Someone (I'm too lazy to check who) recently suggested making a weapon speed
adjustment based I race. I think this is a great idea. It would allow a number
of criteria (dex, size, whatever the wizzes decided to base their decisions
on) to all contribute to giving a small weapon speed bonus or penalty, without
giving highbies a huge advantage over newbies (in that highbies have higher
stats). Also, there have been arguments made that a giant could swing a <blah>
faster than a hobbit. That's total BS, a hobbits arm doesn't have to travel at
all far for a complete swing (or stab, or thrust), while a giant's arm has a
lot further distance to travel. Although this doesn't mean that a size 51
should automatically be given a worse weapon speed than size 50, and I
wouldn't complain if size never had anything to do with weapon speed, since
large races already get bonus dam for their size from throw weight. What I'd
suggest is for a value to be assigned to each race (IE, average fast-twitch
(reflex) to slow-twitch (power) muscle proportion), and maybe even to add some
flavour add a random diviation on reinc, something out of the player's control
that will give them that little extra speed and less dam, or little extra dam
and less speed. Small so that we wont have all the minmaxers bitching and
moaning too much, but enough to make make barso sabre A just a bit different
from the other hundred barso sabres out there.
That's my 2 cents anyway, and I certainly wouldn't complain if things were
left the way they are now. But I do feel if a tune does need to be made,
basing weapon speed on race would be the simplest way of taking into account
all those little factors without getting silly or complicated. Might even
encourage people to use some less popular races depending on how the tune
went.