surplus_newt

I doubt the engine would support it, but giving something like an AP cost reduction and damage boost for each successive strike on the same target with swords, with the same bonus for attacking different enemies in succession with polearms, would motivate some appropriate and thematic differences in play according to weapon choice. I also think melee characters would really benefit from having some actual ability to control enemy movement and attention. Maybe at certain weapon skill levels they could get a certain number of attacks of opportunity, or a higher AP cost for enemies moving through their reach, or an expanded zone of control, possibly the ability to actually pull enemies in as a battle discipline. In combination these would make combat a lot more dynamic and would leave you making more actual choices about whether you want to have your fighter standing in place to block enemy movement vs. chasing the target they would have a bonus against. You'd essentially want to have your polearm character aiming to lock a large group of enemies in place, hitting them one after the other, while sword characters are motivated to chase one big target around.

Exile 2/Avernum 2 were my favourites in the old series and I liked the new Escape from the Pit but yeah, I'm fairly deep into this and I've had to set the difficulty back down to normal. Combat on higher difficulties doesn't feel that dangerous (except when charm spells are involved), it's just a slog. The high enemy resistances also bug me because they don't imply any decision (other than "use magic instead" I guess). It's my own fault for taking two melee characters for old time's sake. I do think it would be nice to see melee characters have more stuff to differentiate dual wielding/polearms beyond one being strictly better for damage; give polearms a bonus against heavily armoured enemies or make polearms users stickier or something, anything. It really feels like controlling enemy movement, debuffing, and damage output need to be spread out between a wider variety of skills/builds rather than having magic be the best option no matter what you're trying to do. I'm enjoying revisiting the setting but I'm really not wild about the combat, which kind of surprises me because I've generally enjoyed the newer Spiderweb stuff.