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[RockBiterSon]

I definitely agree that range should be a factor in combat. The deciding factor in several cases. In the example of the spear user getting first strike, and then, barring high lopsidedness of skill, keeping the knife user at a distance is perfect. If the knife user is extremely skilled he could turn things around by ducking under the spear and closing to a range where he has the advantage. At such a close range the spear user would have to rely on the highly useless bash attack since he doesn't have room to stab. I also agree that melee weapons shouldn't reach over multiple squares. Where this gets interesting is when it interacts with the player. This is all pointless if the player can't tell his adventurer to close with the enemy, or to keep at a distance, or so on. I think this option could be presented to the player with the new "interactions". Say for example that Urist McAdventurer dodges a spear thrust, he then is given the option to attempt to close with the enemy. If he succeeds his close range attacks will be highly effective while the enemy's longer range ones will be rendered useless. But say Urist is wielding a weapon that can be used close up or at range. If so, there will be times where he will choose to remain at distance. Giving the player that choice would spice combat up in that dimension. As always you could choose to just run at the enemy and auto-attack, but, in the case of the spear vs. the knife for example, choosing wrongly should be disastrous for you. This can be changed under Combat preferences as well, where one can prefer to "keep enemies at a distance" or "close when possible" or "According to Opponent"
In fortress mode this would make reading combat reports more interesting. "The goblin thief ducks under the -iron spear- and stabs the speardwarf in the left lower leg with the large copper dagger." Or "The speardwarf keeps the goblin thief at bay with his -iron spear- forcing his attack to fall short!" This sort of back and forth should happen rarely when the weapons being used are of similar length/reach though. goblins charging into a spear line should be punished appropriately, as should dwarves charging a megabeast with "reaching claws"
Grappling weapons would be cool if every weapon weren't already essentially a grappling weapon already. "You grab the goblin by the teeth with your copper shield!" Grappling in general needs to make sense before grappling weapons can exist.
Basically I like your idea a lot, and hope that how it is displayed to the player and how the player can interact with the mechanic will be up to the challenge of showing all it's complexities. If, for example, an adventurer wielding a rapier could challenge an opponent with a similarly long weapon and have to decide between keeping his distance or closing the gap several times during the fight, each time taking into account different circumstances and the flow of the fight and finally end the fight by catching the opponent's weapon and disarming him, (grappling with a weapon) then I'd consider these two mechanics to have been implemented in full.

[Werehuman]

 In general, these are some great ideas. The only thing I would add is maybe, mail shirts have a [HOLE_SIZE:#] tag. The higher quality, the smaller the rings would be. Maybe a dagger can go past this, but a sword can't, etc. The higher the edge the smaller it can slip through. Dat just my idea.

[Ozyton]

Hmmm, I don't think the [HOLE_SIZE:N] thing would work for mail armor specifically, but if instead better quality armor had less 'gaps' in general it would work fine. Crappy plate armor, for example, might have more exposed joints, while masterwork would cover them more since the armorsmith knows how to cover them without inhibiting movement. Armor already has a coverage % which could probably be used instead, making higher quality armor have more 'coverage'.

In one of the Lindybiege videos he comments how mail shirts in movies sometimes don't have armpits because of how difficult it is for novices to make that part of the armor, something like that would work.

The hole size thing would probably apply to something with much more noticeable holes, maybe bone armor of some sort or armor where you could sneak hits in underneath plates where they're separated. Although you could have the hole size apply but something like a dagger wouldn't be getting through unless the holes were really big, what would most likely get through would be something like awlpikes and bodkin arrows that have a very fine point on them. This goes back to the idea of wearing padded armor below your mail, the weave on padded armor is so fine that even needles have trouble getting through =p

"The goblin thief ducks under the -iron spear- and stabs the speardwarf in the left lower leg with the large copper dagger."

This is the kinda thing I was going for, yeah =p

[assasin]

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In general, these are some great ideas. The only thing I would add is maybe, mail shirts have a [HOLE_SIZE:#] tag. The higher quality, the smaller the rings would be. Maybe a dagger can go past this, but a sword can't, etc. The higher the edge the smaller it can slip through. Dat just my idea.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying that the rings have radii big enough for a dagger? Because from what I've seen of mail none it it would have gaps big enough for a dagger. There are special types of blades and arroheads that are designed to exploit weaknessess in the mail



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Effectiveness
 




Mail byrnie from the Museum of Bayeux
Mail armour provided an effective defence against slashing blows by an edged weapon and penetration by thrusting and piercing weapons; in fact a study conducted at the Royal Armouries at Leeds concluded that "it is almost impossible to penetrate using any conventional medieval weapon"[35][36] Generally speaking, mail's resistance to weapons is determined by four factors: linkage type (riveted, butted, or welded), material used (iron versus bronze or steel), weave density (a tighter weave needs a thinner weapon to surpass), and ring thickness (generally ranging from 18 to 14 gauge in most examples). Mail, if a warrior could afford it, provided a significant advantage to a warrior when combined with competent fighting techniques. When the mail was not riveted, a well placed thrust from a spear or thin sword could penetrate, and a pollaxe or halberd blow could break through the armour. In India, punching daggers known as katars were developed that could pierce the light butted mail used in the area. Some evidence indicates that during armoured combat the intention was to actually get around the armour rather than through it—according to a study of skeletons found in Visby, Sweden, a majority of the skeletons showed wounds on less well protected legs.[37]
 
The flexibility of mail meant that a blow would often injure the wearer,[38] potentially causing serious bruising or fractures, and it was a poor defence against head trauma. Mail-clad warriors typically wore separate rigid helms over their mail coifs for head protection. Likewise, blunt weapons such as maces and warhammers could harm the wearer by their impact without penetrating the armour; usually a soft armour, such as gambeson, was worn under the hauberk. Medieval surgeons were very well capable of setting and caring for bone fractures resulting from blunt weapons.[39] With the poor understanding of hygiene however, cuts that could get infected were much more of a problem.[39] Thus mail armour proved to be sufficient protection in most situations.[40][41]

I can't think of anything else you might mean, but when you say edge I start thinking you may mean that a sharper blade might cut through the rings more easily. Which doesn't fit with what you are saying about the size? Do you mean width of the blade?

[Werehuman]

 Looking back, I was thinking more like inch diameter rings, and like a rapier, just incredibly thin and sharp. OzyTheSage's is more practical. My logic was, these crude rings, the unskilled dwarves couldn't make the rings as small or neat, so they had to be larger. It wouldn't be a huge difference, just make change how deep the edge could go before being stopped by a ring. Admittably, it is obscure and I like the OP's version better.

[Ozyton]

Hmm, perhaps the dwarves would make crude armor, but it could also be argued that they are master smiths and such and could produce such high quality mail. If one were to assume that they would be unable to make mail armor, perhaps something similar could be substituted, like lamellar or scale armor? Tying metal plates together might not be as challenging or time consuming as making all those interlocking chains.

Mail could also be 'nerfed' by making it very time consuming to make a single suit, perhaps give it several 'stages' of completion in which the dwarves have time to take breaks, drink, etc. before continuing. Talking about Lindybiege again (it's still rather fresh in my memory so...) he says that his shirt took about 250 hours to make, and that was likely with modern tools and such but I don't know.

Naturally, if mail armor was 'nerfed' as such something would need to take its place as the 'standard' metal armor, something quicker to make but not as effective or with less coverage/more 'gaps'.

[Spyton]

Chain mail armor has always been about the same diameter as you see today, Regular blades don't do well at all against them, but knives like the stiletto worked well against it as it was essentially a pointy thin rod. Maces/mauls/clubs were by far the most effective as it just ignores chainmail completely.

 It does take a while to make it, But I have the full belief that dwarves, out of all the races, could manage to make the wires->Rings to make it.

If you wanted to mess with it id go with maybe producing armor out of different types of mail, Normal 4in1 mail is your average stuff while kings mail or 8 or 9 in1 took an extremely long time to make but was way more effective, or the opposite 2 in 1, which is what the Chinese used. although the Chinese used it rarely and as far as im aware they used it for small areas and gaps in armor if ever.

Pretty sure weapon range is planned and looking forward to it.

[RockBiterSon]

Another metric could be agressiveness/defensiveness. It could be linked to the chance that a combatant will charge i suppose. Basically a Combat Preference where one can exploit openings in the opponent's defence. Choosing to "fight defensively" would mean you provide less of these openings in exchange for attacking less, or attacking to "keep the opponent at bay" rather than to do damage. "Attack aggresively" would mean you are hitting harder but always opening oneself up to counter-attack. Perhaps another would allow you to fight defensively until a opening occurs and then you would get the choice to "take an attack of oppourtunity" which has a high effectiveness, but puts you off balance and leaves openings in your defence.

[CrzyMonkeyNinja]

Dwarves have been consistently portrayed as master craftsmen/craftsdwarves since the Viking age, so I think it would be a shame to do otherwise. Because of this, dwarven mail should be of higher quality than that of others, even that of the elves. I say this because, while elves simply have a very long time to perfect their craft, dwarves, though shorter lived, are naturally prone to being the greatest craftsmen / craftsdwarves. Their portrayal in this way stems from the fact that, in Tolkien, the dwarves were created by the Vala (read “god”) of crafts, Aulë, so they, like him, were masters of craft.

I really like the multi-step mail manufacturing that people have mentioned, in fact I was planning on modding something similar myself. I propose that the steps would be this:
1. Turn metal ore into bars / ingots [smelter]
2. Draw out wire [mail-makeing workshop of some sort?] AND 2a. form metal tube / make metal plate [metalsmith’s workshop]
3. Cut wire into open links to be riveted [mail workshop?] AND 3a. cut metal tube into solid links / punch solid links out of plate [mail workshop?]
4. Assemble shirt [mail workshop?] (longest step in the process)
This is, to the best of my knowledge, representative of the medieval method for making mail. The “form metal tube / make metal plate” and “cut metal tube / punch plate” are there because I think there is evidence for both methods being used to make the solid links, though one might not belong in this time period.

So, upsides and downsides to a multi-step mail process:
Upsides-
More realistic process
Process take the proper amount of labor and time

Downsides-
TONS of micromanagement

So, it comes down to whether we all want more realistic mail making or easy mail making. I personally am all for a complex process because making it a bit of a headache is even MORE realistic. (I would write up a proposal for a similar process with plate armour, but I feel as though I've said enough already.)

Also, if anybody wants some informative reading on mail, then read this article. It’s both written by an expert and well cited. http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_mail.html