Your input - weapon skills.

[Ramir]

This one is pretty simple guys, but I am putting out here for your consideration, in case I miss anything or you have any questions.

These are the weapon skills we are looking at having available.

- Small Blade.
- Medium Blade.
- Large Blade.
- 2 Handed Blade.
- Small Blunt.
- Medium Blunt.
- Large Blunt.
- 2 Handed Blunt.
- Exotic Melee.
- Polearms.
- Dual Wielding.
- Shield Use.
- Ranged - Thrown.
- Ranged - Projectile.
- Striking.
- Grappling.

BTW, wristbows and Glaives will no longer be available in game. Interesting, sure. Successful, no.

Each skill that compliments your style, should make you a better fighter. So, whilst you could JUST have small blades and be really nifty with one knife, the dual wielder with striking will get more attacks in and can kick your really, really hard as well.

No, we don't have attacks per round and such, but they will be a more 'rounded' fighter. That being said, they could opt for a shield instead, or use great grappling technique with their free arm. Stabbing works better when you cling onto the person first.

[Neko]

Not sure we need the small, medium, large breakdown. Other than that I think it looks good.

[Ramir]

Lose one class then? It doesn't matter a great deal, people will choose their weapon style based on their own preference.

[Neko]

That would work. Just trying to keep things as simple as possible and have that balance between more skills, but not too many more...

[Neko]

I would recommend putting Exotic Melee, Striking, and Grappling all into "Melee" Too split up I think. Melee is already going to be inherintly weak against armored opponents. Asking them to split their points between multiple skills makes it potentially even weaker. Or at least just dumping the exotic as its hard to judge what one would call "Exotic"

And is the intent of the Armor skill in the post in the guide to scale what kind of armor a person can wear, or the effectiveness of it? If its effectiveness, I would dump it as armor is something you either have or you dont. Unlike a Shield that can and usually does have to move and be positioned to be effective.

[Ramir]

EDIT: I like looking at unarmed fighting more closely but agree, it's just unnecessary. Unarmed can just include striking and grappling, to make it more rounded.


Exotic weapons - nunchakus, kama, gusari, chain spears, the list goes on. We get people with odd and strange weapon ideas, now they have a weapon class.

Armour will allow heavier armour dependent on level. It's the easiest way to regulate who can and can't wear what types of armour.

[Ramir]

I am contemplating presently what to do with armour, as I have fleshed out the other combat skills.

I am conflicted. I do not want to complicate endurance, or brawn, or another skill to allow armour bearing.

I agree, you cannot improve the effectiveness of armour through skill.

But we need someway to 'qualify' how much armour someone can wear, or everyone will be wearing everything. Metal armour seems odd on a mage.

However, ten points spent to wear full metal armour, seems like a lot of points just to wear something.

So I am looking at two choices:

A 5 point skill for armour. That seems a little easy to acquire.

Simply having armour impair key skills. Heavier armour hampers speed and gymnastics and so on. As long as it's equipped, you are hampered in some way, the pay off being the extra defense.

With those two options, the first could be 'pay to overcome the drawbacks to mobility' talent.

The second is more logical, but is also more complicated.

[Ramir]

I have two other options.

1. Prerequisites.

So rather than a skill that qualifies you for armour, heavier armor can just state the prerequisites required to wear it, as per many other game systems.

That's not that complicated and makes for some diversity in gear.

2. A defense Talent.

With this talent, you would simply wear what you fancied and this talent would be the sum of your defensive ability. Whether you're wearing clothes and are very good at dodging, or whether it's due to the heavy armour your fond of. This one makes less sense though, especially in a combat system that does not require stats and die rolls.

[Miroslaw]

I like the prereq idea, though what would that consist of? Would it only be for heavier armors?

[Ramir]

I gave it more thought and am sold on that one as well. It lets players send their hard earned acclaim on active skills, rather than a passive 'qualifier'.

Yes, it would mostly be for 'this is heavy, you need X brawn'. We could get more creative with it and likely will, for those unique items, of course.

Unless there's any objections, I'll run with this and remove the armour talent.

[Ramir]

I am going to throw one more thing out there.

How would you feel about changing from weapon type skills (Smaller blades etc) and instead, changing to style talents? I don't mean that in the karate vs kung fu way but rather, how a weapon is defined in application. It could be interesting. Weapon types could look like:

- Finesse
- Dueling
- 2 Handed
- Exotic
- Polearm

Or something along those lines. It would mean no difference between blunt and edged, really. Weapons that required finesse would be your poking, accuracy needed weapons. Dueling would be your regular swinging about and 2 handed would mean just that, whether it cuts or crushes.

It's a very loose idea and really, I'm not sure finesse would have any blunt weapons in there. Hm.

Just a thought, may not be worth the bugs that might plague new ground.

However.... it could eliminate weapon segregation if we do focus on your particular combat style. Really, if we're looking at simplicity, we could have styles like this:

---

Finesse: Smaller weapons making quick, decisive strikes. As the weapons are smaller, this includes single and dual weapons.

Dueling: Conventional fighting with one, medium sized weapon, whether blunt or sharp. Leaving the off hand free means the ability to grapple and strike, not to mention utilize terrain more effectively if so inclined.

Sword & Board: This style covers the use of blunt and edged weapons with a shield.

Dual Wielding: Much like Dueling, but grants the user the ability to wield an off hand weapon, of smaller size.

Berzerker: The use of large, two handed weapons that are slow, but deliver immense damage.

Polearms: Staffs, spears and halberds are unlike all other weapons, but are quite versatile.

Exotic: If your weapon is unconventional in it's application, it is an exotic fighting style.



What this would mean, is that your can still pick up weapons appropriate to your style and use them well. However, you wouldn't need to buy second skills and so on to simply handle an off hand option. It saves you some points and MIGHT be more balanced.

That said, what happens when the dual wielder doesn't have two weapons? Is he crap without spending points in the dueling style? That might be where specialization comes into it....

[Ramir]

Lol. Finding my ongoing ramblings funny, but this way you guys see my 'process'.

So I think I will dumb down the combat arts, as has been done with ranged.

Things like dual wielding and shield use will be complimentary skills - and will max at lvl 5. Therefore, you can afford to be great with your chosen weapon preference and still specialize in an affordable way. No dual wielders being useless, should they lose one weapon.

[Ramir]

Alright, this has been completed and is now in the talents list.

[Neko]

Sounds good to me. I like the edits and think that as long as items are labeled with what "style" they are then it should avoid most of the confusion that could come from it.

Seeing as we are needing to edit items and the shop anyway, it shouldn't be too much of an issue to do, just adding a line to the description...

[Redblade]

This is sounding really good. I want to try the new adjustments already.