Riposte: the post

[Plantissue]

Quick thoughts. +SH appears to be an interesting alternative, but it is unlikely to change tactics too much. I suppose the player would be more willing to get shot by yaktaurs. Then again axes shouldn't change tactics too much either till they get some form of heal on hits/kills, and even then most of the time it would be best to fight with as little contacting you as possible. I suppose in the end, not every quirk can be as interesting as spears. I suppose another alternative would be to rework swords like maces, only that it will be high damage only with high skill investment, but that would fall under the problem of being opaque.

Another thing about riposte other than the often mentioned usefulness as a spellcaster, is that is is useful when moving away from a monster that is faster than you. Quite a few times, I have killed a snake in early D simply by walking away from it quite unintendedly. *Insert quip that most threats are nullified by walking away anyways.*

What's wrong with stabbing with 2handers?

Well, I think of it as sneakily inserting a blade into a vital spot [1], which is probably quite hard to do if the point is two metres from your hands. If stabbing with claymores, why not stabbing with great maces or tridents? (You do, after all, still get the chance to avoid the target's EV and some bonus damage with another weapon, so it's not like sneak attacks don't exist at all without a Short Blade).

Game mechanically, as duvessa says, what's wrong with it is that two-handers are good already; you get it on short blades because otherwise they're not very good - hence in my proposal you get more of it the smaller your Blade is.

[1] On a jelly? I know, I know. But felids can eviscerate jellies and IDK how that works either.

Since you are arguing from reality, in reality, virtually every spot in the human body is a vital spot is a vital spot as long as it is deeper than 3 inches deep, and certainly as a longer blade goes through the human body, there is no spot that wouldn't be a vital spot. Even areas as far from the body, like the shoulder or groin is home to major arteries. No non ceremonial sword blade is 2 meters long, that's longer than some spears, and in reality it isn't much more difficult to aim. Anyways right now there are three tiers of stabbing. Dagger, Felid/short blades and everything else. I don't see a problem with moving long blades to short blades to be honest, thematically and game mechanically.

[Siegurt]

Quick thoughts. +SH appears to be an interesting alternative, but it is unlikely to change tactics too much. I suppose the player would be more willing to get shot by yaktaurs. Then again axes shouldn't change tactics too much either till they get some form of heal on hits/kills, and even then most of the time it would be best to fight with as little contacting you as possible. I suppose in the end, not every quirk can be as interesting as spears. I suppose another alternative would be to rework swords like maces, only that it will be high damage only with high skill investment, but that would fall under the problem of being opaque.

Another thing about riposte other than the often mentioned usefulness as a spellcaster, is that is is useful when moving away from a monster that is faster than you. Quite a few times, I have killed a snake in early D simply by walking away from it quite unintendedly. *Insert quip that most threats are nullified by walking away anyways.*

What's wrong with stabbing with 2handers?

Well, I think of it as sneakily inserting a blade into a vital spot [1], which is probably quite hard to do if the point is two metres from your hands. If stabbing with claymores, why not stabbing with great maces or tridents? (You do, after all, still get the chance to avoid the target's EV and some bonus damage with another weapon, so it's not like sneak attacks don't exist at all without a Short Blade).

Game mechanically, as duvessa says, what's wrong with it is that two-handers are good already; you get it on short blades because otherwise they're not very good - hence in my proposal you get more of it the smaller your Blade is.

[1] On a jelly? I know, I know. But felids can eviscerate jellies and IDK how that works either.

Since you are arguing from reality, in reality, virtually every spot in the human body is a vital spot is a vital spot as long as it is deeper than 3 inches deep, and certainly as a longer blade goes through the human body, there is no spot that wouldn't be a vital spot. Even areas as far from the body, like the shoulder or groin is home to major arteries. No non ceremonial sword blade is 2 meters long, that's longer than some spears, and in reality it isn't much more difficult to aim. Anyways right now there are three tiers of stabbing. Dagger, Felid/short blades and everything else. I don't see a problem with moving long blades to short blades to be honest, thematically and game mechanically.

Just for a little historical context here, there used to be 4 tiers of stabbing weapons, daggers, other short blades, "pointy things" (which was long blades, demon and non-demon tridents, and spears), and everything else. When the weird "pointy things" extra category was removed, long blades migrated to the 'everything else' category.

[gameguard]

riposte is actually pretty decent 8n the early game

[damerell]

Since you are arguing from reality

I'm not and I don't know what leads you to suppose that I am.

[Plantissue]

What's wrong with stabbing with 2handers?

Well, I think of it as sneakily inserting a blade into a vital spot [1], which is probably quite hard to do if the point is two metres from your hands.

[tasonir]

Just for a little historical context here, there used to be 4 tiers of stabbing weapons, daggers, other short blades, "pointy things" (which was long blades, demon and non-demon tridents, and spears), and everything else. When the weird "pointy things" extra category was removed, long blades migrated to the 'everything else' category.

While it's been a very long time, I think there was also "club stabbing" which had a chance to confuse or stun monsters. I don't remember exactly. Crawl is funny.

[damerell]

Well, I think of it as sneakily inserting a blade into a vital spot

Which has nothing to do with reality. You yourself have pointed out it has nothing to do with reality. So, again, I have no idea why you think I'm arguing from reality.