Flourintine seems too powerful. I haven't crunched the numbers and don't know the code but on a giant it seems better defensively than a polearm, spear, weapon+shield, or a giant ranger in his home terrain. For each of these others, you have to give up quite a bit in terms of offense (second weapon or restricted areas of effectiveness) so balance-wise I don't understand why Flourintine would be quite so incredible defensively.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

It's probably about on par for a giant with all those choices (except spear, which isn't a great low-dex choice), yeah.

Although flourintine does relatively little for a giant because of their typically poor dex, a giant warrior with swords is already a good enough tank that a little help goes a long way.

>It's probably about on par for a giant with all those choices
> except spear, which isn't a great low-dex choice), yeah.

If you say it's about on par, then I guess that's it. Thanks for the reply. Maybe I'll see about crunching some numbers so I can convince myself.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

Just how much does your offhand weapon effect parry?

It kind of sounds like you are saying sword giants would defend just as well without flourintine. Or are you saying that the small benefit sword giants receive from flourintine is enough to make a good defense seem great?

>Just how much does your offhand weapon effect parry?

A lot. If you're dual wielding you have a roughly half and half chance to try to parry with your mainhand weapon or your offhand weapon.

>It kind of sounds like you are saying sword giants would
>defend just as well without flourintine. Or are you saying
>that the small benefit sword giants receive from flourintine
>is enough to make a good defense seem great?

The latter:

Having a high strength is generally good for parrying.

Being big is generally good for parrying. (And bad for dodging, but we're talking about parry.)

A warrior generally should never be in a position where they don't know their opponent's weapon at all. That's, I won't say good for parrying, but it limits situations in which they parry badly.

As one-handed weapons go, swords are generally pretty decent for parrying.

Add that all up and you've got a character who would parry pretty well to begin with and add some bonus from dex-based flourtine and you've got about as good of a parrier as exists in a single prepless character.

Something like an arial sword will end up with a roughly similar chance (I want to say slightly less given equal weapon skills, but I'm not going to crunch the math) to parry in a different way -- it gives up strength and size, but gets more help from flourintine. (Of course, the high-dex sword also has a much higher chance to dodge and riposte, but can't count on bash and flurry as much, tradeoffs, etc.)

You get the dual wield.

At least because flourintine depends on your dex and is better or worse. Shield block is not.

I'd have to respectfully disagree.

There may be circumstances where this can be the case, but, in my opinion, in general among low dex giant races Flourintine appears to be noticably superior in tanking to using a sword+shield (in addition to the other cases I listed). I can't really comment on high dex races as I haven't spent as much time with them.

It is possible I'm wrong, which is why I'm asking the Imms to look into it.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker