Stick'em With the Pointy End

Arya Stark said it best. There is no simpler explanation for how to use a sword.

Weapons and shields a la www.heromachine.com

1 & 2 handed

 They are: dagger, short sword, longsword, axe, mace, morning star, flail, hammer, battleaxe, greatsword.

Polearms & Ranged

They are: spear, halberd, crossbow, sling, greatbow, longbow, (standard) bow, shortbow.
For further explanation of the bows (keeping in mind I am not an archery wizard), certain kinds of bows have a pull strength or poundage - it is the force applied to draw it and the force that is thereby transferred into the projectile. I'm fudging this a bit for simplicity's sake.
The shortbow's smaller size allows it to be carried and fired easily by a rider on horseback, but you don't want to sacrifice power for it. So most shortbows are made from horn or some kind of composite that is lighter, but as strong or stronger, than wood. Their recurve shape also delivers for oomph from a shorter bow stave. Let us say that the shortbow has the same power/pull as a standard wood bow. 40-50 lbs.

A longbow is made entirely from wood, and it's (surprise) longer, to deliver more power. It's poundage is around 75.
The greatbow is monstrous in size, recurve, and strength compared to all others. It is about as heavy as a longbow, but packs much more of a wallop, around 100 lbs!

simple shields

They are: hide, wood, bronze (with the dwarf face), iron, steel (center), large, and tall.

Hide is very light, boiled leather. Not a heck of a lot of stopping power. Same goes for wood. It's a little thicker, heavier, more solid, but it too will break after a few uses/blows. These first two would be favored by rangers that travel fast and light and don't get into a lot of direct scrapes, instead preferring hit and run guerrilla tactics.
Bronze is lighter and softer than iron, but it will stop attacks that hide and wood couldn't hope to.
Iron is getting a bit on the heavy side to lug around all the time, but offers acceptable protection when a dude is trying to mace your face.
Steel is tiring to carry for all but strong characters, but it's unmatched for it's durability.
A large shield can be made of anything metallic, perhaps even wood. But what's the point of having this huge shield that's still going to eventually break? It's just bigger to accommodate larger characters (half-orcs), so they don't feel like they're wielding some piddly buckler.
The tall shield is exactly as it sounds. It's not something your going to dance and parry with, it's something you hide behind when the enemy is throwing everything he's got at you, including gnomes, but don't worry they bounce right off. Think Roman legionnaires marching in a phalanx formation. The enemy launches a volley against them, they set their shields on the ground while the second row stacks theirs above against the rain of quarrels. They pick them up and advance. Repeat as needed. You're not going to advance quickly, but methodically "turtling up" when the need presents itself. Other than that, they're very slow, heavy, and unwieldy in a fight. No small characters can use a tall shield.

**In addition**
A recent thought/realization about tall shields: In the beginning battle in the movie Gladiator, Roman soldiers are shown performing exactly the "turtle" maneuver as described above. However, because their shields are convex rectangles, when they stack the second row over the first it leaves a rather sizable half-circle through which an arrow could plausibly find its way into your eye socket. Bad news bears for legionnaires. Thus, subconsciously I created the above tall shield with a curved bottom which ought to fill in that bothersome arrow-in-the-eye allowance. I hope it's appreciated. Also, having a curved bottom means that you can rock the shield side to side for wider coverage, rather than just standing stock still.

Ain't Got No Class

As I was struggling to develop a Skills web - made increasingly more difficult by not having complete Skill categories and subcategories - I happened to concoct these

Web

I don't know how/if this will work with tracking skill progression. My brain automatically wants to cover skills per class and I can't seem to make it not do that, try as I might.

The upper left figure breaks it down into 3 classes or life-paths of Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, which would in turn require choosing which element you're naturally talented in.

The center figure was part of my original idea for Skills radiating outward into different categories. 12 gives plenty of options, but too many choices makes for a harder decision and might lead to "level grinding" to achieve multiple perks.

Then the lower right figure is something I tried by halving the options to only 6. It might make for easier tracking, but sadly, although I created this web, I can hardly explain it to myself.

So for simplicity's sake I changed from hexes to diamonds. Apparently fewer corners = less irritation.

Again, my instinct is to classify classes first, with suited skills following. While 4 classes covers the bare bones, it seems a little too boiler plate. So in a stroke of what I would hope to call genius, I expanded from 4 to 8, with the "in between" classes encompassing features of the bookend classes.

So you tell me; does it work?