Weapon Variety Discussion

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Mithreas
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Mithreas » Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:12 am

One Two Three Five wrote:Doesn't the FL server have some kind of weird immunity scaling on items to make it useful to use different weapons, or am I thinking of something entirely different?
Not particularly, but it does have much higher immunity %s than the main server, which accomplishes something similar.

Armour gives slashing resistance, the heavier the armour and the higher the quality of the material the more resistance (heavy armour on FL doesn't give AC - the base AC of medium and heavy armours is 3, not 4-8). Helmets give bludgeoning resistance, the higher the quality of material the more resistance. Shields give piercing resistance, again scaling with size and material (and again only giving 1AC regardless of the size of the shield).

So if you face someone with a tower shield and heavy armour but no helmet, you want to whack them with a mace. If they have a helmet but light armour and dual wielding, you probably want to put the mace away for a bow and arrows or dagger.

So yes, there is real value on FL to having different weapons ready.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by OverTheSeaToSkye » Sat Jun 24, 2017 1:21 am

If Valor Were Inches wrote:Can't you just take the feat though? It'd be one thing if it wasn't possible for clerics to take it, but it is.

I did this on my Sorcerer. You lose one feat but it's worth the RP value if you ask me.

What I do like with NWN is you can grab simple, major or exotic without requiring the other.

You lose a bit in the numbers crunch but you get to fit better in your concept.
You can? But like with my priestess I simply -don't- have a spare feat if I want her to be as mechanically viable as an already part-crippled race can be.
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Hunter548
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Hunter548 » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:03 am

Ebonstar wrote:then scimitar and rapier need to have their true penalties added as well to the mix. Because noone in their right mind is going to pick up a rapier and use it against someone in plate, unless they are insane of course
Let's be fair here, no one in their right mind is going to use a longsword against someone in plate either (At least not without going for a mordhau esque "treat the sword like a warhammer" type of thing. Bladed weapons in general don't do well versus plate armor.
One Two Three Five wrote:Doesn't the FL server have some kind of weird immunity scaling on items to make it useful to use different weapons, or am I thinking of something entirely different?
Yeah, and IIRC it breaks the balance of FL wide open.

In all honesty, if you want to buff weapons so that there's not so wide a disparity, I think homogenization is the only way to do so. It's not like this problem doesn't exist in P&P either, so adding extra stats for consideration isn't a way to do it (To my mind). Introducing additional racial weapons doesn't do it either unless you want to shoehorn it as "Only elves use longswords, only dwarves use axes, only midgets use shortswords, and humans just continue to use the meta weapons I guess", or add five billion racial weapons.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Durvayas » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:26 am

FL's infinite feats breaks FL's balance wide open. Their ability to massively improve weapons breaks their balance wide open. How FL handles damage type immunities on armor, shields, and helms, does not, and was, in fact, one of the things I liked about FL during the time I played there.

That said... OverTheSeaToSkye, playing a drow priestess has inherent RP benefits in the power and protections afforded to your character by other drow. The trade off may be taking a feat for the cultural necessity of having a whip to be recognised as a priestess, but to be honest... there are already two VERY nice whips to build around in the loot matrix that are thematically tied to Lolth and La'laskra. They are both +5 keen with other properties. You are taking a very minor hit in optimality in exchange for signifigant RP potential and advantage.

That said... it is pretty ridiculous that almost 8/10 melee oriented characters wield either a rapier, scimitar, or kukri, with very, very little variation therein. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen anyone above lvl 4 using a dagger(as anything more than a stat boosting item) in the entire time I've played here.

The sub-optimal weapons need a lot of help. As the server has gotten better at building for power, and power creep has increased in general, being 'optimal' has become more and more important for people to keep up with the more optimally built, more PvP oriented player and the stronger mobs that the server now hosts. Rebalancing the weapons, preferably with a small nerf so as not to contribute to power creep, would likely help drive the server in a better direction towards diversifying weapon choice.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by gilescorey » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:28 am

tfw I use scimitars because I just think they look sick as hell and people call me a powerbuilding scumlord cheeser

feels bad man

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by msterswrdsmn » Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:46 am

Some weapons just suck. Period. Most fall under the catagory of "meh, okay but scimitars do it better", but some weapons are just awful to use.

Ex: Shuriken do 1d3 damage, don't get the STR bonus other thrown weapons get, and require monk levels AND sneak/death attacks (probably death attacks; you won't get more than 3 crappy attacks off otherwise) to use with any sort of efficency. They require smithing (not dex and low str friendly) and only come in single stacks of 50, making them inefficent as hell considering how quickly you literally throw them away. A low-midlevel monk will literally throw away 50 shuriken in 10 rounds. I can't imagine what would happen if I tried making a shuriken-based build.

Throwing weapons are treated like pre-quiver arrows, and thus, are inefficent as hell to drop essences on and only come in stacks of 50. Basin damage cannot be applied to thrown weapons at all (option was removed recentlyish).

Whips suffer similar problems. They deal 1d2 damage, which means again, they require sneaks or whatnot to deal respectable damage. But. You can't use whips in your offhand, meaning you can't dual wield. Which is kinda necessary for lower BAB classes using low damage weapons (ie: sneak classes)

Morning stars/flails look cool, but you rarely see them used due to their terrible crit range and lower base damage.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Xantor_Stromgate » Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:59 am

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Trunx » Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:07 am

Ebonstar wrote:then scimitar and rapier need to have their true penalties added as well to the mix. Because noone in their right mind is going to pick up a rapier and use it against someone in plate, unless they are insane of course
Except plate armor is the entire reason rapiers (rapier-like, NWN rapier isn't actually a rapier) became the swords of choice. Would you rather be able to thrust your sword through a small opening in armor or try to slash through plate with another sword?

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Madukthedoppelganger » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:52 am

Rapiers were civilian weapons that were never meant to be used against plate armour. There were thrusting swords like estoc that had been adapted against plate, but they were heavier, stiffer and were handled very differently from rapiers, using techniques like half-swording (two-handed, one of the hands on the blade, kind of like a short spear) and mordhau (striking with the pommel).

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by msterswrdsmn » Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:40 pm

Its kinda silly to argue what kind of penalties should/shouldn't be applied based on realism. Forget the ups and downs of weapons in a chaotic combat environment, realstically, half the island would die a glorious death when they step in quicksand/deep mud in fullplate with 500 lbs of loot.

REALISM!

That said, some suggestions

1. Thrown weapon bundles: similar to arrow/bolt quivers

2. Trying to flood the island with damage-specific enemies will also destroy anything remotely close to balance. Just slightly increase the presence of damage-specific enemies. There are already a decent handful around, (some oozes, skeletons, mudlings). Just don't get crazy with it

3. Add a few additional properties to weapons. That one pvp server...antiworld? I forgot the name. Anyhow, it encouraged flail use by adding the extra damage: piercing property to flails. And it worked. Adding piercing damage to longswords would be appropriate, for example.

4. Let whips be dual wieldable. Remove the disarm property if this might be an issue (it shouldn't be; whips are god awful things to use disarm with and provoke an attack of oppertunity each time you try. Holding a med weapon in the other hand won't help much)

5. Give a few small options for players to resist certain damage types. I added a few items like this before they got redone by the games property-changing system, but more options like this may help with item diversity. Ex: Entropic shield gives piercing resistance as well as a 20% concealment against projectiles.

The trick with this is stuff can stack or overlap with each other, making it damn hard to reach "balanced" without hitting "stacking immunity tank"

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by yellowcateyes » Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:53 pm

msterswrdsmn wrote:1. Thrown weapon bundles: similar to arrow/bolt quivers
An oft-repeated suggestion with years of history.

One day, perhaps. One day.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Zapnl » Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:59 pm

Antiworld was pretty fun
It also balanced maximum elemental damage by weapon damage tiers.
Sickles, maces, whips and the like were allowed more elemental/divine/pos/neg bonus (1d12) damage than scythes and scimitars (1d4), making 'weak' weapons more useful against DR builds and better for dex builds that didn't rely on crit.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Sat Jun 24, 2017 6:51 pm

Zapnl wrote:Antiworld was pretty fun
It also balanced maximum elemental damage by weapon damage tiers.
Sickles, maces, whips and the like were allowed more elemental/divine/pos/neg bonus (1d12) damage than scythes and scimitars (1d4), making 'weak' weapons more useful against DR builds and better for dex builds that didn't rely on crit.
This is really cool.

How busted would it be if we allowed craftable 1d8/2d4 essences that could only be used on the bad weapons, like spears, maces, sickles, etc?
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Trunx » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:13 pm

Madukthedoppelganger wrote:Rapiers were civilian weapons that were never meant to be used against plate armour. There were thrusting swords like estoc that had been adapted against plate, but they were heavier, stiffer and were handled very differently from rapiers, using techniques like half-swording (two-handed, one of the hands on the blade, kind of like a short spear) and mordhau (striking with the pommel).
Yes, but like I said, NWN rapiers aren't really rapiers. They're "rapier-like", and actually more akin to broadswords such as schiavona or indeed estocs.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by ephyrion » Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:32 pm

Some suggestions for weapons:

1. Modify the base stats of the weapons. Two handed weapons base damage could be doubled for example. Weapons deemed inferior could be modified slightly to increase the variety. This would probably need haks, though.

2. We have a crafting system but all the weapon stats are still the same (+3 ab and +6 damage for MDamask for example). IMO this doesn't work since some weapons are just far more superior. Easily fixable by adding craftables with added bonuses for specific weapons.

3. Add more custom magic weapons to the loot matrix.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Shadowy Reality » Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:43 pm

To make 2h more viable the weapon physical damage should also be multiplied by 1.5.

That is, a masterly damask 2h weapon should have as stats +3ab +9 damage. The only issue is how do you do this for weapons that are 2h for small races and 1h for medium races.

18-20 x2 critical range should be removed.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Sockss » Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:55 pm

Generally speaking higher multipliers are better than range (depending on the AC of the opponent / ability to cope with burst). So war-hammers and handaxes are pretty cool.

Giving things a little niche outside of the quite limited weapon mechanics would be cool. Making everything the same seems boring.

Like having WF: dagger and using a dagger gives you a bonus 1d6 sneak attack damage.

Or using a heavy flail with weapon focus gives you a slightly better knockdown roll.

Potentially improving the statistics based on number of weapon-specific feats.

So they're not optimum for damage but fill another role.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by One Two Three Five » Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:32 pm

2H weapons already give a +2 AB boost.
This is.. kind of a big suggestion, and probably fairly bad, but.

Changes: Retain weapon base damage.
All weapons crit on 20, for x2.
Weapons Compatible with Weapon Finesse add Dex to damage.
Two-handed weapon retain the +2 AB bonus, and gain a (small) damage bonus to offset the benefit of using a shield.
Most remaining weapons are made 'versatile' like bastard swords and can be -twohand'd.
The very slim remainder are made EITHER 19-20 base, or 20/x3, but this should be a rather careful selection.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Shadowy Reality » Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:41 pm

One Two Three Five wrote:2H weapons already give a +2 AB boost.
This is.. kind of a big suggestion, and probably fairly bad, but.

Changes: Retain weapon base damage.
All weapons crit on 20, for x2.
Weapons Compatible with Weapon Finesse add Dex to damage.
Two-handed weapon retain the +2 AB bonus, and gain a (small) damage bonus to offset the benefit of using a shield.
Most remaining weapons are made 'versatile' like bastard swords and can be -twohand'd.
The very slim remainder are made EITHER 19-20 base, or 20/x3, but this should be a rather careful selection.
I would love to see this. Have those 19-20 and x3 come from exotic proficiency would be good. More than anything, it would shift combat to be a bit slower.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by StealthyKraken » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:32 pm

One Two Three Five wrote:2H weapons already give a +2 AB boost.
This is.. kind of a big suggestion, and probably fairly bad, but.

Changes: Retain weapon base damage.
All weapons crit on 20, for x2.
Weapons Compatible with Weapon Finesse add Dex to damage.
Two-handed weapon retain the +2 AB bonus, and gain a (small) damage bonus to offset the benefit of using a shield.
Most remaining weapons are made 'versatile' like bastard swords and can be -twohand'd.
The very slim remainder are made EITHER 19-20 base, or 20/x3, but this should be a rather careful selection.
Removing 18-20 critrange would make weapon masters as a whole worse and that in a meta that already favours spell casters (maybe less so with the recent changes to feylocks). Sooner, I'd rather set all weapons to 18-20 x2 with a d6 of base dmg.

Also, going DEX opposed to STR in a melee build already is a valid option (DEX Weaponmasters, Rogue/Monks). If DEX were to give you AB, AC and DMG, STR would be entirely neglectable.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Lorkas » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:42 pm

I was going to say that too, but to be honest STR based still winds up getting more AC than DEX based does on Arelith.

The question would become: do you want AB, AC, damage, and carrying capacity with STR, or just AB, AC, and damage with DEX (and btw don't forget to spend the extra feat for the privilege of getting AB from DEX).

The only real perk to going DEX based would be you could stealth and maybe get epic dodge near the highest levels, and out also comes at the cost of your prime attribute not adding to discipline anymore.

Damage might not be the best thing to give them, but DEX meleers could use some form of a boost.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by StealthyKraken » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:56 pm

Lorkas wrote:I was going to say that too, but to be honest STR based still winds up getting more AC than DEX based does on Arelith.

The question would become: do you want AB, AC, damage, and carrying capacity with STR, or just AB, AC, and damage with DEX (and btw don't forget to spend the extra feat for the privilege of getting AB from DEX).

The only real perk to going DEX based would be you could stealth and maybe get epic dodge near the highest levels, and out also comes at the cost of your prime attribute not adding to discipline anymore.

Damage might not be the best thing to give them, but DEX meleers could use some form of a boost.
They got that boost. In the form of parry. Also, better gonne use.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Lorkas » Tue Jun 27, 2017 3:21 pm

Parry is nice, but not that nice due to its limitations, and the improved gonne use isn't a serious DEX benefit since touch attacks will nearly always hit from a full BAB class anyway.

Parry is useful at low levels, one on one, but if you are above level 10 or facing more than one enemy, it's use is limited. I have a level 30 DEX based full-ranks-in-parry character now... it is almost 100% of the time worse than IE when extra defense is needed.

As for a heavy habit like gonne use, you benefit way more from extra carrying capacity from STR than you do from the (usually non-existent anyway since you often have to roll a 1 to miss against stuff that you would use a gonne for) lowered chance to miss.

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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by StealthyKraken » Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:02 pm

Lorkas wrote:Parry is nice, but not that nice due to its limitations, and the improved gonne use isn't a serious DEX benefit since touch attacks will nearly always hit from a full BAB class anyway.

Parry is useful at low levels, one on one, but if you are above level 10 or facing more than one enemy, it's use is limited. I have a level 30 DEX based full-ranks-in-parry character now... it is almost 100% of the time worse than IE when extra defense is needed.

As for a heavy habit like gonne use, you benefit way more from extra carrying capacity from STR than you do from the (usually non-existent anyway since you often have to roll a 1 to miss against stuff that you would use a gonne for) lowered chance to miss.
A 13 Rogue/10 Fighter/7 WM with shield and rapier has more AC in IE on top of E.Dodge, parry against 20/7/3 builds and rolls higher on his gonne shots, which is needed against PMs, the main counter of WMs. If DEX were to give extra damage to this build, nobody would play STR based Weapon Masters anymore.
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Re: Weapon Variety Discussion

Post by Hunter548 » Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:14 pm

Yeah, I question how you get less AC while dex based than a str character in plate.

As for normalizing crit ranges, I don't see the problem there as long as weapons like rapier/scimitar/kukri are brought up to the same damage dice as longswords and shortswords to match.
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