I was recently doing a playthrough focused around riot armor with shields, and realised that there really aren’t a lot of good melee options to use with shields. Most knife and fist weapon builds don’t have enough strength or want mobility and evasion, swords and spears make shields redundant with parry and spear guard, and sledgehammers can’t use shields. To remedy this and to add a third category of blunt melee weapons, I propose adding clubs.
Features:
Blunt one handed melee weapon with low strength requirement (5-6 str) that do not benefit from dex ap reduction. Damage Increased by 9% for every point in Strength above 7 (117% bonus damage at 20 Strength).
Base 15 ap cost, tight damage spread (12-14 q15, 22-26 q70, 40-47 q160 when crafted with steel plates), base 80% critical damage bonus, and a base 5% crit chance with steel plates.
Has an inherent 25% chance to daze targets with each attack.
Crowbars and the Rolling Pin benefit from club feats.
Crafting:
4 component slots: Metal Plates, Metal Plates/ Spikes (optional) , Power Module (optional) , Energy Core (optional).
Crafting with 2 metal plates creates a reinforced club that deals bonus damage similar to reinforced combat gloves, while crafting with spikes deals additional damage similar to spiked combat gloves, and changes the weapon name to mace. The power module slot allows an electroshock generator to be added to the club.
Feats:
Benefits from Crippling Strike, Bone Breaker, and Heavyweight.
New Feat: Staccato Rhythm-Each successful club attack lowers the ap cost of further club attacks by one, and increases damage of club attacks by 5%. Stacks 5 times, stacks last for 3 turns. Requires: 8 Strength, 6 Dexterity, Melee 30.
New Feat: Hobble- Perform a melee attack with a club that deals normal damage, reduces a target's movement points to zero for 3 turns, and reduces a target's dodge and evasion by 50%. Only works on living targets (that have knees). Cooldown: 4 turns.
Requires: 9 Strength, Melee 40.
New Feat: Debilitator- Whenever you apply a non bleed debuff (crippled, expose weakness, dazed, hobbled, infected wound, incapacitated,stunned, broken ribs, inhibited) to a target using a club, apply a stack of debilitated, which increases all damage taken by 10%. Lasts 3 turns, and stacks up to 5 times.
Requires: 5 Intelligence, Melee 60, Feat:Crippling Strike
New Feat: Bludgeon-Your club attacks ignore mechanical damage threshold and mechanical damage resistance based on your level, up to 15 DT and 30% DR. (.5 DT and 1% DR ignored per level)
Requires: 10 Strength
New Feat: Disorient-Perform a melee attack with a club that deals normal damage and prevents the target from invoking psionic abilities for 3 turns. Only works on targets with exposed heads. Cooldown: 4 turns.
Requires: 7 Strength, Melee 50, Biology 50
Unique Clubs:
Morningstar- 30-35 damage, 15 ap, 5% crit chance, 100% crit damage bonus, 5 Minimal Strength. Incurs 125% mechanical damage resistance and threshold, 30% chance to inflict a bleeding wound that deals 100% damage over the next 3 turns. Found on a dead man in the lost vault dungeon.
Ennervator-20-25 mechanical damage, 15 ap, 2% crit chance, 75% crit damage bonus, 6 minimal strength. 50% chance on hit to create an EMP grenade blast centered on the player with the effects of a standard emp grenade. Crafted by using the strange power cell in the power module slot of a club, requires 120 effective Electronics skill to craft, and has fixed stats.
Rusty Pipe-13-16 mechanical damage, 15 ap, 3% crit chance, 80% crit damage bonus. Stater club weapon, found in the under passages between SGS and GMS in a barrel.
Plasma Mace-20-30 mechanical damage, 20-30 energy damage, and 20-30 heat damage, 20 ap, 5% crit chance, 100% crit damage, 6 minimal strength. 200 energy, uses 20 energy with every attack, loses energy and heat damage when unpowered. Found in Fetid Marsh at the entrance to Viridescent Quarry.
