Poll: do you want to change combat mechanics for heavy weapons?

[fizzix]

Agreed. I think weapon dice would need revising as well as weights. And critical hits need rewriting, of course. Quite a lot of changes, all linked to the damage dealt by melee weapons (and the display of that damage).

And in fact this will impact on missile combat too. Dammit.

critical hit rewriting should be done independent of O-combat additions.

[Estie]

Damage enchantment proportional to dice is good, but I dont like the %display. Id rather have a straight damage displayed, but that can be accomplished easily:

When the game picks a damage enchantment for a given weapon, modify the formula to multiply the average base damge into it. When weapons get enchanted by scrolls, modify the success chance similarly, by checking current enchantment against average base damage. If all sources of damage enchantment that exist in the game take base damage into account, it has the same gameplay effect as O´s %damage but the vanilla readability is preserved.

Quoting myself here, because in my long and rambling post this might have been missed. But I think it is good. It is O-combat tasting like vanilla.

[TJS]

1) Cap max enchantment of weapons at some fraction (e.g. half) the weapon's max damage roll. For example, 1d4 daggers max at +2,+2, 6d5 blades of chaos max at +15,+15. Make it hard for the game to generate non-artifact weapons that break this rule. Functionally this means that on-weapon enchantments can increase your damage by ~50%.

I quite like this idea, except instead of basing the enchantment max on weapon damage dice I'd like to see it based on the weapon weight instead.

That way you could get lighter high damage dice weapons for powerful slays or heavier high enchantment weapons that are good against all monsters.

Also instead of it being a hard max limit for enchantment it could just be more common to get higher enchantments on heavier weapons. So very occasionally you could still find a dagger with high enchantment.

Heavier weapons should be easier to enchant as well.

[Magnate]

critical hit rewriting should be done independent of O-combat additions.

Disagree. I agree that it needs rewriting regardless of what else happens, but it would look quite different if done alongside other significant changes to combat mechanics.

[Nick]

And in fact this will impact on missile combat too. Dammit.

If you're going this route, I strongly recommend Psi's O-style missile combat in FA. It seems to stay balanced the whole game. IIRC he didn't make many changes to melee.

[Magnate]

If you're going this route, I strongly recommend Psi's O-style missile combat in FA. It seems to stay balanced the whole game. IIRC he didn't make many changes to melee.

Thank you, I'll definitely have a look. Missiles in O itself are famously underpowered, so it'll be interesting to see what's different.

[Nomad]

1) Cap max enchantment of weapons at some fraction (e.g. half) the weapon's max damage roll. For example, 1d4 daggers max at +2,+2, 6d5 blades of chaos max at +15,+15. Make it hard for the game to generate non-artifact weapons that break this rule. Functionally this means that on-weapon enchantments can increase your damage by ~50%.

I quite like this idea, except instead of basing the enchantment max on weapon damage dice I'd like to see it based on the weapon weight instead.

I think that makes good sense, actually. If we imagine that enchanting a weapon is the equivalent of magically etching some kind of rune onto it, then big heavy weapons logically have room to take more enchantments. And that would make weapon weight a direct trade-off between hits and damage.

How about simply making the enchantment cap half the weapon's weight, rounded up? So, a 1.2lb dagger can only get (+1,+1), while a 14lb bastard sword can have up to (+7,+7) and a 26lb executioner's sword could have (+13,+13). Coupled with fractional blows I think that would make for a pretty well-balanced system, actually.

Looking at some example weapons, as a starting high-elf warrior I get 3.8 blows with a 1.2lb dagger, 2 with an 8lb short sword, and 1.1 with an 18lb beaked axe. Under the current system, where they can all be enchanted to the same level, it's all a bit broken and the dagger can get much higher max damage because of the multiple blows. But introduce a weight based enchantment cap so the dagger tops out at (+1,+1), the short sword at (+4,+4) and the beaked axe at (+9,+9), and you get these maximums instead:

dagger (+1,+1) = 3.8 * 1d4+1 = 19
short sword (+4,+4) = 2 * 1d7+4 = 22
beaked axe (+9,+9) = 1.1 * 2d6+9 = 23.1

...Looks pretty good to me. Heavier weapons have a slight edge damage-wise, while light weapons have the advantage of multiple opportunities to hit in a turn if one blow misses.

[PowerDiver]

1) Cap max enchantment of weapons at some fraction (e.g. half) the weapon's max damage roll.

A lot of people are coming out in favor, but I don't think it works. Does that mean we cut Ringil to have +10 damage?

This is a massive change to combat. If you go this way, you might as well import O combat. You are going to need to do just as much rebalancing.

If the problem is that we want people to use heavier weapons, is it not enough to change the blows calculations so that you get more blows with heavier weapons sooner?

[Derakon]

Artifacts are allowed to break enchantment caps, just as currently plenty of weapons get enchanted over (+15,+15). But you're right, such a change would likely mean rebalancing monster HP and weapon damage dice.

As for basing max enchantment on weapon weight, I'm a bit leery of that, for two main reasons:

1) It's a bit opaque. Weapon weight is not typically a number players are going to directly refer to.
2) It means we can't break the system to make high-powered but light weapons later on in the game. Imagine if armor damage reduction was directly based on the armor's weight; where would mithril chain fit in then?

[PowerDiver]

Artifacts are allowed to break enchantment caps, just as currently plenty of weapons get enchanted over (+15,+15). But you're right, such a change would likely mean rebalancing monster HP and weapon damage dice.

If you let artifacts break the cap, you just relegate all ego weeapons to junk once you find pretty much any artifact weapon. You will find better artifacts before you find better egos. That's a bad direction IMO.

The problem with light weapons isn't the plus on the weapon itself anyway. The reason my half-troll chars prefer a dagger to a maul is the str bonus and two rings of reckless attacks. 3 blows with a +0+0 dagger beats one blow with a +9+9 maul, even if you could afford the exorbitant markup on the purchase price. The enchantment on the dagger itself is just icing on the cake.

[Magnate]

If you let artifacts break the cap, you just relegate all ego weeapons to junk once you find pretty much any artifact weapon. You will find better artifacts before you find better egos. That's a bad direction IMO.

The problem with light weapons isn't the plus on the weapon itself anyway. The reason my half-troll chars prefer a dagger to a maul is the str bonus and two rings of reckless attacks. 3 blows with a +0+0 dagger beats one blow with a +9+9 maul, even if you could afford the exorbitant markup on the purchase price. The enchantment on the dagger itself is just icing on the cake.

This is exactly why turning +dam into a % is a better idea than capping +dam on weapons. The two rings and STR bonus can only take 1d4 so far with % bonus, so the maul would be better in proportion with its price ...

[dos350]

hi can someone please explain like

-
-

wat is exactly different??

anyway ill look at the 320 changes again, but really~ is scary to me- it seems to be good as is in 312??

eek

[Derakon]

Here's another thought on managing heavy vs. light weapons: simply restrict access to extra blows based on character level. E.g. mages get one blow at level 1, two at level 15, three at level 30, and four at level 40. Warriors get two at level 1, three at level 15, four at 25, five at 35, and six at 40. And so on. Rationalize it as requiring more skill from the character to be able to wield the weapon effectively.

[buzzkill]

Do mages really get 4 blows??? That seems like a lot (more than the one they deserve), considering that warriors max out at 6??? Where's the middle ground for the rest of the classes (half-casters and such). Seems like there should be more of a spread.

[PowerDiver]

This is exactly why turning +dam into a % is a better idea than capping +dam on weapons. The two rings and STR bonus can only take 1d4 so far with % bonus, so the maul would be better in proportion with its price ...

The troll shouldn't even have to pay for a maul. He should break off a tree branch, maybe getting something a bit heavier for the same dice but at least somewhat comparable for free. But that's a discussion for a different day.

Anyway, I never argued against O combat.

But before you jump to the conclusion we are agreeing on something, would you answer my question "If the problem is that we want people to use heavier weapons, is it not enough to change the blows calculations so that you get more blows with heavier weapons sooner?".

Or is the problem something different?