Hero Proficiency: Weapons
Every weapon type has a set of learnable skills and traits to promote unique playstyles.
Wildermyth contains a ton of fantastic weapons that unfortunately begin to feel very similar after a while. Distinct playstyles don’t really stand out among most of the weapons. I’ve also always wondered what it would look like if a hero could master the sword, or become really skilled in firing a crossbow.
Every weapon now has a unique innate skill that represents its advantages in combat. Spears are light and can attack rapidly, axes can tear down enemy weaponry, greatswords can cleave through multiple enemies in a row, and so on. Additionally, through constant use of their weapons, heroes will build up experience points, upon reaching a certain threshold they will Learn their weapon, gaining a new skill unique to the weapon. (Legacy heroes will also gain a boost to their weapon XP upon recruitment)
Some of these skills trade damage for status effects, attack multiple enemies, or maneuver a hero for free. Overall they all compliment the fighting style of that weapon, and they’re up to you to discover. More can be read in-game in the Ability and Gear tabs of the character sheet.
Additionally, a new universal player mechanic is added: Overreach
Melee attacks that extend more than 1 tile away apply a defense penalty to the hero as they reach out further than the safe minimum. This applies to everything, from spears, to heroes with Long Reach, and all the new weapons that have an increased range.
Some additional changes:
- All weapons now have a spell damage bonus, though generally reduced compared to staves and wands.
- All two-handed weapon have an increased attack range of 2.1
- Most two-handed weapons promote a very aggressive, low defense playstyle
- Most one-handed weapons promote a defensive or utility based playstyle
This mod requires my Core Mod, as it utilizes most of the status effects and other pieces of code from it.
Any other mod that directly makes changes to existing weapons is hard incompatible, as this mod overwrites every single weapon file in the game.
This mod is soft incompatible with other weapon mods, meaning it will work, however its changes will not extend to the modded weapons. Compatibility patches are a work in progress for some of those mods, but the changes need to be applied manually for both mods to work.
Enabling and disabling this mod mid-campaign is not the best of ideas. I’m pretty sure it can be safely enabled on the overland map, and it should also be safe to disable on the overland map, but always save and reload the game after attempting to do so (to refresh all of the weapon changes).
An amount of effort was put in to making these changes as balanced as possible, but to be frank: This is a straight up buff to all weapons. Everything has gained new options it did not have before. The hope is that by the various downsides and niche uses of the weapons, they will feel balanced.
Additionally, there are a large combination of weapons and class abilities and themes, not all of which may play nicely together. Some have been tested, some are anticipated (I imagine the greataxe and warriors with broadswipes may get really strong). However, trying to iron them all out before releasing this would be an exercise in madness. There may also be a few more potential features being planned to look forward to. Things are in a good enough spot I felt ready to publish, especially considering it’s been almost a year since I began this project.
- Ironclaww for helping with brainstorming and balancing opinions
- The Wildermyth devs for making this wonderful game and for taking the time to answer my silly questions as I tried to break the game’s limits with this mod.
