Derakon's combat revamp

[Derakon]

Prismatic: so, to get your applied melee finesse rating, you'd do ((player finesse + DEX mod + other mods + etc.) * (player melee bias)) * (weapon modifier)? That would work, though I worry about making the calculations too obtuse.

The thing about bows is that realistically, you need Power to draw them, and Finesse to aim them. The best way I could see to implement this would be to institute a minimum Power level to effectively use a given bow, after which point further Power is moot. That minimum level would scale with the multiplier on the bow, so you'd really need godlike Power to use an x6 longbow.

I'd still rather push that back to "version 2" if possible, though.

[Prismatic]

You could make longbows the Finesse version of a ranged weapon and crossbows the Power version. (Slings could be in the middle.) Crossbows focus on single big hits that punch through armour, longbows are more for speed and accuracy. Then, you could also give a Melee and Ranged rating to classes for accuracy purposes.

After this, you'd have four basic classes of weapons: melee power, melee finesse, ranged power, ranged finesse. Power/finesse would be on a scale; melee/ranged is binary (a weapon is melee or ranged but not both... unless that's what you make throwing weapons).

The net effect, as best I can see:

Ranger: High Finesse, high Ranged, middling Melee, lower Power. Great with longbows. Okay with fast, light weapons and crossbows. Should probably not be using melee ultra-power weapons like a maul.

Rogue: Finesse is highest, which helps with bows too. Bad Power, though, so they don't use heavy melee weapons and prefer not to use crossbows.

Paladin: Melee, not ranged. Probably power over finesse.

Warrior: Why not give them pretty much all four? This is kind of what they do.

Priest, Mage: Not so great with any of them. Priest has better Melee and mage Ranged. Priests probably have a tolerable Power too just because most of the 'priest weapons' are heavy.

[sethos]

I think that derakon is saying that main problem with having one skill that would affect both ranged and meele combat is that we currently have classes that excel in archery, but not in meele. (Ranger).

if we unified those skillsets, then either the ranger would have to become a less apt archer (in which case we could come up with a different name for the class) or would gain the ability to become a fantastic fighter with light (finesse dependant) weapons. The second option does fit in with a classic ranger archetype (robin hood style!) but would likely be unbalancing, given the ranger's other qualities.

EDIT: or, something could be done to make power dependant weapons more reliable, thus making a light weapon wielder a bit less deadly than a heavy weapon wielder. this could come in the form of damage reduction on some monsters, or by tweaking the formulas and balance so that heavy weapons average out for more damage/ round.

ugh... so much to consider - it makes my head spin.

[Derakon]

To be honest I haven't given that much thought to ranged combat. The big problem is that we have both bows and crossbows, and realistically they have different mechanics -- for bows, your physical strength determines how heavy a draw weight you can pull, which in turn determines the speed of the projectile (which we map to the projectile's damage for simplicity's sake). For crossbows, however, your strength determines more how rapidly you can cock the bow, with it having a fixed power after that.

Of course, in Angband they're just treated identically except with different ammo types. I don't want to completely rework ranged combat -- melee's more than enough to wrestle with -- so I'd really like to leave that as-is as much as possible. At least, there doesn't seem to be a good way to unify missile and melee combat completely without either a skill explosion (separate finesse and power skills for both ranged and melee) or making rangers be amazing dagger fighters.

My intent, therefore, is to have things work out this way:

* The player has a Melee Finesse skill. This is used for melee only. Their "applied finesse" is given by (weapon multiplier) * (Finesse skill + DEX mod + race mod + level * class mod + mods from all non-bow equipment).
* The player has a Power skill. This is also used for melee only. Their "applied power" is given by (weapon multiplier) * (Power skill + STR mod + race mod + level * class mod + mods from all non-bow equipment).
* The player has a Missile Finesse skill. This is used for missile combat only. Their firing speed is given by (Missile skill + DEX mod + race mod + level * class mod + mods from all non-weapon equipment). On non-weapon equipment, finesse bonuses apply to both melee and ranged combat. In current Angband terms, they would affect the "Fight" stats on the character screen.
* Ranged damage uses the multipliers on the weapon instead of a Power stat.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

My intention was to replace Melee with Finesse and to add Power as a separate skill. Bows should probably remain their own skill so that rangers can be amazing archers without also being amazing dagger fighters.

I realized I don't understand exactly what you mean here. There are several interpretations.

1) Power affects both melee and ranged weapons. Finesse affects only melee weapons, and Bows is basically Finesse for ranged weapons. This I like very much!

2) Power and Finesse affect both melee and ranged weapons. Bows adds to to-hit with bows. This feels clumsy.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Actually, I'd argue in favor of derakons original idea that all weapons require some blend of power and finesse to be used well: a dagger still needs to be driven home, as does a rapier, and you need to be able to recover well after swinging a great maul, or you'll be open to a counter attack.

I fully agree here! Please interpret "pure power" in my posts as 85% of power and 15% finesse.

[sethos]

Actually, I'd argue in favor of derakons original idea that all weapons require some blend of power and finesse to be used well: a dagger still needs to be driven home, as does a rapier, and you need to be able to recover well after swinging a great maul, or you'll be open to a counter attack.

BTW - This is my D&D experience talking again, but I don't see # of blows as meaning that you swing the weapon X number of times in a combat round, but meaning that you saw and took advantage of x number of openings during a combat round. D&D put it something like this:

In the course of combat, both combabtants are assumed to be parrying, blocking and completely engaged in battle, with a combat round equaling 6 seconds (That's a D&D round, not neccissarily an angband round), the more skilled warrior may take adavantage of, or even create, multiple "Good" chances to strike - though armor and chance can still negate even an otherwise good swing.

so 6 blows just means that you had 6 good chances to get in a hit- that would be my main problem with light weapons getting more "Blows" than a heavy weapon. a dagger may be quicker, but you have to get a *LOT* closer in to strike with it than you do with a longsword.

meh. Anybody else ever beat up (and get beat down by) their friends with bokkens and kendo sticks? it's pretty awesome.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Sorry for flooding, I just like combat systems.

Having just two combat skills, Power and Finesse, can be made to work too. In general, Power would need to be more important in melee, and Finesse in ranged combat.

Most if not all ranged weapons would depend on pure Finesse. Only a small subset of melee weapons would require pure Finesse. A vast majority of melee weapons would require either pure Power or both Power and Finesse.

[Estie]

To hit stat has only a minor effect on dpr and thats a good thing (noone uses to hit rings). Not hitting should be reserved for the cases where other options (spells, ranged (?)) are available.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

How about this for combat skills:

Finesse (affected by DEX)
Power (STR)
Archery (DEX)
Throwing (STR)

Archery would basically be finesse for ranged weapons. All bows would be pure Finesse weapons.

Throwing would be Power for ranged weapons. All thrown weapons (and perhaps slings too) would be pure Power weapons.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

My intention was to replace Melee with Finesse and to add Power as a separate skill. Bows should probably remain their own skill so that rangers can be amazing archers without also being amazing dagger fighters.

OK, that makes sense.

Half-Trolls will obviously have the best Power skill. What about Finesse? Are you planning to change the game balance by making elves and halflings excellent melee fighters?

That's not bad, it's just different. And it's balanced by low hitpoints.

Should a halfling with a, say, rapier be about equal in combat to a half-troll with a maul? That would make the halfing better in combat overall because he's also an excellent archer.

[Derakon]

Derakon, are you planning that there would be four combat skills: Melee, Bows, Power, Finesse?

I find it a bit unelegant that Melee, Bows and Finesse all increase to-hit chance.

My intention was to replace Melee with Finesse and to add Power as a separate skill. Bows should probably remain their own skill so that rangers can be amazing archers without also being amazing dagger fighters.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Derakon, are you planning that there would be four combat skills: Melee, Bows, Power, Finesse?

I find it a bit unelegant that Melee, Bows and Finesse all increase to-hit chance.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Because we arent allowed to let a troll have a higher str score than a hobbit lategame, in a way that matters for combat.

Seems like the stat system is broken, then. This would be easy to fix directly: just increase or remove the caps. It's possible that changing the combat system is a more difficult and less elegant route.

EDIT: I was a bit unclear here. I like the combat system that Derakon proposes! I just don't like the idea that you have to side-step a broken stat system. Even in Derakon's original idea, having end-game STR and DEX really matter would be excellent.

Also, changing the stat system to make stats more relevant would be easy for a single developer, perhaps not for a committee.

[Estie]

Even simpler would be to not have items that boost Finesse or Power, because boosts to STR and DEX are roughly the same thing. STR and DEX already do interesting things besides helping heavy/light weapons.

I'd actually prefer to not have skills for these two at all. Why not let STR and DEX to do all the work? Having finesse and power slowly increase with levels is not very interesting. If we wanted to differentiate the classes and races further, we could have bigger bonuses/penalties to STR and DEX. This approach works very well in Ey/Fay.

Because we arent allowed to let a troll have a higher str score than a hobbit lategame, in a way that matters for combat.