Mine Axe... "cuts it"

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Skathi Lyn Oks, Mar 15, 2016.

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  1. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    I understand the need for the skill tree to have an area of attack skill but for all that's good in this game they could at least make it similar to whirlwind or something. Hitting the ground? What does THAT do apart from making a muted 'thump' sound?
     
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  2. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    If you had a large metal shield, you could bang your weapon against it to create a 'clanging' or 'ringing' that should frighten or scare away animals, and possibly confuse many big-eared adversaries. ;-D Maybe even disrupt spell-casters who are trying to meditate or speak incantations (words of power).

    I know some decisions are being made based on 'fun' over 'makes sense'.. i hope things are kept to a theme that seems to fit the game though.

    In my opinion, axes should be extra good at severing limbs.. so spiders should be especially vulnerable against them (because they have so many limbs to lose). Now that would make axes more interesting..
     
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  3. Julian Baskerville

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    that muted "thump" is followed by hilarious laughter from the same brigands you just tried to impress?
     
  4. Julian Baskerville

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    Lighting a simple torch has the same effect and doesnt leave you deaf after 5 years of adventuring.
     
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  5. Albus

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    I agree, they could call it "spin-0-rama" or "desperate spin" or whatever, and change the animation to a spinning attack, just not something involving an animation & name of pounding the poor earth (unless involving earth magic in a combo).
     
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  6. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    I did think about the torch (and have mentioned it before), but I would suppose different creatures would react to different stimuli. i.e. visual/auditory
     
  7. Julian Baskerville

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    well...lets just say...real wildlife tends to react in other ways then it does in MMO's or in Hollywood.

    I think this is the only reference to an animal "actively looking for fire"I know of and thats from a movie that is everything else then serious.

     
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  8. dracco

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    i was wondering when this would hit . the axe is a cutting / bashing weapon used for shield and armor damage but its cutting base is strength for the axe to do that damage . the sword is more cutting speed dexterity damage DPS . but i did wounder if axe will be put in craftier list . it makes logical thinking . a tree what do you use to cut a tree an axe . NO I USE A MACE we use a mace to destroy a tree MAHAAAA. who needs logs anyway. :)
     
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  9. Black Tortoise

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    @Bowen Bloodgood is right, and so is Portalarium, an axe is fought with the same underlying principles as mace or club weapons, and is nothing like a sword. BTW I have extensive experience training in a variety of medieval/classical weapons IRL.

    Think back across the entire evolution of melee weapons, back to the earliest paleolitic record of handheld weapons. Its difficult to say which came first, bludgeoning or piercing, but sword weapons are an extremely modern convention. Piercing, missile, and bludgeoning weapons predate homo sapien. Swords, as we know them, are under 5000 years old, closer to 3000 years ago in a broad and general (pan-cultural) way. The axe, in its most primitive form, also predates homo-sapien. In fact, early hominids from 2 million years ago were producing hand-axes that a modern homo sapien has never been able to replicate (in terms of durability and utility), though we make great replicas. Clubs augmented with flint "axe heads" were in use at the time of the earliest homo sapien, fastened with pitch and complex knotwork (as were spears, and I am not dodging the atlatl or bow, I am just focusing on sword vs axe).

    As metalworking came about, and the bronze age began, the earliest swords began to emerge. Since humans were so used to bashing with axes (since, again, an axe works just like a bludgeon weapon) it took some time for the earliest civilizations to think of combat in terms of the edged blade alone. Scythe swords began evolving, where most of the damage was still done via the heavier weight of the extreme curve in the blade, rather than the cutting or bladed edge. By 1000 B.C./B.C.E., the Egyptians had some rather fancy scythe swords that seemed like a fitting halfway point between the weight-bearing strength of the axe, and the soon-to-be cutting power of the sword. Within 500 years, enough variations of this theme straightened out, and more focus revolved around the cutting edge of the sword, and a bit less on curving the weight to increase impact power. Heavy leaps forward in bronze technology, along with the introduction of iron working, allowed edges of weapons to get sharper and sharper, and the focus on crushing power less and less (though, axes still remain a reliable utility for smashing through non metal shields and whatnot). Some Chinese swords from the late bronze age / early iron age, made of bronze, still have their cutting edges sharp, and can still be wielded as weapons (though theyre all behind glass in a few museums).

    The motif of a heavy arc on the blade to increase cutting power, the legacy of bludgeoning weapons, was still used by many cultures throughout the world up into the Classical period. Warriors from what is now the Balkan region used massive scythe weapons, known a falxes, that could cleave through heavy armor (of the time period) and bronze shields, slashing into the collar area of the wielder underneath. Meso-americans, having never been exposed to other cultures' iron age weapons, fashioned bludgeons out of onyx - with sharpened edges, like axes. The age old scythe-swords could still be observed in use in Africa. Germanic tribesman, while mainly utilizing spears, favored axes, as swords were harder to come by, and the iron age was slower to spread across Northern Europe. The advanced technologies of Rome birthed the gladius and tower shield fighting style, which along with extreme discipline, marched over the great cultures of the bronze and iron ages.

    The sword is a far more advanced, far more technical, and far more complex weapon than an axe. I am by no means saying one is "better" (though, personally, I'd grab a sword first IRL!). An axe is essentially a mace with an augmented edge. Would you say a morningstar is a piercing weapon, because it punctures the target? No, a spear is as different from a bludgeoning weapon as a sword is from one. I fight with all three IRL (though I only use "bludgeoning" weapons to demo how easy they are to exploit), and can assure you, a sword is a whole other language from an axe. Even single edged and double edged swords are a different experience. A spear is fundamentally different from all of them. An axe is the same combat fundamentals as a club, mace, morningstar, flanged mace, hammer, etc.

    So its entirely sensible that an axe be classified as bludgeoning. In Ultima Online, the "Tomahawk" was a bludgeoning weapon. I dont really care that other game systems "got it wrong," though in most cases, theyre just comparing "crushing," "piercing," and "slashing," damage, which is arguably different, though I would still say an axe does more crushing damage to the target than slashing. I'd go with the history and evolution of melee weapons before I'd go with the "dictionary" definition, something tells me those guys arent warriors :p.
     
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  10. agra

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    Definitely nothing but crushing and bludgeoning here..
    [​IMG]

    No edge. No slashing. Not even a little bit. Yeah. Uh huh. :rolleyes:
     
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  11. mikeaw1101

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    ^^ I was being sarcastic *sigh* :rolleyes:
     
  12. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Just having an edge doesn't make it a slashing weapon. Nor does it change the skill used to wield it. It's balance and construction that does that. The skills we have in game are not defined by damage types, but by weapon types.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2016
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  13. redfish

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    So, are flanged maces blades or bludgeons?

    [​IMG]

    Does it depend on how sharp they are?
     
  14. mikeaw1101

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    Umm...bludgeons?
     
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  15. Black Tortoise

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    @mikeaw1101 right, although that flanged mace has bladed augments, it is still a bludgeon weapon, not a slashing weapon. and just as I compared "morningstar to spear" - the morningstar is still a bludgeoning weapon, and not a peircing weapon, based on how the weapon is wielded. so yes, there is some "slashing going on" with the axes you posted, the weapon will still be used like a bludgeoning weapon. more notably, the battle axe will not be used like a sword.

    you can also think of it like other standard rpg game mechanics - a "fire axe" is not used like a fire spell, but used like an axe, that also happens to do fire damage. the fire is the augment, the weapon remains wielded like an axe. so similarly, the blade on an axe is the augment, the axe does not get used like a sword but like a club or mace.
     
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  16. mikeaw1101

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    Sorry but I'm still not sold. Are you really going to tell me that this axe was used for bashing people? It just makes no sense.

    [​IMG]
     
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  17. Bowen Bloodgood

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    I actually own an axe very similar to that one.. and as far as how I've used it.. (it's one of my weapons of choice) I have never.. EVER tried a cutting or slicing move with it. Though I have made extensive use of the shaft on many occasions both offensively and defensively.
     
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  18. mikeaw1101

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    My point exactly. Just because that's how you use an axe for LARP doesn't mean that's how it was used in actual medieval combat.
     
  19. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Who said anything the hell about LARP??? Excuse me no. That's most decidedly NOT how I play. No offense to LARPing but that's just not what I've been into.
     
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  20. mikeaw1101

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    So you fight people with real axes?!
     
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