Weapons of Meridian

This document explains how weapons work in Dark Auspices. The specifics will probably change in future releases, but the general concept should remain the same.

Motivation for changing Weapons

Weapons were changed due to the lack of variety of weapons that people used. This system encourages a wider variety of weapons to be used. In future iterations, monsters may become more resistant to certain types of weapon damage.

The general information:

Weapons are separated into three types. Bludgeoning weapons are all non-bladed weapons, like hammer. Thrusting weapons refer to various types of swords. Slashing weapons are the heavier weapons like Axe and Scimitar. The general characteristics of the weapons are described in this table:

Type To-Hit Modifier Range of Damage Disarm Bonus Spell "Penalty" Reach of Weapon
Bludgeon Mid Mid Low High Low
Thrust High Low High Mid High
Slash Low High Mid Low Mid

To-Hit modifier is the bonus a wielder has with the weapon. This helps compensate for low skill in a weapon, or helps skilled players hit harder monsters.

Range of Damage indicates the general amount of damage a weapon will do.

Disarm Bonus indicates the bonus a player with the disarm skill receives to his or her disarm attempts. A higher bonus gives a better chance for the skill to work and a better chance to make the opponent drop his or her weapon. Note that this does not affect people without the disarm skill.

Spell "Penalty" refers to the amount a weapon interferes with spellcasting. A high value in this category is good, meaning that it will interfere with spellcasting less. With a few exceptions, wielding a weapon will decrease a player's spellcasting ability.

Reach of Weapon is how far the weapon can reach. This needs to be tweaked a bit due to the wierd way that Meridian calculates "distance".

Values

These are the hard numbers behind the weapon characteristics:

Value To-Hit Modifier Range of Damage Disarm Bonus Spell "Penalty" Reach of Weapon
Low 0 3-8 -5 -30 2
Mid 75 4-8 0 -10 2
High 175 4-9 20
 0 3

Ideally, these would be the only numbers we would have to tweak in order to balance weapons again.

Originally, the values for Reach were- Low: 3, Mid: 4, High: 5. This made the ranges for mid and high MUCH too long. These values will be tweaked in the future as the combat system is reworked.

Quality modifications

Weapons also come in different qualities. Higher quality weapons are generally better, except for the spell "penalty". Better quality weapons tend to lower spell power more, while low quality weapons don't hurt your casting ability as much.

Quality Hits (Durability) To-Hit Modifier Range of Damage Disarm Bonus Spell "Penalty" Reach of Weapon
Lower -50 0 -1 -5 +5 0
Normal 0 0 0 0 0 0
Higher +100 +50 +1 +5 -5 0
Nerudite +200 +5 +1 0 +5 0

Base number of hits: 250-300

Ideally, it would be nice to have lower quality weapons have a -1 to reach, but this would make the mace a weapon with a range of one. It sucks bad enough already....

Normal quality is just that, "normal". It's the baseline for the weapon type.

Note that nerudite can be considered a "quality" of weapon. This way, we can add new material types which give bonuses and penalties to these areas. Examples are magic hating materials that give large penalties to spell casting (and perhaps do extra damage vs. spellcasters), magic-aiding weapons (that give bonuses to spellpower, extra to-hit to compensate for low weapon skills, etc).

Which weapons are under which category?

Here's a breakdown of the weapons and which category they fall under.

Type | Quality Lower Normal Higher Nerudite
Bludgeon Mace Hammer Spiritual Hammer
Thrust Short Sword Long Sword Mystic Sword Nerudite Sword
Slash
Axe Scimitar

Other notes

Spiritual Hammer is a bit special, since it's summoned.  It cannot be damaged, and it gives no penalty to spellcasting given it's magical nature.  It also has Shal'ille and Kraanan ("magic") attributes on it by default.  It cannot be swapped, shattered, or enchanted.  It also gives a slight bonus to-hit based on the power of the spell that summoned it.  It lasts for a limited duration and disappears after that duration is up.

Mystic swords have the Kraanan ("magic") attribute by default, and are not on the random magical weapon table.

Touch Attacks

Name Damage Type Base Damage To-Hit Bonus Range
Acid Touch ATCK_SPELL_ACID 4-8 10 2
Touch of Flame ATCK_SPELL_FIRE 4-9 25 2
Holy Touch ATCK_SPELL_HOLY 3-6 15 2
Icy Fingers ATCK_SPELL_COLD 5-8 60 2
Zap ATCK_SPELL_SHOCK 3-8 50 3

Touch attacks use the base damage above, picks a value between the two values, inclusive. The attack then does (50 + (Spell Power/2))% of that damage. Spell Power ranges from 0 to 100 and is determined when the spell is cast.

Note that Holy Touch does a bonus of -(Target's Karma)% in damage. So, a target with -100 Karma will suffer an extra 100% damage, while someone with a 50 Karma will take 50% less damage. It also does 50% more damage to Undead (including Necromancers).

Ranged Weapons

Weapon Hits (Durability) To-Hit Modifier Damage Range Disarm Bonus Spell "Penalty"
Longbow 200-250 100 0 100 -90 -20
Battle bow 200-250 0 2
 20 -90 -30
Practice bow 400-500 200 -3 30 -90 -10
Nerudite bow 100-150 0 2 20 -90 0

Arrows do 1-5 points of damage.
Nerudite Arrows do 2-5 points of damage, 3-7 points of damage 10% of the time (the arrowhead "shatters");
Silver Arrows do 2-5 points of damage, 5-10 points if the target is undead.

Miscellaneous Notes

Swords of the Hunt are high-quality thrusting weapons.

Riija swords are high-quality thrusting weapons but only require Short Sword Fighting as a skill.  They give a bonus to Riija spells (about +10, and only -10 to non-Riija spells instead of the normal -15). They are also MUCH more durable, having 600-650 hits instead of the normal amount. Reasonable for a quest item.

Gold swords are normal quality thrusting weapons, just like longswords, except they only do 2-5 points of damage normally, but do +7 extra points of damage in Arenas.