Hence, my "solution" opted to just reduce attacks to one for one round and includes a module switch to bypass the "solution" for those Builders that don't like it.
Indeed, I was mostly talking about Shadoow's "I think people should be stunned for a minimum of six seconds" quote.
In NWN, characters don't drop weapons when they are unequipped, they are placed in inventory, and continue to be readily available. However, the exploit allows you to do way more in that 6 seconds then the game was intended to allow - hence, its an exploit.
Exactly -- any weapon unequipped is in an equivalent state to any other weapon in your inventory.
My point is that the whole "inventory" idea is a massive abstraction for sanity's sake in a game -- I strongly disagree with the notion that "unequipping" a weapon is equivalent to "sheathing" it, for example (and you seem to agree with me on this). Unless someone wants to try to argue that every single weapon in their inventory is also sheathed...and that still brings up massive questions about entire suits of armor even if we get past the problem of over 20 Greatswords in sheathes. Whatever your equipped weapon(s) is/are, it's "sheathed" when not being actively used.
Things like the Dragon Age series show this quite clearly while NWN didn't have the technology to animate it as easily -- see stuff like this
random video. You're running around with your sword and shield sheathed/stowed. See an enemy, draw your weapons, and attack -- but that sword and shield are *equipped* the entire time and the game handles the sheath/stowing animations before and after combat. Is the 0.5 seconds it took the DA character to pull out the sword/shield probably a bit unrealistic? Sure, but I don't see that "realistically" translating into 6+ seconds or something.
The example I gave also had nothing to do with the exploit. I was talking about wanting to fire a shot at the beginning of round one, switch to a melee weapon, and then take my first melee swing at the start of round two. Which is not the exploit being discussed (or any exploit at all).
As you say it is an approximation. DnD generally assumes your character swings a sword way more than 1 time in a six second span. Only one of those attacks are counted in actual combat. No one is going to swing once, wait six seconds, swing again. As your level, and thus your skill, increases you gain more attacks, approximating ones skill increasing in combat.
Except your AB increasing is already approximating ones skill increasing in combat (along with other things like damage per hit and crit chance). If your statement is correct, then why not have multiple attacks per round early on?
While I'm not a medieval knight or fantasy warrior, I have done a few types of swordplay ranging from martial arts to fencing to even some medieval style combat (with padded weapons so bruises are (hopefully but not always) the worst thing that happens). Something very common across those (especially as a beginner) is that you aren't actually attacking a lot of the time -- you're maneuvering, watching your opponents, and looking for an opportunity to strike. As you get more comfortable you're able to strike/recover more quickly and see more opportunities to launch an attack, even if some of those opportunities aren't as good. To me that's what the increasing attacks (at progressively *lower* AB, mind you) represent -- the ability to (relatively safely) strike more often at the cost of those extra attacks not being as good as the "best" attack.
I just searched YouTube for "medieval combat" and
this was one of the top results -- I don't know what the rules/gear/etc are but apparently it's some international event. Even if you just watch 20-30 seconds of that you'll notice that people aren't actually swinging that much unless they have a massive opening (like a target with their back turned who's being grappled by a teammate or something). It's not
Flynning where you're constantly swinging at the other person's weapon or something. And yes, you might do some things like feints and parries but those aren't actual strikes at the opponent intended to hit -- the feint is to try to open up an opportunity to land an "actual" swing and thus it makes sense it wouldn't be rolled as an actual attack.
My way is just by saying you can carry up to 25 lbs of weapons on you at any one time. I find it the easiest method as it allows a player to carry two different greatswords and a dagger, which I think is more than enough for one player.
Er, by my calculations that'd be 31 pounds. 2 * 15 + 1 = 31. Or do you mean 25 pounds in addition to whatever is equipped?
Simply drop the weapon in hand and draw the next and you can make one attack. Either way you will not get a full attack action, which limits you to only one attack in that round.
Which is all I was even hoping for in my example as you might recall. Fire one bow shot, spend rest of round switching to melee weapons, start next round in melee. Shadow was talking about stunning me for 6+ (emphasis on the +) seconds upon switching after the bow shot...which not only costs me any remaining attacks in the current round (fair) but also every attack in the next round (not so fair). And that's assuming the minimum of 6 seconds.
Like I said though, many people consider trying to match PnP methods in NWN a bad idea. I'm not attached to them, but I feel it is better to default there unless someone comes up with a better idea.
The better idea in NWN is just to transition smoothly when swapping from melee to ranged? From what I understand (referring to both this thread and other discussions) the concern is about literally gaining *extra* attacks that should not exist in the first place (as in you have two attacks per round but use weapon switching to gain three or more attacks, for example). That's the exploit.
