Hi, I'm new to the site.  I only got into pen-and-paper RPGs a couple months ago, and now I'm designing my own.  I've already started rewriting my first draft of some of the rules (I hadn't finished it yet) after reading some articles online about RPG design and theory.  A lot of interesting and thought provoking things there.

Anyway, I'm using a skill based system, and each skill has a "learning curve"; basically a factor that makes the skill more or less effective at lower skill levels (the difference peters out as the skill level increases).  For example, the Bows skill has a learning curve of 50 (the average), while Crossbows have a learning curve of 25 (lower is easier).  Thinking that javelins and similar weapons would be easier to learn than the average, I gave the Darts skill a learning curve of 33, but according to Wikipedia, on why the arrow replaced the dart, "Archery may be easier to learn and have a faster rate of fire, yet perhaps this system's greatest advantage over the atlatl is that ammunition is easier to make and transport."  (For those who don't know, the atlatl is a spear thrower.)  So should Darts having a higher learning curve, or should Bows have a lower one, or what?  I also have a Throwing skill, for throwing knives, throwing axes, and the throwing of any random object (improvised throwing weapons).  Should I just remove the Darts skill and put darts and javelins under Throwing weapons?

In fact, it would be nice to get feedback on the difficulty of all the skills I will eventually use.  For example, Swords have a LC of 50, Chain Weapons a LC of 100, and Polearms a LC of 33.  I knew it would be troublesome to assign an arbitrary difficulty to skills, but my formula uses an extra number anyway.  I could just make it 50 for all skills, but it seemed like a good way to add an extra dimension to the skill system.

Let me say right now that I have a head for numbers, and the more complex the system the happier I am.  However, I realize that the computations need to be simple enough to be performed on the fly by the average person.  I suppose one of the things I'm most afraid of is making my rules too convoluted.

Does the higher/lower learning curve balance out against different types of weapons abilities to cause damage? I ask this because it inherently makes certain weapons easier/harder to use.

If you're going to include a mechanism like this in the game, you'll find that its effects cascade across the whole system. So you really need to consider why you're putting that choice in place.

Are you going to use other mechanisms as balancing features? Certain ancient cultures (such as the Australian Aboriginals) never developed the bow, and actually reached high levels of sophistication with the spear thrower. Perhaps the spear thrower is harder to use, but easier to manufacture; while the bow has an even balance of use and manufacturing skill; with the crossbow being hardest to manufacture but easiest to use. This could also be reflected in the weapon's cost.

But I guess the core question is...

Do you want balance across the system?

Just some ideas...

V

I don't quite have a list of weapons yet, but I'd say not.  Crossbows and guns, both easy to learn to use, are quite powerful, if expensive.  Chain weapons could vary quite a bit in power (as most melee weapons depend on the user's strength) but realistically the user risks injuring himself if he isn't properly trained.  My aim is more to present something realistic and believable, rather than balanced.  If one character starts as a nobleman and the other as a peasant, the nobleman will start with much more gold.  Life isn't fair, and neither does my RPG have to be.  I'll leave each GM to deal with the munchkinites; they would just crop up anyway regardless of whether a system was balanced or not.

A "sophisticated" spear thrower would probably just have a higher range and/or more damage, it would still be just as hard or easy to learn to use.  Of course, if a culture doesn't have bows then those that use ranged weapons will start more skilled in whatever that culture does use.

Basically I was trying to come up with a formula for the chance an action would succeed where a skill could increase indefinitely, and I came up with chance = x/(x+y), where x is the character's ability (attribute and skill) and y is a constant.  I could have just picked one constant to use, but I thought that I could make y different for each skill, where y would be greater for harder skills and less for easier skills.  It also seemed like a good way to represent the difficulty of learning a skill.  For example, when you first pick up a crossbow you might have a 25% chance of hitting your target, while when you first pick up a bow it might be more like 8%.  After some training, you should be able to use either one with about the same effectiveness (skills increase faster when they fail, and all skills go to a 100% chance but never quite get there), but you can really feel the difference when you use it for the first few times.