I think this would fall under the purview of both combat and culture (which is yet to be added, but planned, IIRC).
The idea is to allow the various societies and perhaps even legendary warriors to develop distinct martial styles which they could then teach to others and establish as military tradition within a civilization, much as things have been on Earth.
For instance, Urist McAwesome is a legendary swordsdwarf who develops a technique that involves more usage of strikes use the flat of his blade and pommel to temporarily stun or even disarm opponents. Gameplay wise this might be represented by a proceduraly generated skill "McAwesomenese Fighting" that gives those trained in it a higher chance to attack with the blunt surfaces of their weapon and to have a relatively high chance to stun opponents when doing so. Or, Urist McIronwrist is a legendary striker who has trained himself to deliver bone-shattering blows. This might mean slower, lesser accurate attacks that have a huge impact that damages internal organs or crushes bones. Urist McSpear learned to use the spear in a defensive manner, parrying attacks and using its length to keep enemies at a range where they could not attack, meaning an increase to dodging and counterattacks.
You could pretty much think up interesting combinations for every combat mechanic already in the game and some that aren't that would both make combat even more interesting and add a lot of cultural depth to a game that already has combat as a fairly central role. Furthermore I could see it playing a large role in world gen/legends, when an army with a great style dominates its neighbors, or a single great warrior rises to the top; and in adventurer you may make it a quest to seek out the master of a particular fighting style to learn from him.
Some parameters that styles could mess with:
attack rate
attack accuracy
attack damage/force
targeted attacks (at joints, at weak points in armor, at the head, etc)
using different parts of a weapon (thrusting, slashing, backhand, forehand, offhand shield bashes)
charging
screaming/yelling/intimidation
"ironskin" styles allowing one to take more damage
dodging/parrying/counterattacking/shield blocking
armor use
specific combinations of attacks that are greater than the sum of the individual attacks (e.g. something to bring someone off balance followed by a cleaving blow)
Edit:
Same kind of idea but with weapons.
Keep a few basic weapons in the raws (like "sword" "axe" "mace"), but have the majority of weapons be proceduraly generated by cultures in conjunction with the martial styles that both spawn from them and spawn weapons specific meant to be used for a particular style.
This may not be feasible for ranged weapons other than simply modifying their size/projectile size and rate of fire. However melee weapons are fairly simple things overall. You have a haft/shaft ranging in size (from 0 for things like katars to in excess of 12 feet for spears used in phalanxes) and composition (wood or metal), for these you need a weight and a length/leverage. There is the blade, spike, or head that is the primary attack surface (long blades like swords, chopping axeheads and scimitar, thrusting blades, thrusting spikes, swinging spikes, crushing hammer, spiked balls, etc), these would have a weight, size, and contact profile (edge, spike, blunt). The last basic element is the pommel or counterbalance used to give a weapon a desired balance and heft. More exotic elements would be things like chains or ropes such as on a flail, which allows them to translate devastating amounts of force but makes them unwieldy, or whips.
Then a weapon would be characterized by the sum of its component pieces--giving it a length, a center of balance, location of damaging surfaces--that would allow the game to figure out what kind of damage it could do, how quickly it can be swung, and so on.
Once again you could end up with unique weapon types in each world gen. The human tribe who specializes in a combat style the promotes the use of two light swords, a dwarven mountainhome with guards who fight off the beasts in the depths with sword-like blades on the end of long poles, etc.
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Topic: Culture and Combat (Read 450 times)