Random Weapon Tables

[Captnq]

Hi.

I have finished what I consider the final rough draft of my weapon handbook. Soon, I will attempt to make the random weapon tables. Before I do, I wanted to know if there were any requests?

For example, "I'm sick of my barbarian NPCs always getting magic lassos. Why isn't there a two-handed weapon table?"

That sort of thing. I'm thinking:

Master Table of everything showing up at an equal chance. For people who want to say, "Fuck it, let's arm him with something wierd.

A series of tables based on actual rarity and how likely you are to meat someone armed with a Manople as opposed to a club.

Light Weapons.
One handed weapons
Two handed weapons
Thrown
Ranged
Ammunition
Thrown Ammunition
Melee Ammunition
Applications
Accessories
Racial
Double
Finesse
Grappling
Nonlethal
Reach
Shield
Special Monk Weapon
Tripping

And the "No Way I rolled a Ranged Weapon Without Ammunition" Tables

Maybe a Common Weapon for a (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard) table.

Feel free to go look at my weapon handbook if you need ideas, but this is basically looking for: "Ya know, I always wanted to be able to roll for..."

[linklord231]

I would like to request a set of region themed tables - for example, pirate-y weapons, Eastern weapons, desert-y weapons, etc. 

[Demelain]

Simple/Martial/Exotic table, if it isn't too much trouble. I'd rather not roll on the one-handed table an indeterminate number of times until I get something the NPC is actually proficient with.
Thanks for this weapon project, BTW. I cannot imagine doing something like this myself.

[Captnq]

Simple/Martial/Exotic table, if it isn't too much trouble. I'd rather not roll on the one-handed table an indeterminate number of times until I get something the NPC is actually proficient with.
Thanks for this weapon project, BTW. I cannot imagine doing something like this myself.

I think I'm going to wind up breaking it down a lot, so I have a feeling there's going to two to three tiers of tables/ That way you can start off on All Weapons, or skip to Martial One Handed. I thought about breaking it down by Bludgeoning/piercing/slashing, but that's adding way too much complexity to this.

I like the region ideas. I'm already doing the It's a... Dwarf, Elf, Orc, Gnome, Halfling. Any suggestions on Themed tables what sort of weapons go on them?

[kitep]

More a suggestion than a request, but how about a table by class?  ie, by druid, monk, rogue, etc

[awaken_D_M_golem]

4e did something stupid with all the magic stuff.
Somebody made it.  That "somebody" was the DM.

Of course having a backstory for every
weapon would get obviously tedious.
Still, a game mechanic for near-fluff = real weapons.
Expert 6 in a Thorp could make a silvered weapon,
but there wouldn't normally be one within the Thorp.

[Captnq]

4e did something stupid with all the magic stuff.
Somebody made it.  That "somebody" was the DM.

Of course having a backstory for every
weapon would get obviously tedious.
Still, a game mechanic for near-fluff = real weapons.
Expert 6 in a Thorp could make a silvered weapon,
but there wouldn't normally be one within the Thorp.

I am confused.

I'm talking about suggested random tables to help speed up NPC creation. Instead of reading all 426 entries, you can focus on the suggested ones under Random Dwarven Weapons, not, This axe was forged by the hand of the great weapon smith Hactlicak who once tutored under the dread necromancer slt'thah in the age of-

You get the idea. You're free to take whatever you want, but a random table helps speed things up.

Plus, it sometimes outfits your NPCs with really wierd shit to keep the players on their toes.

[linklord231]

I like the region ideas. I'm already doing the It's a... Dwarf, Elf, Orc, Gnome, Halfling. Any suggestions on Themed tables what sort of weapons go on them?

Are you asking for more themes, or for ideas of what weapons should go on the themes already suggested?

[Captnq]

I like the region ideas. I'm already doing the It's a... Dwarf, Elf, Orc, Gnome, Halfling. Any suggestions on Themed tables what sort of weapons go on them?

Are you asking for more themes, or for ideas of what weapons should go on the themes already suggested?

Both would be helpful.

I've never dealt well with subjective judgements. Confirmation via other people's opinions would be of assistance.

[Captnq]

Maybe I should clarify.

I've finished the rough draft. The Raw data is there with some notes and some processing, but now I need to clean it up. Unlike the WSA list, there is no real way to divide the weapons up. Yes, Martial, Light, Throwning. I got it. But with WSAs, there are fire attacks and nausea causing and poison enhancement. Weapons... well... they do damage. All of them. Mostly. If I'm going to compare I need to figure out the different sub-catagories. Disarming weapons, Nonlethal, Grappling. That's easy. But what about Good for a barbarian? Off handed Weapons? That sort of thing.

I need not only lists, but the catagories to make lists for so I can finish analysis of the weapons. Which one is best for a rogue? If you want two handed weapons, which one is the go to? That sort of thing. What's useful?

Do note, I'm going to make a big spreadsheet after I finish the final clean up, but working on the randome tables at the same time just avoids work duplication.

[linklord231]

I'm working on coming up with themed lists, but it's slow.  For each weapon, I'm finding a picture, jotting down what themes might go along with it, and then doing a bit of research to see if the weapon has a real-world analogue and if so what culture it's from. 

[Jackinthegreen]

Well, good weapons for off hand use will almost always be light because that's just how TWF works best with its rules.

Good for a barbarian would most likely be pretty much anything 2-handed, or 1-handed that can benefit from 1.5x str mod to damage.  So a rapier would not be good for a barb since it can't benefit from being held two-handed, as far as strength to damage goes.  Power Attack is another matter for that, but rapiers are still a poor choice for barbs because of the strength issue alone.

Reach weapons are another mainstay for barbarians because, if they're charging, it's possible the target has a weapon readied and using a reach weapon can ignore that pesky issue.

For two-handed weapons in general, it's usually best to go with higher base weapon damage and lower crit modifiers unless the character is either really focusing on crits or has a large enough strength or other boosts to damage to make the average damage of a larger crit weapon pull ahead.  2d6 is ahead of 1d12 by half a point.

I'm not sure which damage type might be preferable to show since I haven't seen the data collected for DR based on damage type.  When in doubt I suppose a morningstar works the best since very few monsters have DR/bludgeoning and piercing.

Have you put together the list of weapons that are martial 2-handed, but exotic 1-handed?

[Captnq]

I'm working on coming up with themed lists, but it's slow.  For each weapon, I'm finding a picture, jotting down what themes might go along with it, and then doing a bit of research to see if the weapon has a real-world analogue and if so what culture it's from.

Yeah, there's something I wanted to do. Rip a picture out of the book and put it next to each entry. I have a feeling my file size would explode. Would be cool as heck, however.

[linklord231]

This is what I have so far.  Feel free to move stuff around or make new categories or whatever.  I think this is all non-ammunition/alchemical weapons up to Duom.

Jungle Weapons: Ankus, atlatl, Throwing Axe, Blowgun, Greater Blowgun, Bola Flail, Bola, Barbed Bola, Yuan-Ti Serpent Bow, Chakram, claw bracer, Club, Tigerskull Club

Northern Weapons: Atlatl, Ice Axe, Bone Bow, Tigerskull Club (other Frostburn weapons)

Low-tech weapons: Atlatl, Blowgun, Greater Blowgun, Bola Flail, Bola, Barbed Bola, Boomerang, Talenta Boomerang, Xen'Drik Boomerang, Bone Bow, Club, Tigerskull Club

Pirate Weapons: Throwing Axe, Boot Blade, Chain, Chain Lash, Barbed Chain, Drow Scorpion Chain, Spiked Chain, Chain-and-Dagger, Club, Aquatic Crossbow, Cutlass, Dagger

Viking Weapons: Throwing Axe, Battleaxe, Club, Dagger

Medieval Weapons: Throwing Axe, Battleaxe, Caber, Club, Great Crossbow, (Repeating) Heavy Crossbow, (Repeating) Light Crossbow, Dagger, Punching Dagger

Underground/Mining weapons: Gnome Battle Pick

Hidden Weapons: Close Fighting Blade, Boot Blade, Bow Blade, Lute Bow, Monk's Cane, Weighted Cloak, Collapsing Crescent Fan, Dagger, Barbed Dagger

Eastern Weapons: Blowgun, Greater Blowgun, Monk's Cane, Chain (manriki-gusari), Chain Lash, Barbed Chain, Drow Scorpion Chain, Spiked Chain, Chain-and-Dagger, Chakram, chijiriki, claw bracer, Collapsing Crescent Fan



Unsorted: Hurl Club, Chuul Lasher, Chatkcha, Gnome Calculus, Dwarven Buckler-Axe, Elven Double Bow, Flutter Blade, Close-Fighting Blade, Battlehorn, Orc Double Axe, (Heavy) Aspergillum, Annulat, Alchemy Blade, Covered Crossbow, (Double) Hand Crossbow, Grapple-firing crossbow, Double Heavy Crossbow, Double Light Crossbow, Winch Crossbow, Cutting Wheel, Ribbon Dagger, Dragonsplit


I wanted to to a "Converted Tool" category, which would include things like sickles, clubs, tridents (converted pitchforks), and other 'plowshares to swords' type weapons, but I haven't found enough weapons in that theme so far to justify a table for it.

"Low Tech" weapons are from societies that either don't have easy access to iron, or haven't discovered steel smelting yet.  There's a lot of overlap with Jungle, so you could probably combine those if you wanted to.