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Items
This is why we play RPGs: for the shinies.
Equipment causes encumbrance, or higher carry weight. High strength characters can wear heavier equipment.
You buy equipment in cities. Looting monsters does not yield useful equipment: it's not likely to fit you anyway.
I think quality should (in general) range from 0 to 5.
For weapons, you can think of it like this:
- 0 represents cheap and crude production from inferior iron.
- 1 represents cheap mass-production from decent iron.
- 2 represents mass-production from steel.
- 3 represents quality-controlled mass-production from steel.
- 4 represents superior production from good steel, by a smith of repute.
- 5 represents extremely superior production by a top smith in the capital, custom-made for yourself.
For armour, similar reasoning, but stuff like "coverage" and "fit" matter more:
- 0 represents cheap and crude production with coverage only over the head and torso.
- 1 represents decent mass-production with coverage over head and torso.
- 2 represents cheap production with high coverage (e.g. arms, legs, hands, neck).
- 3 represents decent mass-production with high coverage.
- 4 represents high-quality production with full-coverage.
- 5 represents high-quality and custom-fitted, full-coverage armour.
Quality 0 is always issued for free. In game mechanics, this means it never degrades, you always have it equipped, and if your superior equipment falls apart, you replace it with Quality 0 equipment. This applies to all equipment.
Plate and full plate armour do not exist in quality 0 form. Plate starts from quality 1, full plate from quality 2.
Quality 0 never decays (since it is free, think of it like you could keep replacing it).
Other quality levels will decay over time as you fight in them. For this reason and perhaps for supplies/ammo, you should not adventure indefinitely without going to civilization.
A fully-decayed equipment piece drops to quality 0. Repairing is cheaper than buying a new piece.
There are two-handed weapons, one-handed weapons, shields, and secondary (ranged) weapons.
Ranged weapons can be equipped alongside melee weapons. They are not used in normal combat, but you can start combat with them, and they give additional attacks on fleeing enemies.
For now, I've decided only on bows and crossbows. I cannot see how a sling would differ mechanically from the bow since both have fast rates of fire.
When you initiate combat from a distance, you can get multiple shots in (if using a bow) before they reach you. With a crossbow, you get only one shot. Crossbows have shorter range than bows.
Magic spells do not have significant range, other than spells that spy on other players. That's not the way magic works in this world.
Long weapons, heavier than short weapons. They deflect shorter weapons easily and deal more damage. Also, shorter weapons do not deflect them well. Many high-damage and stunning skills work best with this type of weapon.
You can wield two of them. Woo hoo! Dual-wielding, as it is called, has some benefits to offset the shorter reach of your weapons. You can simultaneously defend and attack, so you never have to sacrifice defensive stance when using your attacks. Your attacks tend to hit multiple times, which drains the stamina of your opponent, but also your own: so dual-wielding is best for the high-constitution athletes out there. You can also use one weapon to sweep aside your opponent's deflection, and strike with the other (but shields are better for this).
It is a bad idea to wield a single one-handed weapon. For this reason, the game assumes you never do, and you always have a choice of two-hander, dual-wield, or weapon-and-shield. Even if you die, you come back with basic re-issue equipment (which you cannot throw away or lose).
The most defensive option. If you're any good, you are basically immune to non-ambush ranged attacks. Can sweep aside enemy deflection well. Can deflect most attacks well. Does not hit as hard or often as the other two weapon styles.
The shield can be used offensively as well.
Heavy armour is much better for defence than light armour, but much more encumbering.
The armours used in this world are somewhat realistic and matching real-world history. From light to heavy, armour types are as follows:
- Padded gambeson armour. Thick padded gambesons, however, are real, and pretty good at stopping small weapons.
- Mail armour. Linked metal rings with a gambeson worn underneath.
- Plate armour. Plate, with mail covering the parts not covered by plate.
- Full plate. All plate. This is so good at deflecting physical attacks that often the best way to physically destroy an enemy in plate is to drain his stamina to exhaustion. That, or massive strength and heavy two-handed mass weapons.
Encumbrance is not good for dodging, and causes many things to use more stamina. It also reduces your speed.
Heavy armour reduces stealth. It is impossible to sneak in full plate armour (zero stealth, regardless of skill). Padded armour has zero penalty. The others are in between as you expect.
Heavy armour is (much) more expensive.
Generally, heavy is good, if you have enough strength to wear it without encumbrance and enough money to upkeep its usage.
In this world, you do not ride mounts (they do not put up with being ridden). Humans in this world are not like normal humans: they can run for long distances without tiring at 10 metres per second. The mount is for carrying loot. The better your mount, the more loot you can carry before you need to get into a fort or city to sell it.
As a side note: humans are also super-strong, immune to almost all forms of intoxication, and regenerate rapidly even from grievous wounds. By the way, this explains why ranged weapons are not favoured: sticking arrows one by one into an enemy isn't such a good idea when your enemy shrugs off arrows and continues running at you. The way to fight is usually to butcher them at close range, or burn, electrify, and freeze them.
Felling monsters yields loot. Your loot inventory is limited. If full, you will automatically expel least-valuable loot and replace with most-valuable loot. When you return to a city, you can sell loot for money.
Money buys equipment, supplies, reagents, training, etc., but only in safe places like cities, camps, or forts associated with your faction.
Supplies represent food, water, medicine: things needed for survival. To make the game less about inventory-management, supplies are just one commodity with a quantity. Any supply-using ability can use this magical universal "supplies".
Reagents and ammunition represent more offensive items: stuff used for spells, ranged weapons, offensive devices, etc.
Both can be replenished in town, via buy supplies or buy ammo. Characters who know Wildlore abilities can forage for supplies in the wild.