[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by MagiK: Hate to be nit picky (ok not really) but Cerek..was there weapon specialization or grandmastery in the 1st Edition AD&D? I thought that came much later.

Weapon specialization was introduced in the Unearthed Arcana. A character could spend an extra proficiency slot on a single weapon to become "specialized" with it. This gave an attack bonus of +1 to hit/+2 to damage an extra attack (with the specialized weapon only) every other round. A third proficiency slot allowed the character to be "double-specialized". This granted an attack bonus of +3 to hit/+3 to damage and increased number of attacks per round accordingly.

Weapon-specialization was restricted to straight fighters and rangers. Cavaliers and paladins were allowed "weapons of choice" which exceeded even the generous bonuses granted by "specialization" and barbarians were not allowed to either option (but they had a kettle full of hit points and bonuses to offset that).

The most common option for fighters and rangers was to "double-specialize" (as the "double specialization" option only applied to melee weapons), but there were some other weapons that offered interesting bonuses through specialization.

For example, a fighter specialized with the bow could fire 4 arrows per round rather than two (after 13th level). One of the most interesting options was the thrown dagger. A fighter specialized in this weapon could throw 5 daggers per round after 13th level. Add the obligatory Haste, and you have a mobile quisinart machine. I created a dwarven fighter that chose this option and went by the name of Dirk! - but my college roommate (VulcanRider) came up with an even better application of this method.

He envisioned a Quickling fighter/thief that was "specialized" in the thrown dart. Since Quicklings have a natural movement rate of 96" (which is the effectively the same as being permanently double-Hasted, you can imagine what kind of "firepower" this character could have produced ( [img]graemlins/shooter04.gif[/img] ). He was named - appropriately enough - Gat'lyn [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] .