Blackguards and melee attacks
 

Hello,

I just tried playing a Blackguard in 4.2.0.

Is it just me, or do they have much less melee blows/round compared to other classes? I can't really find this described anywhere.

Correct. Their effective minimum weapon weight is 10 pounds, the idea being that they can hit things hard, but without any finesse. Their entry in the class help says they prefer heavy weapons.

If any weapon weighing less than 10 lbs is calculated with 10 lbs as their weight, since they prefer killing with heavy weapons, do they have a Heavy Weapon Bonus? Like a 2% weight decrease for weapons > 10 lbs for the blows per round calculation?

No bonus, but with heavier weapons you get more crits. The class is hard in the early stages (get the heaviest shield you can for better shield bashes), but later on it's on par with warriors.

They still get one fewer attack, though.

no ....

warriors now get five attacks.

sad face.

Warriors still get 6 attacks.

Half troll warriors only get five, realistically. You need a preposterous amount of DEX for six with that combo.

I appreciate the intent of having blackguards not benefit from light weapons the same way other classes do, but the implementation is opaque at best. It relies on tweaking a variable in an obscure formula that is only obliquely presented to the player, in the form of the "to get X blows/round with this weapon you would need Y more STR/DEX" text.

I still say that all classes should use the same blows formula (with the same weight biases), but warriors get +1 blow at clvl25 or so and mages/priests get -1 from the start of the game. If you want blackguards to prefer heavy weapons, then you can always give them an explicit bonus/penalty depending on the weight of their weapon. "You feel that your weapon is insufficiently intimidating" sounds like a good message to use when a blackguard distastefully equips a dagger. :)

That would be a challenge for a mage or priest that is not strong enough to get more than 1 blow per round and then getting a -1 adjustment so 0 blows per round. :D