Not-so-great weapons

[PowerDiver]

The easiest way to make slings useful longer is to remove enchant scrolls from the town. A (+4,+4) sling is more useful than a longbow (+0, +0) if it isn't trivial to enchant the longbow.

[bio_hazard]

The easiest way to make slings useful longer is to remove enchant scrolls from the town. A (+4,+4) sling is more useful than a longbow (+0, +0) if it isn't trivial to enchant the longbow.

I suppose one could be really annoying and make enchant scrolls more likely to fail on more complicated/better weapons, such that slings, clubs, and whips would be easier to enchant up than would a heavy crossbow or rapier.

[TJS]

The easiest way to make slings useful longer is to remove enchant scrolls from the town. A (+4,+4) sling is more useful than a longbow (+0, +0) if it isn't trivial to enchant the longbow.

Make sling ammo lighter, more often available in the dungeons (so it is more useful for iron players), more often branded and higher damage dice on the ammo.

Remove enchant scrolls from town (except the odd one in the black market) and change the way they work so instead of possibly adding +1 to hit or to damage they can enchant both a number of times (becoming less effective as the weapon becomes more enchanted). Make them work on artefacts as well. Make them rarer to compensate for this.

Make enchant armour add multiple AC rather than just one (I can't even be bothered to read them when I find them) and heavier armour can have higher maximum AC.

Make heavier weapons able to have higher +tohit and +todamage than lighter weapons. Also make them more likely to be created with higher values in the first place so you don't have to carry around heavy useless weapons for ages looking for enchant scrolls. Also it means it might be worth discovering the enchantments on {magical} heavy weapons a lot later than you currently bother.

Make heavier weapons do more critical damage more often for stronger players (so warriors aren't carrying daggers all the time).

Remove +tohit and +todamage from launcher ammo. It encourages people to micromanage ammo using enchant scrolls far too much.

A nice idea with enchant (or *enchant*) might be to have a chance for a random ability eg. see invisible or resist acid. Although I can imagine complaints that this would unbalance the game for this.

[Marble Dice]

Make sling ammo lighter, more often available in the dungeons (so it is more useful for iron players), more often branded and higher damage dice on the ammo.

I think lighter, more damage, and less breaking would be a great balance. Slings would be cheap and fire highly reusable ammo with a linear power curve - good with little investment but with a low ceiling. Oil would be even cheaper, but not reusable, and have no potential for growth. Bows would require a little bit more work, but have higher payoffs in the end. This even models reality to an extent, as slings are simple and easy to use while bows require significantly more training. Not that reality necessarily makes a good game, but in this case I think there's an argument for it.

Remove enchant scrolls from town (except the odd one in the black market) and change the way they work so instead of possibly adding +1 to hit or to damage they can enchant both a number of times (becoming less effective as the weapon becomes more enchanted). Make them work on artefacts as well. Make them rarer to compensate for this.

I don't feel strongly one way or another about enchant. However, I would prefer a situation where they're always available but just priced according to their worth (so, higher perhaps).

Make heavier weapons able to have higher +tohit and +todamage than lighter weapons. Also make them more likely to be created with higher values in the first place so you don't have to carry around heavy useless weapons for ages looking for enchant scrolls. Also it means it might be worth discovering the enchantments on {magical} heavy weapons a lot later than you currently bother. Make heavier weapons do more critical damage more often for stronger players (so warriors aren't carrying daggers all the time).

All viable options for balancing heavier weapons - isn't this basically what O does?

Remove +tohit and +todamage from launcher ammo. It encourages people to micromanage ammo using enchant scrolls far too much.

I'm in love with this idea. Ammo would only have two variables: type and brand. You might need to rebalance launcher and ammo damage, and higher-level ammo frequency, but it'd be worth it in my opinion.

[Pete Mack]

I think lighter, more damage, and less breaking would be a great balance. Slings would be cheap and fire highly reusable ammo with a linear power curve - good with little investment but with a low ceiling. Oil would be even cheaper, but not reusable, and have no potential for growth. Bows would require a little bit more work, but have higher payoffs in the end. This even models reality to an extent, as slings are simple and easy to use while bows require significantly more training. Not that reality necessarily makes a good game, but in this case I think there's an argument for it.

Ack! I created a monster! I wasn't actually supporting the idea of using Flasks of Oil (or other potions for that matter) as sling ammo. (When I say "modest proposal", I mean as in "eating babies.")

[zaimoni]

With much better results of confusion than the original Swiftian modest proposal.

[Marble Dice]

Ack! I created a monster! I wasn't actually supporting the idea of using Flasks of Oil (or other potions for that matter) as sling ammo. (When I say "modest proposal", I mean as in "eating babies.")

When I say "Oil would be even cheaper, but not reusable, and have no potential for growth" I really mean "Oil [thrown from the hand, in comparison to shot launched from a sling]." I don't think you should be able to launch it, and I think the current damage is a little out of line at the moment. Oil should remain an option for cheap and effective but difficult to sustain ranged damage in the early game.