Weapon Bases ?

[Koars Light]

Looking through the gswiki and the damage factor charts for weapon bases I don’t understand why from a mechanical perspective certain bases are clearly inferior to the others? Example being why would you use a longsword over a falchion or over a broadsword or best of all a handaxe base? Going by those metrics why not just use a morningstar which is clearly superior to almost all the one-handed weapons?

I’ve been trying to figure it out over the past month and from what I can tell the bases are just plain unbalanced. Anyone have a different view?

[kutter]

First thought would be RP, second thought is speed.

For things like OHE and OHB, it is fairly straight forward which ones are mechanically superior. For THW and Poles it becomes a little less clear since speed/encumbrance come into play, ie. if you do 75% the damage but hit 50% more often, which is the better choice, despite the apparent mechanical disadvantages for my THW I like bastard swords and katanas, just because of how fast they are, that and I like the RP of each. For my pole swinging alts, I like naginatas, just because of how fast they are, with the obvious exception of my sung lance.

Oh, and I love the thought of a smaller race swinging a big weapon, not sure why but a gnome with a big ole maul just tickles me.

[Taernath]

Some of it is because of AvDs, round times, or damage types, though the latter is less an issue now than it used to be.

Ultimately though not everything needs to be balanced and you can do pretty well with almost any weapon.

[Zarston]

You are right, the bases are plain unbalanced. They have been forever, and it doesn't look like Simu is planning to adjust them, so just figure out what works the best for you and run with it. Because this is a known fact, the best bases mechanically are the only ones worth any appreciable amount of silver.

[cwolff]

Looking through the gswiki and the damage factor charts for weapon bases I don’t understand why from a mechanical perspective certain bases are clearly inferior to the others? Example being why would you use a longsword over a falchion or over a broadsword or best of all a handaxe base? Going by those metrics why not just use a morningstar which is clearly superior to almost all the one-handed weapons?

I’ve been trying to figure it out over the past month and from what I can tell the bases are just plain unbalanced. Anyone have a different view?

IMO it the way the game evolved and hasn't caught up to be more realistic. I'd love to see them work out a method that evens out the weapon bases because outside of RP there are clear winners among the weapons. The claid is a great example of the issue. Why in world would that have so much critical damage weighting compared to a comparable blunt instrument. If anything they should be gifted with damage weighting.

Instead of changing the whole system they should tier the costs of adding weighting to weapons so that a quarterstaff is quite cheap to improve while a claid would be most expensive. At least if they did that one could customize their RP choice and still have an effective weapon without breaking the bank.

[Koars Light]

I feel like they’re missing out on a large part of the game by exclusively limiting the viable weapons to 5 or 6 select weapon bases which everyone seems to build their projects on.

I had an idea though for some weapon types being easier or more difficult in bypassing the EBP system. For example, a morningstar would be much easier to block than a longsword or vice versa a longsword would give you a bonus to parry than a morningstar.

[Ososis]

Morningstar can’t hurl, can’t do a number of warrior tricks, blunts have no damage type CMAN, and most importantly Vishra sucks and has sucked up almost every blunt worth having because she sucks.

[Ardwen]

in a perfect world you'd have a chance to disarm with a star instead of parrying with it, I think when I did the research years ago that a total of 8 bases across all the weapon types were worth actually using, it was pretty depressing really. The good news is there are now high end weapons in basically all the weapon types, long ago if you wanted a non edged high end weapon you basically had to pick claid. other then a few one of special weapons.

[Koars Light]

in a perfect world you'd have a chance to disarm with a star instead of parrying with it, I think when I did the research years ago that a total of 8 bases across all the weapon types were worth actually using, it was pretty depressing really. The good news is there are now high end weapons in basically all the weapon types, long ago if you wanted a non edged high end weapon you basically had to pick claid. other then a few one of special weapons.

Ardwen, I would be very grateful if you can give me a link or post to your research.

[Ardwen]

Do not think I ever posted it, pen and paper days of the early GS, essentially nothing has changed with the bases beyond forging being added however.

its a fairly simple concept though.

assign a point value to each stat that effects combat.
speed, damage etc etc.

give each weapon a score in each category, adding in bonus spot if a weapon can do something special.

pick a total value that you think makes a weapon worth using.

in the end you will essentially throw away 75 percent or so of possible weapons.