Arx-Game
Brawl Weaponry (In the context of damage bonuses to certain baddies!)
So, there's not exactly many weapons that utilize brawl as a check. In fact, there are none of them. This totally makes sense, given that brawl is a hand-to-hand affinity, but it raises some concerns for heavily invested brawl-type fighters when they run up against situations such as in the event against The Silence, wherein creatures were described as 'having a particular weakness to diamondplate or alaricite.'
No problem! Just grab some knuckle weapons, or some other hand to hand small weaponry that still fit the concept, and forge away! Except... those are small weapon, not brawl. Fooey!
Essentially, the problem as I see it is that if you've heavily invested in being a hand-to-hand character, you're going to find yourself out in the cold in situations like this in a way that other combat stats don't experience.
Solutions:
In an ideal world, the staple of fantasy fare hand-to-hand would exist as wieldable items that check against brawl. Things that come to mind from other games:
- Knuckledusters
- Claws
- Fistwraps
- Katar
Alternative solutions would be simply allowing gloves items of the corresponding 'bonus damage' materials to be applied to brawl checks.
(Or be enchanted, I guess? I don't pretend to know what's going on with the magic system!)
I think punchers-by-career likely will be able to inflict damage to mystical, soul-eating creatures through infusing their stuff with magic. It's a wait-and-see kind of thing but you can look at the progress on the magic system in the Arxcode files, if you like!
So long as there's a way to accomplish it that's available to monkly sorts, that'd be grand.
Brawl as a whole is a bit of an oddball combat statistic with quite a few mechanical drawbacks already - I'm just highlighting this as a particular pain point that goes beyond the pale.
I see nothing wrong with the notion of improving brawl damage somehow. Considering how massively weapons have advantage over brawl at current, it just makes sense.
That said, I want to see the changes Tehom was hinting at land first. It might change brawl entirely.
