Weapon Types Revisited

[IAmJacksOpinion]

With the changes to combat / weapon skill gains, other recent discussion about weapon skills in general, and the upcoming talks about class revisions, I'm curious to see what people think of the weapon skills themselves, and if there are any systemic revisions to weapons that could fit into the over all discussion of skill grind and class balance. Also I've added a poll, because yay metrics!

First off, I want to try and list a few arguments that I've read recently to kind of clarify where the "problems" (if any) might lie:

• There has been bickering about which classes should get which weapon skills. E.G., why do rangers (man vs. animals) get slashing and chopping proficiency when assassins (man vs man) don't?
• The journeyman plateau and the effectiveness of sparring vs weighted stilt lizard handstand kickboxing. This has been addressed recently, so I don't want to focus on it, but am chronicling it all the same.
• Advanced weapon skills taking forever to branch, if at all, and then being incredibly difficult to skill up. (This one gets its own poll option.)
• Is one style better than another? (etwo vs dual wield vs sword/shield) I think most people felt it was balanced, but it did get discussed.

And next, I want to submit a personal gripe, which is that there doesn't seem to be a noticeable difference between weapon types. The best thing to do right now is to pick a weapon type and git gud with it. Then, once you've plateaued, consider working on a 2nd type, and so forth. RP flair aside, there's no real benefit or play-style difference to being a sword fighter vs being a spear fighter. The only real difference comes from the bludgeoning skill, but that's just because you might whittle your opponent's stun down before their hp. Now, I've heard people make claims that "axes are better for armor penetration" and stuff like that, but (assuming it's true) it's really not that noticeable in game. No matter what weapon type you pick, there'll be no real difference in the combat feel or effectiveness. This is the way I see it.

So, what's my suggestion?

Personally, I'd like to see weapon types become more specific. Currently a knife, a spear, and a rapier all run off of the same skill. Same with a club, a quarterstaff, and a war hammer. Also a hatchet, a waraxe, and a pick. And on and on.  I think the most effective way to do it would be to give weapons 2 identifiers; weapon type and damage type. Damage type could remain as is, but the weapon types could be more accurate descriptors of the overall weapon style. Examples could be something like; sword, polearm, hafted, knife/dagger, simple (single piece / crude), exotic (whips, double-sided, catch-all). Also, we get rid of the advanced weapon skills, because they're really weird anyways.

So what does this look like?

• scimitars and longswords are "slashing swords"
• shortswords and rapiers are "piercing swords"
• a club or sap is a "simple bludgeoning"
• a shiv, stinger, fang, etc, is a "simple piercing"
• a hammer is a "hafted bludgeoning"
• an axe is a "hafted chopping"
• a spear is a "piercing polearm"
• a halberd is a "chopping polearm"
• whips and other oddities could be "exotic"

and so on...

The other half of this, that I think is more exciting, is that we give each of these weapon types certain coded benefits. Polearms could have benefits to attack and/or defense to take the length of the weapon into account, but have negatives to parry because it's a pole. Hafted weapons could give a damage or armor piercing bonus, because haft = more swing power, but maybe a neg to parry and/or attack speed. Swords could give bonuses to parry and disarm, making them the best choice for Man vs Man. Knives/Daggers give some kind of speed and/or armor piercing bonus, or a bonus to off-hand use to help counter-act some of this "war-axes in all the hands!" BS we see so often. And simple weapons could have the bonus that they're so simple that everyone gets the skill (to a low cap).

So how does this help the class shuffle?
(Sorry in advance for re-introducing the Ranger vs. Warrior derail.) Having more options gives us more control for fine tuning classes. First off, warrior gets all weapon and damage skills to the highest bonus. Hell, maybe Warriors and Gladiators are the only ones that get exotic (and then we put in some brutal-aweome Dark Sun-esque exotic weapons to make it gud.) From there we can have more options about who gets what. Rangers can have simple and polearm to a higher cap than sword and hafted. Assassins get high cap knife and simple, but no polearm and maybe no hafted. And so on and so on.


I dunno, it's an idea. I just think the current system is far to binary. (Or quadrinary, I guess?) Discuss.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Just going to add that the types and their specific benefits are just kind of a rough draft of what they could be.

Another system, which I'd like to hear about, was what SOI and some other muds did where they basically broke weapons down by size & damage type. Eg, a Small Slashing, Medium Slashing, Large Slashing, Small Piercing, Medium Piercing, etc... I might be misquoting it because I probably spent all of 10 hours in SOI years ago, but if anyone else is more familiar I'd like to hear what they thought of that system.

[Marauder Moe]

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick of the same rough size as a sword.  I think I'd rather see the skills be more about fighting style than weapon edge:
Small (daggers, saps)
Punching (cestus, katar)
Swinging (sword, axe, club)
Thrusting (short spear, rapier)
Large (greatsword, great axe, maul)
Polearm (pike, halberd, staff)

We could also have some (or many) weapons that span 2 categories.  Like, a sword could be swinging and thrusting, and a character trained well in both skills would have increased attack speed or something.  It would be a nice incentive to be a well-rounded fighter.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

I see your point, but I'm going to counter that I feel the double categorization actually IS a fighting style. A piercing polearm is pretty specifically a spear. And if you move from a spear to say a rapier (what you would call "thrusting", and what I call a "piercing sword") your piercing skill carries over. And if you were to go from a spear to a guisarm, your polearm skill carries over. As for going from a sword to a club and becoming garbage. Yes. They're similar in size & weight only. I feel like how you use them would be fairly different.


Edited to add:

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick....

This is the way it works now, so we're not really regressing, at least.

[Marauder Moe]

Well really those 6 categories come from 3 sizes (small, medium, large) and 2 motions (thrusting vs. swinging).  Large and pole-arm are strictly 2-handed.

I'm all for some skill carryover/synergy, though.

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick....

This is the way it works now, so we're not really regressing, at least.

Ya, that criticism was more aimed that the current system than at your idea.

[Jihelu]

People who are already good at fighting styles maybe should have a slight bonus to learning others?
Mostly to encourage people to learn it...and hopefully the bonus would be enough to get past the fact your offense is already godly.

I'd really like a "Large weapon" and stuff category instead of piercing and what not, but I feel like there is a realism issue if someone can use a halberd to the same extend they use...hell I don't even know, something large and stupid. Like a pike.

[RogueGunslinger]

Moderate revision-

Knife-weapons should not be an advanced skill. It should be a starter skill. Give it to Assassins and burglars to journeyman. Give it to warriors to master.

Get rid of "stabbing" subset. Allow Backstab from any weapon except clubs. After all, any weapon can kill in a single blow.

Everyone should start will all regular weapon skills. Only Warriors should get them to master. Only warriors should get advanced weapons. They will branch where they do now, however, skill-progression will be made easier/fixed. No more guild-sniffing based on weapon-type.

Give advanced weapon branches from Aggressor/Lancer/Bruiser/Berserker.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Yeah, I kind of like the idea of a "large weapons" category, but I don't think greatswords, greataxes, mauls, etc. are similar enough to merrit that. So I'm happy with that fact that "two-handed" is a skill that would transfer to all of those types.

[Case]

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick of the same rough size as a sword.

On SoI, you were always half as good with every other weapon skill as your best one.

Or hell, until I fixed a bug, as good as the ID of your language skill, generally higher than everybody's weapon skill! Lol.

[Jihelu]

I wouldn't mind pulling a D&D and having "swords" "Daggers" and all that shit as weapon types

[evilcabbage]

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick of the same rough size as a sword.

On SoI, you were always half as good with every other weapon skill as your best one.

Or hell, until I fixed a bug, as good as the ID of your language skill, generally higher than everybody's weapon skill! Lol.

westron  (master)

hello, master sword fighting.

[Case]

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick of the same rough size as a sword.

On SoI, you were always half as good with every other weapon skill as your best one.

Or hell, until I fixed a bug, as good as the ID of your language skill, generally higher than everybody's weapon skill! Lol.

westron  (master)

hello, master sword fighting.

Skill ID. Not skill value.

It was higher than the language skills usually

Orkish was the best

[Dresan]

Moderate revision-

Get rid of "stabbing" subset. Allow Backstab from any weapon except clubs. After all, any weapon can kill in a single blow.

I like this idea.

[Case]

Moderate revision-

Get rid of "stabbing" subset. Allow Backstab from any weapon except clubs. After all, any weapon can kill in a single blow.

I like this idea.

From any small enough weapon tbh. Huge 2handers and long spears and shit shouldn't count

[RogueGunslinger]

Why not?

[Synthesis]

Seems like it would be awfully difficult to approach someone inconspicuously with a greatsword in hand.

[evilcabbage]

Seems like it would be awfully difficult to approach someone inconspicuously with a greatsword in hand.

maybe.

maybe not.

all depends on situation.

[Warsong]

Shadows of Isildur used to have a bunch of weapon skills a long time ago. Light-pierce, medium-pierce, heavy-pierce, light-slash, medium-- and so on. It just made things boring, and made everyone take medium-slash because it was a pretty safe bet. Nobody wanted to commit themselves to heavy-pierce and be forever limited to two-handed spears. Armageddon's weapon skills aren't terribly realistic, but I like having the option to employ my piercing skill with anything from a dagger to a warspear. It feels more interesting and gives me a reason to work towards obtaining a number of different weapons, feeding into the economy and so on.

[Case]

Shadows of Isildur used to have a bunch of weapon skills a long time ago. Light-pierce, medium-pierce, heavy-pierce, light-slash, medium-- and so on. It just made things boring, and made everyone take medium-slash because it was a pretty safe bet. Nobody wanted to commit themselves to heavy-pierce and be forever limited to two-handed spears. Armageddon's weapon skills aren't terribly realistic, but I like having the option to employ my piercing skill with anything from a dagger to a warspear. It feels more interesting and gives me a reason to work towards obtaining a number of different weapons, feeding into the economy and so on.

Nah, tons of people used heavy edge or had multiples.

[JackGibbons]

I don't think it really make a lot of sense that my character can be an epic swordsman but becomes completely garbage when holding a blunt stick of the same rough size as a sword.

On SoI, you were always half as good with every other weapon skill as your best one.

Or hell, until I fixed a bug, as good as the ID of your language skill, generally higher than everybody's weapon skill! Lol.

westron  (master)

hello, master sword fighting.

Skill ID. Not skill value.

It was higher than the language skills usually

Orkish was the best

Yeah, that one was hilarious. Along with the armor type bonus but not the AC value being applied, so you'd get your guts ripped out by a wolf outside Osgi despite having chain on.

[FantasyWriter]

More weapons should be "flippable".
Swords: slashing-piercing
Axes: chopping-bludgeoning
Spears: piercing-bludgeoning

[Jihelu]

More weapons should be "flippable".
Swords: slashing-piercing
Axes: chopping-bludgeoning
Spears: piercing-bludgeoning

Daggers: Piercing to Knife

[BadSkeelz]

I voted for this

Good as is, except advanced weapons should branch earlier for warrior.

and second this

More weapons should be "flippable".
Swords: slashing-piercing
Axes: chopping-bludgeoning
Spears: piercing-bludgeoning

[lostinspace]

I voted for minor-moderate because I think they're fine how they are, but really do need to level faster and have some way to advance when they would otherwise hit a plateau. The struggle to reach Advanced weapon skills is real, and I've never even hit master let alone unlocking an advanced weapon.

[tiptoe]

I appreciate the rarity of advanced weapon skills. You train for a looooooong time, and end up with something the majority of others don't have. And I like that. Maaaaaybe at advanced. The skill bumps that are allowed now would make it way too easy to get an advanced skill within a very short amount of time.

What I would like to see is the way advanced weapon skills are trained. As I mentioned in the other guild thread, by the time you reach advanced weapon skills, it becomes close to impossible to skill them up because the rest of your combat skills are usually pretty high. If there would be a way to change improvement from the simple miss=fail to including something like nicks or light hits, even, I think the weapon skill would be better overall. I don't know if the code is too  limiting to make a change like that, but I think that would be more beneficial than just dropping when you obtain the skill itself. Maybe even a little boost to the benefits you get from using an advanced weapon skill vs normal.