Celtic Heroes

Hand to hand combat and the weapons should be available to all classes. I see no reason why a druid or mage cant attack with their fists. Higher strength and dexterity will make characters more effective with it so warriors, rogues and rangers should have advantages here. Why not make hand weapons for specific classes? Warrior ones will be heavier and cause more damage. Rogue ones will be more blade like so they can use dagger skills or be faster in terms of speed. Druid and mage ones will have magical properties (flaming, magic attack, etc). Druid and mages are already limited in terms of weapons, why make it worse?

I'd like for their to be free choice.

Well MR Admin sir, since you are asking. Consider the following:

The Druid and Mage are the two scholarly classes. They are the most easily adaptable to the idea of a Monk. If you gave Martial skill to both Mages and Druids then the speed of the hand damage would be a function of the Martial ability. Consider how the stats would effect the ability

Martial means both hands unarmed or marital only items. If you are equipped with any martial item you lose the martial benefits so put down the focus and shield. Thus the benefits of martial need to outweigh the negatives.

Str increases damage but makes you slower due to lack of flexibility
Dex makes you faster more attacks per sec as well as increase dodge and block
Vit the bigger guy is less flexible so makes you slower.
Focus increases damage and stun because it is knowledge based and knowing where to hit as well as damage reduction since you know how to roll with a hit.
Unarmed Ability increases damage and interrupt ability and increases dodge and block

This would compensate for the lack of any armor since you wont need it because of increased block, dodge and damage reduction.
Damage, Block, dodge, speed, stun and damage reduction are not skills but are natural effects of unarmed combat.
You can still cast but wont be able to use the martial effects while casting. A new skill could be find weakness where you take the time to study your opponent and reduce his defenses because you see where to hit.

Your knucklebusters could be classified both unarmed and marital ie anyone can use them but only a someone trained in martial can bring out their true value.

melee classes

What if the ability is for everyone, the weapons can be equipped by everyone, but the best high level forms of hand to hand weapons are geared to benefit melee classes. ie; + to str and dex or + to skills specific to the melee classes.

In return...

Have an ability similar to hand to hand, that comes with its own set of weapons, that all classes can use, thats geared towards casters. ie; something like "Concentration" or "Visualization" or "Mental Manipulation" or "Collective Conscience" or whatever. These weapons would consist of non aggressive items that you would hold in your main hand. ie; a book, a skull, an orb of energy, a magic candle, or a goblet of some kind. These Items would have no damage and only an attack speed to increase the abilities level. The reason for equipping these items would be the stats, a huge increase in energy, hp, resists, + to skills or maybe even a spell specific to the item. THE ONLY WAY to trigger these stats would be to have auto attack ON. There would be a range just like a bow or wand and a graphic like a few waves of the hand every time the attack timing refreshes.

Sorry for the run on sentences. I hope this could settle the dispute, I just loved running around with a book in my main hand in EQ. lol

All classes because especially mages don't do any damage so that these hand to hand weps could make mages a little harder of hitters

But this is up to you
Can't wait to see what you do

a mage is a caster... they hit things with wands and incinerate them.. lol i agree it should be all classes but i rather doubt many mages will become boxing champoins, it will require lots of strength and mages rely heavily on focus