The Tavern

In the thread on Riposte, Sandman25 posted, "Riposte on block could be done for Short Blades which definitely need a buff."

Upon reflection, this really does not seem like a bad idea at all.

Short blades are currently used for some very niche cases. Vamp, Speed, Pain, and Stabbing come to mind.
Most of the commentary I've seen on short blades is that their damage doesn't scale enough to keep them competitive; most stabbers are encouraged to transition into a backup plan.
The consensus from players I've chatted with is that the scaling on short blades doesn't keep up unless you're using a Quick Blade (which are still kinda niche).

Allowing ripostes on block for short blades would allow stabby types the option of increasing their damage output in later game while also increasing their survivability.
Short blades don't come in 2-hand form, so short blade players really don't have a lot of incentive to forgoe a shield. Since riposte triggers off dodge, which occurs after checking for blocking, shield users don't get to use riposte to full effect. This is less of an issue with long blades, because going 2-hand and killing things quickly is an option.

[Edit] Enable Riposte on blocking, disable Riposte triggering racial secondary attacks like horns, fangs, etc. Net benefit without getting out of hand. [Edit]

Also, thematically, it makes so much more sense for people to riposte with a rapier than with a triple sword!

FR give short blades riposte on block or dodge and take it away from long blades.

I, for one, welcome our new Vine Stalker overlords!

Good point. Edited first post accordingly!

getting extra attacks doesn't help much if your weapon is terrible

It makes the ol' rapier of pain better, but does nothing to help the fact that shortblades without great brands are terrible at everything except stabs.

the thing that might make short blades competitive late game (while staying consistent with current weapon differentiation) is to give a chance of stabbing on every melee attack, even if the enemy is fully awake and aware of you. scale this chance strictly on SB skill and maybe cap the stab tier (i.e. never better than a distraction stab); flavor it as "you slip your blade into the foo's weak point!"

this compensates for the obvious late-game problems of low base damage and the fall-off in reliability of hexes/invis/etc., but i'm already anticipating objections that it would make combat even "swingier" than it already is -- what else is wrong with this idea?

Both of those brands are much better on higher base damage weapons. They are more common on short blades, but they aren't usually very good at those.

Maybe riposte-stabs?

It would be cool when every weapon has something special.

short blades: When successful hit the player moves automatically to a tile with the lowest number of opponents attacks.

unarmed combat should be good for escaping.( In film Fight they are always running around) Perhaps there is button for throwing away the weapon which has the effect of a lesser throwing net. And UC give a higher dodge chance and perhaps higher moving speed. ( except when being transmuted)

maces have a knockback chance.(depends of str and weight and if flying or standing on four feet or crawling) Or even stun.

staves: have a better dodge chance, or two dodges or something like that.

polearms: successful hit the player moves back one tile.

long blade: reposte

axe: multi

So it would make sense to train two or three weapon skills.

Those all already have something special. Short blades have high stealth attack damage, Unarmed combat is unique in 2 different ways: weapon independent, and base damage depending on skill, Staves are the only weapon type that directly assists spellcasting through enhancer staves(and thus also have weapons which have damage affected by spellcasting skill/evo), and Polearms obviously already have reaching, which is so different from other melee weapons that it requires a totally different keypress to use.

So the only weapon type without something "special" is M&F, but that in and of itself makes them unique-they are basic but straightforward and strong when everything else has a gimmick, which is not a bad niche to have!
If they knocked enemies back it would likely be pretty OP and also annoying.

weapons that automatically reposition the player sound terrible, like really really terrible

in the context of melee combat, the thing that makes staves special is that they offer the best starting weapon and once you have it at mindelay there's no extra investment for upgrading to top-tier

but yeah, every combat skill is already uniquely differentiated -- it's just that due to low base damage, short blades are mostly terrible whenever you're not stabbing, whereas polearms/axes/long blades are still good even when their gimmick isn't active

My thoughts were also to make the fights more dynamic. In DC the player has a big advantage to fight in corners. In real fight the dead end is the dead end. But perhaps you are right - it would be annoying.

Would be cool if maces had a chance to increase wait time for target next action by 1 aut if some condition related to weapon and/or skill was passed.

I don't think you'd ever make a different decision based on that though.

FR: Add chance to hit enemies in a weak spot for short blades, a.k.a. crits which scale from dex.