Something Ive been persuing in LNO is the diversification of physical damage through combinations and integrated status effects. Your basic 3 of Blunt, Piercing, and Slashing are all straightforward and come with their own statuses (that I have trigger on Crits).
But then through combinations, which would be tied to specific weapons. For instance, Axe type weapons would deal out Blunt/Slashing. For any regular damage, the Axe splits the damage dealt between the two types. But on a crit, rather than the Bleed of Slashing or the Daze of Blunt, you gain the status effect "Laceration", which delivers a stronger bleed that deals its damage as a penalty to the targets Reaction (meaning they're gonna have a harder time defending themselves).
Meanwhile, sword type weapons can deal all 3 damage types, and they come with the special property (axes above can also be used to trip enemies) that allows the user to choose which damage types get dealt to their target.
Meanwhile meanwhile, the Warrior, my take on the Fighter, comes into this system and had the capability to treat any weapon as though they were a sword, but with swords they can chase Crits and even use them to deal out any of the special status effects of other weapons, like Laceration.
Which just makes a whole bunch of sense. Warriors still have cause to want to use other weapons (as the special properties and other useful traits are going to be competitive with swords), but it really drives home the idea that the Warrior more than anybody else is a master of arms. And of course, this all pays dividends as anybody who uses weapons is going to have nearly as many options available to them as mages do.
But then through combinations, which would be tied to specific weapons. For instance, Axe type weapons would deal out Blunt/Slashing. For any regular damage, the Axe splits the damage dealt between the two types. But on a crit, rather than the Bleed of Slashing or the Daze of Blunt, you gain the status effect "Laceration", which delivers a stronger bleed that deals its damage as a penalty to the targets Reaction (meaning they're gonna have a harder time defending themselves).
Meanwhile, sword type weapons can deal all 3 damage types, and they come with the special property (axes above can also be used to trip enemies) that allows the user to choose which damage types get dealt to their target.
Meanwhile meanwhile, the Warrior, my take on the Fighter, comes into this system and had the capability to treat any weapon as though they were a sword, but with swords they can chase Crits and even use them to deal out any of the special status effects of other weapons, like Laceration.
Which just makes a whole bunch of sense. Warriors still have cause to want to use other weapons (as the special properties and other useful traits are going to be competitive with swords), but it really drives home the idea that the Warrior more than anybody else is a master of arms. And of course, this all pays dividends as anybody who uses weapons is going to have nearly as many options available to them as mages do.
