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[Shinziril]

Scourges are a better match for urumi, to be honest, given that they are edged attacks.  Whips are some sort of tiny, supersonic hammer, like a lump of metal at the end of a long string swung with great force. 

Stats already seem to be standardized in the arena; at least, every human I looked at had "Average" for every stat, and even if there is slight variation within that, I doubt it would have much more of an effect than random lucky shots already do. 

GM Shield User/Misc. Object User w/ 1 shield vs GM Shield User/Misc. Object User w/ 2 shields:
25 group 1 survivors
75 group 2 survivors

Note that the soldiers wielding two shields had one in each hand, rather than abusing the multiple-weapons-in-one-hand bug. 

[SalmonGod]

Do some browsing on Wikipedia.  There are a bunch of varieties of flexible whip-like weapons throughout history from all over the world.  They've never been a common practical weapon, but appear to often have very specialized uses.  I've noticed a couple varieties of blunt whip-like weapons that were specially designed to disarm/disable opponents without spilling blood to avoid soiling holy ground or the like.  They've also been popular where concealment or deception was especially important.  Most seem to be some sort of chain or linked sections rather than rope/leather, but still flexible and whip-like in use.  There is also, of course, the possibility of attaching just about any sort of implement to the end of a rope or chain and using it as a weapon.

There are two martial arts that put a heavy emphasis on whip use that look pretty neat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latigo_y_Daga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskrima

Edit:  The Urumi is truly badass though.  I didn't know about it until following the link from this thread.

[Funk]

Also, combat disarm/stangle/knock unconscious/teeth to throat/tear = WIN every time. Throat shots can not be blocked by armor or anything when you have full opportunity strikes, even when their armor would deflect all other attacks.

Throat shot can be blocked by leather clothing(coats,robes,cloaks,capes)

[Dante]

I'd be interested in seeing an experiment run against hydras to test which weapon is best against them. I've had successes both with slicing heads and crushing them.

[BurnedToast]

Also, combat disarm/stangle/knock unconscious/teeth to throat/tear = WIN every time. Throat shots can not be blocked by armor or anything when you have full opportunity strikes, even when their armor would deflect all other attacks.

Throat shot can be blocked by leather clothing(coats,robes,cloaks,capes)

Problem is, leather is almost worthless as armor. It might stop a human or maybe an animal from biting out your throat (maybe, I don't know for sure) but it won't reduce the damage from a real weapon by enough to make any difference.

Adamantine cloaks might be different. I've still never had a chance to test (since afaik you still can't equip them in the arena) and my forts always die FPS deaths by the time I get to it in fort mode.

[Shinziril]

I did a little preliminary work with humans versus hydras.  My standard experimental setting is a nasty place for the AI-controlled humans- they're got nowhere to run, and the hydra is a lot bigger than they are, so they spend nearly the entire fight on the ground due to getting charged and knocked over.  I had to give the humans full iron armor, an iron battle axe and shield, and GM Fighter/Axeman/Shield User/Armor User/Dodger before even 40ish out of the 100 humans survived. 

Nearly 100% of the survivors were missing one or more legs or feet.  I suspect this may be because losing the ability to stand caused them to focus on fighting the hydra while on the ground, rather than wasting time repeatedly standing up and getting knocked back down again.  The AI clearly does not know how to handle itself in these conditions; perhaps I should do some "personal" arena mode testing with one human-controlled adventurer at a time, counting the number of attacks it takes to down the hydra each time or some such. 

Also, at least one hydra I looked at had already had wounds scar over within the few days of fighting.  These guys heal fast. 

EDIT: Did some one-on-one human-controlled combat, starting with an axeman.  Going straight for decapitations isn't the best strategy; hydras are too large even for greataxes to score an instant kill.  Instead, cripple at least two of their feet (so they fall over, giving them loads of combat penalties) and then go to town lumberjack-style on a given head or neck.  It'll take a while, but it will come off.  Once it does, dance around outside of attack range until the bleeding stops, then start in on the next neck.  It should bleed to death within fairly short order. 

Still haven't tested anything but axes.  Going to try spears next. 

DOUBLE EDIT: Spears are winrar.  Strategy is to go for the upper and lower body as opportunities appear; lower body gets gut shots to make then nauseous and slow, upper body heart shots or ruining both lungs gets you kills.  Both also sometimes get spine shots, which never hurt.  High-skill (GM in useful things) armored spearman managed to take out five hydras in a row this way before the sixth got lucky and ripped his spear arm off at the elbow.

This leaves us with a use for all three of the weapon types: blunt weapons for armored combat, broad edged weapons for human-sized or similar unarmored combat (with any armor weaker than your axe not counting as armor), and spears for enormous unarmored targets like the various animal-style megabeasts, plus giants and similar. 

[VoidPointer]

Problem is, leather is almost worthless as armor. It might stop a human or maybe an animal from biting out your throat (maybe, I don't know for sure) but it won't reduce the damage from a real weapon by enough to make any difference.

Adamantine cloaks might be different. I've still never had a chance to test (since afaik you still can't equip them in the arena) and my forts always die FPS deaths by the time I get to it in fort mode.

Silk is pretty amazing at present, though. Of course, only the smaller races can wear it by default, but really you always wanted to play a dwarf adventurer. It won't always save you, but I've had a lot more trouble taking out goblins in Adventure mode than I should for this exact reason. I think I've yet to sever a limb on a conscious, silk-wearing foe. Some breaks, but those aren't the end of the world.

This leaves us with a use for all three of the weapon types: blunt weapons for armored combat, broad edged weapons for human-sized or similar unarmored combat (with any armor weaker than your axe not counting as armor), and spears for enormous unarmored targets like the various animal-style megabeasts, plus giants and similar. 

If you use a whip, you can usually go straight for the brains on a hydra, or hit the body a couple times first on most other things.

[Kittah_Khan]

You can add the urumi as a seperate weapon, just make sure it becomes edged.
surface of 1000-2000, penetration of 120-180, speed of 1500-2000, EDGE should work for the urumi.

The whip and scourge can be turned into cutting weapons, if you do it correctly, turn up the pain receptors on skin and fat tissues.
Make the area of a hit 2000-3000, penetration around 40, velocity around 2000-3000.

It IS encouraged to turn the relsize of skulls up to around 80-120 to remove the likelihood of skulls/bits of skull getting rammed through brains( this will remove the silly deaths by punch to the face but should still allow hammer smashing )

This is purely from memory, but it should be within the succesful parameters, the whip is almost entirely useless against armor and for deep attacks, brains won't get pierced if penetration is low enough, just lots of shallow cuts that bleed.

Urumi should work decently against light armor, might even work against copper to some degree, should allow removal of limbs on good hits.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Picks.

[sneakey pete]

This leaves us with a use for all three of the weapon types: blunt weapons for armored combat, broad edged weapons for human-sized or similar unarmored combat (with any armor weaker than your axe not counting as armor), and spears for enormous unarmored targets like the various animal-style megabeasts, plus giants and similar.

Leading me to beleive that swords might be a good all round weapon.

Its worth noting that, with hydras, you just need to make each head braindead to kill it. Spear to tbe brain should do it, just need to have it done 7 times. I used this technique in a adventure mode game to decent effect, had a few meatshields pin it down while I went through the heads (you might want notepad open or something so you can keep track of which ones are "dead" and which aren't).
As far as I can tell,  its much, much easier to peirce the brain than lop off a head too, so its another option instead of going for the heart stab option.

[forsaken1111]

I am now picturing a pile of dwarves trying in vain to hold down the whipping heads of a venomous hydra and being randomly torn apart while your adventurer stands to the side carefully take your time lining up each spear thrust through the eye.

[sneakey pete]

I am now picturing a pile of dwarves trying in vain to hold down the whipping heads of a venomous hydra and being randomly torn apart while your adventurer stands to the side carefully take your time lining up each spear thrust through the eye.

well, thats pretty much what it was...

However, i'd go for a sword if i started again, the extra slashing ability of it is all round more useful.
Question: I've been out of the loop for a while, but what's the best material for weapons thesedays?

[Shinziril]

Steel is still the best you can reasonably get.  Material doesn't really matter much for blunt weapons, but don't make them out of anything light (like adamantine).  Adamantine is still king for armor and edged weapons.  Iron and bronze are about the same as each other (and below steel), copper is worse, and silver is the worst (except, of course, for the previously-mentioned blunt weapons, where it's at least acceptable). 

[qbert911]

Thank you Shinziril for your hard work. This thread was a fascinating  read and I hope you continue your research. 

[Alastar]

I've had similar results in many respects - in particular, that penetration against superior armour isn't as much of an issue for edged weapons with a small contact area and that blunt weapon combat favours strength of the material against flesh and density against armour. Interestingly, almost the opposite seemed to apply to bolts: Silver was ahead against flesh, bronze against armour, copper was decent against either. Iron, steel were usually disappointin and adamantine was mostly useless.

Regarding scourges vs. axes against unarmoured opponents: I mostly ran group combat tests as I consider that more applicable to normal gameplay, and here axes do far better. Likely reason for the difference: In single combat, disabling an opponent is as good as killing it outright. In group combat, it matters whether you move on to the next target or waste time slicing a crippled opponent to bits.
I'm generally not impressed with scourges as a weapon; anything they do, morningstars seem to do better.