Draft:Spear
| ) | |
| Base damage rating | 10 |
|---|---|
| Base hit bonus | +10 |
| Normal attack type | Thrusting |
| Hands | 1 |
| Julie's price (Au) | 100 |
| Weight | 50 |
A spear is a one-handed thrusting weapon in Omega, usable in melee or as a thrown projectile. The Order of Paladins gives an enchanted, blessed spear to new members. This reward is a modified ordinary spear, not a separate named artifact.
Generation
Julie's armorer shop sells fully identified, uncursed +0 spears for 100 Au. Spears also occur as random weapons, where their enchantment and blessing vary.
A new Order recruit receives a fully identified +1 spear with blessing strength +9, together with a horse, and becomes mounted immediately. Entry requires positive alignment and neither Legion nor Arena membership. A neutral character can meet the alignment requirement by donating 1 Au at the hospice; the full route is described in Your first weapon.
Description
The spear occupies Weapon hand alone, leaving Ready hand available. Its normal thrust gains Dexterity-based accuracy, and it permits selecting riposte. Like other ordinary melee weapons, it can lunge. Saved combat actions persist when weapons are changed; the melee rules describe how this can leave a spear using a cut instead of its normal thrust.
The spear can be thrown and recovered from an accessible landing square on ordinary ground after either a hit or a miss. Throwing follows the ordinary weapon rule: its higher weapon damage rating is not independently added when it is a spare projectile and another weapon remains wielded.
A spear can tunnel through suitable walls, using twice its damage rating in the wall-breaking check. Tunneling mishaps can damage it. Its larger contribution than a dagger's helps with the success check, but it does not make all walls breakable.
Strategy
Compared with a 10 Au dagger, a plain spear offers four additional damage points but two fewer hit points and five times the weight. A Dexterity-heavy character can use thrust accuracy to support that damage trade. At the same 100 Au price, an epee instead favors accuracy: +15 hit and damage rating 6, against the spear's +10 and 10.
The Order's spear is a strong starting weapon, especially with its accompanying mount. The +1 enchantment adds one hit point and one damage point; the +9 blessing is not another +9 combat bonus. Being mounted adds a separate +10 to hit and damage rating with any weapon. Judge an upgrade with that distinction in mind: the horse's contribution is lost on dismounting, not on replacing the spear.
Keep the Order gift for melee rather than choosing it as a projectile solely for its enchantment. A cheap spare dagger can use the spear wielder's combat scores without throwing the valuable spear away. For digging, a spare club gives up the spear's stronger wall-breaking contribution but avoids the ordinary tunneling weapon-damage check.