Draft:Epee
| ) | |
| Base damage rating | 6 |
|---|---|
| Base hit bonus | +15 |
| Normal attack type | Thrusting |
| Hands | 1 |
| Julie's price (Au) | 100 |
| Weight | 15 |
An epee is a light, one-handed thrusting weapon in Omega. It can be wielded in melee, thrown, or used for tunneling. Its high hit bonus favors accuracy over damage.
Generation
Julie's armorer shop in Rampart sells fully identified, uncursed +0 epees for 100 Au. They are part of the regular stock and do not require a dungeon expedition to obtain.
Epees also occur among randomly generated weapons and can appear in Knight's Pawn Shop's changing stock. Random copies may have different enchantments and blessings. Weapon acquirement can produce an epee; a blessed acquirement effect permits selecting it, but does not itself guarantee that the resulting weapon is blessed. The weapon's base name remains epee in identified and cursed states.
Description
An epee's normal thrust adds Dexterity-based accuracy. It also permits selecting riposte, a defensive action that can produce a counterattack after an opponent misses at the defended location. The counterattack uses your ordinary hit score, without thrust's additional Dexterity bonus, so the epee's own +15 hit remains valuable. A lunge is available as with other ordinary melee weapons; see melee actions for their costs and limitations.
The epee follows the ordinary throwing rules. A spare epee does not add its own hit bonus, damage rating or enchantment to a throw while another weapon remains wielded. It can be recovered from an accessible landing square on ordinary ground after either a hit or a miss.
When tunneling, the epee contributes twice its damage rating to the wall-breaking check. A tunneling mishap attempts to damage it, and some walls cannot be opened this way.
Strategy
Compared with a dagger, an equally enchanted epee gains three hit points at the same damage rating, for five more weight and a shop price of 100 Au instead of 10. It is an accuracy purchase, not a damage upgrade. It helps when attacks or riposte counterattacks are missing; once the relevant hit check reaches its ceiling, the extra accuracy no longer pays off.
For the same 100 Au, a spear offers four more damage points but five fewer hit points and much more weight. A rapier offers two more damage points than an epee at the cost of two hit points, five weight and a 500 Au purchase price. Consider the opponent, your attributes and enchantment before paying for the more expensive weapon.
A Strength-heavy character can retain the starting cut while wielding an epee, gaining extra Strength damage without losing the weapon's hit bonus. Explicitly choosing its normal attack instead selects a thrust. This saved-style behavior means the epee need not be reserved exclusively for Dexterity-heavy characters.
Keep a useful epee wielded and throw a cheap spare dagger rather than spending 100 Au for a projectile's accuracy bonus that will not apply. For digging, its doubled contribution is 12, the same contribution as a mace; the mace avoids the ordinary tunneling weapon-damage check. An epee's strengths are in combat and light travel, not in protecting an expensive tool from excavation damage.
For opening purchases and guild alternatives, see Your first weapon.