I've just been following along reading, and noticed what I think is a misunderstanding:
It's an extension of the concept used in Siege of the Heavens, which IS an epic level module. However, people who have played SotH can testify that it hardly only caters to str based meleers.
Well the way you explained you system in your first post i was made to believe that the damage bonus you hand out keeps increasing with higher enchanted weapons. And what was once a +5 bonus is now +5 ab; but damage wise you get +5 on daggers, +15 on greatsword.
Generally correct (exact numbers are wrong, general principle is correct).
There is no reason what so ever to use a small weapon. They are just too weak. I see no realistic reason why there should be a huge damage difference between dagger, shortsword and longsword. Gameplay wise that is. Its just not fun and adds nothing.
You cannot finesse a medium weapon (except rapier which also has a smaller damage bonus due to increased threat range). If you mean "a dex character doesn't get much higher AC, same AB, better defenses overall, AND near equivalent damage" then yes, that's kind of the point. If you want to play a dex-based melee character then you need another source of damage (like sneak attack) or accept that you're trading offense for defense.
And I already gave a specific example of how it adds gameplay -- by default if you want to dual-wield as a human you can just pick feats for shortsword and you can swap to sword and board with effectively no penalty because it's only a one damage difference compared to longsword. This change actually makes it more viable/important to do something like longsword/short sword dual-wielding and humans who actually focus in longsword have an advantage during sword and board over humans who focus in short sword who go sword and board.
And, strictly speaking, my system is not ADDING differences as much as PRESERVING the differences that exist initially.
Weapon specialization is worse than chosing exotic weapons with your system, while originally it is twice as good. In vanilla every weapon has its use, with yours many are just useless.
By default choosing exotic weapons to use a Scythe over a Greataxe can be over a 10 damage per hit upgrade without even going beyond medium magic at level 30 or so. Using Kukris over short swords/daggers can easily be at least a 5 damage per hit upgrade. And that's trying to be conservative on both accounts. My system is merely applying that logic across the board (that exotics are supposed to be an upgrade to martials/simples).
Also, can you name a weapon that has a use in vanilla and is useless with my system? If anything my system makes MORE weapons have uses.
It sounds like a 1hit kill irregardless of level. The sad thing for your system here is: with a low level setting and low levels, vanilla actually is balanced fairly well.
In Siege of the Heavens (a level 40 module), the starting weapons have four damage dice, I believe. So a dagger would have 1d4 (base) + 4d4 (bonus) damage for 12.5 damage without any modifiers. A longsword would be 1d8 (base) + 4d8 (bonus) = 22.5 damage without any modifiers.
A scythe would have 2d4 (base) + 4d12 (bonus for large weapons) = 31 damage base. Say we have a character with 18 str modifier (highest unless half-orc) and Epic Weapon Specialization. That's 31 + 27 + 6 = 64 damage per hit. Under default rules, you'd probably have something like +6 enhancement damage and 2d10 elemental damage for 17 damage bonus, being conservative and very much medium magic. So going from 50 damage per hit (vanilla) to 64 damage per hit (my version) is suddenly a one hit kill?
And yes, at lower levels with low magic the damage on weapons is balanced fairly well. The difference between a Kukri and Dagger at level 1 is smaller (4.5% bonus) whereas with Keen and Improved Critical it's an 11.5% damage increase.
Likewise, the 1 extra damage from a bastard sword makes a big difference when you're only doing 7.5 damage per hit with a longsword (13% increase).
So if you think that at low levels a bastard sword should be 13% better than a longsword and a longsword should be 15% better than a short sword, why shouldn't that apply to high levels as well?
You put massive amounts of work into designing a new balancing system, that will only work under conditions that are even more strict than the conditions under which the vanilla system is sound. I do not see this as an improvement at all.
It didn't take much work since the basis was already created for Siege and it'll work everywhere. And people wanting to use 2Hs as viable weapons cried out in joy, be they halflings or half-orcs. So did people that wanted it to be worthwhile to use all exotic weapons. So did people who wanted something besides scimitars/rapiers to be the best weapons (they only receive d6 bonus compared to d8 for a longsword/warhammer/battleaxe/etc to compensate for the extra threat range).
Or as an alternative approach:
Weapon enchantment bonus damage is enhanced by 50% when a weapon is used in both hands. Lowered by 50% when in the off hand (maybe only for light weapons in the off hand). This would require some scripting sure. If you still think this would leave the higher weapons lacking, add another +1 damage to exotic and large weapons at lvl 10 and 20. This should give plenty a boost to them, without making the steps between different weapon types too large
What would this accomplish that my current system does not? I only see two notable differences.
1, a fighter who deals 40 damage with a longsword will still deal 38 damage with a *dagger.* Whereas my system would probably have the dagger deal 32-34 damage.
2, it "solves" the halfling/gnome probably by eliminating the weapon differences that exist at lower levels.
But then why do the massive overhaul? At lvl 6 with +1 equipment there is little reason for massive changes. Why have greatswords with 1d6 or 1d12 bonus damage? Especially if in the hands of npcs. These are potential one hit kills at lvl 6 on a lucky critical strike.
Two reasons.
1, it extends into higher levels.
2, due to the nature of the module you'll have better than +1 gear at level 6.
However, let's imagine it was effectively a low magic module with only +1 gear.
A halfling might have 15 strength with +1 from gear and he would thus do 1d6 (short sword) + 3 (strength) + 1 (enhancement bonus) = 7.5 damage per hit.
A human might have 17 strength with +1 from gear and he would thus do 1d8 (longsword) + 4 (strength) + 1 (enhancement bonus) = 9.5 damage per hit.
Huh. Lookee at that, it's a 27% damage difference. That's actually BIGGER than the 25% difference in my system.
Re: NPCs -- they get their own gear custom tailored to get the exact AB/damage/AC/HP/etc that I want anyway.
