The first batch of fiftysome warrior edges are live! Y'all should know the drill by now; if not, please read previous edge announcement posts. Helpfiles will be up eventually.

The list is:
Dove of Spring Dawn
Hawk of Summer Afternoon
Eagle of Autumn Evening
Owl of Winter Night
Stone Shoulders
Iron Shoulders
Nimble Rush
Commendable Cross
Commanding Cross
Brutal Bludgeon
Measured Strokes
Pikeman's Valor
Painful Deflection
Crushing Pugil
Martial Berserker
Matador's Timing
Hunter's Glow
Oceanic Warrior
Parry Anything
Speed Flurry
Counterpunch
Brutal Stun
Double Throw
Brutal Drag
Axe Murderer
Swordsman's Recovery
Skullcrusher
Weighted Leverage
Throttler
Conservative Twister
Reckless Twister
Shield Avoidance
Shield Brute
Ambidextrous Disarmer
Dual Strip
Parting Throw
Agile Sweep
Unbalancing Leverage
Memory of Llorenthos
Furious Whirlwind
Reckoning of the Mongoose
Relentless Assault
Repel Henchmen
Versatile Pummeler
Sightless Eye
Gift to the Departed
Skilled Brawler
Big Target
Focused Fury
Seven Winds of Hamsah Mu'tazz
Brutal Jab
Glanduin's Menace
Swath of Destruction

Is there a chance the second will hit if the first misses?

If so, would there still be a yell? (i.e. hurl throat in town, first dagger misses, but second dagger hits the mark, will they still yell that they're being attacked?)

Nope; all or nothing.

So basically you're increasing the damage of hurl, which is a skill that does weak damage and you don't use for damage purposes. On the other hand, possibly a bit of free damage on a skill you want to use anyway.

.

Taking in consideration that sword specialists are a class that is actually challanging already, why put a lot of time and edges for them instead of let's say polearm specialists or spear/staff specialists? (Although there seems to have good stuff for spear specs.)

It's just a matter of what ideas popped into our heads, and how simple or difficult they'd be to implement. There were other ideas thrown out that were more generic, but in the end they'd be more difficult to code or were overpowered or some combination of the two.

As for polearms, yes, I'd agree we are short on them - we even brainstormed up a couple extra specifically for them toward the end. I would imagine the next go-round will see more polearm goodness and less sword/daggerocity. We'll see!

A lot of it is really just what we had ideas for. We've been gathering edge ideas for all classes for six months or more in a fairly undirected fashion; someone has an idea they like and it gets tossed in the pile.

In retrospect, we didn't come up with much for mace specs (although Skullcrusher seems really really good to me, so maybe that's a balance) or axe specs this time around. I don't think there's any point in which we sat down and said: axe specs don't need as many edge options as spear specs. It's just the ideas we had. Hopefully we're getting to a point where there's enough good general options out there and more edges you want than you're able to pick that it's not the end of the world if there wasn't a "better at whirl guy" edge in this batch.

The sword spec has always been kind of an odd duck as specs go. You look at a spec like dagger, and the skills in general have a theme that a high dex is good and other stats don't so much matter. No one is playing fire dagger spec, or if they are, it's not because they expect it to excel with the dagger skills. If you're an arial dagger spec, all the skills will work pretty well for you.

Conversely, both the fire giant and the arial make effective sword warriors for completely different reasons, and both are writing off a good chunk of their spec skills. If you're a giant, jab, flourintine, and riposte work crappy because your dexterity isn't high. If you're an arial, doublethrust and flurry work crappy because your strength isn't high. (And both are probably giving cross an odd look. The first time someone busted out cross on me in a PK, I sat there slack-jawed staring dumbfounded at the screen while they got away. I've seen people make some clever use of it since, but pincer it ain't.)

So it's easy to say, okay, what about an edge that would make jab, not anywhere near as good as it is for an arial, but maybe usable for the low-dex fire giant and interesting in some way?

Sword also has some of the biggest use times for non-lagging skills, which lent it to some interesting edge ideas that involve taking some generally non-optimal actions. Take a look at Furious Whirlwind for example -- to use it in a PK, you have to want to flurry and be tanking a bunch of people. If using flurry in a PK is a good idea, probably you're a giant sword, in which case you're not all that great of a tank and you're going to lag yourself four rounds while tanking a bunch of people. I'd be hard pressed to think of a warrior (possibly excepting Faltarn) that I've seen in the last few years that would be able to pull that off and make it actually seem like a good idea.

Some quick Mace spec Ideas:

Bonham: You are a master of the drum, you actually hit the super rare fifth strike much more frequently. **WOULD LOVE THIS ONE**

Bitch Slap: You have a chance for your Backhand to catch them twice once on the back swing and then once on return.

Thiesman Special: Your bone shatter has a chance for the broken boke to break the skin causing serious bleeding.

Crunch time: Your denting causes metal armor shape to warp making it harder for the wearer to manuever in it until they have time to remove it and put it back on.

Dents and dings I think this could even be given to dent just as part of the skill to make it worth using more often) By denting your opponents armor their AC for that piece of armor is reduced to 2/3 for a long period of time.

Speed Drummer: A missed drum only costs one round of combat, and a wimpy two hit is only two rounds.

Fat Lip: On a sucessful backhand there is a chance to hit the opponent in the mouth causing it to swell up for an hour or two. Making it hard or impossible to speak.

The names suck, but I think this will help spark up the lack luster mace.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

>Bonham: You are a master of the drum, you actually hit the
>super rare fifth strike much more frequently. **WOULD LOVE
>THIS ONE**

Eh. You wouldn't get "much" more frequently out of an edge, really. It happens reasonably often if you've got a good strength score.

As a general rule, edges that make the best options of a character in situations in which those options are already really good ideas are either weak, expensive, or both. Example: throwing flurry as a cloud sword in a one on one fight is probably a pretty good idea; not a lot in the way of edges that make that better. Throwing flurry as a cloud sword with four people ganging on you? Well, there's an edge that makes that less stupid, but it's still probably stupid.

>Bitch Slap: You have a chance for your Backhand to catch them
>twice once on the back swing and then once on return.

Unless this is a really small chance I can't see this. A guaranteed hit on a one round skill is nothing to laugh at. Backhand is already 'jab, but good', with the caveat that mace specs generally don't tank like sword specs.

>Thiesman Special: Your bone shatter has a chance for the
>broken boke to break the skin causing serious bleeding.

See the drum comment on this one.

I could see a boneshatter edge to possibly add some bleeding, though.

>Crunch time: Your denting causes metal armor shape to warp
>making it harder for the wearer to manuever in it until they
>have time to remove it and put it back on.

Way too much coding time to be an edge.

>Dents and dings I think this could even be given to dent just
>as part of the skill to make it worth using more often) By
>denting your opponents armor their AC for that piece of armor
>is reduced to 2/3 for a long period of time.

Same.

>Speed Drummer: A missed drum only costs one round of combat,
>and a wimpy two hit is only two rounds.

Drum is only two rounds period, even when it's five hits.

I mean, when you think about it, if an opponent actually sticks around for four rounds of combat without fleeing or lagging you in the middle, you can drum twice for one flurry, and the two drums are almost always more damage and don't cost move. The tricky part is that's a big if, and sometimes less damage, but all of it right now is better than more damage, but some of it later.

>Fat Lip: On a sucessful backhand there is a chance to hit the
>opponent in the mouth causing it to swell up for an hour or
>two. Making it hard or impossible to speak.

If we're talking like something laryngitis level... sure, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If we're talking this is like having tiger claw as a one round skill that also does an unblockable hit... probably not so much.

It seems like the attitude from the staff of lately has been, "Well, we just are getting done what seems more fun to work on". Is that an apt assessment?

In any case- that's a very refreshing thing to hear... I actually from time to time find myself silently hoping that none of you all get put off by all the work which you must have to grind to put in. Obviously this is fun for you all to create as it is for us to enjoy the result.

For what it's worth I appreciate the world which is CF-- the new everchanging CF! ™.

Oh. My real point was that it is funny to hear people futz over game balance issues on edges and such rather than realizing that these things are ONLY put in to make things more fun. And everyone has an equal chance of obtaining the benefits of them-- if it behooves them. The CF glass should always be half full. At least. My X-Box 360 just broke and I spent like six hundos on that thing. ...But my telnet still works and this CF thing is always free!

Sorry for filling boards with nonsense, but I am sincere in my appreciation.

>It seems like the attitude from the staff of lately has been,
>"Well, we just are getting done what seems more fun to work
>on". Is that an apt assessment?

I think there's some balance there. Some of the time we spend on stuff that isn't fun because we need to, but I think we spend a lot of what's left on stuff that interests us personally.

Edges in general have been a lot of fun for me, because they're a relatively good time spent to new options introduced ratio.

skull crusher and swordman's recovery aren't there. There may be others.

Skullcrusher was in with skullcrusher as one word. I added 'SKULL CRUSHER' as another way to reach it. Swordsman's Recovery has the apostrophe in it, maybe that's what's giving you trouble?

Cool.

I don't know what any of those do, but they have some real nifty names. Sounds like fun.