You examine a steel rapier.
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The rapier has a three-foot double-edged blade designed for both thrusting and
slashing. It is light and fast, with a steel basket to protect the hand, but
the blade itself is relatively fragile. It can be used in a two handed style
(with the second hand placed behind the back to improve balance) or combined
with a second weapon. It is particularly effective when used with a main
gauche in the other hand.
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Skill type : Swords (also benefits from the Fencing Mastery talent).
Usage : One or two handed (see 'help assist'), but cannot be thrown.
Size/reach : Adds two encumbrance, and has a melee reach of three feet.
Material : Steel (90% durability).
Techniques : 105 (0 mounted, 78 style-specific and 9 behind the scenes).
Good styles: Viper, Crane, Hawk, Eagle and Hydra (see 'help style').
Weaknesses : This weapon can be caught by swordbreakers and tiger claws.
Special : Some attacks reduce opponent's armour by 25% (see 'help bypass').
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Condition : Seventy-five (out of seventy-five).
Attack : +12 (+12, +11, +10 or +2 depending on condition).
Defence : +12 (+12, +11, +10 or +2 depending on condition).
Damage : +3 (+3, +3, +2 or +1 depending on condition).
Requires : Brawn 4, Grace 6 and Size 5 (-8 Attack, -6 Defence).
Two handed : Brawn 4, Grace 5 and Size 5 (no penalty - see 'help penalties').
Cooldown : 3, 4, 5 or 6 seconds, depending on wielders encumbrance.
Protects : Hands.
Soak/Absorb: 25%/2 cut, 25%/2 stab, 25%/2 crush and 0%/0 poison.
Soak/Absorb: 0%/0 heat, 0%/0 cold, 0%/0 shock and 0%/0 mental.
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You examine a bronze broadsword.
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The broadsword has a heavy three-foot double edged blade, designed primarily
for slashing. It has a wide range of available fighting techniques, catering
to both the beginner and the expert.
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Skill type : Swords (also benefits from the Straight Sword Mastery talent).
Usage : One handed, and cannot be thrown.
Size/reach : Adds three encumbrance, and has a melee reach of three feet.
Material : Bronze (80% durability).
Techniques : 66 (0 mounted, 43 style-specific and 6 behind the scenes).
Good styles: Viper, Crane, Hydra, Mantis and Hawk (see 'help style').
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Condition : One hundred and fifty (out of one hundred and fifty).
Attack : +8 (+8, +6, +4 or +1 depending on condition).
Defence : +8 (+8, +6, +4 or +1 depending on condition).
Damage : +12 (+12, +10, +8 or +5 depending on condition).
Requires : Brawn 6, Grace 4 and Size 5 (no penalty - see 'help penalties').
Cooldown : 5, 5, 5 or 5 seconds, depending on wielders encumbrance.
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That is exactly the kind of behavior I want to eliminate. There shouldn't be any need for "cookie-cutter" character templates, and there shouldn't be any single "best" set of gear. If there is, the game has failed, IMHO.
One of the keys in developing board games is to create a rule set that allows for a great deal of replay. The min-max route is popular because "winning" a typical MUD usually means taking the most efficient path from level 1 to level N. That path is generally fixed by content that only varies in overall difficulty, not in strategy. The typical MUD design would fail miserably as a board game because it's NOT replayable.
In PvE, if you specialize as a fire mage (for example), you can know ahead of time that certain levels will be difficult because a majority of the content is resistant to fire damage. Thus, you can opt to respec (if allowed), use gear that helps make up the difference, or group with others who bring different skills to the table.
In PvP, you can't prepare ahead of time. If there's no "best" set of gear, and you don't know what you're likely to come up against, I maintain that the numbers muddy the waters more than they help. You can either gear for generic fights, knowing you will be handicapped against anyone who has specialized, OR you can gear for a specialty knowing that you will dominate anyone who is weak against it, usually win against non-spealists, and lose horribly to those who gear against you.
However, I think that makes the game more dynamic and replayable. If you find yourself always on the losing end when you face clerics, you can try to find gear to protect against their type of damage, you can try to fit yourself to do huge amounts of offense that they probably aren't protected against, you can try to do faster attacks with less damage to keep them from healing themselves, or you can just try to avoid clerics and focus on softer (for you) targets.
There's nothing "forcing" them to jump through such hoops, other than their own compulsive need to min-max. If you want to know that weapon A is better than weapon B, just use it as you go about your daily killing and see if you feel like you're doing better, worse, or that it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter, keep the one that you can vendor for less, or that's cheaper to repair, or that looks better.
If the player in my game feels the need to go kill 100 rats with each sword to try and figure out which one is "better", then my game has already failed. If I can't make the game interesting and compelling enough to want to play and see the content MORE than spending the time to min-max gear, I should just shut it down and let them play Progress Que....
Yes, but you aren't fighting swarms of rats or mobs of angry peasants. Typically, you're fighting one to three of such things in a room. Not the kind of stuff they write heroic novels about…