Start Weapons not giving experience is an abomination

[Cool Story]

especially for spells
Please change this.
Please

[gheybaby]

Just make them stop giving skillgains after 25 in the skill, which should be enough time for newbies to find out about using better weapons imo.

[nisco17]

Yeah, dunno why this is still in the game. The only thing it really does nowadays is annoy noobies.

[Wyverex]

It would've been nice if the game asked you what weapon do you want as a starter weapon and allowed skill up to 25 with it.
Not really that important in the long run, but would help newbies, and maybe make a few of 'em stay with the game for long time :)

[Lord Zeb]

Starter Weapon system is broken... badly. It doesn't even say in ANY manual or instruction in-game that they do not grant XP, and I have checked!

And this only as one need them to be able to fight at all, when naked.


Proper solution is:

Implement Unarmed Combat. Fistfighting, with Kicks as Special attacks. Speed & reach as Knives, (Speed as a Onehanded Sword if armed with a Shield,) lower damage than Starter Knives, but Blunt damage with Stamina damage bonus. Worse in DPS than any other type of damage, but possible in a pinch.


Enable Spellcasting while Unarmed... but very weak. Staffs increases power a lot. Not to mention that one need Reagents for all good spells. (After all, the Mobs can do it... and if Evil Dwarves can cast without a Staff, why wouldn't regular Dwarves be able to do the same?)


Remove Starter Weapon Bindings and no XP gain, retain Conscript weapons: Any NPC will give you the Conscript weapons, up to your assigned Slots. Weapons break after a while, and are not bound to you: if you are killed, you need to go pick up another one. Conscript weapons disappear when one try to sell them at a NPC (not returned to you like other items not worth enough to be sold) but do not give you any Gold.

[Temko Firewing]

i wish starter weapons gave skillgain, i also wish people with rez-shield still gave gains.


then i could grind on afk's at the bindstone again like the old days.

[foojin]

Enable Spellcasting while Unarmed... but very weak. Staffs increases power a lot. Not to mention that one need Reagents for all good spells. (After all, the Mobs can do it... and if Evil Dwarves can cast without a Staff, why wouldn't regular Dwarves be able to do the same?[/LIST]

Like spells aren't weak enough already in the start, also being able to cast naked is already stupid. Please make at least a robe required...

[Lord Zeb]

If reducing the effect per spell is too much, then just double the time needed to cast a spell without a Dawnstaff, if not touching the Magnitude of the spells. Will halve the DPS of Manabolts, while delaying Heal Self a bit (even if one will be able to use about as many due to the time one need to wait until it is castable again). Not to mention it will still enable Magic use in the way of a bound Dawnstaff if one's regular staff break, so one can cast weak spells when one run out of staffs but still got Sulphur & Mandrake stocked.

Casting spells unarmed is however not stupid. Magic is in the soul, not in the staff. The staff is merely a tool to make it easily accessible. And it is not even Lore-bound to only be able to use magic if one got a Staff, as noting in any text mention it... and Mobs such as Dark Dwarves use loads of magic without equipping or even dropping staffs.

Still, if one get rid of Bound Starter Weapons, one get rid of the bound Dawnstaff that any mage should have despite it's suckiness, as Staffs may break when one least expect it, and one do no always have a spare. So, if one get rid of the Dawnstaff being Bound, alternative magic uses needs to be implemented.

Which is to be able to use Magic, when Unarmed (not even equipped with a Shield), hands Readied, Spell Loaded & any reagent needed in the Backpack.