Beacon Weapon Damage

If you haven't heard of Beacon, well, I suppose that's not too surprising (the rulebook for free). It's based off of the Microlite 20 (M20) explosion from when the d20 system was exploding. The way it outshines the other M20 systems is that Beacon is simply better than them. It's combat system is cleaner. The magic system isn't Vancian, so it's infinitely better. The classes offer a more feasible progression that doesn't really create a skill bloat as other M20 systems did. The races, while only offering the tip on balancing new races that boils down to "don't let the new races be unbalanced," offer a much more nuanced and interesting race option than other M20 systems, and give the fantastic approach that the types of hit dice are based on what race the character is. A frail elf or a little halfling, realistically, should be weaker than humans, dwarves, or orcs.

Of the M20 systems, Beacon is the superior. Like all M20 systems, though, Beacon has its flaws. The largest, in my opinion (besides having AC), is its weapon damage tables. There are two types of weapons, light and heavy. Heavy weapons have a further subtlety added to them -- whether or not they're two-handed. As written the damage system works like this: All light weapons deal 1d6 damage and heavy weapons deal 1d8; one-handed melee weapons add half of a character's Strength modifier (rounded down) while two-handed weapons add the full value. When I read that, I scrunched my eyes in surprise and disbelief. The prices of weapons varies quite a bit (from nothing to 50 silver) to the point that, considering the way that damage works, I could just disregard the prices and tell my players to acquire whatever weapons they feel like having, since it's flavor and doesn't really matter anyway.

I decided that it might be better to not waive the prices of weapons and add a little more complexity to the system, by providing simple damage modifiers to all of the weapons based on their price. That might strike someone as strange, but this isn't GURPS and seemed to solve the issue I had. I figured the average of each of the tables and modified the damage by price grades.

For the Light Weapons, the average was close enough to 8. I decided that the price grades would be 3 below 8 and 7 above 8. So weapons costing 5 sp or less had a -1 to damage, 2 sp or less -2, and the club, which costs nothing, has -3 (I'd assume that minimum damage is still implemented). Likewise, weapons that cost 15 sp have +1 to damage, 22 sp +2, 29 +3, 36 +4, 43 +5, and 50 sp (the rapier) +6.

For the Heavy Weapons, the average is close enough to 26. I decided that I would follow the lead of what I'd done above and reduce the weapon damage to half of the die type -- the decreasing price grade is 6. So weapons that cost 20 sp or less are -1 to damage, 14 sp -2, 8 sp -3, and 2 sp -4. I decided that I would again follow what I had done with light weapons and set the increasing price grade to 9. So weapons that cost 35 sp or more are +1 to damage, 44 sp +2, 53 sp +3, 62 sp +4, 71 sp +5, and 80 sp +6.

So there is my solution to adding some more complexity and nuance to weapon damage in Beacon which will allow players who want to buy a falchion or a bastard sword or a great sword get something for their silver, and no munchkin rogue will just grab a club and think themselves in the clear. Share a comment and let me know if this patch is worthwhile or not.
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