Weapon length / reach?

[robocod]

Does weapon length / reach have any impact in NWN? I mean, for example, suppose I use a pole-arm like a halberd, is my reach longer? Does it affect my "threatened area" for determining AoO when people run into it, etc.

What weapons have the best reach? Spears, halberds, etc. What about chained weapons (flail, etc.).

Ta.

[Midknight]

In NWN weapon reach is 'sorta implemented' - you won't notice a difference attacking normally, but sometimes you can make Attacks of Opportunity from farther away. Reach weapons include the spear, halberd, and scythe... i am fairly sure chained weapons are not.

[Glofindel]

Circle Kick used to treat itself as a long weapon, then the AI kicked in rightly figuring you for a short one. This used to cause people to attack once, then go flat footed because the target was out of reach. So....in short, yes. There is some AI that takes into account weapon length that applies to Circle Kick, AOO's, Cleave and Greater Cleave.

[denor firefly]

its has effect also on improved whirlwind if you stand surrounded by 40 lvl goblins and you hit 50% of them with your halberd

[Arnimane]

Yeah yeah yeah, any "official" stance? I know my short sword pc used to get raw end of stuff compared to another pc with greatax.

[robocod]

... i am fairly sure chained weapons are not.

The reason I sked about chained weapons, is that it seemed that my morning star was reaching further than my battle-axe, i.e. I seemed to get a lot of AoO as things entered my threat area.

However, I've nothing concrete to base this on, and it could have just been a fluke.

[Midknight]

This may be due to the actual size of the morningstar; it's been my experience that smaller weapons tend to look like you're reaching farther, or reaching enemies that are out of the reach of the animation, but that would be simply due to the weapon model.
Morningstars aren't actually supposed to be chain weapons either - just a spiked ball on the end of a stick, but that's how NWN implemented them because of how they modeled the light mace... the only actual chain weapons are the light flail and the heavy flail; and in PnP neither is listed as a reach weapon.

[gwydion2]

When defining what a weapon actually was in medieval terms, there really weren't any defined standards. Weapons were often made that were hybrids of two types. The interchangability of terms in many sources has left a lot of confusion as to the meaning.

You can find the term morningstar aplied to a simple spiked ball on a stick, but it is more commonly applied to a chain weapon.

I think that the only defining feature of the morning star that gave rise to it's name, is the spiked head. A flail may or may not have a spiked head but the term is generally applied to almost all chain weapons, including those with very few chain links that join 2 rigid sections. Similary a mace may be spiked, flanged or smooth. You could say that a morning star is best considered to be subcategory of either. You could easily define a dozen variants of these weapons.

In any case, the makers of NWN made the common assumption that a morning star is a flail with a single spiked ball.

[robocod]

Wikipedia has some good stuff on weapons. Here's the entry on the Morning Star.

It mentions the confunsion of names between the chained and none-chained versions, seems the name was often used for both versions.

I particularly like the entry about a similar weapon called the "Holy Water Sprinkler"...

It was the favored weapon of King John of Bohemia, who was blind, and used to simply lay about himself on all sides, as one does not need to see their opponent. It is easy enough to just "flail" until you hit something.

The Wiki goes on to say about King John ...

He was killed fighting (though blind) alongside the French against the English at the Battle of Crecy, during which he was strapped to two other knights.

I have a mental picture of him strapped to these two poor nights who lead him about the battle-field, whilst King John flails away with his weapon