Weapon Changes

[Ardanis]

Halberds

Having two mods - piercing and slashing - slightly complicates their description, making it either bloated or non-definite.

STATISTICS:

 

Damage (piercing): 1D10

Damage (slashing): 1D12

Damage type: piercing or slashing

Weight: 15

Speed Factor: 8 or 9

Proficiency Type: Halberd

Type: 2-handed

Requires: 13 Strength

STATISTICS:

 

Damage (piercing): 1D10

Damage (slashing): 1D12

Damage type: piercing or slashing

Weight: 15

Speed Factor (piercing): 8

Speed Factor (slashing): 9

Proficiency Type: Halberd

Type: 2-handed

Requires: 13 Strength

Which you prefer? The first template puts speed factor in the order of damage types listed, but it still may seem as non-intuitive to understand. And the second looks just that - bloated.

 

 

Daggers

Should they have +1 thaco, for being the smallest and easiest to operate? A rogue can then seriously consider using daggers.

 

Scimitars

Lower damage to 1d6 and increase critical chance by 5%, as in 3E. Right now these are just copies of long swords, usable by druids.

 

Flails

Increase range to 2 and reduce thaco by 1. The damage output is only 0.5 higher than that of morning star, which imo is insufficient to pick two different proficiencies. The range increment can notably help with catching fast moving opponents (if you've played SCS then you know what I'm talking about).

[Jarno Mikkola]

Which you prefer?

Can't you just:

STATISTICS:

Damage: 1D10

Damage type: piercing

Speed Factor: 8

Damage: 1D12

Damage type: slashing

Speed Factor: 9

Weight: 15

Proficiency Type: Halberd

Type: 2-handed

Requires: 13 Strength

Of course if you use two weapons and the backpack spell to make the transition, you need to only metion the current one in use, and the ability to switch to the other.

[lynx]

1 with "Speed Factor: 8 (piercing) or 9 (slashing)".

[Dermit]

Daggers

Should they have +1 thaco, for being the smallest and easiest to operate? A rogue can then seriously consider using daggers.

 

Scimitars

Lower damage to 1d6 and increase critical chance by 5%, as in 3E. Right now these are just copies of long swords, usable by druids.

 

Flails

Increase range to 2 and reduce thaco by 1. The damage output is only 0.5 higher than that of morning star, which imo is insufficient to pick two different proficiencies. The range increment can notably help with catching fast moving opponents (if you've played SCS then you know what I'm talking about).

 

I like all of those ideas, but there has been disagreement over a dagger Thaco boost before. Perhaps with the new changes to weapon speed factor in V3 they will have a niche of there own.

[J Beau]

Halberds, second choice. The more you can cut down on confusion the better. Daggers, scimitars and flails, I like your ideas. Making items distinct is always good.

[Salk]

I would like this:

 

STATISTICS:

 

Damage: 1D10 (piercing) / 1D12 (slashing)

Damage type: piercing or slashing

Weight: 15

Speed Factor: 8 (piercing) / 9 (slashing)

Proficiency Type: Halberd

Type: 2-handed

Requires: 13 Strength

[Ardanis]

That was my initial thought, but there're items with extra information in the damage line, like vanilla Dragon's Bane

Damage: 1D10 +3, +6 vs. dragons

It would then be

Damage: 1D10 + 3 (piercing) / 1D12 + 3 (slashing), +6 vs. dragons

Which imo is more confusing, no?

[Dakk]

Halberds

Having two mods - piercing and slashing - slightly complicates their description, making it either bloated or non-definite.

I liked Salk's suggestion initially, but your example show it's not doable. Pick bloated.

 

Daggers

Should they have +1 thaco, for being the smallest and easiest to operate?

Yes.

 

Scimitars

Lower damage to 1d6 and increase critical chance by 5%, as in 3E.

Yes.

 

Flails

Increase range to 2 and reduce thaco by 1.

Yes.

 

[SixOfSpades]

Halberds

What determines whether the damage from each hit is going to be Piercing or Slashing? Is it random, or selected by the player? If the latter, you might as well go whole hog & make 2 versions of every Halberd, a la the "2-Handed Bastard Swords" tweak.

 

Daggers

It seems to me that they would add a bonus ApR, not THAC0, but also not confer any STR damage. Speaking personally, I feel just as likely to land a successful hit with a kitchen knife as I would with a baseball bat, but with the knife I could attack more rapidly.

 

Scimitars

I'm all for increasing the range of effects of different weapons, but I don't really see the real-world logic behind the +5% chance for a crit.

 

Flails

The THAC0 boost is good (the chain enables the weapon to wrap around shields & weapons intended to block/parry), but unless you're talking about an actual 2-handed Footman's Flail, I don't agree with the range increase. I would be more in favor of an Incapacitate effect, where the chain wraps around the victim's arm or leg and hampers their ability to move/fight, at the expense of keeping your own weapon tied up, which would be bad . . . unless you were dual-wielding . . . but there's no way to check if you're dual-wielding . . . aahhh . . . damn real-world physics!

 

Spears

Not mentioned in your 1st post, but I felt they deserve a mention. If Spears are to have a Range of 3, they should be called Pikes, and have a noticably slower Speed Factor and THAC0 penalties when attacking Small- and Medium-sized creatures, as compared to actual Spears. Which weapons might be made Pikes and which should remain Spears could be a topic for debate--the jump from Ixil's Spike to Ixil's Pike might seem easy, but not if it's a throwable weapon.

[Salk]

It would then be

Damage: 1D10 + 3 (piercing) / 1D12 + 3 (slashing), +6 vs. dragons

Which imo is more confusing, no?

 

Well, in my opinion even in this form this is the least bad option, considering the alternatives.

[Demivrgvs]

Halberds

What determines whether the damage from each hit is going to be Piercing or Slashing? Is it random, or selected by the player? If the latter, you might as well go whole hog & make 2 versions of every Halberd, a la the "2-Handed Bastard Swords" tweak.

Yeah, on second thought I think this is the solution I'd prefer the most. After all we already use it for all melee/thrown 1handed weapons (though in that case I do it manually and not via patching code), thus IR players should be somewhat familiar with it. The downside of this solution is that you can't quickly switch from one dmg type to the other (though you can still pause the game and to it in a bunch of seconds), and that it's more work for Ardanis to code ( ).

 

Daggers

It seems to me that they would add a bonus ApR, not THAC0, but also not confer any STR damage. Speaking personally, I feel just as likely to land a successful hit with a kitchen knife as I would with a baseball bat, but with the knife I could attack more rapidly.

I do thought the same (except I didn't thought about no STR dmg) but there's a huge BUT:

a) even a small +1/2 apr would make daggers way better than short swords, if not most 1handed weapons, especially later on because increased apr makes all on hit effects of higly enchanted daggers even more effective

b) an off hand dagger would increase the main hand apr (this is the same reason that got me discard the old "daggers get +1 backstab bonus" tweak I would have liked so much)

 

While a) could be balanced off by you suggestion about making them not add STR dmg (but isn't this strange too?), b) is simply unacceptable imo.

 

This was mainly a tentative to make daggers more appealing, because right now even the IR's nerfed club (which is toned down from 1d6 to 1d4) is better than them, and it seemed the only way to do it. It is not perfect though, and with V3 speed factor re-work daggers could be fine as they are though slightly less appealing than short swords.

 

Scimitars

I'm all for increasing the range of effects of different weapons, but I don't really see the real-world logic behind the +5% chance for a crit.

I discussed the same with Ardanis, and we had no clue, but this is how a couple of PnP editions handled this weapon. Scimitars are actually very different to long swords in real life, but I don't know how to represent it with the few options we have within D&D rules and BG engine in particular.

 

P.S I'm sceptical of this too because of the recurring "off-hand gives its bonus to main hand weapon" issue, but +5% critical hit chance is much less problematic than granting increased apr to the main hand.

 

Flails

The THAC0 boost is good (the chain enables the weapon to wrap around shields & weapons intended to block/parry), but unless you're talking about an actual 2-handed Footman's Flail, I don't agree with the range increase. I would be more in favor of an Incapacitate effect, where the chain wraps around the victim's arm or leg and hampers their ability to move/fight, at the expense of keeping your own weapon tied up, which would be bad . . . unless you were dual-wielding . . . but there's no way to check if you're dual-wielding . . . aahhh . . . damn real-world physics!

Just to clarify, Ardanis suggested a -1 penalty to thac0, not a bonus.

 

Spears

Not mentioned in your 1st post, but I felt they deserve a mention. If Spears are to have a Range of 3, they should be called Pikes, and have a noticably slower Speed Factor and THAC0 penalties when attacking Small- and Medium-sized creatures, as compared to actual Spears. Which weapons might be made Pikes and which should remain Spears could be a topic for debate--the jump from Ixil's Spike to Ixil's Pike might seem easy, but not if it's a throwable weapon.

Ardanis kinda suggested me the same (e.g. throwable spears shouldn't have range 3), but I didn't considered it a must, is it?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Just to clarify, Ardanis suggested a -1 penalty to thac0, not a bonus.

That might not help, as it's a double negative ... Ardanis is actually suggested a penalty of 1 to thac0, not a bonus of it.

Ah, and I already suggested your halberd solution...

[Dakk]

Halberds

What determines whether the damage from each hit is going to be Piercing or Slashing? Is it random, or selected by the player? If the latter, you might as well go whole hog & make 2 versions of every Halberd, a la the "2-Handed Bastard Swords" tweak.

I actually like the randomness-factor of halberd damage. And making it possible to choose one damage (only thrusting, or only slashing) does not really fit with the way you fight with a halberd. It's the sum of it's abilities, and you'd be seriously nerfing yourself only relying on one method of attack.

In other words, I'm against that method.

 

Daggers

It seems to me that they would add a bonus ApR, not THAC0, but also not confer any STR damage. Speaking personally, I feel just as likely to land a successful hit with a kitchen knife as I would with a baseball bat, but with the knife I could attack more rapidly.

You feel just as likely, but believe me, you're not. To elaborate (and simplify); you're not even close as likely to land a damaging hit with a bat as you are with knife. With a bat you only swing semi controlled; and the opponent can backtrack, sidestep for a glancing blow, or the most threatening action of all - step into your range. With a bladed weapon you can basically just stab away, aim at center body mass and get close to your opponent. If he steps into your range, you win.

 

Ask yourself this, if you were a robber: would you be more concerned meeting an (untrained) guy with a knife, or a bat? Would that change if the wielder was female?

 

I actually read Shadows of Doom (Forgotten Realms: The Shadow of the Avatar, Book 1) not so long ago, and [no spoiler] in it women of the dale would pick up daggers and go after mercenaries. It was sometimes exaggerated but the author got it right that in a tight press of bodies, you will get hacked down if they get too close. Reversely, the same untrained good-wives would not present the same threat armed with clubs ("bat").

 

Scimitars

I'm all for increasing the range of effects of different weapons, but I don't really see the real-world logic behind the +5% chance for a crit.

We don't have too many effects to choose from, and it's fairly common in BG(2) that "curved/wavy/serpentine weapons = increased critical".

[Jarno Mikkola]

Ask yourself this, if you were a robber: would you be more concerned meeting an (untrained) guy with a knife, or a bat? Would that change if the wielder was female?

Neither, I would just use the Force Choke on them.

Now, if I would have an steel armor, the bats would be a fairly larger problem then the knives, making the Armor Class analogy a very bad one. Now if the hit landed, then the wound would be bigger for a the dagger than the blunt object... damage +1... unless the blunt weapon brakes something, which could be a critical hit or something, unfortunately the BG2 has only the Critical Hit chance, but no effect -enhancements.

Of course if the hammers etc blunt weapons would have bigger CH chance, they could do even less damage in the regular hits, while the bladed weapons would do bigger normal damage... but would that balance anything

[Ardanis]

Halberds

Are you saying that creating two separate items is preferable over duplicating a couple of lines in descriptions?

Besides the inability to quickly switch modes, I can offhands name a compatibility issue - the Eclipse encounter from Solaufein mod explicitly checks for Ravager to comment on party having it ("They've got the Ravager +6. I don't want to be decimated!"). That's a minor one, but you get the idea.

I actually like the randomness-factor of halberd damage. And making it possible to choose one damage (only thrusting, or only slashing) does not really fit with the way you fight with a halberd. It's the sum of it's abilities, and you'd be seriously nerfing yourself only relying on one method of attack.

In other words, I'm against that method.

Technically this is only semi-doable at best, because base weapon damage is located in the header along with damage type (aka effectiveness vs different AC types).