I was just thinking about this while playing around in adventure mode.
I was playing as said adventurer, and went to one of my fortresses that happened to have candy. I went and ordered my weapon smiths to create me a few candy swords in fort mode. Forbid one of them, the highest quality one (masterwork I think), and retired the fort.
I then went to my fort as a dwarven hearthperson, and "borrowed" the sword from the fort, and proceed to randomly go out and kill everything that got in my way, starting with bandit camps, and also a necro tower.
Through playing through, leveling up sword skills, and parrying A LOT, it got me to think. This is the hardest, sharpest, and lightest sword, likely in the known universe. Why cant it pierce shields, or cut wooden weapons in half when parrying?
Why can't this be done? I realize that the game is still being developed, and will for years to come, but why is it that only clothing is something that experiences wear? I'd kind of like to see some sort of addition to combat systems that allow for destruction of equipment, instead of solely destruction of the thing holding said equipment.
For example. Say I've got a platinum (mood) or silver war hammer, and try to smash some elf with a wooden shield, and get the shot blocked. Should the shield not crack, or even maybe explode under the force?
A different example. Cutting through armor essentially does nothing to the state of the armor, even though there probably are large holes in reality within the armor as a result. Wouldn't it be interesting to see armor get shattered, or cracked by low contact area, high power weapons? Maybe the weapon itself could break against superior armor? What about denting via large contact area, blunt weapons?
Last example. What about edged weapons? Slashing at Steel armor with a Copper sword will either do one of two things. Get through the armor, or damage the sword, like cracking, bending, blunting, or possibly even completely breaking the sword.
Wouldn't it be interesting to see material qualities have more of an effect on combat? Does anyone have a mod for this? Are there any ideas you'd like to see in this regard?
My Idea
I was thinking weapons could potentially be divided into "limbs" like your average living thing, and your weapons could experience wear and tear, honestly identical to a living thing, except that your sword can't "die", but instead lose abilities, based on damage taken. Essentially, when something happens, apply a mutator to the weapon.
For example, if the sword is cut in half, it's edged contact area would be halved, it's piercing contact area would be made much higher, and the weapon would be made lighter.
If a sword is dented or chipped, it would lose edged contact sharpness.
If a weapon is cut to the hilt, you will only be able to pommel things with your weapon.
A Mace\Maul can be chipped, reducing the mass of the weapon, and making what edged contact area wider, but also blunter (which may actually make the weapon better in some cases).
Not sure what to think of hammers besides the loss of the head.
Whips/Flails can have their "heads" cut off, essentially making the weapon useless. Possibly the weapon would get an even finer contact edge as a result, maybe it could be blunter, but the contact area would be reduced (or increased, depends on what a whip in this game actually is).
Spears would essentially become sticks if they lose their sharpened head, effectively making a stab a pommel strike.
Damaged armor/shields can lose coverage while damaged, exposing the user to further "issues".
All of these things can be repaired depending on damage taken, at an appropriate forge, because why not?