To go with my two handed bludgeon specialization idea, the spear specialization! This would be a two handed weapon, or even a 1-handed weapon with a variety of shield abilities thrown in if they wanted to try and pick up on the 300 craze. Whilst axelord is a specialization composed mainly of swinging, speararm/phalanx/whatever they would call it would be composed mainly of jabs, which would instantly make it popular whether it was 1 or 2 handed because most knights like to work with jabs as it's easier to organize. The wounds would be a lot like pureblade, except instead of amputating the limbs and beheading, you would have things like pinleg, impale, heartpierce, etc.

I like the idea of this going with shields as a one-handed weapon. Maybe a one-hander, but you can't wield two?

Always wanted to encourage warriors to use shields. I like this idea a great deal. Can I say that a few more times?

Longspear FTW.

Problem with giving it pinleg is...what's the good of it when you don't have another weapon to use? There could be a use I'm missing, but I can't see it.

I like a puncture-pin focus. Sounds nice.

Since the aslaran of the Grey Moors use spears, I tried to propose this as one that aslaran would get a racial bonus for, back in my day.

Well, I still very much support this idea, but...

http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?showtopic=4589

And

http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?showtopic=10148

No offence.

Heh. I'm sure Roark is sick of warriors by now.

Roark and I have talked about polearm specialization since warriors were first designed. I've also considered the idea of a sword/shield combo specialization for some time.

The real problem with warrior specializations (besides balancing them) is coming up with a set of skills (i.e., physical wounds) different enough from the other specializations to warrant coding a new skillset.

Certainly, new weapon specializations are still on the table. It just isn't a priority right now. However, we also haven't seen a design presentation with a list of ~20 skills that would make us sit up and take notice.

Are you asking for a challengeeeeee!?

20 skills eh... hmm.

COPY AND PASTE FOR EASY SKILL MAKING:


SPECIALIZATION:

low arm wound:
low leg wound:
low head wound:
low chest wound:
low gut wound:

Parry Skill:

medium arm wound:
medium leg wound:
medium head wound:
medium chest wound:
medium gut wound:

Flavour Skill:

heavy arm wound:
heavy leg wound:
heavy head wound:
heavy chest wound:
heavy gut wound:


critical arm wound:
critical leg wound:
critical head wound:
critical chest wound:
critical gut wound:



Enjoy the template!

Skewer face! Like a bloody mask, a severed face is here, removed from the head it gave character to.

I think something that should be addressed is if it's one handed or two handed.

On the one hand (pun?), you see Greek hoplites and medieval canigets fighting with lance or spear in one hand and shield in the other.

On the other hand, you see German Landsknechts and Swiss mercenaries fighting two handed with the much more massive pike and halberd.

One hand and shield would be tricky because the skillset would need wounds for both a blunt and sharp objects then. Perhaps limit shield damaging abilities to broken nose/jaw/limbs, and allow some slicing abilities with the edge of the shield that are shared by the spear, and then the strongest wounds would be spear only, and they could have a version of shieldstun that does damage and wounding with a shorter stun time so that it becomes a might less useless. Repeatedly doing that to someone you have skewered would be amusing at least

But really, two handed would be so much easier to balance and design.

But then we couldn't be like spartans...

I was thinking both cutting and blunt for spear and shield, because that's really dynamic. Um yeah, why aren't you all making skillsets. Chop chop.

The trans skill should involve taking off your shield and helm to throw the spear at a target several (straight) rooms away.

With the only missing chance being a long graze on the cheek, right?

I've had an idea for the 2h/1h problem. How about it's one weapon, but counts with arm balance, and some of the more powerful skills that would use both hands in real life use full balance. The way I see it is that the system could perhaps treat it as two separate weapons for the most part, with it being just a single item in the inventory. You could use the sharp end for doing sharp things with one hand, and the other end for doing blunt things with the blunt end... Then again, it would be very cool if we could have polearms with a sharp bit at each end, don't know how hard it would be to code both systems in and have the game work out which type of weapon you're carrying... I'm rambling.

Anyway, I'm just gonna throw some ideas out here that might work with the system I just described, or with something else. I don't now enough about how Warriors work to organise a real skillset.

LeapImpale: Leap onto your opponent's chest, and plunge your spear into their heart. It could probably be an instakill, and could knock the attacker prone, although I don't know if that would be balanced.

SpearCast: You can throw your spear at a line-of-sight target. You then have to make it there alive in order to pull your spear out of them, if they haven't done it already. This probably wouldn't be used much due to the risks involved, but hey, it's nice flavour.

Pin: Similar to impale, basically.

WhirlParry: Spin your weapon around in front of you, creating a few-second shield in which you can't do much, possibly heal up a little. It would have a long balance time to balance it out. It doesn't give invulnerability, but it does greeeeatly decrease the chance of an attack getting through. If something does make it past the whirlparry, the whirlparry stops. (Think of someone sticking a stick through the gaps as you spin your stick around in front of you)

Vault: There is a set-up command, and then a do-it command, but in the end it does what Roll does.

Ooooooo! I get it!