Discuss an alternative to one-hand weapons skill.

[Benny Moore]

Something has been bothering me for a while.  In Mount & Blade, you can be the fiercest warrior in the world with a bastard sword and a shield, and cut down a foeman with a single deadly blow.  But woe unto you if you lose your shield, for suddenly your sword arm grows weak as water, and your puny flailing daunts not your enemy.  He laughs at you as your pitiful swings glance off of his linen and wool.

It's a problem.  If you've got high one-hand weapons skill but low two-hand weapons skill (which is normal for a sword-and-shield fighter), you can dispatch enemies with one or two blows of your hand-and-a-half sword.  But if your shield is destroyed, the bastard starts using your two-hand skill.  If that's a lot lower than your one-hand skill, your damage is now actually less than it was before you lost your shield, which just doesn't make sense from a logical point of view.  If nothing else, you should be able to continue to use it one-handed without the shield.

The game's pretty much finished and this won't be changed even if people agree with me that it's a problem.  So this discussion is more or less for fun.  With that it mind, one of the more simple fixes I was thinking of was removing the one-hand skill and replacing it with the shield skill.  Fighting with a one-hand weapon and a shield would raise the shield skill.  Fighting with a one-hand weapon and no shield would raise the two-hand weapon skill (which would obviously need to be renamed to something else).  Does this make sense, or can someone think of a better solution?

[Riptokus]

I sometimes use a Scimitar. When I loose my shield, should that become Shield skill?

Just switch to two handed occasionally.

Look, a Hand and a Half sword swung around when you have a shield to balance the whole setup is quite different then one swung around with only your muscles and stance to balance it. It would be pretty common for such a transition to cause problems, especially when you never practice it with both hands or shieldless.

[Skorpion]

There's a solution to skill imbalance.

And that solution is practice and balancing skills out.

[sneakey pete]

There's a solution to skill imbalance.

And that solution is practice and balancing skills out.

I think benny is refering to, you know, the logic behind it, or lack thereof.

[DanAngleland]

If you look at it from a different point of view, it might not seem so absurd. The two-handed skill increases your proficiency at two-handed fighting, but that doesn't mean just strength, but overall effectiveness. So you may be able to swing your sword about vigorously, but if you have never practiced with two hands then you will be unused to the balance of the sword, and I would imagine you would need a different posture/stance to fight two handed. So it does make sense in a way, although I can see your point about there potentially being an unrealistically large handicap upon changing from 1 to 2 hands.

[astat]

no.
it's exactly that:

Look, a Hand and a Half sword swung around when you have a shield to balance the whole setup is quite different then one swung around with only your muscles and stance to balance it. It would be pretty common for such a transition to cause problems, especially when you never practice it with both hands or shieldless.

seriously, the difference is considerable. fighting styles are entirely different. (especially given the surely-huge-and-heavy shield the guy is using )


no good fighter will totally neglect training with just a sword when trying to master sword-and-shield combat - for above reason.

[Ringwraith #5]

Solution: Use a one-hander, not a bastard.

[Ambaryerno]

Actually, I'd like to see the "One-handed/Two-handed" skills replaced entirely.

Look at missile weapons. You don't just have a "ranged" skill. You have individual skills for bows, crossbows and throwing. Why? Because they're three fundamentally different weapons (arguably, throwing could be broken down even further, because a javelin, axe, rock and knife are ALSO three fundamentally different weapons and thrown in different ways. Just because you're good with a javelin doesn't mean you'll automatically throw an axe with equal skill).

Fighting with a typical one-handed arming sword is SIGNIFICANTLY different than fighting with an axe (which would be more closely related to a hammer or mace). Flails and other hinged weapons (though I can't remember if we still have those in Native off-hand) introduce an entirely DIFFERENT skill set.

Fighting two-handed with a longsword also differs significantly from the Danish Axe.

There should be separate skills depending on TYPE of weapon, not how many hands it uses.

Polearms could probably be left as an individual stat since there's not quite as significant a variation in their use.

[astat]

Solution: Use a one-hander, not a bastard.

lol he's right! 
he's probably using bastard because it's the longest one-handed weapon, or does the most dmg or anything

Polearms could probably be left as an individual stat since there's not quite as significant a variation in their use.

come on! wooden staff, lance, halberd?
but i like it when an initally rather naive thread can cause other people to come up with quite profound ideas.

[Ambaryerno]

astat,

Most polearm techniques are carried over from one to another. The quarter-staff, while adapted as such, wasn't so much a weapon in of itself but a training tool for the use of other polearms. Techniques you learned on staff would then be applied to spear, pike halberd, etc.

This is not the same as a sword vs an axe, both of which are very functionally different weapons.

[astat]

i agree on your described use of the quarter staff in training, in real life.. allright there's less difference than in the other categories, but it's still considerable. 

and i like the general idea, but that would be something for a Mount & Blade 2. a more flexible/organic system, where you have a ton of "skill levels", which wouldn't be visible on the character sheet in numbers of course.


example for a pickaxe

1) a general combat level
2) a general melee skill level
3) a skill level for one-handed weapons
4) a skill level for one-handed axes
5) a skill level for the specific pickaxe

so if you are using a one-handed arming sword, skill levels 1), 2) and 3) will be useful, while skill levels 4) and 5) won't. and both arming sword and pickaxe will improve the common skill levels 1) - 3), but also different skills on a more specific level.


i just prefer organic character development to number-juggling.

[sneakey pete]

seriously, the difference is considerable. fighting styles are entirely different. (especially given the surely-huge-and-heavy shield the guy is using )


no good fighter will totally neglect training with just a sword when trying to master sword-and-shield combat - for above reason.

Then at least give us an option to switch to a one handed grip with the bastard!

[Shadowarriorx]

Just pick up a shield if you are on the ground =)

[GaGrin]

Agree with most of the posts here, but especially with cross-applicable skills.

Someone who's a master of the sword, while they might not be strong with the axe, will at least know enough about general weapons use - the basics - to beat the shit out of someone who's never picked one up before.

I think I mentioned this in another thread a while back - but breaking the proficencies down and adding all the appropriate ones together to find the style skill strikes me as a better solution.  Maybe in M&B 2 eh?

I think I suggested:

Unmounted (foot?) combat; Mounted combat; One-handed; Two-handed; Polearms; Blades; Mass (Mass weapons include things heavy at one end like axes and maces - which are essentially the same as far as fighting style); & possibly Wrestling/Unarmed

[jebidiah ubershiet]

just carry extra shields