Dead character feedback

[saarn]

One of the things I liked about using d1's is that the dice stack up so that a finesse weapon is visibly different from a prowess or a balanced weapon. Is there a strong reason if these aren't getting the average damage jacked to avoid that? I'm playing with a slightly different boost that puts dagger back down to 3d1 and it feels more normal now.

The motivation for that +1 was that there seemed to be some agreement that finesse weapons were nerfed (small dice, small damage) so this was a (failed) stab at making them better on average. Looking through the weapons though, it seems like the problem is not the dice so much as that there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a pure finesse weapon more powerful than the rapier until you get up to the glaive which is probably too heavy for most finesse characters.

I'm wondering if it might make sense instead to rename the current rapier to a "dress sword" or "smallsword" and add in another bigger brother slot for the rapier at a level of damage consistent with things like the katana and broad sword.

Edit:

I'm testing this out a bit-- it looks like this fills in the gaps better. With a lvl 1 hobbit thief with tons of dex I get:
Dagger 3d1 7.4/round
Short Sword 3d2 9.5 /round
Dress Sword 5d1 12.8 /round
Broad Sword 2d5 12.9 /round
Trident 4d2 14.6/round
Broad Axe 2d6 13.7/round
Bastard Sword 3d4 16.5/round
Katana 5d3 24.4/round
Rapier 7d2 25.7/round
Zweihander 3d6 19.6/round
Glaive 6d2 22.7/round (this seems off-- possibly should be bigger and be less finesse?)

At most of the damage points, there should now be a similarly powerful finesse weapon to the balanced or prow weapons.

By the way, katanas seem out of whack-- they are very powerful and very light at a relatively low dlvl. Do they even really fit in with middle earth?

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by saarn

One of the things I liked about using d1's is that the dice stack up so that a finesse weapon is visibly different from a prowess or a balanced weapon. Is there a strong reason if these aren't getting the average damage jacked to avoid that? I'm playing with a slightly different boost that puts dagger back down to 3d1 and it feels more normal now.

I don't really like d1s because IMO no weapon should always deal the same damage on every blow. We had a similar issue with the old Great Hammers which were 8d1 weapons; it's just weird to think about. A weapon that always deals the same damage no matter what should be something like a taser, where it doesn't matter where you hit the enemy or how "hard" you hit them because the only thing that matters is that you hit them at all. As soon as you introduce actual physical combat with hitting people and so on, you have to consider where the enemy is hit, how much power was behind the blow, and so on, and the die roll should vary to suit that -- a good die roll is like a miniature critical hit, and a bad die roll is an almost-miss.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by saarn

Dress Sword 5d1 12.8 /round

How about calling it Foil? I think it sounds better, and more players have some idea what the weapon looks like.

I'm aware that small-sword or dress sword are historically more accurate names. Wikipedia: "The modern foil is descended from the training weapon for the small-sword, the common sidearm of 18th century gentleman."

[saarn]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

How about calling it Foil? I think it sounds better, and more players have some idea what the weapon looks like.

I'm aware that small-sword or dress sword are historically more accurate names. Wikipedia: "The modern foil is descended from the training weapon for the small-sword, the common sidearm of 18th century gentleman."

My concern with "foil" is that they are blunted and strictly for training.

What about calling it a Colichemarde?

(again from Wikipedia)
This sword appeared at about the same time as the foil. However the foil was created for practicing fencing at court, while the colichemarde was created for dueling. A descendant of the colichemarde is the épée, a modern fencing weapon.
With the appearance of the pocket pistol as a self-defense weapon, the colichemardes found an even more extensive use in dueling.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Yeah, maybe Foil is a bad name.

To me, Colichemarde sounds too exotic. I've never heard that word before.

How about Thinsword? It's a fictional word with no historical baggage.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Of course it doesn't have to be a sword. Some other possible names for finesse weapons:

Handaxe
Kukri
Light Hammer
Light Mace
Sickle

[saarn]

Originally Posted by Derakon

A weapon that always deals the same damage no matter what should be something like a taser, where it doesn't matter where you hit the enemy or how "hard" you hit them because the only thing that matters is that you hit them at all.

Fair point. I was partially hoping that the critical system might add enough randomness to compensate. It feels like the alternatives are:

* make early finesse weapons look a bit more like balance weapons
* make the mid-level finesse weapon a bit beefier (bump from 5d1 to 4d2)
* put +D back in (so the mid level weapon might be 2d2+2 and daggers might be 1d2 +1).

I don't have a strong sense of which of these is better-- I can see pros/cons for each.

[saarn]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

Yeah, maybe Foil is a bad name.

To me, Colichemarde sounds too exotic. I've never heard that word before.

How about Thinsword? It's a fictional word with no historical baggage.

Not sure I buy the objection-- Angband has Zweihanders, Lochaber Axes, Tulwars, and Caestus which probably aren't part of normal vocabulary either. Epee is a bit more common and I believe they existed as actual dueling weapons for a while, so that could be a reasonable option.

Or just a Dueling Sword (pretty clear what that is, but doesn't sound nearly as cool).

[Derakon]

Epee sounds good to me.

I do suspect that the total damage on finesse weapons needs to be bumped up. 4d2 would be fine for a mid-range finesse weapon.

[saarn]

Attaching modified object.txt based on feedback thus far.

I'm playing with a 4d2 epee now, and it feels pretty good (I can fight snagas effectively with a lvl 10 character but I'm not splatting them), except that for hill orcs, almost every blow does no damage.

Armor rating for hill orcs is 6, so each blow will do on average (1*(8-6) + 4*(7-6))/16) = 6/16 points of damage. At about 2.5 blows per round the average dent I put in them will be roughly 1. Against an Uruk with armor 10, I would do exactly 0 damage per round. You can't really choose not to fight orcs, so this is where I was going by suggesting that finesse have a roll for avoiding or reducing armor with relatively high odds of success since the armor bonus is effectively by the number of blows.

The alternatives I could see would be to make finesse boost crits, or to make finesse weapons really powerful, but I could see both of those leading to some weird behavior by warriors. I could also imagine just making the armor bonus be applied per round of combat rather than per blow dealt. That doesn't really make logical sense but I could see it being a reasonable game mechanic.