Some thoughts abouts weapons

[Usirim]

as many other players I am using only a small selection of weapons compared to the big diversity of aviable weapons. Sometimes my heards nearly bleeds, there was spend so much time to create this weapons but most of them are nothing more than fillup for our bags.
other topics have addressed this circumstances earlier, and while reading those posts a view ideas have come to mind.
One of the most funny things with AT is that I am most effective killing the big Arulir (I always take this common monsters as one of the biggest in the game) with a dagger!!!! I prefer to imagine that a two hander or a great axe should be more efficient at this task. Other games solved such situations by reducing the weapon power for special monster classes. Maybe this is a way for AT too? Or fighting big monsters with small weapons gives the monster a damage modification factor? The Arulir for example trippels its damage when one fights them with a dagger? Such mods can be realised by introducing a weapon reach modifier and reach threshold. And small and fast monsters gains dodge bonus against big or heavy weapons (similar to the reach modifier). Or a table (weapon class vs monster class) is used to determine the effect within a fight...
That could make it necessary for players to change the weapon depending what monsters has to be defended - and by combining different monsters in a map the difficulty of this area can be adapted to the level of the player Char (low lvl means only one type of monsters class, high lvl combines three or even more different monster classes which makes optimized weapon choice impossible...). In such a case the number of monsters needed to challenge a Char within a wider range of Levels can be reduced. In the end the work of development is shifted from item list to code writing. Combining monster classes may even leads to more frustrating fights for low lvl Chars. After all strategy is (a.t.m.) not the main quest with AT. On the other hand using the lowest AP weapon may loose importance.

[Ian]

I generally like the idea of being forced to use several weapons.
I think applying modifiers to weapons would be the sulotion to solve the issue. So for example the Arulir or another thick-skinned animal would be almost immune to daggers/ or even swords. Therefore you're forced to use a heavy weapon.

[Wyrmspawn]

That just ruins my bare handed build, does it? For the life of me, I can't think of a mob bare hands would be good for... Maybe wasps and ants?

[Usirim]

For bare hand fighting: Either bare hand fighting would be left as it is right now or different cloves for fighting different kind of monster classes could be created. That maybe would make bare hand fighting even more interesting? What do you think?

[rijackson741]

Adapting the difficulty of monsters or areas to player level has been suggested before, and didn't get much support.

The idea of adjusting weapon damage to monster type is a great idea though. Currently, adjusting the weapon damage would have little effect, because most of the damage is base damage. I believe that will change though, see http://andorstrail.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4096. Multiplying the weapon damage and the proposed base damage modifier by a "monster modifier" would mean that some weapons would be much better for some types of monsters. I think the modifier could be less than one (the monster is not easily hurt by that weapon type) or greater then one (the monster is especially susceptible to that weapon type) We already have this in one respect: some types of monsters are immune to critical hits. This would be a big extension of that concept.

I disagree that a sword would be bad against an Arulir though. In fact, I would expect it to be one of the best options. It's sharp, so it could penetrate the tough skin, and it's long enough to reach vital organs. A dagger could also penetrate the tough skin, but it's not long enough to reach the vital organs in a large monster (so it would not be very effective against trolls either). A mace would probably be the least effective. It's not massive enough to break large bones, and it will not penetrate the skin. Beating an elephant to death with a hammer would be a slow process!

Here's a few example rules:
Large monsters: short bladed weapons are less effective, because they can't penetrate deep enough. Light blunt weapons are less effective because they can't break the bones. Either long and sharp or big and heavy would work the best.
Monsters with tough leathery skin: sharp weapons are the best. A short blade will work fine, as long as the monster is also not large.
Monsters with a hard carapace, for example the scaradon: bladed weapons, especially rapiers and daggers, would be ineffective. Blunt weapons such as maces and hammers would be the most effective because they can break the shell.
Small fast monsters, such as snakes: light weapons are the most effective, and big heavy weapons the least effective.
Skeletons: especially susceptible to blunt weapons such as maces and hammers
Other rules.....

To make this work monsters would have to have more characteristics than they do now though, such as size, speed, skin type, etc. So it might be a lot of work to implement.

[Duke]

Oh, I like what you state here rijackson....lots of cool possibilities. And it seems logical too.

[Usirim]

about weapon and damage against different opponents:

i disagree that a sword is an effective weapon against hardened targets.
i would suggest ranged weapons first. since ranged weapons are not used by AT let us ignore them.
to penetrate a protected target you have to apply max damage concentrated on the smallest possible point. that normally is done by using a spear and ramming it into the target. or you use a weapon like a war hammer with small but heavy head. or use blunt weapons like a mace or a flail. those weapons apply max momentum on a small area.
swords on the other hand are very useless against hardened targets. because swords apply their power about a wider area and their momentum is very low on the point. if you manage to catch the point of a sword you can direct the point of the sword to any direction you want while the sword owner only has the chance to step away or cut your hands by moving the weapon forward or back.
swords are very effective against soft targets. the katana for example is a very powerfull weapon against any soft target because it is very very sharp.
the roman legionnaires switched fron normal sword to short swords with sharp points because slashing a barbarian may hurt him but didn't kill for sure. a 5 cm deep prick in the abdomen is in general deadly and the enemy won't show up on the next battle.
why are swords so extraordinary? swords are not cheap and can not afford by comon people - different to clubs or other blunt weapons. knights carrying a swords show a status symbol and fighting with a sword was for quite a long time the way to act as expected by the social status rules. and no other weapon has a comparable mystic history as swords have.
last wielding a sword is the most effective way of controlling a weapon since the sword is easiest understood as an extension of the arms by the brain. or so I had read a science article a long time ago. 30 years or so - don't pin me on that.

with an adventure game as AT reality normally only is the boring time between playing.
so combining magic and swords everything is possible.
like magic bare hand fighting magic swords may inflict secondary damage to the inner organs by ignoring hardening.
for game play programming this could be realised as second damage which ignores DR. ad&d for example uses different resistances against different kind of damages. but that would a complexity to the game mechanism which is imho contraproductive to the game AT.
AT keeps it some kind of simple and I love AT for this.
so maybe my ideas may be ignored. as long as AT makes fun everything is fine for me. 6