After reading various threads on people's ideas of weapons and skills, I'd like to take some time to propose some of my own.

Weapon/Armor Materials
If you were stabbed with an iron dagger versus an ebony dagger, the difference in material shouldn't have much effect if you were unarmored. Generally speaking, differences in weapon materials would likely be negligible against unarmored targets. A sharp iron dagger would do about the same damage as a sharp ebony dagger to an exposed gut. The difference in weapon materials would come into effect when striking weapon or armor. Obviously the higher quality weapon should receive less damage and do more damage when contacting a lower quality. An iron dagger would do less damage through an ebony cuirass than an ebony dagger would do through an iron cuirass. Hopefully there would be a system that differentiates between whether you're striking your opponent's ebony cuirass versus striking his unarmored left arm.

Skills
In order to make the lower quality weapons more feasible, I believe their damage against armored targets should be reliant on your weapon skill. This could represent the PC's ability to manipulate the weapon towards weak spots and their general skill in using the weapon. The same could be done with armor, making the PC's damage resistance with lower quality armor against higher quality weapons dependent on armor skill. This could represent the PC's ability to dodge/parry attacks in such a way to minimize the damage (ie make a sure kill a glancing blow instead). Thus the more skilled warrior would win even when equipped with worse gear.

This system would make lower quality items more useful at high levels, which is important for RPers who choose their equipment based more on RP purposes than stats. In addition, the higher quality equipment should be rare. It doesn't make much sense for random bandits and marauders to be wearing glass and daedric equipment.

Great idea, man. I doubt they'd do it, but it sounds like the kind of thing a mod could accomplish after the fact.

Realistically this would work. However in an RPG I believe it is better for a higher quality weapon to do more damage. Because despite all the innovation and everything it is still similar to a traditional RPG. This comes from the fact that as you gain experience you will level up and as you level up you will undoubtedly gain more HP.

Now if weapons were all about a test of materials this would work inthe happy fun time situain that all enemies have the same HP or at least a similar amount.

say your iron dagger does a set amount of damage against an unarmored target lets say

(Please note these values are cmpletely made up and not represntative of how peoples health woudl change by that level)

Enemy: Bandit
Lv: 1
HP: 100
Armor level: 0 (0%)

Amount of damage against target using iron dagger: 20
Subractied by armor value: 0
total damage: 20 (1/5 of maximum health)

Now lets day this is the same situation with the ebony dagger.

Enemy: Bandit
Lv:10
HP: 300 Armor level: 0 (0%)

amount of damage done against target with Ebony Dagger: 20 (because as you said they are the same just of different materials)
Subtracted by armor value: 0
total damage: 20 (1/15) of maximum health

Notice the difference? If all daggers had the same ability to cut as any other, weapons would gradually become less effective even though they are of higher quality. While the target with 100 health can only take 5 hits. The one with 300 can take 15

Also a few extra notes:

1: Should your skill with a weapon make it possible to completely destroy someone no matter the quality what would be the point of gearing up?

2: I AGREE that striking unarmored parts of an opponent should do more damage, but I do NOT agree with all weapons of a same type doing the same damage.

3: In this scenario what would be the point of gathering some kind of legendary weapon? The only benefit between it and a weapon of the same quality would the enchantment it came with.

4: Lets take a view of it like this, it works in your system. You say that the differences in material should cause more damage against weaker materials? Well lets just say that unarmored is the weakest material in game, so an ebony dagger will OBVIOUSLY cut through human flesh easier than an iron one.

I like the idea, though Drizzitdude has a great point. The problem here is that the HP gain per level is too high, while there is not a damage gain per level. The damage increment could do the trick, as far as its equal or higher than the HP gain per level.

You bring up some good points. I hadn't considered leveling up and health increases. I'll admit that I had real life in mind when writing my ideas down. In real life a few good strikes would defeat anyone, but of course this is a game. If your ability to take damage didn't change much between Level 1 and Level 50 few people would bother leveling. In that case weapon damage would probably have to be much more dependent on weapon skill than what I had proposed. Either that or leveling up would just increase the duration of the fights.

1. Gearing up would make it much easier to defeat other well geared enemies. Being skilled with a blade, you should be able to defeat a well geared enemy with an iron sword, but you would fare much better with a silver one.
2. The damage wouldn't have to be the same, but the difference would be negligible. Which might as well be the same I suppose.
3. Obtaining a legendary weapon would come with prestige and knowing that you're the only one to wield a weapon of its kind. They would have higher item health and be more valuable.
4. I was considering unarmored as presenting little if no resistance to weapons. You wouldn't say that an ebony dagger cuts through water better than an iron one.

This is mostly off the top of my head so obviously there will be problems and balance issues, but I welcome a discussion.




True, but applying this to enemies too would mean that the difference in levels between you and your opponents would matter more than the actual value of the levels. Which I suppose could work.

deaded_, you make a good point, but, an ebony dagger might actually cut better because it holds a sharper edge, and is probably much harder than iron, which is relatively soft.

What?

Sure, stabbing a person with an ebony dagger would be easier, but it would still make the same sized hole, thereby doing the same damage. The only thing that comment supports would be that higher level objects drain less fatigue per swing. Also, if you read his thing about skill being related to, well... SKILL (omgee wat?) instead of someone magically gaining HP, that means that the level 10 bandit doesn't take 15 hits to kill, just 5 successful hits out of 15 (which are blocked by the bandits skill)

With Blade on 100 and pretty high Strength you can kill anything with a steel sword, so I dont know what you guys are talking about.

What they could do (it will never happen though) is have different materials have different qualities, such as better armor penetration or better durability or generally be lighter depending on whatever material it is made of, then we could have weapons of varying qualities.

A weapons with a higher quality will always do more damage, it may have a better blade design that causes the victim to bleed out faster, or be better at focusing a slash.
Then the material it is made out of would take its various effects, such as being lighter or heavier, or better armor penetration.

This way an ebony dagger won't always be better than an iron dagger, because that iron dagger could be a better design.
This way there are better weapons, and we would get a bit more realism in how its approached.

Ehh, idk. I just want more variety in weapons, a little more realism would be cool too.

Edge retention would be accounted for in the way the weapon degrades after hitting something of higher quality. I doubt the edge would wear down noticeably during a fight, but to be honest I have no clue.



I would like the different weapon materials to have unique properties too. Weapon aesthetics having an effect on combat would be a very nice addition (ie some weapons are better designed for slashing than thrusting, etc).

naaa...

i like just being able to take a sword that looks the coolest to me and just smack people around with it. if you have to calculate things like damage resistance that your opponents armor has against your weapons it starts to feel like i need to do mathmatical equations to understand what does the best damage, by how much and it comes out to me needing to throw a cool, unique weapon away for some bland random iron blade.

in short: less math, more fun.