Tuesday, 24th July 2012, 09:04 by FalconNL
I'll add my two cents to this discussion as well. I really like twelwe's idea of differentiating the different weapon types, but as others have mentioned the proposed idea makes things too complicated. Instead, I propose each weapon class just have a single inherent property, which also serves to differentiate their playstyles.
Short blades: Very high speed, low damage. Doesn't need to be changed too much from its current incarnation: gives a major damage bonus when the victim is impaired (sleeping, confused, etc.) Since stabbing will pretty much solely be done with short blades the stabbing skill is redundant, so get rid of it and just tie stabbing bonuses to the short blades skill. It doesn't make much sense to stab someone with a mace anyway. Play style: sneaking up and stabbing.
Long blades: High speed, medium damage. Special ability: has a chance of blocking melee weapon attacks. Play style: flexible, both corridor and open combat work fine.
Staves: Medium speed, low damage. Special ability: has a chance of blocking unarmed melee attacks. Play style: fairly bad to attack with, but they will only be wielded by casters, who won't be attacking physically anyway.
Maces & Flails: Low speed, high damage. Special ability: Big and heavy and thus they have a higher mindelay than the other weapons, but when they hit, they hit hard. Great against the harder targets in extended, like Pan lords and such. Play style: stick to corridors as much as possible.
Axes: Medium speed, medium damage. Special ability: Axes are swung around, and since they are heavier than long swords they have enough momentum to hit multiple targets without stopping. Deal 50% damage to all adjacent enemies other than the one you attacked. Play style: out in the open.
Polearms: medium speed, medium damage. Also doesn't need to be changed much. Special ability: Reaching. Play style: mostly corridors.
Bows/Crossbows/Slings: Fine as they are. Play style: sniping at a distance.
Wins: DEWz^Veh (4 runes), DEWz^Veh (15 runes), DEWz^Sif (3 runes), HOBe^Trog (3 runes), MiDK^Yred (3 runes), DECj^Sif (4 runes), GrBe^Trog (3 runes), DECj^Vehu (3 runes), MiFi^Wu Jian (3 runes), DEFE^Veh (3 runes), DEFE^Veh (15 runes)