New weapons and new way of crafting?

[murphylawson]

There are tons of possibilities for poison. Nettles have a very strong irritant in them, if it could be concentrated, it would likely cause ridiculous pain. New foragable plants could be introduced to allow for a greater variety of poison. While I'm on this note, since we have poppies we could have opiates, that could be used possibly as sleep poison of sorts, or as a healing/weariness drug.

[Twerp]

Glass weapons? Really? I know H&H isn't exactly hard realism, but that seems a little too far on the goofy side to me. This is life on the frontier, not Morrowind or Ultima.

Poisons, well... it's not a BAD idea, but it sounds like it could be rather perilous with regards to game balance. Archers with poison arrows could trivialize hunting, and PvP could become a matter of who poisons who first. I suppose you could have antidotes and such, but that might just turn into having an extra command to execute in a fight, which would be superfluous and really not add anything of substance.

[Winterbrass]

Archers with poison arrows could trivialize hunting, and PvP could become a matter of who poisons who first.

Archers with poison arrows could [fuck up the meat of the animal that they're hunting and poison their entire village because they are a dumbass], and PvP could become a matter of who [is better prepared].

OH LAWDY NO WHATEVER SHALL WE DO

[DatOneGuy]

Different kinds of poisons could be done right and not be a problem at all.

Poison fucking up meat would be one thing that would help immensely by itself into balancing, you can still grab the meat, but it has no indicator of being poisoned, however it will actually slowly poison whoever has it, different effects for different poisons and different antidotes for them would be neat as well

Arrow heads are something I've wanted for a long time though, uggh, I'd settle with even metal tips for now.

[Twerp]

That'd work, I imagine. I don't really have a grip on the in-game economy and the value of things, I was mostly concerned that it might make certain inedible animal parts too easy to acquire. Though I'm enough of a newbie that killing a bear seems like a nigh-unattainable holy grail, so maybe take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Also I'm a big baby that's scared of getting whacked in a poison arrow drive-by~

Would have to give some thought to the accessibility of poisons, though. Namely, how easy/hard the different varieties of poison-making herbs would be to find, not to mention what these different varieties actually are, what skills would be used in their making (as well as the antidotes), and so on. Implementation-wise, I'm not entirely sure how one would strike a balance between being just another way for the more entrenched, established players get their Imperialism on, or winding up as something that enables weeks-old players to bump off their statistical betters. But I'm kinda dumb like that.

[murphylawson]

I'm making a new thread fro poison, because I think it deserves discussion, and this isn't the thread to do it.

[VowOfSilence]

Glass weapons? Really? I know H&H isn't exactly hard realism, but that seems a little too far on the goofy side to me. This is life on the frontier, not Morrowind or Ultima.

That stuff really exists. Obsidian is volcanic glass that was used f.e. by native americans for daggers and arrow tips. Apparantly, it's better than bones or stones. There are even weapons made from regular crystal glass, but i never heard of anyone really using that in combat.

[Twerp]

That's quite true with the obsidian, but volcanic glass is rather different from the sort you get by superheating sand in a kiln (something to do with the lack of crystal formation leading to a devilishly sharp edge). Besides, obsidian weapons weren't designed to break off in whatever they hit, unlike the glass weapons of fantasy. It'd be a strange medium for dispensing poison as well.

Now I'm starting to wonder where the inspiration for the idea of shattering glass weapons came from, I'm not aware of any historical context.

[murphylawson]

My inspiration was actually the morgul blade from LotR to be honest. The blade was made in such a way that the tip broke off in Frodo's shoulder. Fantasy aside, you have to admit that glass weapons that shatter inside someone would be devastating.

[Twerp]

I meant whatever inspired their appearance in fantasy literature and games, but I'll definitely agree that having broken glass in a wound would be pretty goddamn awful, further fragmenting and cutting deeper on the slightest internal pressure. But it'd be extremely impractical, most likely requiring a very accurate strike against an unprotected target, and a weapon so fragile would be difficult to transport as well as wield, which is why the previously-mentioned obsidian weaponry was mostly geared towards hunting. Though the Aztecs had a rather clever obsidian-studded club that saw military use, as they wouldn't have to replace the entire weapon whenever they hit somebody.

All said, though, glass weapons would seem awfully out of place in the Nordic frontier.