Cored Knives, Daggers, and Maces
	By Hans Schroder

What's wrong:

Zero point cored weapons (less than 20" effective length) were removed
from the weapons table with the '01 rules sweep, and there were a lot of
players who were unhappy with the change.  One of the arguments I heard
was that they were way too effective to be free and that people were far
too good with them so we should make them pay to use them.

I would like to suggest that seeing how the revised weapons point system
works and having played with it for a while, this decision to remove 0 pt
cored weapons could be revisited.


My solution:

Reinstate zero point cored weapons (daggers, maces, etc) with the note
that to use any cored weapon you must have some weapons points.  If we
think about this in terms of what weapons points represent, I believe they
represent training in combat of one form or another.  This fits with the
difference between a cored and uncored dagger as well.  A cored weapon can
be used to block.


How this would work out:

A player could spend 6 weapons points on shield and be able to use
a 0-point mace

A player could spend 3 points on armor and be able to use a 0-pt
dagger to fight (mostly to block)

A player could spend 3 points on short Florentine and be able to
wield two 0-pt daggers

A player could spend 1 weapon point and, representing basic
training in combat, be able to use a cored dagger.

The last point is very important to the proposal, in my opinion.  It
allows for a 6th level FPC combat caster with 18 points in magic (cleric,
mage, or mystic) 1 point of initiation, 1 point in weapons and 2 points
(the max) in disads.


Potential problems-

Those who initially thought that zero point cored weapons were too
powerful may think that this system goes too far and makes zero point
weapons again too powerful.

It breaks up the 3-point increment of weapons points (I would
point out that it only does so for the 1 point category)


The actual proposals

Proposal 1:
	In the weapons table add the following entry:
		Cored Dagger (to 20")	1 point

Proposal 2:
	In the weapons table change the following entry
		Cored Dagger (to 20")	_ points
	to
 		Cored Dagger (to 20")	_ or free*

	And add the note
		*Free if you have other weapons skill (i.e. Shields,
		Florentine Weapons, etc)

	In the "Weapons Skill" description add the following entry:

"Uncored weapons shorter than 20" (known OOG as "wimblies") are always
free.  Cored weapons shorter than 20" cost ___ points by themselves, but
are free if you spend 3 or more points on any other weapons skill."