blunt priest weapons

[quarague]

My priest just found a lucerne hammer of westernesse and he is not comfortable with it. War hammers count as blunt weapons, though. Is that intended behaviour? or has the westernesse something to do with it?

[Philip]

Hafted(polearm) as opposed to blunt, the lucerne hammer included a spike and pierced armor effectively. It included a hammer, but the spike and form of the weapon, more like some sort of spear, probably disqualifies it.

[quarague]

So essentially my knowledge of medieval weapons is not accurate enough
I just thought hammer = blunt, oh well, will have to continue using a magic flail.

[Derakon]

The lucerne hammer counted as a blunt weapon for a long time, until someone with more knowledge of medieval weapons said "Uh, guys...".

[Estie]

Afaik, "hammers" wherent sledge hammer types when used for weapons; rather, they where metal spikes on wooden sticks thick enough to not break when piercing through plate armor. The head only had 1 square inch or less area (someone correct me if I am wrong), so it really was a tool to pierce armour. Similar for mace, it could probably be considered to be a piercing or slashing weapon (depending on exact head design).

That leaves the quartertaff as true blunt weapon, and possibly the maul (heavy hammer); I dont recall when or by whom the latter were used as weapons though.

[Timo Pietilä]

That leaves the quartertaff as true blunt weapon, and possibly the maul (heavy hammer); I dont recall when or by whom the latter were used as weapons though.

Whole "only blunt weapons for priests" is a odd thing IMO. I don't usually pay attention to it, but every time I think of it it just doesn't make any sense.

I would suggest that we give priests back fifth blow, but make them use only blessed weapons and/or small things like daggers (maybe weight-based thing, the heavier the thing the bigger the penalty). Using something else should give them a lot worse (melee) penalty than it does now. Add blessed flag to some base items.

[fph]

The net effect of this change would be making priests extremely gear-dependent in the late game. If you find one of the few endgame-quality blessed weapons, you're golden; otherwise, it will be a tedious game of orb of draining, heal, repeat.

[Timo Pietilä]

The net effect of this change would be making priests extremely gear-dependent in the late game. If you find one of the few endgame-quality blessed weapons, you're golden; otherwise, it will be a tedious game of orb of draining, heal, repeat.

Almost any weapon can beat OoD in damage. Good HA weapons are quite common, if you can't find good artifact then use one of those. Actual endgame is easy with Priests anyway, 0%-failure healing and banish evil are such a huge benefit that you only need to make sure you don't run out of mana during that fight.

Blessed artifact weapons are now a lot more common than they used to be, in 2.9.3 "BLESSED" count is 5, in 3.4.1 it is 13. Hafted is also 12 vs 13 (Whip of Gothmog and Fundin has been added, Turmil removed from selection. Turmil got BLESSED as compensation). So count for artifacts that Priests can use without penalty has changed from 17 to 26.

For blunt base items game is two in favor of 3.4.1 (four shovels/picks and Lucerne Hammer have been removed, mattock, great hammer and maul added, considering which kind of change that is I'd say that again is 3.4.1 where priests get easier game).

Ego has not changed (only Blessed, HA and *slay evil*, still have BLESSED flag in both)...except maybe that mattock can be used as weapon with digging because now digging has acid-brand....oh, and I forgot, there are two artifact diggers in 3.4.1 which can be used without penalty. That's 17 to 28 ratio.

Priests are easier in 3.4.1 than in older versions, even with only four blows vs five blows.

[Estie]

The amount of blessed weapons is sufficient to not make that restriction too much of an issue, however I have problems denying a priest, say, a quarterstaff. Or a mace. Somehow that contradicts my DnD background, and thats the only background I can associate with the angband priest class.

I would rather remove the "blessed" flag entirely (or make it very rare).

[Timo Pietilä]

The amount of blessed weapons is sufficient to not make that restriction too much of an issue, however I have problems denying a priest, say, a quarterstaff. Or a mace. Somehow that contradicts my DnD background, and thats the only background I can associate with the angband priest class.

I would rather remove the "blessed" flag entirely (or make it very rare).

You have exact opposite point of view. Maybe because my DnD background is very short one and I played other role playing games a lot more (cyberpunk 2020-based systems most of them). I don't remember DnD priest rules at all.

[Derakon]

I'd be fine with removed the BLESSED flag altogether. I don't plan on implementing it in Pyrel.

[Magnate]

I'd be fine with removed the BLESSED flag altogether. I don't plan on implementing it in Pyrel.

I already have :-(

[scud]

I already have :-(

Aw, bless him.

[ekolis]

Aw, bless him.

*does absolutely nothing to Magnate*

[Derakon]

We can always make blessed weapons do something more interesting. What if they never missed evil monsters? Hm, that'd make them considerably more powerful than Slay Evil weapons in most cases (~33% increase in damage assuming a normal hit rate of 75%). Maybe they could make you harder to hit by evil monsters instead? Periodically get super-crits against evil monsters? "Your blessed weapon delivers a mighty blow!" etc.

Bottom line is, we have a flag, now we need to make it mean something. Something interesting, and preferably not too overpowered (so we don't have to redo allocation odds). Any suggestions?