Weapons
While there are 18 skills in the Weapon Skillset, only 13 are associated with specific kinds of weaponry. Each skill can be trained by hundreds of different weapons. Most information regarding any given weapon is found by use of appraisal, but hopefully the following will help make things clearer. Below you will find information regarding the most basic of weapon properties: Weapon Class, Damage Type, Weight, Force of Impact, Balance, and Suitedness/Power.
Weapon Classes and Skills
The class to which a weapon belongs determines everything about the weapon, from the basic template of damage distribution to the weight of the weapon. Weapon skills sometimes encompass more than one weapon class due to the merging of some weapon skills. (For example, light and medium edged weapons are now covered by a single skill called "small edged.") You can see what class a weapon belongs to, and what skill it trains by appraising the weapon. Below is a quick rundown of these most basic of weapon properties along with links to a crafted prototype of each class.
Melee Weaponry
Edged Weapons
- Edged Weapon Skills: Small Edged skill, Large Edged skill, and Twohanded Edged skill
- Within each of these three bladed weapon classes there are two possible styles, dependent upon their damage profile – thrusting blades and cutting blades. Thrusting blades favor puncture damage and are better suited for jabbing, thrusting, and lunging. Cutting blades favor slice damage and are better suited for feinting, slicing, and chopping.
| Weapon Class | Example Slicer | Example Jabber | Typical weight | Crafted via |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - Light Edged | Katar | Stiletto | 10-15 stones | Carving and Weaponsmithing |
| 2 - Medium Edged | Scimitar | Thrusting Blade | 20-35 stones | Carving and Weaponsmithing |
| 3 - Heavy Edged | Broadsword | Cinqueda | 25-50 stones | Weaponsmithing |
| 4 - Two-handed Edged | Claymore | None | 40-100+ stones | Weaponsmithing |
Blunt Weapons
- Blunt Weapons Skills: Small Blunt skill, Large Blunt skill, and Twohanded Blunt skill
- Blunt weapons are used to jab, bash, sweep and chop, favoring impact damage over the other two damage types. As a result, due to armor and defenses, certain creatures can take more damage from blunt than edged weapons, or vice versa. It is good to train a variety of weapons for this purpose.
| Weapon Class | Example | Typical weight | Crafted via |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - Light Blunt | Club | 15-30 stones | Carving and Weaponsmithing |
| 2 - Medium Blunt | Mace | 20-45 stones | Carving and Weaponsmithing |
| 3 - Heavy Blunt | Greathammer | 35-60 stones | Carving and Weaponsmithing |
| 4 - Two-handed Blunt | Akabo | 50-100+ stones | Carving and Weaponsmithing |
Pole Weapons
- Pole Weapon Skills: Staves skill and Polearms skill
- Staves include staffs of varying lengths (including nightsticks and quarterstaffs), while polearms include bladed weapons like pikes and halberds. These weapons are often too long to fit in weapon containers or packs and often require a weapon strap of some sort to be carried. Note also that the edged/blunt distinction does play a role in which attacks are most effective with each kind of weapon. It should be noted that some polearms appraise as heavy thrown (as in the case of the Javelin).
| Weapon Class | Example #1 | Example #2 | Typical weight | Crafted via |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - Staves | Nightstick | Quarterstaff | 40-60 stones | Shaping and Weaponsmithing |
| 2 - Polearms | Halberd | Spear | 35-100+ stones | Weaponsmithing |
Missile Weaponry
Aimable Weapons
- Aimable Weapon Skills: Bow skill, Crossbow skill, and Slings skill
- The bow skill includes short bows, long bows, and composite bows. The crossbow skill includes light and heavy crossbows. There are also regular slings and staff slings, though slings are no longer very common. Each of these weapons use their own ammunition: bows use arrows, crossbows use bolts, and slings use projectiles such as rocks or shards. (Stonebows are a special type of light crossbow that fire stones instead of bolts.) Bows and crossbows are usually shoulder-worn weapons, though some may fit into large containers such as backpacks.
| Weapon Class | Typical Loading RT | Most Important Stat | Crafted via |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - Short bows | 1-2 | Agility | Shaping |
| 2 - Long bows | 3-5 | Agility | Shaping |
| 3 – Composite bows | 6-9 | Strength | Shaping |
| 4 – Light Crossbows | 7-10 | Agility | Tinkering |
| 5 – Heavy Crossbows / Arbalests / Stonebows | 10-18 | Strength | Tinkering |
Thrown Weapons
- Thrown Weapon Skills: Light Thrown skill and Heavy Thrown skill
- Each skill includes both edged and blunt varieties that can be thrown, lobbed, or hurled. Weapons that inflict puncture or slice damage will often lodge when used with the basic Throw command, while pure-impact weapons will not. Anything used with the Lob command will never lodge in the enemy, while anything thrown with the Hurl command may lodge, whether bladed or not. Anything lodged in a creature can be retrieved upon death via looting. To retrieve a lodged weapon from a living creature requires skill in brawling.
| Weapon Class | Example Blunt | Example Edged | Typical Weight | Crafted via |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – Light Thrown | Bola | Throwing Dagger | 10-30 stones | Weaponsmithing |
| 2 – Heavy Thrown | Throwing Hammer | Javelin | 20-45 stones | Weaponsmithing |
Mastery Skills
Melee Mastery skill and Missile Mastery skill work in conjunction with the standard weapon skill to improve one's use with the general class of melee or missile weaponry. This aids greatly in backtraining – the training of lower skilled weapons – so that one might not have to hunt too far below their maximum in order to effectively learn.
The Offhand Weapon skill governs your ability to attack with a weapon in the left hand; it is weighted about 30%. This skill can be trained by wielding a weapon in your left hand and adding the word LEFT to your attack commands (for example, SLICE LEFT, or THROW LEFT).
Weapon-tertiary guilds (Traders, Necromancers, Moon Mages, Empaths, and Commoners) are limited to offhand use of light or medium weapons. Weapon-secondary guilds (Paladins, Rangers, Thieves, Clerics, Warrior Mages, and Bards) can also use medium weapons in the left hand. Weapon-primary guilds (Barbarians) can use light, medium, or heavy weapons in the offhand.
Weapon Stats
Damage
All weapons can inflict one or more types of physical damage: puncture, slice, and impact. While all attacks will utilize all of these elements to determine the overall damage done in any given attack, some attack commands are better suited for particular damage types. For example, a jab is weighted to utilize puncture damage more heavily than slice or impact. On the other hand, a weapon high in slice and impact will do more damage with a chop than with a bash, and a weapon high in impact damage will be better utilized to bash than to thrust.
Please see Appraisal:Weapons for a listing of the various values associated with these three damage types.
Balance, Suitedness, and Force of Impact
A weapon's determines likelihood of stunning, unbalancing, and knocking back.
Balance determines how well a weapon takes advantage of your agility when attacking and parrying. A well-balanced weapon is also less fatiguing to use. With bows and crossbows, balance determines damage done to a great extent, as one cannot parry with a bow or crossbow. High agility is required to make the most of weapon balance.
Suitedness or power determines how well a weapon takes advantage of your strength when attacking. High strength is required to make the most of weapon power.
Weight
The weight of a weapon is generally relative to its weapon class. Light is lighter than Medium, which is lighter than Heavy, which is lighter than Two-handed, for instance. The barrier between classes varies greatly, however. It is entirely possible to have a two-handed weapon that is lighter than a heavy weapon, depending on material and weight. Some weapons like bastard swords can be swapped to train more than one skill.
Generally speaking, the primary impact of weight is upon the roundtime associated with each attack. Please see Roundtime for more detail. Strength and agility are used to determine roundtime of an attack, while Stamina determines one's fatigue.
As a general reference: light edged/light blunt are usually 10-20 stones, heavy edged/heavy blunt from 30-45, and two-handed edged/two-handed blunt from 40-80, with greatswords and the like can tipping the scales at 100+ in some cases.
Often the lower weight weapons are preferred for novice adventurers, while those with high strength and stamina usually prefer heavier weapons that hit harder with each strike.
Crafted Weaponry
Crafted weapons are generally superior to store-bought weaponry. Steel weapons are often crafted from a mixture of High Carbon Steel ('HCS' - see Steel) and oravir to create light weight, high quality weaponry for the masses, while individuals with greater strength and stamina may prefer kertig or haralun weaponry that is heavier and more powerful. Glaes is also common for rare, high-quality weaponry, but it is also much lighter than kertig or haralun and thus serves a slightly different purpose due to the difference in the final weight of the weapon.
That said, store-bought weaponry, especially that sold by the updated shops in Crossing and the Zoluren clans, is perfectly serviceable. In order to be superior to store-bought goods, crafted goods must usually be masterfully-crafted, and of appropriate materials (ideally MCS or superior).
Melee weapons can be crafted via Weaponsmithing or Carving, while bows are crafted via Shaping and crossbows via Tinkering. It is important to note that it is common for multiple crafted weapons to utilize the same template. For instance, if you look at the Foil (Crafted) page, you'll see a note that the pasabas, rapier, and thrusting blade all utilize the same template as the foil itself, making each of these four weapons identical in final stats and performance.