Revised Armors

[Demivrgvs]

I think that is more or less well covered, isn't it?

Yup, with exception of Axe. What do you think about this weapon? It currently deals exactly the same amount of damage as Long sword which sucks. There'd be a cool feature if long sword got bonuses from Dexterity instead of Strenght but it's as far as I know impossible to do.

Not doable.

 

I don't know, axes should also be good against armors (though that is probably more a two-handed axe property), but it's not doable too.

 

I cannot think anything really special. I think they are already slower and heavier than long swords, thus we may go for 2d3 damage output.

 

Damage outputs seem fine as even two handed weapons like spear and halberd deal as much damage as most one handed slashing ones, and all of them use 1dx damage rolls

Yeah, but I think that Halberd should deal the same amount of piercing damage as Spear (and even then have higher attack speed factor value because of "useless-in-this-moment" blade) but as you can see now feature of changing weapon's damage can be quite usefull because when you're fighting against unarmored enemies you can slash them and when there are some platemail tough guys, you're changing into piercing mode. Cool.

I was going to suggest the same, though I actually though about making it deal 1d12 when used as slashing weapon, instead of reducing the piercing damage to 1d8.

 

Crushing weapons are by far the best ones against armored opponents in vanilla, but if I think how effective medieval polearms were against armors (e.g. halberds and voulges) you are probably right about them.

Crushing weapons should be "quite good" against every type of armour (with exception of leather/chainmail), they are in this group of "something between".

 

I know spears deals 1 point less of damage, but they are much faster, can be used by more classes, and have a throwing version (which should make it appealing when it comes to chose where to put few proficiency points). Am I wrong?

 

My opinion for bludgeoning damage

Mace: 1D6 +1

Morningstar: 1D6 +(1D2 piercing damage)

Hammer: 1D4+1

Flail: 2D3 +(1 piercing)

Club: 1D4 (don't like the idea of 2D2, it looks ridicolous!)

Staff: 1D6

Weren't we saying bludgeoning weapons should deal slighlty less damage than slashing ones? Maces deals as much damage as a long sword, an morningstars even more!

 

Still I cannot see how staff deals more damage than hammer.

Because you're wielding it with two hands? And it still doesn't deal more damage, on average they are the same.

 

 

After few minutes of thinking about this problem, my version of table.

I need much more than few minutes to think about that. One thing though, Full Plate is as effective against slashing weapons as it is against crushing ones? I don't think so...I'll do some research if I find the time.

[yarpen]

I need much more than few minutes to think about that. rolleyes.gif One thing though, Full Plate is as effective against slashing weapons as it is against crushing ones? confused.gif I don't think so...I'll do some research if I find the time.

Yay! There's bug. Dunno how to improve this part of table

[Jarno Mikkola]

Piercing weapons...

Bludgeoning weapons...

Piercing weapons against heavy cavalry are best because when the cavalry tries to overwhelm the footmen, their own inertia kills the speared horse and knocks the heavily armored rider of balance.

The same goes with the crossbows and guns, the inertia has enough cutting force required to pierce the unskillfully made armor material.

 

The blunt weapons against heavy armor comes again to tactics, and to proper weapon selection, 'peasants' can surround their lesser manned but superiority armored opponents because they have their man power to do so, then the peasants have acquired the perfect counter against the knight armed with swords, as their weapon can entangle the sword when they clash, and so the knight looses his weapon, and with superior man power the peasants can bludgeon the knight to death, as it's already surrounded and unarmed.

 

There'd be a cool feature if long sword got bonuses from Dexterity instead of Strength but it's as far as I know impossible to do.

Shouldn't that be piercing Short Sword, not a slashing Long Sword, as I could see a thief getting advantage from being more dexterous as he is able to hit where it hurts... and this could actually be easy to do, as you just have to redo the strength bonus to be dex bonus. Of course you would have to try that.

 

Now, then the war hammer, shouldn't it be able to cause piercing damage? Cause everywhere I look, it always has the piercing end(piercing tool -actually)... so let's say we have a regular non throw-able war hammer, one could argue that it should have a piercing type of attack, as you can use the nail shape end!

So the war hammer could be used in two modes, bludgeon where the attack type and damage type are blunt, and a piercing, where the attack type is the same, but the damage is piercing one.

[yarpen]

Now, then the war hammer, shouldn't it be able to cause piercing damage? Cause everywhere I look, it always has the piercing end(piercing tool -actually)... so let's say we have a regular non throw-able war hammer, one could argue that it should have a piercing type of attack, as you can use the nail shape end!

BAMs looks as they look, but there's another weapon called Piercer (gnomes love it) which is most heavy piercing weapon. And that hurts as hell.

 

The blunt weapons against heavy armor comes again to tactics, and to proper weapon selection, 'peasants' can surround their lesser manned but superiority armored opponents because they have their man power to do so, then the peasants have acquired the perfect counter against the knight armed with swords, as their weapon can entangle the sword when they clash, and so the knight looses his weapon, and with superior man power the peasants can bludgeon the knight to death, as it's already surrounded and unarmed.

Tabor was quite... more advanced than you think. They were crushing the skulls of Joannites, Knights of the Cross, even british longbowmans were fsck'd up. And that's not so easy as you think.

 

Shouldn't that be piercing Short Sword, not a slashing Long Sword, as I could see a thief getting advantage from being more dexterous as he is able to hit where it hurts... and this could actually be easy to do, as you just have to redo the strength bonus to be dex bonus. Of course you would have to try that.

It should be done for both of these weapons. And club should be left as only one thieves strenght-based weapon. But as far as I know it's impossible to simulate (you cannot set them as Ranged).

[Ardanis]

Shouldn't that be piercing Short Sword, not a slashing Long Sword, as I could see a thief getting advantage from being more dexterous as he is able to hit where it hurts... and this could actually be easy to do, as you just have to redo the strength bonus to be dex bonus. Of course you would have to try that.

Were it as simply to do as you say it is, it'd have been done numerous times already. Only ranged weapon may have DEX bonus, which means no dual wielding and penalties against melee opponents.

[Guest newguest01]

What's changed? That I've ultimately realized that we shouldn't use physical damage resistance but re-organize the badly implemented (imo) "hidden AC bonuses". Physical resistance would be more appropriate, but within BG engine and rules the "hidden AC bonuses" solution is better.

 

Why? Because stacking 'physical resistance bonuses' from different sources are a serious threat to game balance, especially because of Hardiness HLA (but it's not limited to this).

 

I would suggest to re-think about to give a small amount of phys.res. to heavy armor (approx. 5-20% for Splint Mail, Plate Mail for Full Plate Mail) but also with serious dexterity and movement penalties (maybe up to 20-30%)

Or it is possible to make Full Plate slow you down (-1/2 attack per round? )?

 

I think this "hidden AC bonuses" thing won't have sensible effect on game play.

 

This is a citation from shsforums (http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showtopic=43806)

 

(the bigg) "The most you get from Refinements is 30% (using any full plate). Of course, when stacked with other sources of damage resistance it gets OP (20% from being a barbarian, 20% from C1 Armor of Faith, 25% from Defender of Easthaven, 40% from Hardiness, 25% from one of the Hell tests) - it's up to you to balance yourself. In my experience (I use the component that does not reduce the movement rate), the game is slightly harder with Refinements than without, especially BG1 and the first half of SoA (and yes, it's compatible and alters armors from both BGT and Tutu)."

[yarpen]

I would suggest to re-think about to give a small amount of phys.res. to heavy armor (approx. 5-20% for Splint Mail, Plate Mail for Full Plate Mail) but also with serious dexterity and movement penalties (maybe up to 20-30%)

IMO bad suggestion. Personally I don't like this solution: if you want to give to armors damage reduction, okay. But remove AC/evasion bonus. Hybrid of these two systems isn't a good way of handling stuff. Dunno.

 

I think this "hidden AC bonuses" thing won't have sensible effect on game play.

But it's vanilla's game solution (after wearing armor check Character Info) and when maybe it isn't so easy to see that - it has a lot of impact. Just try to calculate true AC for different weapons.

[Demivrgvs]

Quoting again the bigg: "The most you get from Refinements is 30% (using any full plate). Of course, when stacked with other sources of damage resistance it gets OP (20% from being a barbarian, 20% from C1 Armor of Faith, 25% from Defender of Easthaven, 40% from Hardiness, 25% from one of the Hell tests) - it's up to you to balance yourself."

 

The end result of Refinements revised armors is OVERPOWERED as the bigg himself says, and within IR I cannot accept neither that nor the "it's up to you to balance yourself".

 

To make such system balanced I would have to tweak more things than I can imagine and make most of the above mentioned sources not stack (e.g. Hardiness shouldn't stack with armor's resistance, nor with Armor of Faith, nor with ...). I do liked such concept, and as you may have noticed I suggested to implement it myself...but with the current items/spells/abilities I really cannot handle it.

 

P.S is hell test really granting 25% physical resistance?! OMG!!!

 

I think this "hidden AC bonuses" thing won't have sensible effect on game play.

But it's vanilla's game solution (after wearing armor check Character Info) and when maybe it isn't so easy to see that - it has a lot of impact. Just try to calculate true AC for different weapons.

Though I'd prefer the impact of "damage resistance" over "hidden AC" as yarpen says the latter do have a lot of impact.

[Ardanis]

P.S is hell test really granting 25% physical resistance?! OMG!!!

Nope, it's from one of the later (the latest?) Pocket Plane challenges.

 

Though I'd prefer the impact of "damage resistance" over "hidden AC" as yarpen says the latter do have a lot of impact.

That's why I said plate armors would be better off without nerfing. Although the average -1.5 for full plate may seem enough, when coupled with DEX penalty that makes ~0, which is not that much better than studdied leather. It is a big shift in BG1, where afaik we can get but one suit of full plate (and another one at the very end, just before the final fight), but in SoA, not to mention ToB, these 6 AC don't play a major role, in fact they only provide just enough armor to have a chance not to get hit (since leather-wearing guy is gonna be chopped no matter what he has donned).

Unless your point is that ToB has precisely enough FPA suits to equip all the needed party members, that's it.

[Demivrgvs]

Though I'd prefer the impact of "damage resistance" over "hidden AC" as yarpen says the latter do have a lot of impact.

That's why I said plate armors would be better off without nerfing. Although the average -1.5 for full plate may seem enough, when coupled with DEX penalty that makes ~0, which is not that much better than studdied leather.

I'm still thinking about that table and I may agree on keeping the -4 vs. slashing.

 

...in SoA, not to mention ToB, these 6 AC don't play a major role, in fact they only provide just enough armor to have a chance not to get hit (since leather-wearing guy is gonna be chopped no matter what he has donned).

Unless your point is that ToB has precisely enough FPA suits to equip all the needed party members, that's it.

Actually my point would be that I want both type of characters to have a decent amount of AC even within ToB! Slow, heavy armored ones, will still be slightly advantaged in terms of AC (without needing high DEX), but agile, light armored ones shouldn't have a pathetic AC that matters absolutely nothing (though they do need uber-high DEX instead).

 

I know that in a vanilla game in the later chapters of SoA and even more within ToB you always got hit because character's AC didn't increase as much as THAC0, but IR try to "rectify" that (e.g. "adding" more heavily enchanted heavy armors, making a single amulet/ring of protection usable together with magic armors, and so on...).

[Dermit]

Like the proposed revisions to the armor vs. types bonuses and penalties. Though I would suggest changing studded leather and hide to -1 against slashing, as it seems odd for these to have the same representation of a defense bonus against slashing as chainmail armor.

[Dermit]

Dredging this back up, but couldn't axes be given piercing damage? After all the point of an axe is to focus a great deal of force onto a small area, using the weight of the head and the sharpened edge. This wouldn't be a perfect representation by any means, but it would better demonstrate its place on the battlefield better than treating it as a slashing weapon.

[yarpen]

Dredging this back up, but couldn't axes be given piercing damage? After all the point of an axe is to focus a great deal of force onto a small area, using the weight of the head and the sharpened edge. This wouldn't be a perfect representation by any means, but it would better demonstrate its place on the battlefield better than treating it as a slashing weapon.

Well, to properly represtent their nature of damage they should be blunt ones (as they are classified in historical materials). That'd be far better at representing their power against flexible armors such as chainmails or leather armors and their average force against plate mails. Their blast area isn't small... or it's really small for real piercing weapons. We talk about point, not area. When striking with Axe for example someone in plate mail, its force is absorbed by plate/plates.

[Dermit]

Well, to properly represtent their nature of damage they should be blunt ones (as they are classified in historical materials). That'd be far better at representing their power against flexible armors such as chainmails or leather armors and their average force against plate mails.

 

True, but I was thinking that the axe does not quite compare to the warhammer or flanged mace in terms of armor piercing capability (afaik) and there is something weird about calling an axe a bludgeoning weapon. It makes sense though, I suppose that an axe is doing just about the same thing, and piercing type is used to represent small pointed weapons. Either is better than slashing IMO.

[yarpen]

True, but I was thinking that the axe does not quite compare to the warhammer or flanged mace in terms of armor piercing capability (afaik) and there is something weird about calling an axe a bludgeoning weapon. It makes sense though, I suppose that an axe is doing just about the same thing, and piercing type is used to represent small pointed weapons. Either is better than slashing IMO.

Well, my only argument in this discussion is a fact that I was dealing with a lot of maybe not weapons but tools which resemble those. Variety of hammers, axes, picks and for example very long piercing iron pole. After using all of those you can see how do they work on different surfaces. And about axe the last thing you can say is fact, that they work as piercing weapons. It's about physics of it's attack - impact is forced on not so small surface, unlike piercing weapons. I think that Axe as a slashing weapon isn't the best solution too, but well... we don't have better options. Also - axes as slashing weapon works correctly I think: they should deal outsdanding damage to unarmored/light armored opponents. And difference between normal slashing weapons and axes is: axes can just destroy plate mails using brute strenght of their users. But even then real damage wasn't deal by attack itself which was properly absorbed but the fact, that "shaped" platemail starts to hurt it's wearers body.