ToME WikiI created a hobbit bard to see what the class is like. I decided to have her worship Eru, and discovered once I started her that I was unable to wield anything in slot (a). (She came with a short sword and I also tried a whip.) Is this a bug or a feature?
FeathinSilyar: Bards start with 1 point in Barehand combat, and no points in Weaponsmastery. Therefore, your character starts in Barehand combat mode, which prevents you from wielding a weapon. You'll have to gain a level and put a point into Weaponsmastery before the "Change Melee Style" option will appear under the 'm' menu.
HarryErwin: Thanks, that sorta clarifies things, although it doesn't explain why this is nowhere in the documentation! I notice my hobbit bard also starts with a 0/0.3 in sling-mastery and a 2/0 in archery. Adding points to sling-mastery doesn't affect the archery skill--I suppose this is another one of those gotchas. Could I suggest to the maintainer that he is being a bit remiss in failing to document these archane points. He might also mention that you have to hit <space> to get the lists to display. It's hard to tell someone to RTFM if it isn't there.
Neil, could this topic be changed to something like 'Things that really ought to be in the documentation, but aren't'?
NeilStevens: We could rename it but I don't see the point. The skill docs should be expanded a little to mention explicitly the three combat types and the need to switch between them, so just make a note of that in a new report over at BugReports.
That said, I would think that players would notice when the weapon slot says "Barehanded combat" instead of "Weapon combat."
GreyCat: skills.txt already has the following:
- In addition, investing in some skills may raise your knowledge in others. This improvement is based on the modifier in the related class (the one which gets the free points). For example, a skill point put into Weaponmastery raises Combat by 0.5 skill points. This is actually multiplied by the skill modifier that your character has in the Combat skill. For example, a Swordmaster investing a skill point into Weaponmastery would have his Combat skill raised by 0.5 * [0.900] while a Runecrafter would have his Combat skill raised by 0.5 * [0.200].
NeilStevens: That has nothing to do with the issue here, which is combat style. Barehand combat gives barehanded combat style, weaponmastery gives weaponmastery combat style, bareform combat gives bear combat style. To use weapons, you must have the weaponmastery skill above 0, plus have the weaponmastery combat style selected. I'm not sure this is documented anywhere; at least it isn't in the relevant skill paragraphs.
GreyCat: The quote above was in response to the second of the "gotchas". The first is still an unsolved issue. I don't even know what the third one means -- "hit <space> to get the lists to display"? What lists?
NeilStevens: Ah, ok, never mind, heh.
HarryErwin: OK, that quote explains why sling-mastery doesn't affect archery, but it doesn't make much sense. Hobbits have a low basic skill in archery that they can never improve and no skill in sling-mastery that they can. Was this true before 2.3.2?
GreyCat: As far as I know, it's been consistent across 2.3.*. I'm not sure about 2.2.*.