Weapon Proficiency

A weapon proficiency measures a character's knowledge and training with a specific weapon. When a character is created, the player checks how many weapon proficiency slots the character has (including their Intelligence bonus). These initial slots must be filled immediately, before the character embarks on his first adventure. Any slots that aren't filled by then are lost.

As a character reaches higher experience levels, he also earns additional weapon proficiencies. The rate at which proficiencies are gained depends on the character's class. Warriors, who concentrate on their martial skills, learn to handle a great number of weapons. They gain weapon proficiencies quickly. Wizards, who spend their time studying forgotten magical arts, have little time to practice with weapons. They gain additional weapon proficiencies very slowly. Multi-class characters can use the most beneficial line on the table to determine their initial proficiencies and when they gain new proficiencies.

Beyond proficiency, a character can become specialized in a Fighting Style (Weapon Specialization: Fighting Style) or an Expert (Weapon Expertise) with a weapon. Weapon Specialization is reserved for single-class fighters.

A character who has a specific weapon proficiency is skilled with that weapon and familiar with its use. A character does not gain any bonuses for using a weapon he is proficient with; the combat rules and attack chances assume that everyone uses a weapon he is proficient with. This eliminates the need to add a modifier to every die roll during battle. When a character uses a weapon that he is not proficient with, however, he suffers a penalty on his chance to hit. The size of this penalty depends on the character's class. Warriors have the smallest penalty because they are assumed to have passing familiarity with all weapons. Wizards, by comparison, are heavily penalized because of their limited study of weapons.

Proficiency allows the character to use a weapon with no penalties and employ all attack options and special weapon properties to their fullest extent.

Warriors can spend 2 proficiency slots and can gain a proficiency in all the weapons in a specific tight group. If that tight group is part of a broad group, then the character also possesses Weapon Familiarity with all weapons in the broad group.

By spending 3 slots, a warrior can learn a broad group weapon proficiency. He is assumed to be fully proficient in every weapon in that broad group.

This group proficiency option is only available to warriors. All other characters must spend a single proficiency slot to become proficient with a specific type of weapon.

In the listing, broad groups are noted in bold type, and tight groups are in italics. Any weapon not found in these groups is considered to be too unique to belong to any group.

Unarmed Proficiency

By spending a weapon proficiency a character may access a Basic Martial Art. Additional W.P. may be spent to add moves, purchase powers, or add bonuses to hit or damage for any specific move in the art (at a cost of 1 W.P. per +1).

Armor Proficiency

A character can spend a weapon proficiency slot to buy the armor proficiency, which indicates that he has become used to wearing a protective shell. Unlike the shield proficiency, the armor proficiency does not improve armor class. Instead, it reduces the encumbrance penalties for the wearing of a particular kind of armor. Thus, a character who is fully proficient with the use of his plate mail, for example, can move around a lot more easily and quickly than can a character who does not have this proficiency. A character with the armor proficiency suffers only half the normal encumbrance load of his armor. For example, full plate armor weighs 70 pounds. However, if a character is proficient with that type of armor, the armor has the encumbrance effect of only 35 pounds. Naturally, the armor retains its full weight for all other purposes - such as swimming!

Shield Proficiency

By spending a weapon proficiency, characters can become more skilled in the use of their shield. The extra protection conferred by the shield varies by the exact type the character becomes proficient in:

Non-Proficiency

If a character has never had any training or practice with a weapon, he is non-proficient. He can only guess at the proper way to hold the weapon or attack his opponent. Anything fancier than a simple hack, slash, or bash is beyond his abilities - the character cannot attempt any attack options such as disarming, blocking, or sapping.

In addition to his inability to make special attacks, the character also suffers an attack roll penalty based on his character class. Warriors tend to figure out weapons of any kind relatively quickly and have a small penalty for attacking with weapons they’re not familiar with. Other characters don’t have the warrior’s affinity for weapons and are more severely penalized. These penalties are:

Weapon Groupings

Axes, Picks, and Hammers
Axes: battle axe, hand/throwing axe, hatchet, two-handed axe, sword-axe, mace-axe
Picks: horseman’s pick, footman’s pick, pick
Hammers: war hammer, maul, sledge
Unrelated: adze
Bows

Short bow, composite short bow, long bow, composite long bow

Clubs, Maces, and Flails
Maces: footman’s mace, horseman’s mace, mace-axe
Clubs: club, great club, war club, ankus, morning star
Flails: horseman’s flail, footman’s flail
Crossbows
Hand crossbow, light crossbow, heavy crossbow, pellet bow, cho-ku-no​
Daggers & Knives
Dagger, stiletto, jambiya, main-gauche, parrying dagger, knife, katar​
Lances
Light, medium, heavy, jousting​
Polearms
Spear-like polearms: awl pike, partisan, ranseur, spetum
Poleaxes: bardiche, halberd, voulge
Bills: bill, bill-guisarme, glaive-guisarme, guisarme-voulge, hook fauchard
Glaives: glaive, fauchard, naginata, nagimaki, fauchard-fork
Beaked: bec de corbin, lucern hammer
Unrelated: military fork, tetsubo, lajatang
Spears & Javelins
Spears: spear, long spear, awl pike
Javelins: javelin, pilum, dart
Unrelated: harpoon, trident, brandistock
Swords
Ancient: broadsword, sapara, khopesh, sword-axe, short sword
Appollonian: broadsword, drusus, gladius, spatha
Sufic: short sword, scimitar, great scimitar, tulwar
Shaoic: cutlass, katana, wakizashi, no-dachi, ninja-to
Short: short sword, gladius, drusus, sapara, dagger, tulwar
Medium: broadsword, long sword, cutlass, sabre, falchion, estoc
Large: bastard sword, claymore, two-handed sword, great scimitar, no-dachi
Fencing weapons: rapier, sabre, main-gauche, parrying dagger
Chain & Rope Weapons
Chain, kau sin ke, kusari-gama, kawanaga, chijikiri
Martial Arts Weapons
Sai, jitte, nunchaku, sang kauw, three-piece rod, bo stick