With the removal of 2h daggers, it's left a hole in the crafting scheme for stabby-types. However, we don't want to increase short blade damage, and we also don't want to increase their parry: ie we do not want to turn short blades into melee powerhouses (not to mention the stab damage impact), and we also don't want them to have amazing defense. This left us in a bit of a bind!
The remaining option then was to increase OB, but this would cause short blades to crowd out fencing blades. So, we are going to try something new:
- Medium blades are now combo weapons (excepting the blade of flame weave, and ring-quilloned swords). They have higher OB and weight than before, and are relatively better OB/PB combo than combo long blades, but with less damage and are generally not able to be wielded two-handed for extra damage.
- Fencing blades now have higher OB and much higher PB than before (filling the PB slot that medium blades once filled), but their damage has been somewhat lessened since they have attack. They are now intended as high OB melee weapons, and also to fill the defensive role that medium blades played.
- If this goes well, we will add in the silver sai as a craftable 1h dagger, with significantly boosted OB over a silver basilard. I am holding off on making them craftable for now to see how this other change goes first. You can see the updated stats in the spreadsheet.
- To facilitate making this change easier for those who currently use those classes, you can now trade nimble blades for paramerions (and vice versa) at appropriate crafter's apprentice. Just give the apprentice the weapon and you will receive the opposite one in return.
- I've upped the nimble blade crafting from 4 tokens to 5 tokens so this can't be abused for extra tokens.