Weapon Proficiency signifies that a character has chosen a path to train in the use of weapons. That isn't to say that they can't choose to train in the Arcane, Divine, and Martial Arts as well, but generally Skill Points make it prohibitively expensive to vary one's training too much and still make the most of the specialties available beneath it.

Unlike other disciplines, these Weapon Proficiency Disciplines rarely follow the Standard Effects of Degrees and Levels unless specifically mentioned. A character can continue to add dice to a proficiency to increase its effectiveness, but additional degrees in a melee proficiency doesn't suddenly grant the ability to hit at a distance or have an area of effect, i.e. throwing one's scimitar and hitting multiple opponents with it.

The dice a character adds to their melee slashing proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including long swords, great swords, scimitars, whips, etc.

The dice a character adds to their melee piercing proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including short swords, daggers, etc.

The dice a character adds to their melee blunt proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including maces, hammers, flails, staves, clubs, etc. This also includes most improvised weapons used in melee.

The dice a character adds to their ranged slashing proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including thrown axes, shurikens, etc.

The dice a character adds to their ranged piercing proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including bows, crossbows, thrown daggers, spears, darts, etc.

The dice a character adds to their ranged blunt proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including slings, bolas, etc. This also includes most improvised weapons used with range, such as hurling rocks.

The dice a character adds to their pole-arm proficiency adds a die to all weapons of this category including halberds, lances, etc.

Characters are able to dual wield without proficiency, but do so with a penalty of two dice with the strong hand and four dice on the weak hand. At first degree, the character has no penalty to their strong hand and a penalty of two dice on their weak hand. This improves through the degrees per the table below. No mana cost is required for the use of this skill.

Instead of following the standard dice put towards the dual wielding ability, the degrees based on those dice are used exclusively. (i.e. there is no benefit to putting two dice toward dual wielding except that it gets a character closer to second-degree)

Any attack which strikes a character can be retaliated using a free action up to one retaliation per round per skill degree with a character’s own melee attack assuming the character can reach their opponent with an attack of their own. This doesn't have to be an attack in kind, i.e. a melee attack for a melee attack. This costs one mana per retaliation.