Scythe thing

[Paperbell]

Can scythes be a long range stabbing weapon that requires massive skill investment? or is it too unbalanced/edgy/something?

[chequers]

Sounds too complicated, unless it became an unrand-only weapon type.

[Shard1697]

I dunno if it's too complicated but I don't think it would solve scythes being bad

[Siegurt]

Well, ranged stabbing is ridiculously powerful (Particularly if you can get it by training a skill that also gets you better at using actually good weapons), but having scythes suck less isn't really much of a priority afaict.

[Roderic]

Evoke reach with partial cleaving in the three tiles forward (example, evoked to the right). That's what you do when you reap.

. . . x
. @. x
. . . x

[crawlnoob]

Just remove scythes already. Give Sigmund a halberd.

[bel]

Off-topic, but scythes seem to mainly about flavor, so they can probably be removed if one simultaneously gives the relevant monsters reaching. Probably someone has proposed this already; if so, add my voice to that chorus.

[Shtopit]

I also am for removal/substitution. Otherwise, among the weird effects, there could be disarming.

[Majang]

scythes seem to mainly about flavor, so they can probably be removed if one simultaneously gives the relevant monsters reaching.

But flavor cannot be entirely ignored here. Do you really want to have the (grim) reapers running around with halberds? They will go on strike!

[Plantissue]

Keep scythes but give them halberd stats.

[Lavandula]

Sounds too complicated, unless it became an unrand-only weapon type.

One-handed polearms already have a stab multiplier.

[chequers]

Hellcrawl got around the problem of "what about Sigmund and reaper flavour" by giving those monsters base damage bonus equal to scythe and an innate reaching attack. So it looks like they have a scythe but they will never drop it.

[Shard1697]

Sounds too complicated, unless it became an unrand-only weapon type.

One-handed polearms already have a stab multiplier.

I thought all stab multipliers besides a shared one for all short blades were removed.

[bel]

scythes seem to mainly about flavor, so they can probably be removed if one simultaneously gives the relevant monsters reaching.

But flavor cannot be entirely ignored here. Do you really want to have the (grim) reapers running around with halberds? They will go on strike!

I did not say anything about halberds. I was essentially talking about the solution outlined above by chequers.

[Majang]

I did not say anything about halberds.

Not you, but crawlnoob did.

[crawlnoob]

Get rid of grim reapers.

[Majang]

Get rid of grim reapers.

You're challenging fate here, man!

[crawlnoob]

Executioners are the only demons with scythes that are somewhat original, and they dont even technically have scythes. Why do we have grim reapers (and plural at that)? Why not an army of headless horsemen or a demonically possessed santa's workshop? For that matter, can we get pizza back in the game? Oh!, how about a new unique : the Ghost of Charles Dickens! He regails you with impossibly long and convoluted sentences that hang heavy with the depressing pall of an 18th century East London orphanage...

Get rid of scythes, they are uninteresting at best and a constant newbie trap at worst, and they simply do not fit well into the main weapons categories as they have been developing. Reflavor scythe-themed monsters when possible, otherwise just remove or replace them.

[Kersey]

could just give them cleave.

ranged cleave would be cool.

[njvack]

Assuming scythes should remain in the game, is there an important reason for them to be bad weapons?

[Rast]

"It would be too good if you could get an endgame quality weapon from Sigmund"

[Siegurt]

Assuming scythes should remain in the game, is there an important reason for them to be bad weapons?

If they weren't bad, people would be tempted to use them?

[njvack]

There's a lot of room between "endgame quality weapon" and "unambiguously bad weapon base type, except you won't realize that unless you really understand crawl's weapon mechanics, also it is very rare but drops from a notoriously dangerous unique so the game is hinting it's probably pretty good."

I don't understand Crawl's weapon mechanics well enough to *really* propose new numbers, but "better than a halberd but worse than a glaive" seems like a non-broken niche they could occupy while also making them not a "loooool ur using a scythe" weapon.

[crawlnoob]

ten foot pole spear trident halberd scythe red-hot iron demon trident glaive bardiche pitbull-on-a-stick balderdash thingymcchopper


...clearly we need more polearms.

[Majang]

...clearly we need more polearms.

This isn't about more polearms, but about re-designing existing polearms. There are at least as many maces/flails or long blades.

[crawlnoob]

The point is that there are too many weapons to make meaningful differentiation possible without resorting to absurd measures. Long blades and m&f have the same problem. It just ends up further confusing new players as to the age old and almost completely impossible to answer question : is weapon X better than weapon Y?

[njvack]

Yeah, there are definitely too many weapons (probably too many weapon classes), which is a thing to talk about in another thread (say, the past threads that have already talked about this at some length). This thread is more "hey there is one particular weapon type that stands out for being very rare and (nonobviously) very bad, probably that is a bad niche for a weapon type to fill."

IMO, it'd be fine if Sigmund had a halberd and reapers had unarmed reaching — I mean, even Yiuf lost his hammers and demons already have a bunch of melee gimmicks. It'd also be fine if scythes were decent weapons. But the status quo is kind of weird.

[Shtopit]

Reapers also have a chance for brand, though. Maybe they should just get a halberd with comparable enchantments.
The thing with Sigmund is that, while an early unique cannot drop too good a weapon, he is very likely to appear after a halberd armed gnoll anyway, or about at the same depth. Sigmund should just get a halberd, too.

[duvessa]

Yeah, there are definitely too many weapons (probably too many weapon classes), which is a thing to talk about in another thread (say, the past threads that have already talked about this at some length). This thread is more "hey there is one particular weapon type that stands out for being very rare and (nonobviously) very bad, probably that is a bad niche for a weapon type to fill."

Other weapons are directly relevant to this topic. You yourself brought up halberds and glaives. If the only polearms in the game were spears and scythes, removing scythes would be a very different proposal.