No hard limits from str requirements and the like.

[Ingolifs]

I'm proposing that any player should be able to use any item regardless of strength or power draw or riding requirements. You should be able to use a str 13 morningstar even if you strength is only 8.

But, there should be a penalty to using items if you don't have the correct requirements, and the scale of the penalty is dependant on the difference between your stat and the required stat.

Melee weapons:
Being below the required stat gives a heavy penalty to weapon speed and damage. Also, parry speed will be affected.

Ranged weapons:
Not having the minimum power throw or draw will result in you not being able to throw the weapon properly, or draw the bow fully. Severe penalties are given to weapon flight speed, damage and accuracy.

Shields:
Not having the minimum strength means the shield is slow to move, and your effective shield size is reduced.

Armour:
Not having the minimum strength gives a large penalty to movement and agility, and also affects weapon speed somewhat.

Horses:
Not having the minimum riding skill means the horse will be less responsive. The horse will move around on its own more, and will respond sporadically to commands to turn or accelerate/decelerate. If the skill difference is really bad, the horse will basically ignore you completely, and just move around as if it were riderless. I don't know how easy it would be to implement, but it would also be good if the horse bucked you off or something.

I think we could even extend the idea to parties. If you have more troops/prisoners than your leadership/prisoner management skill will allow for, you find the extra troops/prisoners desert at a constant rate until you're reduced to the number you can handle.

 

[The Pope]

If this is done, I would like to see some requirements bumped up.

 

[calandale]

I agree with these in principle (indeed they exist in my attempts at table-top RPGs), but there are implementation annoyances. Right now, the system just has to check if you can equip the item at all - which works the same for the PC as for NPCs. Clearly, it would be easy to make it so that the PC doesn't have this restriction, but there would be added calculations on every blow. I'd assume that these can be done without any noticible performance penalty, but it would probably involve a few days work to rehash all of the equations, and quite some time to balance them. Is this the best use for the devs time?

 

[Sturmspawn]

...though it's impolite to point, we presently have some similarities to this suggestion in the ways that bows and powerdraw relate. Having the appropriate PD level for the bow does not ensure the characters' optimal use of the weapon at all. Details of this are hashed out on other threads, but the ultimate effect [on archery] is something like what you suggest here. You can arm the weapon, but you may suffer for it.

Fo rother weapons with less qualified calculations...
It would also be somewhat more important then to ensure that weapons performance specs are much more 'codified' than they are today - I will cite only one example:

Balanced WarHammer - (Str10-2h) 13.0/30b/68/110
    vs.
Balanced SledgeHammer -(Str12-2h) 13.0/27b/65/110

There are more of these, many a consequence of the initial definition and interaction of modifiers. Axes have lots of anomalies, and Armour items are even weirder. The long and short is that for certain weapon types you can find equivalent if not superior weapons at lower requirements [and often lower prices] anyway. Much work needs to be done on this, but probably not a top priority. So applying a penalty for 'inexperience' - although a nice idea - would, given these kinds of weapons specs, be more of a chaotic addenda at the moment.

for more details, see http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,20514.msg454161.html#msg454161

 

[bryce777]

I think a lot of new players will get confused by this.