Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions A weapon idea which is to my knolege unprecedented

Here's a novel concept for <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />2.

Could it be so aranged that, as your character gets better, so does his skill at handling whatever weapon he is using. Not in the normal way, but in a more natural, dare i say it, realistic way. My idea is that you could, if you wished play the whole game using the first weapon you pick up (if you keep it repaired)
As you fight, your stats get better, so your weapon does more damage. If you find a weapon you like, you do not have to get rid of it as you move into tougher parts of the game, because as you get tougher, you do more damage with te same weapon. It is a real bind for ppl like me who like to play mages and wizards. at the start of the game we can (just) get away with a staff, but very soon we have to get swords or axes or mace's just to keep up with the harder monsters. under my system we magicaly inclined typse coud keep a weapon more in keeping with our characters.

Good suggestion Azezel, I like it. That would be a good idea if they implemented into DD2.


later phoenen

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it was in Nethack and Antient Domains of Mystery (both very old DOS games, mind you). It is a good idea that hasn't been used in a very long time. But how much damage can you do with a staff? Something like Staff Expertise would be better, greatly improving your Recuperation Time, and Damage. In the above two games, you had levels of expertise in all weapon classes, but they rose with practice, not skill points.

Staffs are good in that they do decent damage for little attribute requirement. If there are going to be weapon expertise skills, they need one for every class of weapon.

There is a balancing issue there. If this only applies to weapons and you prefer to play a wizard type then you might want to kil monsters with spells instead of weapons. Hence you don't use your weapon less frequently then a warrior does and your weapon is not so efficient.
In the skill point system now. All you have to do is add a skillpoint or two into your favorite weapon and it's effectiveness rises.
Of course in the example above it can be extended in such a way that even the effectiveness of spells increases with use, then the wizard doesn't need his weapon actually, his spells are already becoming more powerfull.

But it might also render having levels of most skills as being useless. After you have the skill and use it it gets better already. Having a next level of a skill would have to add a completely different effect than it does now, afterall why bother adding an extra skillpoint to it if you can train it yourself.

This idea was kind of implemented in Dungeon Siege also. The more you used a certain style to attack with, spells, combat, ranged etc the better you got.
DS-crap game, boring as hell, but good ideas. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/down.gif" alt="" />

Yes but DS target was to be an easy lightweight roleplaying game with not too much hassling parameters and stuff like that. I don't think that implementation of character development would be something I liked in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> or <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />2

Me neither. It gets you into a rut. Simply being able to choose your skills gives far better flexibility. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

I've only played the demo of Dungeon Siege. From what I saw, you could only train in Melee, Ranged, Magic and Healing attributes, not in individual weapons and spells.

The interesting thing about restricting training to weapon types is it makes you use one type of weapon fo the whole game, making the hunt for better weapons more interesting.

Well yes, Dungeon Siege is not exactly known for it's hardcore RPG elements <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Using only one weapon has a downside. I would suspect it's easier to kill a skeleton with a club than with an arrow as such there could be monsters where a certain weapon is not so effective. You would need one hell of a bonus on the weapon then to do some harm.

Although there certainly are merits to be able to train your skills instead of buying skillpoints, it also puts a higher strain on balancing I think. In a party system you can balance this out by selecting characters who are skillfull in different types of weapons.

I think the idea behind weapon classes is this:

Sword: Quick, sharp and versitile.
Axe: Slow, heavy and sharp.
Mace: Blunt, average speed and stunning (in that concussion sort of way). Bonus vs. undead.
Staff: Very quick, light and often magical. Common with Wizards and Monks.
Polearm: Very slow, very long and very powerful.
Spear: Melee or ranged, powerful, difficult to use.
Dagger: Small, versatile, and sometimes magical. Favourite of backstabbers.
Bow: Ranged, quick and random.
Crossbow: ranged, slow and powerful.

I'm sure I've missed something.

While each has it's benefits over any other, by specialising in one weapon makes for a more interesting game. Are you going to be a slayer of the undead, a all-round warrior, a wizard, etc.? It all comes down to individual play style and help to create the character you play.

Unfortunately, in Divine Divinity, the game strongly urges players towards Swords or Daggers, making my Axe fetish a little redundant.

what about halbers, and baroches, or whatevr the guards have, or r those staffs??? I thought they're different.

They're polearms. A pole that extends your arm with a blade on the end. They provide a lot of leverage but have high inertia making them difficult to use quickly. They tend to have a point on the other end to give them a quicker back-up manuver.

The weapon experience post got me thinking.
There could be experience gems, sort of like charmed gems.
Carachters start out with these metaphysical gems that thay can apply to any weapon. Charachters decide in the beginning of the game which weapon type they want to specialize in, because once you apply this gem to a weapon then that weapon type will gain familiarity experience.
The gem accumulates experience as the player uses it, which is always since the player will always have it even if his items get taken. You can move it to another weapon but a percentage of the experience accumulated is lost.
I think like some have said that its exciting to have a weapon specialization because questing for that one weapon which is your specialization and also damn rare is fun.


The charachter has no items in a prison or something. If he finds a kitchen knife and his gem was a dagger gem via his applying it to a dagger early in the game then the kitchen knife automatically gains however much experience accumulated in that gem thus far minus a penalty for it being applied to a weapon which is not the original weapon it was applied to.
The penalty is kind of a break because making it that the gem is locked into one weapon is too limiting. The player is rewarded for sticking to his favorite weapon but penalized and not neutered to other weapons of his weapon type. If there is a great special magic weapon to quest for which is the kind of weapon that is the players favorite than he can use that weapon with an experience *bonus added to the new weapons original value. He doesn't loose out on his gem by ditching the weapon he started with, and he doesn't loose out some of the experience accumulated in the gem.
Now what would be more exciting is if along with familiarity XP which grants attack, defense, srength, and technique bonuses, and whataver else you can think of, the player gained rare familiarity XP-exclusive independent skills over time.
Think permenant fallout skills such as 'ladies man', or 'right-handed', nuanced skills the player gains after playing for a while with that one weapon and gem.
These would be exrememly uncommon and quite unnecessary, making suddenly and seemingly randomly learning one quite a surprise and reward.
They would also be uniquely animated, making the player look special from the other charachters in game or similar to a special charachter in game.
The bonuses they grant could create a huge imbalance in favor of the charachter versus enemies with a certain weakness, which is always fun.

He could learn..
Sword
Sword Lighting, a lighting attack. A deuling quest opens vs. some rare mysterious sword master who has Sword Fire.
A certain tough enemy can suddenly be killed very easily, and a certain tough boss guarding an item of lore is absolutely no problem.

Dagger
Precision Dagger, enabling you to cause blindness, or paralyzation (cut tendon), or life-leech (cut main vain) or hit spots that cause huge damage, bosses included (of course!).
Or allows player to apply potions directly to through the bloodline, making them last much longer and making them more potent, and also creating a unique effect of some kind.
Or has a healing property related to the surgical precision. Also enables you to save so and so through an emergency surgery.

Bow
Elven Marksmanship, a one time dramatic boost in bow agility and attack rating and quite useful in that dart match quest. Also making him a shoe-in for a position at the archers guild rather than having to go through a series of quests. There is a special bow that opens up in rare elven merchant's stock.

Axe-Mace
Axe-Block, a skill that allows you to block magic attacks with the axe or mace.
Or Axe Song, an differently animated axe/mace style
where the axe makes a whistling sound and there is a chance that the sound will charm a low level enemy on the screen or the butterflies into attacking for the player.

All Melee:
DeathBlow, the small chance of being able to cause death with one strike of the player's gemmed favorite weapon, bosses included.

NOT necessarily exactly these skills but something like these skills. Skills that give the player an unexpected and unique edge, and however slightly may or may not change something about the world in relation to the charachter, for or against him. This might only happen once per game.
Also, there would be many little random extra weapon familiarity skill suprises, not just one each. This in an addition to the player gaining familiarity/XP in that gem with that single weapon he has been using for a long time. Its also in addition to all the cool story stuff and other mechanations the developers have put into the game for magic, stats, etc.

i realy would like to fight in the game with a scyte (sp)
like death herself, with her mighty weopon

I thought I remembered see scythes in Divine Divinity. They were Staff weapons, big sticks with blades on the end. Or was it another game? But I haven't played anything else lately... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

"Sword Lighting, a lighting attack. " jeet

i'm guessing that u meant 'lightning' & not 'lighting' as one needs only to adjust the gamma setting to make things brighter. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />