"of stabbing" vorpal brand is a bit confusing for a newbie

[Steel Neuron]

Just a small nitpick .

I don't like how the Vorpal brand is named on short blades, because it seems to imply the weapon is particularly good at "stabbing", and I think that's what most people understand as a keyword for an attack done against a defenseless opponent. Of course by reading the Wiki it becomes clear, but it might be misleading for newbies, which may not realize that the blade deals more damage in all hits, and instead assume it's specialized on sneak attacks.

This is probably too insignificant to consider, but since it confused me a bit I thought it was worth mentioning.

[reg]

I agree, using the same term to mean something different in this way is pretty bad. Easy fix is to rename it "Foo of Piercing" I guess, but the Vorpal brand is pretty underwhelming overall and could use some attention. I'm not familiar with the damage formula but it seems like Freezing is the same or better on everything up to and including rC+.

[duvessa]

what if the vorpal brand were called vorpal, how about that

[Steel Neuron]

what if the vorpal brand were called vorpal, how about that

This, honestly. Vorpal names always make me go "duh". Spear of Piercing. What else would you use it for? Sounds like "Fork of Eating" to me.

[MDvedh]

But "vorpal" isn't a real word, invented by Carroll and makes most of players not familiar with D&D and (very) few other RPG go "duh".

[XuaXua]

But "vorpal" isn't a real word, invented by Carroll and makes most of players not familiar with D&D and (very) few other RPG go "duh".

And the ones who know go "snicker-snack".

[and into]

But "vorpal" isn't a real word, invented by Carroll and makes most of players not familiar with D&D and (very) few other RPG go "duh".

The word "vorpal" was invented by Carroll and, like many other words he coined, is now included in any good dictionary and has entered standard English. So it is as much of a "real word" as any other neologism that has gained wide use and acceptance over time. "Vorpal" isn't an extremely common word, but neither are many others used in Crawl, which (anyway) has plenty of entirely fictional stuff in it, so I don't see why we need to suddenly be puritanical when it comes to vocabulary.

I'm not a partisan for renaming everything "vorpal," but the problem is not its status as a word. The problem is that "Foo of vorpal" sounds weird (vorpal is an adjective), and changing it to "vorpal Foo" breaks pattern and might cause confusion as to whether "vorpal" is a property of same type as dwarven / elven / orcish, all of which precede the weapon name, whereas egos follow it.

So to keep consistent, I would put my vote for "of piercing / of chopping / of stabbing / of crushing" all just being replaced with "of potency" or something. This also fixes the problem that "of piercing" / etc. all do exactly the same thing, a fact that should be reflected in the naming.

[MDvedh]

2and_into: I'm not saying "vorpal" is a bad word or whatever, just saying it's extremely uncommon.
I just don't want it to turn into Dungeons of Dredmor with Conflagratory damage and Nimbleness and other complexity for complexity.

As for me current vorpal names sound ok because "Spear of piercing" means you don't just poke with it, you are Piercing the enemy blah blah blah.

[duvessa]

I'm not a partisan for renaming everything "vorpal," but the problem is not its status as a word. The problem is that "Foo of vorpal" sounds weird (vorpal is an adjective), and changing it to "vorpal Foo" breaks pattern and might cause confusion as to whether "vorpal" is a property of same type as dwarven / elven / orcish, all of which precede the weapon name, whereas egos follow it.

I agree, it should be like battleaxes of vampiric.

[Kalma]

Solve this by removing vorpal on melee weapons. It's boring and weak anyway.

[MDvedh]

16% additional non-resisted damage isn't "weak" by any means.
Also, not-so-clear name isn't a good reason for removing anything in the game i believe.

[Cedor]

of vorpal -> powered?

[Kalma]

12.5%

[MDvedh]

I'm not going to do any vorpal game effect conversation but it's actually 0 to 33% which is averaged at 16.6% since 0.13 or 0.12.

[jejorda2]

Dagger of vorpalism
dagger of vorpa (apocryphal > apocrypha, bacterial -> bacteria, etc, but freezing and draining and electrocuting are all verbs, and vorpa would seem to be a noun.)
dagger of power (I would expect this to increase my max mp)
dagger of damage (still not a verb, though it works. Doesn't give any expectation about how the damage occurs.)
dagger of slaying (This fits damage and theme, but then I would expect it to have additive damage instead of multiplicative)
dagger of killing
dagger of maiming
dagger of amplifying or amplification (this is the clearest, I believe.)

[tompliss]

dagger of damaging ?

I would expect slowing or decreasing the ennemy accuracy, with a dagger of maiming.
And I would expect to amplify the monster, with a dagger or applifying/cation (as I freeze him with a dagger of freezing).

Slaying and killing are good, though, and slaying reminds the rings (which, even if they do not work the same, are here just for the damage-dealing effect, as the vorpal brand).

[rebthor]

dagger of bikeshedding?

[damiac]

How about "Of Sharpness"

of course, on clubs it'd have to be "Of Hardness" or something along those lines. Maybe "Of Smashitude"

[archaeo]

I'll agree that it's a little confusing, that the same brand has a different name on every weapon type. But it's pretty clear that a) coming up with a single modifier that covers all weapon types is tough and b) all of the alternatives sound kind of dumb in the "dagger of foo" formulation.

Let's just solve this problem (if it's a problem) in the description. Currently, vorpal brand puts "It inflicts extra damage upon your enemies" in the list of modifications. Expand it to say "A vorpalising enchantment makes this weapon more effective, inflicting extra damage," or something similar. "This weapon has been crudely branded to become more effective." Something to get across the fact that these disparate names all come from a similar bonus.

edited to add: honestly you can also just put me in the "a +3 vorpal foo" camp.

[some12fat2move]

"Of striking" works well. Perhaps better is "of velocity", that makes sense because the velocity of your swing is increased therefore more damage, and gives name consistency with ranged vorpal weapons.

[Tiktacy]

Vorpal dagger
Vorpal halberd
Vorpal bow
Vorpal giant spiked club
Vorpal sling


What's wrong with that?

[tompliss]

You find a "Dwarven dagger", a "Dagger of flamming", and a "Vorpal dagger".
What will you assume ?
A "vorpal first" looks loike it's some kind of item as the racial ones, exvept it isn't...

the "Of striking" seems to work on most (if not all) the weapons, by the way ...

[rebthor]

You find a "Dwarven dagger", a "Dagger of flamming", and a "Vorpal dagger".
What will you assume ?
A "vorpal first" looks loike it's some kind of item as the racial ones, exvept it isn't...

the "Of striking" seems to work on most (if not all) the weapons, by the way ...

And duvessa already argued against this successfully, it's a vampiric battleaxe, not a battleaxe of vampirism. Having a vorpal weapon won't confuse things more.

[tompliss]

So there is a reason to change the "vampiric" brand, then.

[Tiktacy]

Vorpalized elven shortsword

Vorpalized dwarves battleaxe

How is that?

[tompliss]

And now, I expect to see a "vorpalized dwarven great mace of holy wrath".

[rchandra]

You find a "Dwarven dagger", a "Dagger of flamming", and a "Vorpal dagger".
What will you assume ?
A "vorpal first" looks loike it's some kind of item as the racial ones, exvept it isn't...

the "Of striking" seems to work on most (if not all) the weapons, by the way ...

An antimagic battleaxe. Steel bolts. Exploding darts. Really I give people more credit at being able to follow the natural word order. On the % screen where things are a bit more technical, it's a battlaxe {antimagic} or sling bullets (explode) etc.

[Siegurt]

Personally I like "of sharpness" and "of hardness" better than "vorpal" not because of word order (there's no earthly reason the word "vorpal" can't come before the item name) but because I feel like they are clearer. Although, actually I feel like most of the descriptions of the vorpal brand are fine, I would personally just change "of stabbing" on daggers to "of sharpness" and be done with it (That's the only one I feel is misleading or confusing)

[MDvedh]

I always thought only big and bladed weapons could be "vorpal" (thanks D&D), so vorpal bow or vorpal mace looks weird for me.

[reg]

"of Slicing/Crushing/Piercing/Chopping" are fine, but "of Stabbing" uses the exact same term as another dagger mechanic. "Foo of Piercing" works fine for the stabbing short-blades, and is the same term as the stabbing polearms.

[Bloax]

Why not just rename it to "of Slashing" then, unless you kill everything in one hit by poking a tiny hole into them. In which case spears would be the strongest weapon in the game.

[galehar]

I don't think the name vorpal is still in the game now that the scroll of vorpalize weapon has been renamed. So it seems better to simply address the OP and rename the " of stabbing" rather than change all vorpal name to "vorpalized" or "of awesomeness"

The vorpal name depends on the primary damage type. Small blades have the following damage types:
dagger: stabbing, slicing
quick blade: stabbing, slicing
short sword: slicing, piercing
sabre: slicing, piercing

So let's just replace stabbing by piercing and remove the stabbing damage type.

[Zammy]

For me piercing allways sounds like something that bypasses armour. But that is just something I've picked up from allmost every other game that has piercing stuff.
Why not just remane all vorpalized weapons to "of extra damage" since that is what they do.

[XuaXua]

{x} of Power
{x} of Enhancement
{x} of Talent
{x} of Ability

[Hirsch I]

"Dagger of Disappointing Brand"
how does it sound?

[Wahaha]

Sounds like the person who named the brand is bad at judging brands. How about leave it as it is because it confuses close to no one - the few people who assume weird things and don't bother looking it up or simply reading the item description. It also does make stabs do more damage.