Weapon skill

Ranks in a weapon skill represent intense training your character has devoted to a particular category of weapon.

Hand-to-hand (e.g. unarmed combat, brass knuckles) Daggers (e.g. knife, stiletto, sai) One-handed Straight Swords (e.g. gladius, longsword) Two-handed Straight Swords (e.g. katana, bastard sword) Curved Blades (e.g. sickle, cutlass, falchion) Fencing Swords (e.g. rapier, estoc, saber) One-handed Bludgeons (e.g. club, warhammer, mace) Two-handed Bludgeons (e.g. maul, flail, morningstar) One-handed Axes (e.g. tomahawk, hatchet, kama) Two-handed Axes (e.g. pickaxe, executioner)

Polearms (e.g. staff, scythe, glaive) Spears (e.g. javelin, trident, pitchfork) Thrown (e.g. shuriken, boomerang, chakram, javelin) Whips Chains Bows Crossbows Firearms Shields Magic (e.g. attack spells) Specialized / Unique (each weapon would have its own skill)

It is important to note that a character does not need to have ranks in a weapon to use it in combat, nor does the character take minuses for trying to use an unfamiliar weapon. If a character is unarmed and in danger, it makes perfect sense to pick up and wield whatever is nearby that could be considered painful to an attacker. Obviously, Attack Rolls with a weapon in which the character has no ranks will be fairly low.

A character's ranks in the weapon figure into combat maneuvers, such as attacking, parrying, disarming, and the like. See the Combat chapter for more details on the use of Weapon skill in combative rolls.