PlaneShift

this sounds like a version of http://www.hydlaa.com/bugtracker/bug.php?op=show&bugid=1397&pos=17 that was marked as fixed, i wonder if this was not really fixed correctly

Hmm, that one was to do with cheating the timing, I don't think that's the exploit talked about here…

On laanx, with two books I got the red "You have no weapons equipped!" message, if I dequipped one I could attack, and I would start doing damage, then I could put the book back, the icon in the info window would stay selected, but I stopped doing any damage - I seemed to change stance by clicking the info buttons but still did no damage, and if I tried to change stance with my shortcuts, I got "You have no weapons equipped!" again. I started doing damage again as soon as I put away a book and attacked.

I don't know how you would exploit it, maybe by doing it on a mob far weaker than you so you can leave your character and gain armor experience points? Though there are a few ways to do that, as far as I remember.

I am thinking that a better "fix" would be to allow anything that can be put in your hands to be used as a weapon and anything not specifically a weapon would have a reduced damage potential based on its weight and balance. Something heavy such as a pick might do up to 10 points of damage while something light like a mug might do only one. You could even make a new skill: "non-weapon attack" to allow modifiers to the base. This would be a different skill than melee or I suppose it could be added to melee with the ability increment of 1 modifier in 10 levels.

I think all items in the game should be weildable as a weapon. Have a "base" value for how much damage is done, and then start filling in "special case" values. A pick should do pretty good damage, it is a rather deadly weapon. An apple on the other hand is not going to do any significant damage, and would be destroyed after one successful strike.

Yeah. You should be able to whack someone upside the head with a pick or a book.

moving this to feature request and category to combat

I am thinking that a better "fix" would be to allow anything that can be put in your hands to be used as a weapon

The problem is that interaction with other objects and skills must be well thought out first. Otherwise, there will be exploits. E.g., answer these questions:

1) what is the skill required to use a rock pick (or a book) as a weapon?
2) how would a book damaged in a combat function for its primary purpose?
3) how should a damaged rock pick interact with a weapon repair kit?

A pick would be a polearm, a book is a bludgeon. My suggestion, however was to make non-weapons attacks a new category or a sub-category of melee.

A book used as a club is unlikely to take much damage but might lose some pages if used as a missile. You could, of course, cause any normal item used as a weapon to become non-functional but it might have to depend onhow they were used.

You used to be able to repair the rock picks but that has been disabled, perhaps tool repair could become part of the blacksmith skill.

I would like it if bovek would look at assigning all items able to be held in the hand a value as a combat bonus.

I'm able to attack with my shield. I don't know if this is a bug or feature though since bashing with a shield actually makes some sense.

Seems to me this was fixed…all items (that can be equipped) should have had appropriate values plugged into the database some time ago.