Staves for "Knights"

[danr]

Okay, this thread is not for the faint of heart

I suggest that staves be a starting weapon option for any melee-oriented class that does not get a shield / buckler.

Yes, staves are a reasonably effective weapon (+6 to hit on base damage of 7 and speed of 110), but they are not as good as tridents, which are also available. And of course there is the fact that the upgrade path for the school is much less certain. Anyhow, if monks and priests can have them, I don't see why others (chaos knights, abyssal knights, death knights) should not be able to.

[MrMisterMonkey]

"tridents, which are also available"
only for gladiators and fighters, which both have shields
so you'd be best off comparing with weapons they can choose

but the priest thing still applies, unless quarterstaves are super priest flavour

but whatever man

[evilmike]

Staff monks are already overpowered enough.

[Curio]

Staff monks are already overpowered enough.

lol'ed

Okay, this thread is not for the faint of heart

I suggest that staves be a starting weapon option for any melee-oriented class that does not get a shield / buckler.

Yes, staves are a reasonably effective weapon (+6 to hit on base damage of 7 and speed of 110), but they are not as good as tridents, which are also available. And of course there is the fact that the upgrade path for the school is much less certain. Anyhow, if monks and priests can have them, I don't see why others (chaos knights, abyssal knights, death knights) should not be able to.

For me, knights don't strike as a class that should use staves. And I thought that staves could be now a monk signature weapon. If everybody else can use them - then back again to drawing board about differentiating monks as a background.

Anyway, I'm not very much against this idea, but also don't really want it to happen

[MrMisterMonkey]

if you're worried about diluting backgrounds through weapon choice, you shouldn't have let monks start with staves
(unarmed combat was sort of their thing)

as long as weapon choice fails to make a significant difference in playstyle, though, I don't really see it mattering

[Curio]

if you're worried about diluting backgrounds through weapon choice, you shouldn't have let monks start with staves
(unarmed combat was sort of their thing)

It's still their thing. Adding staves didn't took anything from this gimmick - only added one more.
Dilluting would be adding unarmed combat option to all other melee classes.

as long as weapon choice fails to make a significant difference in playstyle, though, I don't really see it mattering

True to some degree. I dream about the days when combat moves will be implemented.

[MrMisterMonkey]

I meant diluting as in monk used to mean unarmed combat (aside from nut cases who picked up weapons) and now it lost that meaning (now it means that or staves or anything that a staff user picks up when quarterstaves stop being good).

[danr]

I guess I just see it as knights really being priests of different gods. I don't think it would dilute any other backgrounds, staves aren't really a defining feature of any class.

It's not that I'm really crazy about staves. It's just an option that seems to be restricted for no real reason, and a major feature of Crawl is how open-ended it is. Staves are a fairly unique weapon class (no shields, limited but potentially powerful upgrade path) and are therefore an interesting option if they are an option.