Weapons

So how will weapons work in this game?

Well I don’t know how it will work, I only know how it works right now, so let’s talk about that! But I encourage you to keep in mind than this is just our current thinking; we’ve been testing it, it seems to be working, but much larger systems have been changing underneath it and that makes it hard to tell if the weapon design is good and robust and doing what we want, or if it’s just “not awful” and not getting in the way.

Later in this post I’ll share all the weapons we’ve prototyped and you’ll have a LOT of opinions about that design and those choices. Whether this trait makes any sense, whether this weapon should have that trait. Etc… Well, we also wonder about all those same things. But you gotta start somewhere and we like this design. It seems promising. So if we discover problems with it through actual play, we’ll try to solve those problems before we decide we need to scrap the entire thing and try something else.

So what are weapons in this game about?

Traits not Damage

(Well one of the traits is Brutal which actually DOES increase your damage, but only by like 1 to 3 not an entire die.)

The basic idea is; weapons don’t do damage, you do damage. If you’re a greataxe wielding Fury, your Might is what’s doing the damage, if you’re a dagger-wielding Shadow, your Agility is what’s doing the damage. Or whatever stat the abilities you chose use, a Shadow could have a Might-based ability!

We want to avoid a scenario where each class has a “best weapon.” But what’s the alternative?

Style

Instead of describing each weapon in terms of how much damage it does, 1d12 vs 2d6 or whatever, we want to explore the idea of your choice of weapon being about you, the player, choosing how your character fights, or rather, what is your character trying to do in combat?

We want to support all the classic archetypes: the dagger-wielding thief, the greataxe wielding berserker, but we don’t want to require the Shadow to use daggers or the Tactician to use a longsword. We will probably still have “weapon proficiencies” so classes will still function as archetypes (it would be very weird and possibly fantasy-breaking for the Fury to go Dual Daggers for instance) but the martial classes will all have a wide variety of weapon profs.

So the choice of weapons isn’t about “which is best for this class” it’s more about “how do I want to fight?” Or “what do I want to be doing in battle?”

The Traits

This is actually going to be a pretty short update! Because I’m just going to list the traits, and then post a chart with the current (also the first!) draft of the weapons. Keep in mind that most weapons will have more than one trait, and all weapons also have Types, like Light, Medium, Heavy. And you’ll notice that most heavy weapons are Brutal, most Light weapons are Fast, but decoupling these things means we could have a Light weapon that isn’t Fast if we thought that was a good idea. It’s flexible.

Under the actual weapon listing, each trait is followed by a number like Brutal 1 or Bludgeoning 2. You’ll see why!

Bludgeoning weapons knock your target back, so Bludgeoning 1 knocks your target back one square. This should probably be thought of as “+1” since you could be using an ability that already has knockback and if your weapon is Bludgeoning, it will add to that value, knocking them back farther.

This is working pretty well, players like this as a property when they see it and, having chosen it, they seem to like the knockback effect. Knockback damage (i.e. you were knocked back 3 squares, but hit a wall after moving 1 square, so take 2 damage) is easy to calculate on the fly and it makes the game feel very dynamic.

Brutal weapons just do more damage. +1 or +2, small amounts, but all the traits stay in the 1 to 3 range right now. Though with this system, we can always boost these numbers to make certain traits as useful as others if necessary.

Burst weapons automatically do +1 damage to X additional, adjacent enemies. So if you attack a goblin with a Burst 2 weapon, two other adjacent goblins also take 1 damage. Titles or class abilities could increase that burst damage.

This helps us simulate weapons like a Quarterstaff the idea of which is; this weapon is so light and well-balanced that after I attack this goblin, I get to *smack* some other nearby goblins for free. Remember: fixed damage like this ignores armor and cannot be countered.

Deflect. Weapons with this property increase your Defense, which blocks incoming damage. Currently we think this is what makes Medium weapons, like a longsword, cool. They are heavy enough to block some incoming damage, but light enough that you can actually get them into position to block some of an attack, unlike a Heavy weapon.

This is also cool because it means we know what Shields do (Deflect 2!) and can just treat them like another weapon. Another thing you hold in your hand during combat.

Fast weapons are so light that, before someone can attack you, you can stab them. So a Fast 1 weapon inflicts 1 damage on an enemy attacking you in melee, and that damage happens before their attack. Dangerous to attack someone wielding two fast weapons!

Guarding weapons increase your Parry value. Parry is a triggered action some classes (mostly martials) have that lets them boost either an adjacent ally’s defense, or their own. Tacticians are great at parrying and therefore, possibly, granting allies a Counter when the Parry increases their defense enough that an incoming attack is wholly blocked.

Riposte weapons do bonus damage when Countering! Not all Counters are melee attacks, but the ones that are can be increased by a Riposte weapon. A Talent probably wouldn’t bother with a Riposte weapon, as their Counter is probably a ranged mental thing, but there could be melee Talent builds!

That’s All The Traits!

So far, after a few tests, these seem to be working. I’m sure this will change a lot as we start testing more, but the goal was to make different weapons cool and useful in different ways, and deliver on some classic fantasies. Make dual wielding daggers cool and about as useful as a Greataxe. I don’t think there’s any established fantasy where a longsword boosts your defense, but giving the longsword ANY cool property apart from just base damage seems pretty cool to me. 😀

If you think about it, some of these traits are basically the same trait going in different directions. Brutal does bonus damage when you attack, Fast does that same damage when you are attacked. But tactically they are not the same: one is about focusing down one enemy, the other is about doing damage to multiple enemies attacking you in melee. It’s also important to remember that choice of weapon is mostly for the Martial classes. Spellcasters can use weapons! But it’s probably not their main thing.

And the numbers with each weapon will really change, I think. It's a very powerful way to make sure each weapon "competes" with all the other weapons. 

Will these differences prove significant enough to warrant breaking them all out as different traits? We don’t know! That’s what testing’s for! 😀

But there’s more! Apart from Traits weapons also have a Type: Light, Medium, and Heavy. And these have mechanical effects as well.

Types

The only thing that differentiates one weapon Type from another is how they affect the Overwhelmed condition.

It’s been a while since we talked about this, but Overwhelmed is a condition you suffer in combat if there are three or more enemies adjacent to you. If so, they all get a Boon Die on weapons attacks against you! That is super bad! It is devoutly to be avoided. Well, what type of weapon you’re wielding can affect this.

If you’re only wielding Light weapons you are harder to overwhelm. It takes four adjacent enemies to overwhelm you.

If you’re wielding a Heavy weapon you are EASIER to overwhelm! Because your weapon is literally heavy, it’s harder to get it into position quickly to defend yourself, so you are overwhelmed if there are only two enemies adjacent to you.

So far this seems to be working. I was a little concerned that remembering this would be an issue? But what seems to happen is; a second enemy gets adjacent to you and so you and the Director start thinking “Uh oh, Overwhelmed is coming…,” and that causes at least one player at the table to call it out and now you and the Director remember the weapon you’re using and how it affect this.

But who knows? Maybe remembering which characters have which weapons and how they affect the Overwhelmed condition is too much to remember in the heat of battle? That won’t surprise us. Just gotta test it more and see!

Dual Wielding

Currently, we think if you are wielding two weapons you just get all those traits. But we limit how many weapons can be dual wielded so things don’t get crazy. But it’s fun when things get crazy, so I’m sure there will be Titles or whatever that let some characters wield a Heavy weapon in each hand!

The Weapons

This is the actual list of weapons we’re using right now in testing. This is from the actual “Gear” doc where we’re doing this work.

The basic rule is: axes tend to be brutal, swords tend to be guarding, and maces and hammers tend to have bludgeoning.

Some of these choices may seem weird to you? Well they probably seem weird to us too, but it’s a work in progress. Like, shortbows being Fast and Longbows being Bludgeoning? And Bludgeoning 2?? Well it's easy for us to imagine Legolas’ bow as a shortbow and he’s shooting orcs as they rush toward him, *plinking* them before they can even get an attack in. Similarly, the idea that a Longbow is actually good for something apart from “range so extreme it almost never comes up” seems like a good idea. Maybe a longbow only needs to be Bludgeoning 1? We’ll see. But gosh it’s fun to hit someone with an arrow from a longbow and have them go flying backwards.

That’s it folks, that’s the Weapons post! I’m sure there are other games with weapons that work like this, but for us decoupling your choice of weapon from how much damage you do, and instead making it about how you fight, is a Big Deal.

I hope it works! 😀