Revising the weapon skills

[Tannis]

I do see your point, you don't want this "double-whammie" effect. First it's difficult to get to the next level and even when you do, you don't get much and less and less as time goes on.

The reality of the situation is, that nobody is going to be getting over level 30 or so without some form of cheating or some extreme level of scumming. According to the ADOM system, to get to level 30, you'll need a total of 44,791,032 weapon skill points.

For low levels (the ones feasible to reach), the logarithmic and linear systems are very similar. I'll attach a picture of the two graphs along with the points I listed earlier for to-hit bonuses, all with +12 to hit at level 15.

In the ADOM Hall of Fame there are flags with chars using the wish spell to get every single weapon skill maxed, i.e. level 15. Without the level cap in JADE the char can continue to wish and wish without limit. We should be careful not to allow this form of scumming to be extremely advantageous.

This is an issue for another thread I guess, but I firmly believe wishes should be abolished. At the very least, unscummable: No possibility of wishes from pickpocketing or potions of exchange.

[Silfir]

What I'd love to see is a system where training in a certain weapon skill would also, to a certain extent, train other weapon skills. I mean, does it really make sense that your training in clubs and hammers has no effect whatsoever on your skill fighting with maces? At least some of the things you learn have got to be applicable for both weapon types!

[Dougy]

Based on the current list of weapon skill categories, I made a first attempt at making a matrix to allow for cross-training. Over time these values can be adjusted to allow for peoples' preferences. The values are percentages, probably most easily implemented by a probability of increasing the skill by that percentage.

For example: Fighting with 1H-swords trains daggers and knives by a factor of 20%.

                       1   2    3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18   sum
unarmed            1 100   2   10   8  10   8   3   2   3   2   8  10  10  10   2   5   2   7   202
daggers & knives   2   2 100    1   1   1   1  20  15  10   5   5   2   1   3   2   1   2   7   179
blunt (1H)         3  10   1  100  25  10   2   2   1   2   1   3   2   5   2   1   3   1   5   176
blunt (2H)         4   8   1   25 100   5  10   1   2   1   2   1   2  10   2   1   2   1   2   176
ball & chain (1H)  5  10   1   10   5 100  25   2   1   3   2   3   1   2   5   1   1   1   2   175
ball & chain (2H)  6   8   1    2  10  25 100   1   3   1   3   1   2   5   5   1   1   1   2   172
swords (1H)        7   3  20    2   1   2   1 100  25  10   5   3   1   1   3   1   1   1   2   182
swords (2H)        8   2  15    1   2   1   3  25 100   5  10   2   1   3   3   1   1   1   2   178
axes (1H)          9   3  10    2   1   3   1  10   5 100  25   2   1   3   3   2   1   2   2   176
axes (2H)         10   2   5    1   2   2   3   5  10  25 100   2   3   3   3   2   1   2   2   173
polearms (1H)     11   8   5    3   1   3   1   3   2   2   2 100  25   4   2   3   1   3   5   173
polearms (2H)     12  10   2    2   2   1   2   1   1   1   3  25 100  15   2   2   1   2   2   174
staves (2H)       13  10   1    5  10   2   5   1   3   3   3   4  15 100   2   2   1   2   2   171
whips             14  10   3    2   2   5   5   3   3   3   3   2   2   2 100   2   2   2   2   153
bows              15   2   2    1   1   1   1   1   1   2   2   3   2   2   2 100  15  25  15   178
slings            16   5   1    3   2   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   1   2  15 100  13  25   175
crossbows         17   2   2    1   1   1   1   1   1   2   2   3   2   2   2  25  13 100  10   171
thrown weapons    18   7   7    5   2   2   2   2   2   2   2   5   2   2   2  15  25  10 100   194

- The matrix is symmetric, so fighting unarmed trains 1H-axes as much as fighting with 1H-axes trains unarmed. This can be changed if you feel it's unrealistic.
- I attempted to make the sum roughly constant, except for unarmed fighting, whips and thrown weapons, which are special in my opinion.
- I recommend that a secondary weapon skill is trained with the probability given in the matrix only if the skill level is within -30% to 0% of the primary weapon skill used. In this way, the PC will have to maintain his skill in 1H-axes in order to achieve mastery, even if he uses 2H axes all the time. This would require that the total skill points in every category be recorded.
- It shouldn't be too difficult to edit these values to allow for some randomness in each PC, the PC's learning value, skills, luck, etc..
- Everything has a possibility of training everything else. I don't see this as a problem of realism because the PC could learn the whereabouts of a weak spot on a being's body and how to exploit it.