Extending Maximum Weapon Rank to 10

Why Do It?

Since the 1^st edition of DragonQuest was released it has always bothered me that the so few weapons allowed the character to advance to rank 10 or, in many cases, even rank 8. This is important to the characters as their ability to achieve Adventurer or Hero rank (see [86.2] in DragonQuest rules) depends upon the character getting 8 skills to rank 4, for Adventurer, and 8 skills at rank 8 for Hero rank. A player choosing weapons for his character with thoughts of getting that character to Hero rank will be quite limited in weapon choice. Only one Hafted Weapon can go to rank 8 and only one Pole Arm. Even the Swords are limited with only 7 of the 13 going to rank 8 or higher. A low maximum rank means low hit chances (obviously),  lower initiative values, a lower chance to repulse an attempt to close and a lower chance to riposte (or prevent a riposte).

 By extending the maximum possible rank for all weapons to 10 it gives players the ability to make their characters more individual without sacrificing combat ability in later play. A player will be able to choose the War Hammer, Mace, Spear or Broadsword for their character and know their character won't be seriously disadvantaged by that choice.
Another rationale for allowing all weapons to go to rank 10 is that a warriors ability to fight isn't embodied just within his familiarity with a particular weapon. It is also in his ability to read his opponents intent.  To see weaknesses or flaws in technique.  To choose his footing and position himself in the best way. As DragonQuest doesn't account for this part of fighting skill separately it needs to be rolled into the individual weapon skill and so I think allowing all weapons to go to rank 10 is appropriate.

TL;DR version: EP for all Ranks out to 10. Get PDF on Downloads page.

Why Don't Do It?

It's possible that the limited maximum ranks were chosen for game balance reasons. In theory some weapons, if allowed to go to rank 10, could become too powerful and overwhelm all other weapon choices. I don't believe this to be of real concern as weapons such as the Hand & A Half, Two-Handed Sword, Battle Axe, Great Axe and Glaive are already the go-to weapons for doing the most damage and hitting the most often. Extending maximum rank to 10 doesn't change this though there is some shuffling of the statistically best weapons.
Another reason not to do it might be that by limiting maximum rank you can also give the faster and/or longer weapons an Initiative Value edge over the slower or shorter weapons. If you look at only the Swords and Hafted Weapons this idea would seem to hold true. Unfortunately the Pole Arms appear to break from this notion with most of them stuck at rank 5 while  Glaive and Javelin have much higher maximum ranks than the others in the same category.
Finally, for some weapons, an argument can be made that there isn't enough finesse or flexibility in the use of the weapon to justify more than a few ranks of ability. Weapons that might fall into this category could include Crude Club, Grenado, Net, Sap and Garotte. All of these are the most limited in terms of rank in the original rules. In my opinion Crude Club shouldn't be a separately ranked weapon but just fall in with War Club and Giant Club for as far as experience point cost goes with the differences being handled via the Base Chances and Damage Modifiers for each one. A Grenado is a thrown weapon and as such I don't really see there being a limit to how skilled one could potentially get and the same for Net. The Sap and Garotte are kind of odd ducks as they wouldn't normally be used in a straight-up, face-to-face fight but instead employed from a surprise attack through stealth or trickery. Still the maximum rank of 3 given in the DQ rules seems too limiting to me and so these I also extended to rank 10.
Without some commentary from the combat system designer of DragonQuest it is difficult to know if there was anything behind the choices that were made for limiting the maximum rank for each weapon. As published the maximum ranks appear to be somewhat arbitrary.
One way to address some of these concerns would be to significantly increase the experience point costs at the higher ranks such that only the most dedicated character would reach those extreme levels of skill.

Choosing Experience Point Costs

For any given weapon I tried to follow the trend established by the existing costs for the lower ranks and then compared it to similar weapons to guide my choices for the new, higher ranks. In general I limited the maximum cost per rank to 6000 as this was the maximum rank 10 cost as originally published. For most weapons that reached a cost of 6000 at ranks lower than 10 the experience point cost was left at 6000 for the remaining ranks.
While going through the various weapons there were a number of them that stuck out to me as having either oddly high or low experience costs and these I brought in line with other similar weapons. Other weapons had oddly small or large intervals between adjacent ranks which were tweaked to smooth out the progression. I discuss each of these issues below along with weapons where I feel comments are needed.

Rapier

Rapier for some reason required less experience to advance to 10 from 9 than from 8 to 9. I felt that was unrealistic and decided to increase the experience cost for both ranks 9 and 10 so that there was a bit of a progression for the last two ranks.

Estoc

Like Rapier the advancement to rank 9 was less than that to rank 8. I brought it in line with the progression seen in the lower ranks and extended it to rank 10.

Hand Axe

The costs for the lower ranks of Hand Axe were absurdly high compared to the other hafted weapons and so I brought the cost of ranks 0 thru 4 down to more reasonable levels.

Battle Axe / Great Axe

Both of these were already fairly expensive in their experience point costs to get to rank 7 and in extending them to rank 10 they became even more expensive than all but one other weapon. I decided to stick with those higher costs mostly as a nod to game balance as they are exceedingly effective weapons in DQ combat.

War Pick

Brought rank 3 cost up slightly to smooth out an odd bump in the progression curve.

Quarterstaff

As with War Pick, brought rank 3 up in cost. Increased rank 9 to be more than rank 8.

Lance

Ranks 4 and 5 were brought down to more closely fall in line with the typical progression. Lance is the third weapon that ended up significantly more expensive at higher ranks. I didn't feel this was out of line and left it that way.

Glaive

In the original rules, Glaive requires significantly less experience to get ranked in than the similar weapons Halberd and Poleaxe. It is even less than Spear. For one of the more effective weapons in DragonQuest, I felt this was out of line and changed all of the experience point costs to match those of Halberd and followed that progression in setting the upper ranks.

Unarmed Combat

This was another "weapon" that had a lower cost for the final rank than that of the previous rank and so it was changed to be higher.

Shield

Shield is a special case in that it is primarily used for defense but can be used offensively. Only one set of experience costs are used for both purposes and a character has only a single rank in Shield that is used to determine both offensive and defensive values. If allowed to achieve rank 10 for defensive purposes it might make shields too effective. A kite shield, for example, would grant a defense of 50% at rank 10. The buckler, on the other hand, would only grant 20% at rank 10. Plenty of players and reviewers have commented on how little protection shields actually granted.
On the offensive side, a shield at rank 10 is still quite limited by its low Base Chance and Damage Modifier but it does make the Shield Rush special attack [16.5] a more viable option.

Results By The Numbers

To get some kind of measure of a weapons effectiveness and how increasing maximum rank to 10 might change that I used a common measure from the MMORPG world of Damage Per Second but modified to match DQs combat turn, or Pulse, giving Damage Per Pulse or DPP.

DPP = (Base Chance + MD¹ + (Rank x 4) – Def²) x (5.5⁴ + DM³) / 100

¹ MD or Manual Dexterity – I used the greater of the weapons required MD or 15.

² Def or Defense – I used an assumed value of 15 to represent a foes defense.

³ DM or Damage Modifier – The individual damage modifier for each weapon. For swords and hafted weapons with optional 2-handed use I used the higher DM.

⁴ 5.5 – The average for a D10 damage roll.

No attempt was made to account for hits directly affecting Endurance or for Grievious Injuries. Nor did I attempt to account for the protection of armor so DPP is simply damage delivered to an opponent before reduction by armor.
A DPP value was calculated for each weapon at the original maximum rank and again at rank 10. The increase in DPP was determined for all rankable weapons. A basic statistical analysis was done on the DPP Increase values. A number of weapons (17 of 53) were excluded from the DPP analysis for the following reasons.

• Weapons that already had 10 as their maximum rank: Main-Gauche, Rapier, Javelin, Spear Thrower, Throwing Dart, and Unarmed Combat. Leaving them in would skew the numbers down.
  
• Blowgun and Grenado as they are used to deliver other agents which may or may not do damage. Blowgun also had a maximum rank of 10 already.
  
• Net, Bola and Whip were left out as they are entangling weapons and not damage dealing weapons.
  
• Crude Club, Rock, Cestus, Shield, Sap and Garotte for various reasons but essentially they are not primary offensive weapons. Allowing them to advance to rank 10 doesn't change this.
  

The DPP Increase value was looked at separately for melee and missile weapons. Additionally statistics on the increase in maximum rank is provided. The complete results for all weapons can be found at the end.
Slightly more than half of the weapons had their maximum rank increased by 4 or more giving them a 16-24% better chance to hit at a maximum rank of 10. Correspondingly the DPP numbers increased by an average of 19.7% or 1.41 DPP for Melee weapons and 0.99 DPP for Missile weapons. As would be expected the weapons with the largest increase in DPP are those high base DM weapons whose maximum rank was previously quite limited. The missile weapon DPP increase is lower because only the two crossbows increased by 5 while the other five increased by only 2 or 3 ranks.

	Melee DPP Increase				Missile DPP Increase				Rank Increase
Mean		1.41				0.99				3.61
Median		1.50				0.76				4.00
Standard Deviation		0.6384				0.5657				1.5543
Minimum		0.22				0.52				1
Maximum		2.5				1.9				6
Sum		40.94				6.9				130
Count		29				7				36

Table 1: DPP & Rank statistics for increasing maximum rank to 10.

The top eight weapons in terms of damage are the same except for Lance replacing Estoc thanks to Lance gaining 5 to the maximum rank versus the single rank that Estoc gained. Great Axe remains at the top with the others shuffling position.

Position	Weapon Name		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP
1	Great Axe		17	65	6		10	107	12.3
2	Two-Handed Sword		14	55	7		10	95	11.9
3	Hand & A Half		16	60	6		10	101	11.6
4	Mattock		14	55	6		10	95	10.9
5	Battle Axe		14	60	5		10	100	10.5
6	Morningstar		15	60	5		10	100	10.5
7	Glaive		18	55	5		10	98	10.3
8	Lance		18	45	6		10	88	10.1

Table 2: Top Eight by Damage Per Pulse

Conclusion

Overall I am pretty pleased by the results. Here are some of the changes that I think are for the better.

• Two-Handed Sword now beats out the Hand & A Half sword in damage done with DPP values of 11.9 and 11.6 respectively.
  
• The Broadsword is no longer the red-headed stepchild of the sword class and turns in a respectable 9.0 DPP at rank 10.
  
• Any sword can be chosen as a primary weapon without concern of being seriously out-damaged at higher ranks.
  
• The majority of the hafted weapons can now be chosen as a primary weapon for a character whose focus is on combat skills.
  
• Same with the pole arms.
  
• Crossbows are now more viable as primary missile weapons.
  

The revised [87.8] Experience Point Cost Chart can be found on the Downloads page.

DPP Values at Original Max Rank and Rank 10

Weapon Name		Weapon Stats				Base Rules				Rank 10				Increase
Swords:		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Dagger		10	40	0		9	76	4.2		10	80	4.4		1	4	0.2
Main-Gauche		15	45	1		10	85	5.5		10	85	5.5		0	0	0.0
Short Sword		12	45	3		6	69	5.9		10	85	7.2		4	16	1.4
Falchion		11	50	2		8	82	6.2		10	90	6.8		2	8	0.6
Scimitar		15	50	3		8	82	7.0		10	90	7.7		2	8	0.7
Tulwar		15	50	4		8	82	7.8		10	90	8.6		2	8	0.8
Rapier		18	45	3		10	88	7.5		10	88	7.5		0	0	0.0
Sabre		15	60	3		7	88	7.5		10	100	8.5		3	12	1.0
Broadsword		15	55	4		6	79	7.5		10	95	9.0		4	16	1.5
Estoc		17	45	5		9	83	8.7		10	87	9.1		1	4	0.4
Hand & A Half		16	60	6		7	89	10.2		10	101	11.6		3	12	1.4
Claymore		13	50	5		7	78	8.2		10	90	9.5		3	12	1.3
2-Handed Sword		14	55	7		5	75	9.4		10	95	11.9		5	20	2.5
Hafted:		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Hand Axe		11	40	1		4	56	3.6		10	80	5.2		6	24	1.6
Battle Axe		14	60	5		7	88	9.2		10	100	10.5		3	12	1.3
Great Axe		17	65	6		7	95	10.9		10	107	12.3		3	12	1.4
Crude Club		10	45	2		2	53	4.0		10	85	6.4		8	32	2.4
War Club		10	50	2		5	70	5.3		10	90	6.8		5	20	1.5
Mace		9	50	4		5	70	6.7		10	90	8.6		5	20	1.9
War Hammer		13	45	3		5	65	5.5		10	85	7.2		5	20	1.7
War Pick		13	45	5		5	65	6.8		10	85	8.9		5	20	2.1
Flail		15	50	2		5	70	5.3		10	90	6.8		5	20	1.5
Morningstar		15	60	5		5	80	8.4		10	100	10.5		5	20	2.1
Mattock		14	55	6		5	75	8.6		10	95	10.9		5	20	2.3
Quarterstaff		16	55	2		9	92	6.9		10	96	7.2		1	4	0.3
Sap		11	40	1		3	52	3.4		10	80	5.2		7	28	1.8
Pole Arms		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Javelin		15	45	2		10	85	6.4		10	85	6.4		0	0	0.0
Spear		14	50	3		5	70	6.0		10	90	7.7		5	20	1.7
Pike		16	45	5		5	66	6.9		10	86	9.0		5	20	2.1
Lance		18	45	6		5	68	7.8		10	88	10.1		5	20	2.3
Halberd		16	55	3		5	76	6.5		10	96	8.2		5	20	1.7
Poleaxe		15	55	4		5	75	7.1		10	95	9.0		5	20	1.9
Trident		16	45	2		5	66	5.0		10	86	6.5		5	20	1.5
Glaive		18	55	5		9	94	9.9		10	98	10.3		1	4	0.4
Missile:		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Sling		15	40	1		8	72	4.7		10	80	5.2		2	8	0.5
Short Bow		15	45	2		8	77	5.8		10	85	6.4		2	8	0.6
Long Bow		15	55	4		8	87	8.3		10	95	9.0		2	8	0.8
Composite Bow		15	55	4		8	87	8.3		10	95	9.0		2	8	0.8
Crossbow		14	60	3		5	80	6.8		10	100	8.5		5	20	1.7
Heavy Crossbow		14	60	4		5	80	7.6		10	100	9.5		5	20	1.9
Spear Thrower		14	50	2		10	90	6.8		10	90	6.8		0	0	0.0
Blowgun		16	30	0		10	71	3.9		10	71	3.9		0	0	0.0
Thrown:		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Throwing Dart		15	40	0		10	80	4.4		10	80	4.4		0	0	0.0
Boomerang		15	40	0		7	68	3.7		10	80	4.4		3	12	0.7
Grenado		15	40	0		4	56	3.1		10	80	4.4		6	24	1.3
Entangling:		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Net		16	30	-5		4	47	0.2		10	71	0.4		6	24	0.1
Bola		15	35	-3		6	59	1.5		10	75	1.9		4	16	0.4
Whip		16	40	-3		10	81	2.0		10	81	2.0		0	0	0.0
Special:		MD	BC	DM		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP		Rank	SC	DPP
Rock		10	30	-1		6	54	2.4		10	70	3.2		4	16	0.7
Cestus		14	35	-1		9	71	3.2		10	75	3.4		1	4	0.2
Garotte		15	30	3		3	42	3.6		10	70	6.0		7	28	2.4
Shield		12	40	-2		4	56	2.0		10	80	2.8		6	24	0.8
Unarmed Combat		15	30	-4		10	70	1.1		10	70	1.1		0	0	0.0