Enough with the swords and rings

[salty]

Enchanted undergarments would make more sense than enchanted jewelry. Rings and amulets could get caught on something and cause serious injury.

 

On the other hand, I wanna look purdy.

[LordCrash]

On a side note, I'm hoping the game will take into account weapon reach, thus making them more attractive for some characters.

Exaclty, if I jump you with a pike that's long twice your sword you should be quite ad a disadvantage!

The range of spears is the real disadvantage in an head-to-head encounter because it makes you inflexible and slow.

[DocDoomII]

Enchanted undergarments would make more sense than enchanted jewelry. Rings and amulets could get caught on something and cause serious injury.

 

On the other hand, I wanna look purdy.

But you could wear a ring 24/h 7/w. Wearing a loincloth that long of a time though...

[DocDoomII]

On a side note, I'm hoping the game will take into account weapon reach, thus making them more attractive for some characters.

Exaclty, if I jump you with a pike that's long twice your sword you should be quite ad a disadvantage!

The range of spears is the real disadvantage in an head-to-head encounter because it makes you inflexible and slow.

Years of oriental martial arts movies all for nothing.

Red Cliff, Hero, <no other movie comes to mind cuz I'm sleepy>! I curse your inaccuracy!

[LordCrash]

On a side note, I'm hoping the game will take into account weapon reach, thus making them more attractive for some characters.

Exaclty, if I jump you with a pike that's long twice your sword you should be quite ad a disadvantage!

The range of spears is the real disadvantage in an head-to-head encounter because it makes you inflexible and slow.

Years of oriental martial arts movies all for nothing.

Red Cliff, Hero, <no other movie comes to mind cuz I'm sleepy>! I curse your inaccuracy!

Usually, martial arts fighters don't fight in heavy armor and shield, that's an immense difference. For a monk class fighting with a spear "martial arts style" could be reasonable but certainly not for warriors in full plate (unless they fight in narrov formation).......

[Gorth]

Wasn't that amongst the tropes that PS:T deliberately tried to avoid?

 

There were no swords and rings for the player character. Daggers, clubs, maces, hammers (and a torn off arm). Then you could wear ear rings (those characters that had ears) and tattoos (those who had skin). I think your could also wear a bracelet or two on your wrists, but that was about it. Good times.

 

In my current game of IWD2, I've got exactly one character wielding a sword (and shield). The rest is using spears, slings, bows, daggers, flails and lastly a dual axe wielding barbarian (just for coolness sake).

 

I don't mind there being swords, but I hope the alternatives are equally attractive without just being a sword in a different shape.

[NerdBoner]

hey man...you non-swordists can have whatever the hell you want.

 

Come launch day my gentleman duelist better have a wide array of single handed swords at his disposal or i'll be fuming.

[IchigoRXC]

Tridents, Kamas, rapiers, maybe nets and bola's as skills/backup weapons. I do want to dual wield Kamas though haha

[septembervirgin]

Swords with rings. Ringing swords ("hullo, is that you? can you hear me now?"). Ring-swords. A ring of swords (swords splayed points outward on a hoop connected to a pole). A dastardly sword smuggling ring. The Ring of Swords. The Ring of Swards. The Swearing Sword Ring (a negligibly cursed version of the Ring of Swords). A swing of roads. A winged road. A toad with ring swords on its paws. A mingling of words.

 

I really see nothing wrong with swords and rings.

Edited October 4, 2012 by septembervirgin

[Ninjamestari]

 

Usually, martial arts fighters don't fight in heavy armor and shield, that's an immense difference. For a monk class fighting with a spear "martial arts style" could be reasonable but certainly not for warriors in full plate (unless they fight in narrov formation).......

 

No foot soldier has ever worn full plate due to it's weight. A foot soldier in full plate wouldn't even be able to get to the battlefield, let alone fight if he actually managed to get there. Full plate was exclusively worn by mounted Knights. In fact, I'd like to see huge fatigue penalties for wearing full plate, encouraging people to actually use those chain shirts and leather armor. It's not a game breaker, but I think it would be interesting to have to deal with the actual problems that wearing full plate causes.

[Jellarinn]

The relative immobility of people in plate armor is generally highly exaggerated, from what I've been lead to believe, at least. Knights in plate were generally expexted to be able to do cartwheels, leap onto horseback, etc while in armor. I would think that if armor made you that immobile when knocked off a horse, it would have been considered a liability and never be used.

 

I do hope that all weapons are given fairly equal representation in game, though like others don't think that would be much of an issue considering that Black Isle made it a point to have few swords in PST because of the overrepresentation of swords in many games. That said if I play fighters, I myself am generally a sword (or sometimes spear) and shield type guy.

 

Also while magic jewelry has a long history in fantasy and myth, I can't help but feel a little odd when my characters go into battle decked out in rings, necklaces and other assorted jewelry.

[Lady Evenstar]

Swords and rings are fine with me. As for other weapons, I'm mostly concerned that they only include weapon skills that they're able adequately to support. In IWD you could choose club as a weapon skill during character creation. Here is the selection available in-game: http://mikesrpgcenter.com/icewind/weapons/clubs.html

Edited October 5, 2012 by Lady Evenstar

[Zeful]

No foot soldier has ever worn full plate due to it's weight. A foot soldier in full plate wouldn't even be able to get to the battlefield, let alone fight if he actually managed to get there. Full plate was exclusively worn by mounted Knights. In fact, I'd like to see huge fatigue penalties for wearing full plate, encouraging people to actually use those chain shirts and leather armor. It's not a game breaker, but I think it would be interesting to have to deal with the actual problems that wearing full plate causes.

And you of course have a wide variety of sources to back all that up? Just to point this out, the basic design requirements for full-plate would make it easier to wear and move in pound for pound than a 60 pound day-pack worn by the (US) military. Because it's harnessed all over your body, spreading the weight out over a huge space. wearing 60 pound of fullplate, strapped to your body in a properly fitted harness should actually encumber you less than a 10 pound backpack, because of where all the weight sits. Yeah, you'll be a little slower because you suddenly gained 60 pounds of dead weight, but it wouldn't even begin to impair your maneuverability or combat capacity like you suggest.

 

You're talking tournament jousting armor, in which rare cases of competitors needed to be lowered by a winch onto their horse because the armor had as little manueverabilty as possible in the attempt to keep the competitor in the horse, so the joint at the waist was welded shut, making it impossible to get on the horse without a winch, not because it was heavy. Because come on, plate armor wouldn't have been invented or used if it wasn't expected to work, and plate armor still saw use in WW1 for crying out loud.

[Archmage Silver]

I'm a sword and shield kind of player myself usually. The thing about spears though is that they were used in conjunction with a shield for ages. Games always tend to treat them as two-handed weapons only though. I think it is because weapons in most games only fall into two categories of either one- or two-handed. I like to see spears treat as optionally using it either way. Perhaps one-handed with a shield you do less damage with it but you have the extra protection but then you could drop your shield and wield the spear with both hands for more powerful thrust. Same could be done with bastard swords also.

Good point about the spear/shield. Most of the time it seems games focus on the heavier long-spear I guess. Weren't spears used with shields typically of the shorter versions, aka javelin type spears? Come to think of it, slightly off-topic, it might be interesting to have javelins in the game as another ranged option with bows and slingshots. Throwing axes too. Don't know if that would start to be unwieldy or too much work, however.

Shields with spears was extremely common in actual history. This was mainly because spears could be made out of wood, and were thus more available to equip an army with, especially when the techniques of making swords were still far from perfect.

[Thulean]

I'm a sword and shield kind of player myself usually. The thing about spears though is that they were used in conjunction with a shield for ages. Games always tend to treat them as two-handed weapons only though. I think it is because weapons in most games only fall into two categories of either one- or two-handed. I like to see spears treat as optionally using it either way. Perhaps one-handed with a shield you do less damage with it but you have the extra protection but then you could drop your shield and wield the spear with both hands for more powerful thrust. Same could be done with bastard swords also.

Good point about the spear/shield. Most of the time it seems games focus on the heavier long-spear I guess. Weren't spears used with shields typically of the shorter versions, aka javelin type spears? Come to think of it, slightly off-topic, it might be interesting to have javelins in the game as another ranged option with bows and slingshots. Throwing axes too. Don't know if that would start to be unwieldy or too much work, however.

Shields with spears was extremely common in actual history. This was mainly because spears could be made out of wood, and were thus more available to equip an army with, especially when the techniques of making swords were still far from perfect.

 

Yes. I was looking at price comparisons before and in modern day US$ a sword could cost as much as $40,000 or more in middle ages England. A spear on the other hand maybe a couple grand or less.

 

Also spears were used as slashing weapons. Some people make it sound as if you can only poke people with them when really they were used as both. I know if I got throw into some kind of one on one fight as was given the choice spear/shield or sword/shield I'd take the spear. A sword is a status symbol. Of course some people carried small swords or large knives in addition to spears. A seax for example in AS England. If your spear got stuck in something or broke you would want back up. I think a axe was more likely back up though because it could be used to hack away at a shield.

 

At any rate though the point is not which is most effective between a spear and a sword but the fact that people did fight with a spear and shield so why not allow it instead if just having two-handed spears.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Thulean

[Jojobobo]

I thought that swords largely fell into disuse in medieval times due to not being able to cut through chainmail? As in though you could use a sword as a piercing weapon, axes often did a better job (a smaller blade so more PPSI, and often you have the spike on the other side of the blade too for even more PPSI) and maces offered concussion or the chance to break some ribs - slashing against chainmail or even platemail is pretty damn useless. Ideally I think this would be nicely represented in the game by a few people using magic swords that could get through armor, but with the vast majority of people using maces and axes as a standard weapon.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, people have already covered these points.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Jojobobo

[Dawn_]

Let's bring back Magical Tatoo too XD (PS:T T_T).

[Tigranes]

I like to use alternative weapons, but often I know that I won't be able to use some great weapons that way. E.g. I'm rolling a new party in Icewind Dale now and I know that by and large, sword users get the most interesting weapons. I'll still go with halberds or something and see how it goes, but I'm sure it's partly a circle - devs know most players like swords and that's part of their imagination of a 'cool fantasy warrior'.

[Umberlin]

i'm very curious as to what sort of garbage the OP has been playing until now that only has magic swords and rings...

Maybe "The Sword of the Rings" where the only weapons are swords. Made of rings.

 

I think what he's getting at is that there are quite a few Fantasy settings/stories of varying types where everything comes down to the power of either a special Sword or a special Ring. I could be wrong. It's not actually true in every single case, but, fantasy setting do have a habit of, "The one special object needed for X." Usually to defeat some dark lord or some such.

 

Personally I don't find that very often in games, though, I do see a few too many RPGs where the best weapons, statistically, are all swords. Luckily that's not actually every game either, but it is something to think about.