Versatile combat style and equipment slot

Ever like the idea of using bow to slap your enemy? Using sword as throwing weapon? Or dual wield shields as your main melee weapon? That might sounds silly yet interesting, right?

Your standard equip slot feels restricting. Warrior are too proud to wield dagger, Mage are too dumb to use sword, etc. It's essential for the character itself to stick to their roles for story sake, but not for "build your own character" type RPG. Most popular example for this would be Skyrim. But what I'm about to discuss here is up to the level of silliness.

I'm working on equipment slot mechanic that is trying to cover all possible combat style that you can imagine, so I came up with this.


Overview of the equipment slot when you wear absolute nothing.

I divide the weapon slot into two category for close quarter and long distance. By weapon here, I mean everything that can be wielded. That's how shield can be considered as weapon and how you are able to put them in any weapon slot. There are other style for both close quarter and long distance based on what and how you equip your stuff.

Close Quarter Combat

• Martial Arts : Active when equipping gauntlet, claw, tonfa, nunchuk, staff, or nothing. Bonus to evasion.
  
• Two Handed : Active when equipping single heavy weaponry. Bonus to damage.
• Shield Fighter : Active when equipping shield(s). Bonus to protection.
• Dual Wield : Active when equipping two weapon in both slot. Penalty to damage. Penalty to hit rate if heavy.
• Free Armed : Active when equipping single light weaponry. Bonus to hit rate and critical rate.

Long Distance Combat

• Throwing : Active when equipping nothing in shoot slot and anything in ammo slot. Bonus to damage.
• Archery : Active when equipping bow or crossbow in shoot slot. Bonus to critical rate.
• Firearm : Active when equipping firearms in shoot slot. Bonus to hit rate.
• Casting : Active when equipping magical instrument in shoot slot. Bonus to magic affinity.

Armor

• Clothing : Active when wearing a set with no protection.
• Light Armor : Active when wearing a set of light armor.
• Heavy Armor : Active when wearing a set of heavy armor.

For now, assume whatever doesn't seems effective (like trying to shoot a sword with a bow) will suffer a huge penalty. Let's just put a rest about how the numbers roll first and simply discuss about this idea. What do you think of it? If it's possible, will you use this mechanic on your game? Or what reason you don't like the idea?

Finally, please let me know if there's combat style that I miss to cover or whatever I miss to explain.

Spoiler

This whole idea itself is inspired by Elona, my most favorite game of all time. Starting from Elonaplus, it's allowed to use ranged weapon as melee weapon and otherwise (of course there's penalty!). Also you can use ANY of your item as throwing weapon. Heck! In the game I'm used to throw furnitures to kill enemies. Okay, okay... enough of Elona! I'll just put this in a spoiler.

 

It already over 72 hours, so... BUMP!
I need to know if this is a good idea or not before I actually made it then turns out it's a bad idea after all.

 

While playing dark souls before and getting spiked shields I thought it would be fun to run around with two shields bashing enemies and have a bunch of defense. I don't know if it would be fun long term but with a lighthearted atmosphere maybe it would.

You also want a "make your own class" system where you mix and match right? That's cool and what players would like. I've thought about doing that before but never did it because it's harder to balance things when there are more variables you can't keep track of. Games that give the player that kind of freedom, the player often ends up overpowered because it's just too hard to balance everything. skyrim archer with x3 damage? Pretty good but what if you enchant every piece of armer with more bow damage? You can then snipe enemies in 1 or 2 hits.

That's why I stuck to the class system even though I like freedom in games.

Experiment though. It might be a lot of fun.

 

@FleshToDust Thanks for pointing it out! But I don't think that would be an issue.
You see, what I'm trying to achieve here might sounds big and complex. That's why I'm trying to simplify everything. It's true, but game balance can be the last to worry for this topic.

 

I beg to differ. You need to keep issues of balancing in mind when designing any system. Otherwise you could easily end up with a broken game or a huge amount of wasted time because you can't get your system to work in a reasonable way, and so have to redesign it.

 

I mean to say "Let's put aside game balance, assume that everything is well balanced, and simply talk about combat style and equipment slot alone."

@Kes
Yes, for this topic. Because I consider that as different topic. Pardon my bad english and for not being clear there. But if game balance is the ONLY issue that can be dicussed, then I suppose it's part of the topic now.

Mmm... it's big, but let's try oversimply it.
The whole idea is trying to cover all possible combat style that can be imagined even when it sounds silly, so I guess I already cover everything up there. The combat system in my mind is your simple turn based. There will be no weapon skill at all. The battle command will only consist of Melee Attack, Range Attack, Spell, Item, and Flee.
Since you can put every item with a tag "it can be wield" in any weapon slot, I came up with the idea of having weight, complexity, and trait (sharp / pointy / blunt) value for all wield-able item that will govern the damage formula, including the combat style level.

I think that's all for combat that need explanation.

 

I like this idea actually since it gives more freedom of customization and it's a logical type of combat! I would use it.

Whether the players can overpower their damage points, or not, will rely on other elements, like accessories, skills, level upgrades, etc.
It is something to consider. But that is for the developer to choose while making their game.

The idea itself is great (many successful games are based on this system) and it breaks from the expectation of having a fighter, wizard, archer in the rpgm game.

I'm wondering what happens when a party player joins later in the game. (At already advanced levels). Can they still be fully customized? And what skills/weapons they come with? None?
It's related to balancing too though, and I guess there are multiple options for this particular question, that could work.