relation to most modern expectations but nothing is as you expect it. If you don’t mind LS, I can put my spin on them and post them some where.

Oh and before I forget. Where are you getting decimals? You always round down. It is fairly easy to do. In fact how I always do it is decrease the number to the nearest even number then divide by 2. While it sounds complicated it is really easy. Plus a general rule of thumb I have learned is always have at least one calculator on hand.