Qwertyman said:
^ its wood on wood, and as said- the force of the blow is mostly deflected.
a staff (well, a staff designed for combat) is pretty damned sturdy, its not going to break if you know what you are doing.
to expand on what is said above: the blocking (and overall combat) system is an abstracted version of real life. it would be impossible to fully simulate the massive complexities that go on during a fight, so its simplified down.
true, if you just put your staff in the way of an incoming greataxe strike, its going to take a hell of a lot of damage- but, if you were to deflect the blow away at the corect angle, with the correct technique, the axe strike is simply going to go off in a harmless direction, leaving the staff completely unharmed from the collision.
Just like you arent only going to use 4 directions to attack from in real life, you arent going to block every strike with the same technique in real life.
Looks like skills and/or weapon proficiencies could come into play then.
For example, a master swordsman would know how to deflect and counter an incoming blow without harming or losing his own weapon, whereas a recruit wouldn't have that same level of expertise and experience. Therefor it makes sense for a soldier who knows how to parry with his sword (ie, weapon proficiency 180 with One-Handed Weapons) to expose his blade to less harm than a soldier with little skill (ie, weapon proficiency 20 with One-Handed Weapons). The "Weapon Master" skill could also factor into this.
I agree that a "health and damage" system similar to the shield's would work well. During battle, weapons would take 'damage' (representing notches, fractures, bluntened edges, structural weaknesses, etc). As the weapon takes damage, it is less capable of inflicting damage in return, and loses effectiveness over time. Should the weapon's hitpoints reach zero, it will "downgrade" a rank (ie, become chipped, battered, bent, cracked, etc), and there should be a chance that it will break outright (in which case it's gone for good). Should the character reach the end of a battle without his weapon reaching zero hitpoints, then it is fully repaired (in the same way as a shield; it's assumed that the character has tended to his weapons after the battle, and fixed any damage sustained during the fight).
It'd also be great if unskilled troops could be disarmed by enemy strikes, should they attempt to parry overwhelming blows or duel more skilled opponents. For example, a swordsman could parry with another swordsman and not face much risk of being disarmed, but should he try to parry a strike from an enemy wielding a two-handed battle axe, then he puts his weapon in danger and risks having it knocked right out of his hands. Aside from upping the ante in the realism department, this would also introduce new strategies and deepen gameplay. For example, a fight between a swordsman and a maceman: instead of the standard 'hack, slash and block' techniques, it becomes a game of speed vs. power. No longer would lightly armed troops be able to thump it out with heavily-armed enemies, as they can now.
Sorry about the wall of text, but these are concepts that I believe would work really well within M&B, both enhancing gameplay and forcing the player to think about which weapons he or she wants to use.
