remove maces and flails

[HardboiledGargoyle]

These are the least distinguished weapons in the game. All the other ones have their own, so to speak, personality, or place, in Crawl. But these are easily lumped into the "poor early game weapons" category with no other distinguishing features. This tends to work nicely when there is only one such weapon per weapon skill. But here there are two (mind that clubs are uniquely ultra-bad and whips are usefully fast):

mace: 8 damage, +3 accuracy, 14 speed
flail: 10 damage, 0 accuracy, 14 speed
recommended replacement "war hammer": 9 damage, +2 (could be +1 as well) accuracy, same 14 speed

for reference, the good quarterstaff is 10 damage, +3 accuracy, 13 (not 14) speed

Hammer is a good name. It is flavorful - it is an unusual weapon, and you can really imagine the head of the hammer slamming into a monster with full force, whereas plain mace and flail are... meh. This is also good for the search function - you will not see all M&F-category weapons when searching for "mace" or "flail" because those weapons would not exist and you'd be searching "hammer" instead.

Start off fighters and gladiators with war hammers instead of flails.
Start off Be/AK/CK/Sk with whips instead of maces.

I'd also suggest merging long swords into scimitars. Both are common and differ only a little bit in their dam/acc stats: long swords are 10/+1 and scimitars are 12/-2 Suggested replacement: scimitar, 11 base damage, -1 accuracy, same speed (14). Let fighters and gladiators start with them. Yes they'd be the highest-damage weapons you could start with, but that's the gimmick of Long Blades. That's why triple swords have 19 base damage, the highest if you're not a troll or ogre. And quarterstaves still have an edge, due to superior delay and an accuracy bonus. Bonus reason: "Long Sword" is bad naming since all long blades are both long and swords, and we have sword names that sound similar to "Long Sword", like "Great Sword".

This proposal is exactly in line with weapon and armor removals throughout Crawl's history.

[Tiktacy]

I like what you are getting at and agree they are very in-distinct. I dont know what exactly I can add to the thread other than bikeshedding the name(it should just be flail instead of changin the name).

Another thing worth mentioning is that the effects of accuracy and damage can be confusing to newer players(hell, it still confuses me, I just go with the higher damage). Perhaps combining the weapons could mitigate the confusion?

[tedric]

heh, thought you were going to propose removing the entire weapon class but this is pretty alright

[Shard1697]

I think that flails are more flavorful and unusual weapons than war hammers(swinging around a spiked ball on a chain is dope), but otherwise I agree.

What happens to dire flails? Do they stay the same, or become just "flails", or become some sort of bigger hammer? If they're changed to not be flails M&F could become just "Maces", which would be much less of a mouthful, but also I really do like the flavor of flails as a weapon. Perhaps if they go we could keep a couple of flail unrands.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

There already exist the great mace and the dire flail; they are good; I'm don't suggest changing them to dire/great hammers. Beside the dire flail, which is often a good weapon choice, we have the flail-like whips, which justify keeping the "maces & flails" name.

Personally I think dire flails should be the 17 damage/speed weapon, and great maces should be the 13 damage/speed weapon, but that's a lesser aesthetic issue and you'd have to consider the unrands (we'd see more people toting a badass flail late-game, and shouldn't it take a while to swing that heavy spiked ball on a chain?)

[duvessa]

Personally I think dire flails should be the 17 damage/speed weapon, and great maces should be the 13 damage/speed weapon, but that's a lesser aesthetic issue (we'd see more people toting a badass flail late-game, and shouldn't it take a while to swing that heavy spiked ball on a chain?)

If you're going for a realism argument, then all whips and flails should be some of the worst weapons in the game. Maces are much better weapons. Also, glaives should be slower than bardiches and halberds and do less damage than halberds, double and triple swords and executioner's axes should be completely ineffective, and Gyre and Gimble definitely shouldn't exist.

[ebering]

  Code:

realism of crawl[1/11]: whacking KILLER FUCKING BEES with a halberd and throwing javelins at them

[Siegurt]

You could also just as easily suggest merging falchions (8dm, +2 acc, 13 speed) with long swords, or halberds (13dm, -3acc, 15 speed), with glaives (15 dm, -3 acc, 17 speed), or rapiers and short swords, or really most of the weapons in the game which have a difference of around 2 base damage and either 1 or 0 difference of speed with the next-better weapon, a couple have a difference of 3, and a couple have 1...

Clipping scimitars down to 11 damage means there's no really decent one handed long sword shy of demon weapons, and advancing long swords to 11 means there's no one-handed common upgrade available for gladiators or fighters, which isn't *awful* but does decrease the variation as you advance through the game.

Admittedly mace/flails have a lot of variants could probably stand to lose 1 of those, but it seems an odd choice to single out, and I'd rather see scimitars moved up to 13 dmg to increase the difference with long swords than to move it down to 11, personally.

(On the other hand, if maces became war hammers, Crazy Yiuf would be happy)

[WingedEspeon]

Can we just rename mace to hammers now please? Crazy Yuif is supposed to have hammers.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

You could also just as easily suggest merging falchions (8dm, +2 acc, 13 speed) with long swords, or halberds (13dm, -3acc, 15 speed), with glaives (15 dm, -3 acc, 17 speed), or rapiers and short swords, or really most of the weapons in the game which have a difference of around 2 base damage and either 1 or 0 difference of speed with the next-better weapon, a couple have a difference of 3, and a couple have 1...

Note your examples include some difference of speed (esp. falchions, they even have 6 mindelay) whereas maces, flails, scimitars, and long swords are exactly the same speed. Halberds are very common 2-hand polearms and glaives are second-best, 2-hand, end-worthy polearms. The difference in base damage becomes more pronounced with skill, e.g. +2 mace > +0 flail at 0 skill, but then you get a little fighting/m&f and +2 mace < +0 flail, so you see more difference with slower weapons like halberd/glaive, while the ones I recommend merging are weak early weapons where you don't see that nearly as much. Practical scarcity further brings out contrast between ultimate and penultimate weapons of a certain kind e.g. morningstars and eveningstars.

Is there something you don't like about removing base weapon types? I think it's commendable that Crawl goes for a few well-defined base weapon types within each skill.

Clipping scimitars down to 11 damage means there's no really decent one handed long sword shy of demon weapons, and advancing long swords to 11 means there's no one-handed common upgrade available for gladiators or fighters, which isn't *awful* but does decrease the variation as you advance through the game.

I'm not sure that's even bad at all. Fighters and gladiators start with war axes, to which there is only one 1-handed upgrade - the uncommon broad axe - and the starting weapon Quarterstaff has only one upgrade. It's hard to call what you say a decrease in variation too, because you almost never stick with your original weapon for long. For example if fighters started with scimitars, they'd likely switch to better scimitars before long.

Admittedly mace/flails have a lot of variants could probably stand to lose 1 of those, but it seems an odd choice to single out

What might you choose? For me, only maces and flails are reasonable to single out - just some moot early-game weapons you use for a bit and discard with no distinguishing features (unless you find some well-enchanted/branded/artefact). Morningstars are quite common and are the typical 1-hand upgrade.

I'd rather see scimitars moved up to 13 dmg to increase the difference with long swords than to move it down to 11, personally.

I'd beware giving scimitars 13 base damage which would make them exactly slower demon blades.

Personally I think dire flails should be the 17 damage/speed weapon, and great maces should be the 13 damage/speed weapon, but that's a lesser aesthetic issue (we'd see more people toting a badass flail late-game, and shouldn't it take a while to swing that heavy spiked ball on a chain?)

If you're going for a realism argument

On the contrary, I just think the dire flail should be the pinnacle M&F weapon because it fantastically awesome. The current place of dire flails and great maces is like... imagine if triple swords and great swords were swapped in name and tile. That wouldn't have as much appeal. Triple swords sound stupidly brutal (higher base damage) and unwieldy (need higher skill) and it would seem odd for triple swords to be more common than normal-looking great swords. It is also really cool to imagine being able to swing a great mace quickly (6 aut mindelay) due to having great leverage, with the great mace being the only mace designed to be wielded with two hands.

[duvessa]

Are you, by chance, thinking of the old, egregiously stupid dire flail from several versions ago that was described as having two balls? Because the current description of the dire flail item is: "A flail with long spikes and a heavier head."

[Shard1697]

There's no such thing as "stupid" weapon descriptions in crawl, a game that features triple swords. Unless we're back to the days where people want to get rid of those again.

[Chicken]

Quit removing things just to remove them ... you should be adding things just to add them instead. I'm beginning to think this game is where the deletionists go after they've finished ruining everything they want to ruin on Wikipedia. By all means, let's have a hammer. And let's have a bell, and there should be a song rune you can pick up somewhere to complete the set and *really* hammer out some freedom and justice dungeon-wide

[Sprucery]

DCSS has much more content than Linley's Dungeon Crawl.

[Chicken]

Which is a good thing! But let's keep it that way. And there's just no way you can have a roguelike without stubbing your toe on a carelessly dropped mace now and then. Though admittedly, they do seem to be awfully numerous... I'd like to know why half the time when you kill a monster you can't find a morsel to eat, but every single beat up old club knocked from a goblin's dead fingers turns out to be in usable condition. I can picture combat being dangerous for a non-magical weapon... a little white lie that would sure clean up the dungeon.

Oh, and there *could* be a mace bonus for whacking certain things, like skeletons and crystal guardians. I'm not saying you have to implement a full stab/slash/pierce matrix; you could just have the mace bonus as a special ability for that weapon class which affects certain monster classes. It would be kind of arbitrary, but not more so than trying to guess whether fear or dispel undead affects a death scarab.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Mace bonus against certain monsters would be arbitrary on purpose unlike trying to guess whether fear or dispel undead affects a death scarab. Crawl's been removing stuff like racial equipment for good reason. Your notes may be fine for flavor text ("dice the ogre like an onion!!!") but bad gameplay. We have stuff like brands and elemental resists for what you're going for, and having rM&F on non-skeletons/crystals overloads the distinction between weapon categories.

The deletionists here are generally interested in removing the things that don't stand out, the things that blend in together with other moot things, the things that are pointlessly distracting.

I think it's better to commit to every weapon having a "unique personality" so to speak, since Crawl is almost there, and it's a mean feat to pull off. Or we could throw this achievement to the dogs, and dilute it into a blur of an arsenal, and if we do, we might as well randomly generate base weapon stats like base damage.

the current description of the dire flail item is: "A flail with long spikes and a heavier head."

This sounds like a very normal, reasonable description that can be fixed by making it egregiously stupid like the triple sword. Give it two balls like you said if necessary. The tile for the dire flail is ludicrous enough as it stands - - that thing looks like something from lord of the rings.

[Shard1697]

It just sort of looks like a bigger flail, which isn't really ludicrous in a fantasy setting at all.

[Arrhythmia]

Things people care about being realistic in crawl: Weapons
Things people don't care about being realistic in crawl: everything else

You people are so weird.

[freetheworld]

I've always thought the name was weird too... but game logic is game logic for a reason.

Would it not be possible to add a few new whips to the game and seperate the weapons... Maces (flails are technically maces) and a Whips category.

Whips inherently have fast attack and evoke ranged abilities. Maces, I'm not sure if they do this already but they should, could be less accurate (do to the weight makeing it harder to swing), but ignore a few points of AC based on the mace type.

Then again, as is Maces and flails is the best beginners weapon choice for anything melee. it gives so many options and is ihmo the most abundant weapon you'll find in the dungeon. Especially with it incorporating 3 different weapon types in one category. I don't have any problem with it as is