Simplified weapon skills/proficiences

Bear with me here.

An idea recently hit me with a minor change that would simplify the weapon proficiencies of the initial party.

First, you have the standard sword: one handed and can be used with a shield. Then you have katars, which are 60% as powerful, but are dual wieldable. The two-handed staff does as much damage as a sword,boosts your character's Magic.

Right now, the weapon preferences of the initial party goes like this:

• the first PC can use sword,sheild and blades;
• the second can use katars, shield and a staff.
• the third is a heavy who can use two-handed hammer and a sword shield combo.

The first two characters would have skills tied to what weapon they use.

So, the idea I had was removing swords altogether, and removing the weapon requirements, making the profiencies more like this:

• the first PC can using a katar with a shield or another katar
• the second can use staff, shield and katars but cannot dual wield katars
• the third would be reduced to jsut using a hammer, unless I give them a greatsword/axe that does slashing damage instead of blunt

While the skills would no longer be tied to what weapon they're holding, using those same weapons may become advantageous, instead of being a prerequisite.

The other party members don't matter so much, besides my ranger. He's gereally meant for plain combat, but he has some creature-specific magic, so I've allowed him to use wants to boost his magic rating.

My first thought is to stick with the plan that I already have, but I'd like to know what you think.

A common thing I see in RPGs is that shields aren't worth it if the option of doing more damage with a 2h or duel wielding is there.

If you want to let the player select weapon styles make sure that the shield option is noticeably worth it. if enemies die in like 2-3 turns then a shield will probably not be worth it...unless they enemies hit very hard in those 2-3 turns to the point of death. otherwise they'll just zerg kill the enemies then heal the characters in the field menus after battle.

Maybe have shields have a high TRG rating along with the high DEF boost so it reduces damage for everyone and not just the shield holder. But having two characters with shields kinda loses that value. Seeing as you have two characters that can use shields means the player would have two options for a "tank" character who both tank differently hopefully. A proactive tank and a reactive tank maybe? Both equally good options but different play styles.

If you REALLY want the players choices to impact the play style you have to make each option equally appealing otherwise its an illusion of choice and only 1 or 2 options are REAL options.

Think Rock, Paper, Scissors....all 3 are equally good choices but have totally different outcomes.