A Discussion of Weapons and Armor

[Legowarrior]

Freek_o_nature and I were discussing some of the weapons and armor in the game in the Bug Thread, but we both felt it best to move the discussion out of there, and have a thread dedicated to it.

Now, our decision focused around the rarely used Iron Cudgel of the Bandar. It is a 2 Resource, 2 Handed Weapon that deals 8 damage and is length 2. It has no other defining characteristics, except that it is Bludgeoning, Iron and Ferrous. Its not exactly a great weapon, but balance in Dominions is a moving target and all, but I noted that it was strictly inferior to the Great Club, a Two Handed weapon that deals 7 damage, but also gives +1 Defense, and is flammable.

So far, I have no problem with it, even if the Great Club only cost 1 Resource, but instead, it cost zero resources. I assume this means that weapon is so simple, that no action is necessary except to find an appropriate sized piece of wood to shape it from.

In that case, with the Great Club being so much better, why would any one take any time forging an Iron Cudgel, when the Great Club is both better, and easier to make?

Note, if the Great Club cost 1 or 2 resources to make, I could understand that Bandar Log and others might not know how to shape it or something.

In any case, this discussion lead freek_o_nature to provide to interesting observations.

First, the Iron Cudgel was kind of weak and should be buff in some minor way so that the Great Club wasn't strictly superior. The other was that the Iron Cudgel was very similar to the kanabō, (or metal stick) used in Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanab%C5%8D

This metal stick is often associated with Oni, which currently are represented having Great Clubs. So it might be a thematic change to replace the Oni with Great Clubs with the Iron Cudgel, that more closely resembles the weapon often associated with Oni. By doing this, the Oni are slightly nerf'd, but I would also recommend that the Iron Cudgel get buffed slightly.

Another observation is the lack of Bandar Swordsmen in LA Patala. Again, this, in and of itself, isn't an issue. There are non commander sword wielders in EA and MA, but that doesn't mean Sword Wielders are required in LA. Swords are considered weapons of might and distinction after all, and the Naga Warriors might have usurped that position with. And that would be fine, except, for some reason, the Vanara Swordsman still exists. Perhaps they are they to mock the Bandar, for their inability to use swords any more. Honestly, I feel like that is rubbing salt in the wounds.

Anyway, I wanted to create a thread about discussing this, and other weapon and armor related observations. It could be something a odd as many large monsters only have a single claw attack, or perhaps the power of the quarter staff. Or just how its cool that we have so many items, some of them, like them are just fun, like the ability to use a Cod as a weapon. Or maybe how some weapons are missing.

[freek_o_nature]

Aha! Thanks! Lemme tidy this up a bit. Sorry, some of it will be a bit repetitious now (scroll down to new comments)...

Originally posted by freek_o_nature:

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Zonk pointed out to me that most depictions of Oni in mythology have them using massive Iron rods.

I believe those iron rods are kanabō, and from what you can see and read here at Wikipedia[en.wikipedia.org], it really is an "advanced" kind of club, or at least, one made mostly of metal, but usually with distinct ends for striking and holding (i.e. head/handle), not unlike a mace or hammer. There's even an image of an oni wielding a kanabō at the bottom of the page! Still, based just on these images alone, I do think you've got a point about the disparity between the Great Club and the Iron Cudgel.

I went to the Mod Inspector to see, because I've wondered a bit about this myself: the cudgel does have +1 damage (8 vs. 7), though the club gets +1 defense (vs. none), and the cudgel is Ferrous where the club is Flammable, plus the cudgel counts as Iron for overcoming fæ defenses, and then of course, there's the Resource cost you mention, 0 for the club vs. 2 for the cudgel. But what I notice about these weapons is the way they're spread out between units: beings like Ogres, Cyclopes, Giants, Cavemen, and similar "primitive human"-types seem appropriate to the 0-Resource Great Club, since these beings are likely to literally use a (possibly worked) log or tree; but, beings like Oni and other demons have divine origins, so may justify being somewhat better-equipped, and (like at Wiki-pee) many are commonly depicted using an Iron Cudgel (or kanabō); plus, a few other units have cultural or economic justifications, like the the EA Agarthan Oracles, whose nation uses bronze equipment and can surely fashion a bronze kanabō, or the E/MA Machaka hero Abasi, who (according to the Mod Inspector) can wield a two-handed Great Club with one mighty hand—a log he made use of while in a rough spot—and is deserving of a Plate Hauberk and Iron Cap (so the skill and material are obviously available), thus may have been awarded an iron-shod log for his valour. For one, this makes it seem a bit odd to me that Iron Cudgels are only wielded by 3 units in the game: Bandar Warriors, dead Bandar Warriors, and Rakshasa Warriors. But, more importantly, why would one bother using a 2-Resource Iron Cudgel when a Great Club is effectively free, at the mostly negligible cost of trading 1 damage for 1 defense and Iron status (ferrous/fæ) for Wooden (flammable)?

What would you think about buffing the Iron Cudgel just a little, to make it worth the Resource cost over a Great Club, then replacing the Club with the Cudgel on the few appropriate units? I'm not really sure where to begin with that, because Great Club is spread out over so many units in so many parts of the game—I don't know how widely a buff might affect things—but, if you change things in the other direction, i.e. by nerfing Great Club (like with +1 Resource cost), then it's still going to affect the same spread of units (and maybe balance). I'm no good at the suggestions part, only the looking-things-up part :P , so I'll shut up now, but I like this observation! Personally, I'm rooting for kanabō. :d

EDIT: Just to offer a bit more comparison, the flammable Quarterstaff (ID#7) only gets 3 damage, but gets 3 defense and 1 attack, plus has Length 3 instead of 2, all for 0 resources; the Maul (#14) gets -1 defense but a fat 9 damage and no material association (neither flammable nor ferrous) for 1 Resource; the ferrous two-handed Flail (#16) costs 3 Resources for only 3 damage, 1 attack, and -2 defense, but makes up for it with an additional 2 attack against shields and by making a second damaging attack per round (I hope that's clear, my phrasing is not great :/ ); the Obsidian Sword Club (#288) of some nations is identical to the Great Club, but adds Slashing damage and removes the material association at a 2-Resource cost; and even the flammable Rudder (#663), wielded by the Titan of Winds and Waves (but really, this game needs more Rudder-wielding units), gets a not un-respectable 6 damage, 2 attack, and Length 3 for -1 defense and no Resources (though Resources probably went into the vessel from whence it came). So, while I still don't think I'm comfortable suggesting specific buffs or nerfs, I do think there's space enough within ordinary non-magical two-handed weapons to differentiate Great Club and Iron Cudgel just a little bit more. (Btw, fun fact, apparently Atlantis' Basalt Club [#465] and Agartha's Stone Club [#429] are made of flammable materials? I might be reading the Mod Inspector incorrectly, so please take this looking-up of things with skepticism!)

So then, just for my knowledge, you're looking at this from a "nerf Great Club" perspective rather than "buff Iron Cudgel," right? I'm only asking because I'm looking at how many units that use Great Clubs are summoned or otherwise don't (always) require a Resource payment. It's certainly not most of them, but it's a respectable number: Ogres, several types of Trolls (which do sometimes come up as neutral poptypes), some Giants and Cyclopes...adding a Resource cost would only affect hired troops, right? Horites, Cavemen, the odd Troll province? Or is there a deeper Resource interaction I'm not aware of (like if it influences Upkeep)?

[Rovsea]

It is my own personal opinion that the iron cudgel bandar warriors are objectively the best of the standard bandar warriors. Arguably, the iron cudgel is still better than even a royal swordsman type as well, simply because it does more damage. Iron cudgel bandars are perfectly fine where they are right now, aside from the whole "oh noes beast mastery" or "oh noes a rat tail" problems. Now, this is from a balance perspective. From a lore perspective, y'all can go wild.

[freek_o_nature]

Originally posted by Rovsea:

It is my own personal opinion that the iron cudgel bandar warriors are objectively the best of the standard bandar warriors. Arguably, the iron cudgel is still better than even a royal swordsman type as well, simply because it does more damage. Iron cudgel bandars are perfectly fine where they are right now, aside from the whole "oh noes beast mastery" or "oh noes a rat tail" problems.

Well, and the "oh noes Champion's Skull doesn't work" problem. :/ (Apparently, it's not working on Commanders with the Animal tag, which the monkey nations have in spades.) The Royal Swordsmen use Falchions, which have the same Damage as the Cudgel (8) but lose 1 Length, trade Bludgeoning for Slashing, and trade two-handed for one-, at the cost of 2 more Resources (4 vs. 2). Since these Bandar have a free hand, they also get a Buckler, which adds 2 Defense (via Parry) and 14 Protection (via Shield) for another 1 Resource. All told, this costs the Royal Swordsmen a bit of damage, but improves their survivability at a minor expense—only 5 resources overall vs. 2 (in terms of weapons/shields), but with a significant defensive advantage. You might be right about Bandar Warriors in general, I'm not so good with balance, but I think what Lego is driving at is more that Great Clubs may be a bit out-of-line with other similar weapons. (I don't think he's hating on the Bandar! Bandar rule.)

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by Rovsea:

It is my own personal opinion that the iron cudgel bandar warriors are objectively the best of the standard bandar warriors. Arguably, the iron cudgel is still better than even a royal swordsman type as well, simply because it does more damage. Iron cudgel bandars are perfectly fine where they are right now, aside from the whole "oh noes beast mastery" or "oh noes a rat tail" problems. Now, this is from a balance perspective. From a lore perspective, y'all can go wild.

It might be the best standard weapon, but my issue isn't that it exists, but rather that an item picked up from a the forest floor is better then it. Knowing what we do, why not give Bandar a Great Club instead.

As for nerf vs buff, I didn't come down on discussion. I was just pointing out that the Iron Cudgel is worse then the Great Club, which I wouldn't have a problem with, except Great Clubs are just semi shaped large pieces of wood, so why not use them instead.

If you want to make Cudgels worth using, giving them +1 attack, and 7 damage is probably the best way to go about it. After all, a big heavy metal rod should be able to batter away parries without too much trouble, at least as well as a Battleaxe.

As for Falchions, they are upgrades from Mace Warriors, which have their place. Again, I'm just coming at this argument from a lore perspective.

[TheMeInTeam]

^ Iron cudgel, being 2h, benefits from the 1.25x strength modifier. With strength of giants on both, cudgel deals 31 damage, falchion 27. Which is preferable depends what you're fighting. For high protection tanks as enemies, the cudgel is better. Against archers/crossbows, having the shield will be better.

Bandar are kind of expensive, so I generally only advocate getting them if you need to smash elite troops. So on average if I'm getting them at all, it's probably for the cudgel.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by TheMeInTeam:

^ Iron cudgel, being 2h, benefits from the 1.25x strength modifier. With strength of giants on both, cudgel deals 31 damage, falchion 27. Which is preferable depends what you're fighting. For high protection tanks as enemies, the cudgel is better. Against archers/crossbows, having the shield will be better.

Bandar are kind of expensive, so I generally only advocate getting them if you need to smash elite troops. So on average if I'm getting them at all, it's probably for the cudgel.

Not that you have a choice in LA anyway.

[TheMeInTeam]

The alternative in LA is to get two vanara with a mace at the same gold cost and use magic to deal with things those don't damage effectively...or to just buff up elephants as your elite killers and rely on the 17 AP trampling. LA doesn't have a lot of stuff that's recruitable and size 6, so doing something like iron warriors + body ethereal + quickness + berserk on an elephant or two can give similar damage output to putting a heavy thug in a fight. IMO the astral stuff is usually more threatening, but the point buffs are an option too.

Similarly, while bandar might be your go to for smacking elite stuff in year 1, water elementals are obviously better at that job and Kailasa/Patala can both make those pretty easily.

[KimmoKM]

I have also noted great club being a suspiciously strong weapon and thought the justification for its superiority is the units that use it: it's primarily size >=4s and a few lesser units of demonic strength, and Machakan hero Abasi who, despite being a size 2 human, has strength of 17 and his fluff starts with "Abasi is a strong man. At the age of ten, he strangled a lion". A mere uprooted tree or a crudely worked branch is a powerful weapon in the hands of an ettin or laestygonian and the reason human infantries use strictly inferior hammers or maces is because, well, they can't use the "great club". The same kind of reason there exists weapons such as Great Bow used by Avvim giants: it's just a bow of no special construction, only for giants. The reason there are units using short bows is because they aren't trained in military archery and can't draw war bows (composite bow/longbow) never mind bows requiring superhuman strength to be drawn (great bow).

I think this system "works" and makes sense for the most part, although greater consistency could be achieved by going back to fewer weapon type primitives (only one type of wooden club, no separate versions for giants and humans) and tweaking damage calculations in regards to strength and size instead to achieve roughly the current balance, expanding upon the current mechanic of size >=4 units gaining +1 weapon length. While you are it, it wouldn't hurt trying to make the weapon and armor balance and terminology more historical.

[Zonk]

KimmoKM, that's an interesting justification but I don't think it really works given great clubs are also used by size 2 Oni with strengtth 13, which is exceptional for humans (it's what Ulm's Steel Warriors have) but not quite giant-level.
The Great Bow MIGHT be relatively advanced technology, given that there are size 3s with similar strength that have only longbows.
As for "expanding upon the current mechanic of size >=4 units gaining +1 weapon length. ", I think size 6 giving another +1 len for a total of 6 would make sense.

Anyway, I think removing the +1 def from the Great Club OR making the Cudgel also have that would both be reasonable;
I'd favor the first because I'm not fan of +def on nonmagical weapons and feel it should be used sparingly, so it's really bizarre that a crude piece of wood would give that:
justifying it by talking about parrying or deflecting attacks is strange given how shield parrying works and how, even if you're just redirecting the attack a bit rather than taking it head-on, you'd still need SOME strength (remember, the strength difference between attacker & defender can be MUCH larger than in real-life fights).

[freek_o_nature]

Originally posted by Zonk:

I'm not fan of +def on nonmagical weapons and feel it should be used sparingly

Now that is something I find interesting (and on-topic, kudos). Can I ask why? I'm just curious, especially because there's kind of a long list of nonmagical weapons with defense bonuses; well, maybe not a long list, only 25 or so, but those weapons are spread out over nearly a thousand units! Quarterstaff (#7) is used by ~250 units, Broad Sword (#8) is used by ~210 units, Short Sword (#6) by ~115, and several others have a few dozen units each. I'm not sure I recall your thoughts on it, if I've ever read them at all; is it related to stats and mechanics, or something to do with "real-world" interactions?
(i.e. [HONK]THAS NO HOW WE PARY IN THA SCA[ENDHONK] :P )

[Zonk]

Originally posted by freek_o_nature:

Originally posted by Zonk:

I'm not fan of +def on nonmagical weapons and feel it should be used sparingly

Now that is something I find interesting (and on-topic, kudos). Can I ask why?

Of course! I've already explained it in the above post, but to rephrase it:
nonmagical weapons giving +defence cannot make sense, because how is the weapon making you better at dodging?

It DOES look like dodging, and not parrying or deflecting, because it does not account at all for the attack's strength vs the defender's and the fact that the attack might be AP or even AN, and it always prevents damage from the hit completely, unlike shields.
Why should a quarterstaff help a puny human dodge mighty a titan's bows? is the idea that you use it to jump around? That's just silly.

Also note that weapons can already help not get hit through repelling, and perhaps some weapons should be better or worse than other weapons or equal length.

Defence penalties and attack modifiers, on the other hand, are very easy to explain: a heavy enough weapon can make it harder to dodge or unbalance you, or be more or less accurate. (and of course, the attack modifier only applies to THAT attack, not every attack you make with other weapons too)

EDIT: It's interesting that the base "Fist" has -1 attack & defence, BTW. You'd think it would have +0/+0. The damage penalty isn't as weird, IMO, because unarmored humans shouldn't find it THAT easy to kill each other with bare hands.

[Legowarrior]

Defense is avoiding getting attacked. I don't think that is the same as just dodging the attack though.

[TheMeInTeam]

I think I'd have an easier time evading someone swinging a sword at me if I also had a sword. Some of that is baked into the repel mechanic in Dominions via length, but how a weapon's weight is distributed and its size are also both factors. It is easier to readjust a sword than a hand axe or mace, and unlike those it can still stab you. It trades power to do that, but that sounds like "mundane defense" to me. Or close enough.

If I were instead somehow able to hold half of a large tree, opponent would then have to find a way to hit me while also getting around the tree. I don't know what that would look like, but I'd estimate that +1 def isn't necessarily unreasonable as an abstraction for it.

One more thing: iron cudgels technically do get some benefit from being iron, in that there are units which are weak to iron. That's not a common occurrence though...most things weak to iron don't hold up well if they actually get hit.

[Zonk]

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Defense is avoiding getting attacked. I don't think that is the same as just dodging the attack though.

Defence is not getting hit when you are actually attacked. Not getting attacked would be different (consider awe), and not trigger some abilities.

Originally posted by TheMeInTeam:

I think I'd have an easier time evading someone swinging a sword at me if I also had a sword.

Easier than if you had literally nothing in your hand, though? A fist is -1. Even if it was +0, a standard short sword would still provide +1 over that.

Like I've been saying, it can't be parrying or deflecting because strength and attack type don't factor into it, and using it to make the opponent hesitate and not attack is already represented by repel.

Of course, if the sword is magical it might literally make you better at dodging. But we are talking mundane weapons.

If I were instead somehow able to hold half of a large tree, opponent would then have to find a way to hit me while also getting around the tree. I don't know what that would look like, but I'd estimate that +1 def isn't necessarily unreasonable as an abstraction for it.

The in-game great clubs aren't that large, even the version used by the hill giant.

And speaking of giants, they can overpower and break shields, but can't do that with weapons providing defence bonuses - doesn't that feel strange to you?

I'm not advocating for removing all mundane weapon defence bonuses, but I DO think we should at least acknowledge they don't really make sense given the differences that can exist between attacker & defender.
If the game was only about roughly human-sized beings and superhuman strength wasn't a thing, sure, it could be a reasonable abstraction...

As for iron cudgels, it's true they benefit from being iron sometimes, though they can also rust in water (although the penalty is very small for blunt weapons, IIRC)

PS: Do weapon defence bonuses work vs Earthquake and other spells that check defence? I don't remember, but I think someone said they don't...

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, holding a weapon is better than nothing, because the other guy has to respect the threat and position himself in measure/with spacing to not get hit by it (aka further away). More time to react, more incentive for opponent to preserve self over striking, etc. There's more to this than just what repelling represents.

The tree example was to let you picture a large weapon. It doesn't have to be literally as large as a tree, it just has to be so large that positioning against it hitting back and getting around it makes it easier for the person with it to not get hit. The aspect of wielding it (or having giants) is more implausible than the defense bonus from it. If we accept that something can swing it, the defense bonus makes some sense.

I agree that weapon defense modifiers start making less sense when you have a dragon tail swiping you or if you're trying to use an arming sword against an elephant or something. Still, if I were to pick an area of the game in need of substantial improvement this would not be it. It mostly works, though could use some clarity.