Concerning Weapons

[nathan k]

Hi, I'm new here, but I've been reading for awhile.

My friends and I kind of like that "other game," but we find it too limiting.  So we started making a custom rule set that borrows heavily from it.  So far, weapons all use the same kinds of numbers, so using a greatsword is no different than using a maul.  This has  been bothing me for awhile, but I can't really come up with something else.  I'm hoping to do several things with it.

1) have a variety of different weapon blocks for weapons, so it feels different to use different weapons. 
2) keep it mostly equal so that no weapon outshines other weapons.  we want to use what's cool without having to choose stuff because it has better numbers.

right now weapons have speed and damage.  speed mostly depends off of how large it is, and slower weapons deal more damage.  I came up with an idea where sharp weapons deal more damage on a critical hit, and blunt weapons do more damage regularly, but it doesn't work so well.  The problem is that people who do a lot of crits are better off using sharp weapons, and so fails at goal #2.  What kinds of attributes can I use to make the weapons feel different in play, without making them all unbalanced? 

thanx in advance for all your help (-: 

[Abkajud]

Well... ^_^ there's a few things that could make different weapons stand apart from one another, but if speed and damage are the only considerations for a weapon's "stats", it might be tricky to give someone tactical options beyond their favorite mix of those two factors. The idea of "blocks" is interesting - are we talking different parrying capabilities?

One thing that pops into my mind is the idea of "chivalrous" weaponry. A medieval knight could use a sword, a lance, and ... well, those were about the only things that weren't considered crude or unsporting (no ranged weapons, for instance). The classes in D&D already employ something like this, although they have a clear hierarchy of most to fewest weapon choices. Plot-based consequences for using "improper" armament could work.

Naming weapons and wielding ancestral heirlooms come to mind, too. I was going to suggest granting nonmagical special abilities to weapons, but you can already use whips to trip people and lances can be set to receive a charge in D&D, so that's already been explored. But if I got extra attacks or better crits for wielding my great-great-grandfather's zweihander, that'd be something interesting. This wouldn't make weapons differ from each other so much as it'd make players hang onto the same weapons for a while, instead of just buying another longsword when the old one shatters on a dragon-hide. It'd make you want to put it back together again, to reforge it, just like Aragorn...

[chance.thirteen]

You could also borrow a page from MMO designs, and relate the damage output to the speed of the weapon. Since you want all weapons to be equally effective, you would just ensure that the amount of damage times the number of blows per time are equal.

If your ideal world all weapons do 20 damage (or 20 points you convert into dice or whatever) per turn then:

A sword that does 10 damage per increment will have 2 swings.

A dagger that does 5 damage will have 4 swings.

A polarm that does 20 will have 1 swing.


If a weapon does double damage on 10% of all blows, then these are all equal.

However, what if a dagger crits more often? If it crits 20% of the time, +10% more often, for a +10% average of damage, then you need to counter it with something like either reducing its swing rate by 1/1.10, or reduce its chance to hit by that same number.

So your final dagger might swing 4 times a round, for 5 damage, with a 20% chance of a crit, but it hits only 91% as often as every other "average" weapon.

You can apply that latter logic to ideas like "common armor value is 2, so weapons that only so a little more than that swing even more often, or crit more often.

Another note: instead of pure damage you can make differing weapons just do differing effects, eg knock you around for a defense or attack penalty next round, or a chance to not kill when knocking a foe out of combat.


As a useless note: I tried the whole damage over average protection hitting with average rates against avg defense skills over the number of actions per turn in Champions. Trying for that whole fairness of cost thing.

[scarik]

One thing that pops into my mind is the idea of "chivalrous" weaponry. A medieval knight could use a sword, a lance, and ... well, those were about the only things that weren't considered crude or unsporting (no ranged weapons, for instance).

The mace, bearded axe, pick, hammer, halberd, pollaxe and crossbow were all weapons used by knights. As plate armor improved two handed weapons on foot became more and more popular and the pollaxe and greatsword began to rule the battlefield until finally edged out by the gun.

Of course if you're simply looking for game balance then speed and damage work but aren't at all realistic. The Greatsword was faster than the shortsword in a slash or lunge after all. If you need personal proof try swinging a cane in one hand then compare to a baseball bat.

On a medieval battlefield many weapons were equivalent overall but some were more effective against certain forms of armor or arms. An arming sword was inferior to a hammer at breaking through maille or plate, but was much more agile and could outparry a hammer making it easier to land blows and deny the enemy them.

So for game stats I recommend adding penetration bonuses vs different armors as well as accuracy/balance as a stat which swords would rule at.

[chance.thirteen]

The ability of a weapon to deny attacks due greater agility in use was one factor I would love to see, but if you are in a zero sum system, you'll need to have a counter, such as reach reducing attacks against longer weapons. Or something.

This is one factor that I miss in most games, both descriptively, and mechanically.

[Marshall Burns]

In working on The Rustbelt, I got sick of trying to come up with statistics for weapons. I tried various things, involving such variables as attack power (as a ratio), weight, bulk, and multiple attack ratings for multiple kinds of strikes. I finally said, "Screw it. You get hit with a knife, sword, mace, sledgehammer, arrow, or any other edged/pointed weapon or heavy bludgeon, you're either mortally wounded or grievously injured." Then I decided that "mortally wounded or grievously injured" was "20 damage." BAM, edged/pointed weapons and heavy bludgeons deal 20 damage.

Then I brought in an "Advantage" system, which grants an extra die when you have an advantage. This is all totally situational. At a respectable distance, a sword has advantage over a knife; all up in your face, the knife has the advantage. At long distances, the weapon with the longer reach has advantage. In all-out melee brawls with lots of people, weapons that force people to give you a wide berth (greatswords, sledgehammers, flails) have advantage over other weapons. In cramped spaces like hallways, smaller, more easily-maneuvered weapons have advantage.

(This Advantage system is mostly cribbed from Sorcerer & Sword, with an eye towards Musashi's Book of Five Rings)

One of the most freeing things about this was that I said, "Forget balance. I don't care." And, somehow, I ended up with something that balances itself.

So, just something to think about. Hopefully it shakes something loose!
-Marshall

[Hereward The Wake]

As has been stated, limiting the kind of weapons that certain types carry. Knights/Men at arms would use many weapons, and if they were faced with a situation where they had no other choice they would use whatever weapon. but there were knightly weapons.

I also think the idea of reflecting the type of damage a weapon does against different armours. hence the development of all those kinds of weapons.
Best
JW

[chance.thirteen]

I'd like to add to the example I offered, which you are completely free to ignore, that you could also have weapons who did not evenly produce damage in any ONE round, but over say 10 rounds they would. So you can have attack speeds that do not neatly divide into 20, if you are willing to carry over partial actions to another round.

[Callan S.]

2) keep it mostly equal so that no weapon outshines other weapons.  we want to use what's cool without having to choose stuff because it has better numbers.

Idea: Players have points and they choose a weapon, then spend the points to buy how the weapon works/does damage/etc.
Important: Players do not have to spend all their points/are not to be expected to.


BTW, why do you have to choose stuff because it has better numbers? If your all interested in the cool, the numbers don't matter, right?

Are you sure everyone in the group is into choosing things just because their cool?

[Luke]

I love making up stats for weapons!

On the surface, it seems like weapons are instruments of damage over time. In practice, I've found that you can make weapons much more interesting than that. In addition to damage, weapons can be given qualities, effects and limitations.

In Mouse Guard, we assigned each weapon a unique quality that makes it more useful in certain situations. All weapons can be used for attack and damage. Most weapons even do the same amount of damage, but each weapon feels unique because of it's special quality that encourages the player to use it in a certain way.

In a design I'm currently working on, I want each weapon to have special effect that it does. The player chooses between the guaranteed special effect or rolling for a random amount of damage. The guaranteed effect isn't as good as the best random result but neither is it as bad as the worst one.

In FreeMarket, weapons can only be used if they have tag that coincides with the current challenge. In effect, weapons act like any other piece of gear, but they can only be used in challenges that call for weapons.

Think out of the box. Think about what weapons really mean in your game. Think about what damage is. Focus on what your game is about. Don't focus on fixing the other game. Your game has some unique kernel that makes it cool. Make the weapons and damage serve and emphasize that seed!

-L

[Mikael]

One more idea: Borrow the rock-paper-scissors idea from war games. Make every weapon superior to one other weapon. Give the weapons tags that have no mechanical effect but make it obvious which weapon is superior in any given combination of two weapons.

[nathan k]

The idea of "blocks" is interesting - are we talking different parrying capabilities?

I just meant a stat block, but I've considered giving different defense modifiers to weapons, swords being better to parry with than axes and all that...

Another note: instead of pure damage you can make differing weapons just do differing effects, eg knock you around for a defense or attack penalty next round, or a chance to not kill when knocking a foe out of combat.

this is a good idea

One thing that pops into my mind is the idea of "chivalrous" weaponry. A medieval knight could use a sword, a lance, and ... well, those were about the only things that weren't considered crude or unsporting (no ranged weapons, for instance). The classes in D&D already employ something like this, although they have a clear hierarchy of most to fewest weapon choices. Plot-based consequences for using "improper" armament could work.

there's no classes, it's up to people to make their flavor, so I don't know how this would work.

You could also borrow a page from MMO designs, and relate the damage output to the speed of the weapon. Since you want all weapons to be equally effective, you would just ensure that the amount of damage times the number of blows per time are equal.

this is basically what I tried to do, it works, it's just that there seems to only be like 3 different weapon speed/damage combinations.

The ability of a weapon to deny attacks due greater agility in use was one factor I would love to see, but if you are in a zero sum system, you'll need to have a counter, such as reach reducing attacks against longer weapons. Or something.

please explain? you mean, a spear would deny attacks to somebody using a sword and a sword would deny attacks to somebody using an axe?

I also think the idea of reflecting the type of damage a weapon does against different armours. hence the development of all those kinds of weapons.

One more idea: Borrow the rock-paper-scissors idea from war games. Make every weapon superior to one other weapon. Give the weapons tags that have no mechanical effect but make it obvious which weapon is superior in any given combination of two weapons

I like it, except we mostly do the heroes vs. monsters thing, and monsters usually don't use weapons or armor...

Idea: Players have points and they choose a weapon, then spend the points to buy how the weapon works/does damage/etc.
Important: Players do not have to spend all their points/are not to be expected to.


BTW, why do you have to choose stuff because it has better numbers? If your all interested in the cool, the numbers don't matter, right?

Are you sure everyone in the group is into choosing things just because their cool?

hmm, I'll have to think on that one.  Most of us are interested in being cool, but not at the cost of being weak.

Luke, you also bring up some good things to think about.  I often think about maybe doing things kind of like in 4E or WHFRP with special qualities.  Ooh, this is tough!

[Gurnard]

You could always set the range of dice to suit particular weapon types. A sharper weapon like a sword could use a dice roll like 3d6, where a mace could use d6+8. The heavier the weapon, the more guaranteed damage by the sheer force of its mass and momentum (min 9 max 14) in this example), where a sharper weapon has the a bigger number range and the chance of doing more damage by piercing deeply into the target (min 3 max 18) but less guaranteed damage.

[scarik]

BTW, why do you have to choose stuff because it has better numbers? If your all interested in the cool, the numbers don't matter, right?

Are you sure everyone in the group is into choosing things just because their cool?

There's no reason to sacrifice system balance for cool, and every interesting character concept can be just as cool while still being optimized.

Realistically not all weapons are created equal, but almost every one of good quality is better than another in some situation, so balance is more about what purpose combat and weapons serve in the particular game and how crunchy it all is.

[chance.thirteen]

The simplest form would be that all weapons act the same for damage. Then you use the other suggestions here to give types of weapons traits that affect their performance in certain circumstances -- the circumstances your players want to highlight. The rest is just in description.

So for instance you could do close in (knives, fists, holds), regular, long and ranged as traits that only matter some of the time. EG ranged only works when you have range (like most bows). You could even balance the weapons to have the same number of positive and negative traits, again going for that zero sum idea.

The nice thing there is that if you balance things nice, probably by keeping the advantages simple and only useful some of the time, everyone can choose whatever cool weapon look and descriptions of use they want.