Critical Hits with Mage

[Derakon]

Blows are given by 1 + ((finesse * balance) / 100). Since the hammer has only a .1 multiplier for its balance, you're never going to get very many blows with it. A warrior might get 1.8 or so but they certainly wouldn't reach 3.

However, the hammer does a lot more damage per blow than the weapons with better balances.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Derakon

To the extent that we have class-specific gear, it should be because nobody outside the class would usually want to use it, not because it has a tag on it reading "Violators of the Affirmative Class Action Act of the Third Age may be subject to fines and towing." High-end warrior gear would be heavy and possibly reduce WIS/INT, for example.

Spellbooks and the "blessed" flag are idiosyncracies here. I still personally think that the priest pointy penalty is a problem and should probably be put to bed. Spellbooks get a bit of a pass because just under half the classes can use each spellbook and, at least in the old days, they made excellent stores of value for when you were selling loot. But I wouldn't mind seeing outside-class uses for them. Maybe you could "burn" dungeon spellbooks to cast certain spells, basically turning them into high-end not-really-stockpileable one-shot consumables. Or of course in v4 right now they're artifacts, so at least you only deal with each one once.

Sangband makes them VERY powerful throwing weapons. Book 9 does something like 10d14 damage when thrown (which is a huge amount in O-combat). But yes, in general I agree that more outside-class uses would be interesting.

[Philip]

Sorry for reviving dead threads, but the issues here appear not to have been solved, if they need solving. I like the idea of throwing weapons(my latest Sil character was a throwing specialist) and agree that anyone should be able to use them, and that warriors should be better at it. I agreed with both sides a little in the mage getting relatively more benefit out of epic weapons than warriors. I have thought of a possible compromise that could be applied to throwing and melee weapons.
I haven't played v4, because of Sil, but maybe warriors should be able to get more out of their weapons than mages, that mages could only get 75% out of the modifiers, half-classes 100% and warriors 125%(in the case of throwing I would consider giving rogues 125% as well, along with or without warriors)? Maybe it would allow for mages still being able to use awesome weapons, but not quite as efficiently.

[camlost]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Sangband makes them VERY powerful throwing weapons. Book 9 does something like 10d14 damage when thrown (which is a huge amount in O-combat). But yes, in general I agree that more outside-class uses would be interesting.

Heh. You threw the book at him.