Goblin Squad Member
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-snip-The idea pf quick-changing weapons in the middle of a fight is movie magic not "realism". But nobody really wants "realism" in this aspec of the game anyway.
Could the balance be achieved, that you take a certain amount of time (+animation) to change weapons on the character. But there is either a penalty or chance of dropping/fumbling the change over of weapons if an enemy is within a certain range. Conversely, would opponents be able to strike the weapon eg if the character is holding a bow to an uncoming sword-wielding character, they could cut the bow in half or knock it out of the opponents hands?
I can just imagine someone being surprised with their bow by an attacker coming at them out of the corner of their eye, making to change the bow for a sword and dropping their sword and/or bow in the panicked change-over (some sort of chance timer) and being bludgeoned while they are groping to gather their weapons for a penalty hit by the attacker.
That fits with the range of the bow being powerful at distance but with the jeopardy of being penalized severely if caught unprepared in close proximity?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The tabletop rules are a bit of storytelling. A round in Pathfinder is 6 seconds long. You could drop a sword and draw a convenient dagger in 6 seconds but that's about it. Unless you imagine riding around with a cocked and loaded crossbow hanging from your belt (which would be crazy dangerous). Readying a bow is a much more complex action and not really doable in that short period of time without staging the swap (bow is strung, quiver is open and arrows free, you don't care where your dropped weapon lands, etc.
The idea pf quick-changing weapons in the middle of a fight is movie magic not "realism". But nobody really wants "realism" in this aspec of the game anyway.
I'm glad to hear that Ryan...and honestly I wouldn't really object to it taking 6 seconds of game time to swap out weapons that were in accessable slots. E.G. Sheath broadsword in scabbard at waist, ready greatsword that is sheathed on back. Nor even longer to fish something out of pack. What I would object to is...You've got your longbow equiped, ok you must "return to base." to equip your broadsword, see you in 5 minutes.
....
P.S. Historicaly it was a pretty common practice for warriors to switch weapons (pretty rapidly) during a fight....
- Standard practice for a Saxon/Viking Shield Wall was to throw hand-axes as the enemy approached and then switch to swords or other melee weapons.
- Roman Legionaries carried a couple pilums that would be thrown at enemies and then the gladius would be drawn for melee.
- Classic English Archers used the longbow for as long as they could, but they also carried an archers sword when forced into melee.
- Classic Knights would charge with lance but the lances would be dropped (usualy they broke) after impact of charge and hand weapons (swords, axes, warhammers, ball & chain) would be switch to.
- Dragoons would carry pistol or carbine but also had sabres for melee.
These things weren't unrealistic because they actualy happaned. Key was, they were ready for the fight when the fight happaned (or when they knew danger was imminent) and made sure the weapons they were using were accessable... and they didn't care if they dropped something on the ground because they could always pick it up after the fight (if it was still usable). Also engagements happened at realistic ranges...enemies didn't suddenly pop into existance at 60ft most of the time....the English longbow had a indirect (arc'ed) range of out to 400 yds and a good archer could drop a target at 60 yds direct fire... heck, I'm not a good archer and I can easly hit a man-sized target at 60 yds with my recurve...
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Goblin Squad Member
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-snip-The idea pf quick-changing weapons in the middle of a fight is movie magic not "realism". But nobody really wants "realism" in this aspec of the game anyway.Could the balance be achieved, that you take a certain amount of time (+animation) to change weapons on the character. But there is either a penalty or chance of dropping/fumbling the change over of weapons if an enemy is within a certain range. Conversely, would opponents be able to strike the weapon eg if the character is holding a bow to an uncoming sword-wielding character, they could cut the bow in half or knock it out of the opponents hands?
I can just imagine someone being surprised with their bow by an attacker coming at them out of the corner of their eye, making to change the bow for a sword and dropping their sword and/or bow in the panicked change-over (some sort of chance timer) and being bludgeoned while they are groping to gather their weapons for a penalty hit by the attacker.
That fits with the range of the bow being powerful at distance but with the jeopardy of being penalized severely if caught unprepared in close proximity?
I would actualy do what Pathfinder PnP does...which is ranged attacks trigger an AoO when engaged in Melee. You could also make switching weapons an AoO when engaged in Melee. (IMO) The individual who is engaged in melee needs to concentrate pretty fully on actively attacking and defending and not much else. However you want the individual to be able to switch out weapons when they aren't currently engaged. In reality you would have to bow strung and possibly even with an arrow on the string when expecting danger....and it'd just be dropped to the ground when you need to fight in melee. In most MMO's dropping an item = item destroyed immediately. In real life, you'd just pick up the weapon off the ground after the fight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... heck, I'm not a good archer and I can easly hit a man-sized target at 60 yds with my recurve...I was really surprised how quickly I was able to pick up enough skill to hit a deer-sized target center-mass at 20 paces. It was literally within the first 10 arrows I shot.
That's a common misperception most people have about hunting...regardless of whether it's bow or gun...The shooting is the easy part (upland birds with shotgun can be a bit of an exception), it's getting the opportunity to take a shot that's where the real difficulty lies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would actualy do what Pathfinder PnP does...which is ranged attacks trigger an AoO when engaged in Melee. You could also make switching weapons an AoO when engaged in Melee. (IMO) The individual who is engaged in melee needs to concentrate pretty fully on actively attacking and defending and not much else. However you want the individual to be able to switch out weapons when they aren't currently engaged. In reality you would have to bow strung and possibly even with an arrow on the string when expecting danger....and it'd just be dropped to the ground when you need to fight in melee. In most MMO's dropping an item = item destroyed immediately. In real life, you'd just pick up the weapon off the ground after the fight.
I wouldn't be opposed, but the question is how much the server can handle the dropped items. The drawback is, items that don't despawn soon enough, can just bottleneck up the server of course. People flooding the ground with cheap things they can drop etc... Now the obvious fiat is how long is a reasonable amount of time for a battle to take in order to pick the item back up
For players the other drawback of dropping items, in P&P 99% of battles the PCs win and have the opprotunity to pick up weapons. In an MMO that ratio is more like 75-80%, in PVP obviously much closer to 50%.
We also do need to consider the other obvious factor of dropping an item on the ground. Your enemy, or his accomplice almost certainly should be able to pick that weapon you dropped on the ground.
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Goblin Squad Member
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couple of quick PnP details, not that i think they will actually have a direct impact; drawing a weapon is more or less a time free action and something from your pack/bag is generally an act taking no longer than 3 seconds, particularly at the range of 6-7 with the prevalence of bags of holding, etc. Dropping a weapon to switch modes can be quite prevalent, and yet almost never does someone go for the weapon on the ground, because of the vulnerability this act opens (in terms of Attacks of Opportunities)
how this might translate to the MMO: i could see "drop weapon" as an option that tosses the weapon to the ground, and becomes lootable by anyone, but that the act of looting the weapon (or item, etc) takes a small amount of time, in which you are more vulnerable to attacks (perhaps something similar can be used to loot a player, Search Check on Body or whatever).
as a sidenote: i've often felt it was important to remember the scale and scope of the MMO players to the PnP as more in that nebulous 6-7 range as described many months ago. I expect a minute 1 player will perhaps need to go through some sort of "tutorial" area that Ryan has mentioned from time to time, and that player might be closer to a level 3 player in a PnP game. As much as we can love the hectic panic of playing a level 1 player than can die from a housecat, that sort of "balance" is exactly the kind of tomfoolery that won't fly with an MMO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gruffling casts ignore edit button; its super effective!
A "Use Case" for my described game play came to mind, and goes as follows:
Perhaps you're hunting resource heavy NPCs with a Longbow (your PvE weapon of choice) and *gasp* you're attacked by the Dread Bandit Robbie. You know from intel he's a bad dude, but you've got some backup weapons, and your pack is half full of good stuff and you don't wanna loose the time, so you decide to battle it out. Drop Bow, retreat and pull out Battle axe (your PvP weapon of choice). D.B.R. goes... well, look at this, i can get in a fight with a dude with an axe, or just grab this longbow and scamper. Maybe its a big fight for your life, maybe its a back and forth, centered around who can get to that long bow first, or maybe you run off and he gets your stuff, and maybe one or the other dies and then gets some bonus loot or what not.
I guess the point of a use case is not how it will happen, but to look at the options and gameplay a given system may inspire. To me, that's a lot of options out of a simple mechanic, and that increases the potential for long term enjoyment, imo.
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Two subjects,
1 item switching
Personally I say have only 2 weapon sets that can be switched out like useing an ability, costs a second or so to make timing a tactical choice "do I take 1 more shot before he gets here or do I switch now so he doesn't get a free hit?"
2 multiclassing
The design goal of trying to make newbies somewhat capable, if disadvantaged, of taking on long time players makes multiclassing more feasible, because the solution to the power curve is going to be independent of abilities meaning what abilities you use, be they sword skills or magic, won't matter.
They need to solve these equations to be roughly equal across all power levels; dmg vs DR, atk vs AC, and statuses vs saves. HP is merely how long one can last.
Personally I say make later "levels" of a class give more class related options without any real boost to power AKA high lvl wiz has more spells but those spells are not anymore powerful then a low lvl wiz has. Same for a fighter, he has more combat maneuvers and more different weapons but he isn't hitting much harder then when he started.
This leads to using your because those who know the right combos will win regardless of level. This could be considered a bad or good thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Two subjects,
1 item switching
Personally I say have only 2 weapon sets that can be switched out like useing an ability, costs a second or so to make timing a tactical choice "do I take 1 more shot before he gets here or do I switch now so he doesn't get a free hit?"
I more or less don't disagree with this, though I think a second is too far on the short end (Even a direct import of P&P rules, I believe a move action is 2.5 seconds), in an environment where people get a chance to respond etc... I would personally lean more towards 3-5 seconds to put away a weapon, draw the new one, and get into a stance one can fight with said new weapon. With the word "sets" I might say to double that in the event you are talking about say switching from a bow to a sword and shield etc...
I do further oppose if we are actually talking major full archtype switches, and I would say such also does absolutely require something like (I believe nihm was the original proposer of this idea), a universal fatigue shared between all classes, to prevent say, wizards from say going nova, burning up all of their prepared spells/mana/whatever the limiting factor on spells, and then when they run out, poof they are now a useful rogue.
2 multiclassing
The design goal of trying to make newbies somewhat capable, if disadvantaged, of taking on long time players makes multiclassing more feasible, because the solution to the power curve is going to be independent of abilities meaning what abilities you use, be they sword skills or magic, won't matter.They need to solve these equations to be roughly equal across all power levels; dmg vs DR, atk vs AC, and statuses vs saves. HP is merely how long one can last.
I do cringe a bit at this, namely because IMO it isn't making multiclassing more feasible, but making a newbie actually sticking to an archtype from 1-20, unfeasible. I've played numerous games that have mixing and matching of classes, Say dream of mirror online for one, in which each class was leveled seperately, and came with certain skills you could equip on other classes, but were limited in how many trees and what skills you could carry over, essentially you were your class, and 2 halfs of anything else you equip. Which while somewhat fun in it's context, it also pretty much forced people to level up in classes they hated playing, simply because it is undeniably and distinctively better with the secondary, oh you want to be a healer, you should start out by leveling thief or wizard to 30 to get a good mana regen ability...
Personally I say make later "levels" of a class give more class related options without any real boost to power AKA high lvl wiz has more spells but those spells are not anymore powerful then a low lvl wiz has. Same for a fighter, he has more combat maneuvers and more different weapons but he isn't hitting much harder then when he started.This leads to using your because those who know the right combos will win regardless of level. This could be considered a bad or good thing.
It's possible, but the greatest fear I have in the general guideline like that, is the risk of hands down the best class being a 1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1 as kind of a necesity, making sure that the last one is the one you actually want the flare of maxing out.
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That is based on two false assumtions,
1. Multiclassing if allowed is the only way to achieve maximum desired effect.
2. Only way to prevent above situation is to limit abilities beyond just by level so that no one at the top level can have all the best abilities (Either by number equipped[guildwars], requiring gear[recent proposal], by group aka "class" [wow], or some other method).
Take and remove abilities from their fluff and class, then balance them on their Basic Ability Trait Elements (BATE),
Range How far the ability is effective.
Area How many the ability can effect.
Cost How much resources it consumes.
Damage How much resources it destroys when successful
Success chance How likely it is to take effect.
there are other catagories as well.
Build abilities on the above to be balanced. A class is simply a specialist in a certain trait set, I.E. a fighter focuses on melee range, high damage output, with the cost primarily in gear, and a wizard does area attacks, and non-HP damaging effects at range at the cost of limited resources (mana) per combat and the time taken to use each ability.
Without even considering the other catagories, the BATEs above could be specialized for most of the classes people already know.
Balance abilities by BATE and multiclassing becomes much less an issue and more about flavor and versatility.
A 5 year veteran will be able to hit the weakness of many monsters/players but a new player will still have the ability to challange the veteran (in the newbies limited sphere of ability anyway).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Uhm, this game is about advancing skills, not levels.
And skills will have a definite cap. The skill "swing your sword" will cap and someone who has 100 points of skilltraing will not be able to swing their sword better then someone who has 20 points of skilltraining and put all of these into swordswinging.
This is the fundamental difference between skill-based and level-based.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't be opposed, but the question is how much the server can handle the dropped items. The drawback is, items that don't despawn soon enough, can just bottleneck up the server of course. People flooding the ground with cheap things they can drop etc... Now the obvious fiat is how long is a reasonable amount of time for a battle to take in order to pick the item back up
For players the other drawback of dropping items, in P&P 99% of battles the PCs win and have the opprotunity to pick up weapons. In an MMO that ratio is more like 75-80%, in PVP obviously much closer to 50%.
We also do need to consider the other obvious factor of dropping an item on the ground. Your enemy, or his accomplice almost certainly should be able to pick that weapon you dropped on the ground.
I don't think we really need to worry about actualy dropping the item on the ground. EFFECTIVELY putting the weapon back into your inventory serves the same function. Especialy in PFO where inventory gets destroyed upon looting. There are 2 likely results from a battle.
Your side wins, you get to recover your items that are dropped on the ground....keeping the items that are in your inventory achieves the same result.
Your side loses, you can't recover dropped items...in PFO enemy loots your dead corpse, your inventory gets destroyed....pretty much the same result.
The only things that would be different would be where the enemy bothered to stoop to pickup your dropped weapon in the middle of a battle or where you lost but lived and were just forced to retreat retaining your inventory items. Now those certainly COULD happen but for the sake of good gameplay I don't see that being too much of a concession. YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Uhm, this game is about advancing skills, not levels.
And skills will have a definite cap. The skill "swing your sword" will cap and someone who has 100 points of skilltraing will not be able to swing their sword better then someone who has 20 points of skilltraining and put all of these into swordswinging.
This is the fundamental difference between skill-based and level-based.
Right but it's more about how abilities stack together to create vastly more powerfull characters be eliminating the balancing weaknesses that archtypes have...
For example a Player who plays a Wizards Archtype has access to very powerfull magic spells but it's counter-balanced by the fact that the character is only effective in casting them while not wearing much armor...which means they are vulnerable defensively and need to keep at least 1 hand free...and they don't have much melee attack ability, so if they have a self-cast spell that gives them +3 strength it's not a huge unbalance.
Now if we pair that ability with a Monk. Well the Monk's thing is that they are very defensive with no armor and they fight effectively open handed and they are good at melee combat.... so there go the Wizards 3 balancing factors.
Now lets add in a Cleric who typicaly don't have much offensive magic but can fight ok in melee and can heal and buff themselves.
Now lets add in a Thief who gets huge damage bonuses when attacking from behind or out of surprise.
So our Wizard/Monk/Cleric/Thief character even if we are talking about skills/abilities rather then "levels" IF they get to use all those skills/abilities in concert is someone who...
- Has a vast array of powerfull offensive/defensive magics.
- Has the native ability to fight very effectively both offensively and defensively in melee.
- Can Heal themselves whenever they want, AND Buff thier native capabilties as well.
- Can set themselves up to deal large amounts of damage when they want.
- Can turn themselves invisable rendering perfect stealth, strike thier opponent from surprise with the highest native probability to hit thier target in the game plus whatever they've gotten from self buffs (cleric) on top of that at triple damage (thief) when they hit with adiitional damage from a boosted strength (wizard) when they hit. Oh and on top of that maybe they set thier opponent on fire because thier hands have a burst flame attack when touching an opponent in melee (wizard).
That character is a LIVING GOD when compared to the character that can just swing a sword at maximum attack bonus.
That's the core problem whether it's levels or skills/abilities or whatever label you want to put on it. A character who can use all those different things in CONCERT is vastly powerfull when compared to one who just has maxed out one of those paths.
Now if the character has ACCESS to all those different ability paths but can really only use one to a significant degree at a time...that character is not vastly more powerfull then everyone else...they still have a very usefull advantage as they can choose to match the most usefull ability path to the situation that they are currently in...but they can't stack the advantages of all those different ability paths together at one time to make themselves invulberable.
YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't be opposed, but the question is how much the server can handle the dropped items. The drawback is, items that don't despawn soon enough, can just bottleneck up the server of course. People flooding the ground with cheap things they can drop etc... Now the obvious fiat is how long is a reasonable amount of time for a battle to take in order to pick the item back up
For players the other drawback of dropping items, in P&P 99% of battles the PCs win and have the opprotunity to pick up weapons. In an MMO that ratio is more like 75-80%, in PVP obviously much closer to 50%.
We also do need to consider the other obvious factor of dropping an item on the ground. Your enemy, or his accomplice almost certainly should be able to pick that weapon you dropped on the ground.
I don't think we really need to worry about actualy dropping the item on the ground. EFFECTIVELY putting the weapon back into your inventory serves the same function. Especialy in PFO where inventory gets destroyed upon looting. There are 2 likely results from a battle.
Your side wins, you get to recover your items that are dropped on the ground....keeping the items that are in your inventory achieves the same result.
Your side loses, you can't recover dropped items...in PFO enemy loots your dead corpse, your inventory gets destroyed....pretty much the same result.
The only things that would be different would be where the enemy bothered to stoop to pickup your dropped weapon in the middle of a battle or where you lost but lived and were just forced to retreat retaining your inventory items. Now those certainly COULD happen but for the sake of good gameplay I don't see that being too much of a concession. YMMV.
It's good discussion. Dropped items as something to implement, as Onishi says is probably too much pain for too little reward, and as GrumpMel says, it's partly covered (in the areas that count anyway).
Yet, if notice in A LOT of films, often times combat switches on who has a weapon, who is disarmed etc etc. Also I remember particularly in Kurosawa's Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior epic) after Samurai are slaughtered on the field of battle, the samurai swords being collected in their droves.
I could imagine as a player, dropping my weapon would be an almight "Holy mother of all that is holy! moment? *raises eyebrows* I can't see it being implemented because it seems covered by eg win/lose -> decides who gets to loot the corpses* which is powerful enough already I imagine. But the feeling of being pushed off my weapon during battle leaving me simmering is kinda cool image.
*Wonder if there will be "corpse-looter" career: Someone who can get more off dead bodies and makes a living from it?
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@MicMan and GrumpyMel
First I was talking abilities, the reference to class was as an example and reference to give context nothing more.
Second the point of my suggestion is to balance the abilities as a whole set rather then seperate sets against each other. Also there are the costs of those abilities and the counter abilities. Sure I can use those abilities in concert but so can an enemy and that enemy will know that I can do that and will counter best he can. People love to say that it is somehow bad to be able to do those things but it still balanced because such abilities are available to all, not just the example guy with everyone else remainiing peons.
Besides the cost of those things must still be paid, in PnP I have a src/mnk/rog and have indeed gotten a shocking grasp+fist+snk atk all together, but it cost me a few turns to do so and was a first strike only thing, no follow up chances became available because the time, AOO, and limited spell slots, all of which translate to MMO, the AOO can be simulated with a defensive penalty during those actions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So our Wizard/Monk/Cleric/Thief character even if we are talking about skills/abilities rather then "levels" IF they get to use all those skills/abilities in concert is someone who...- Has a vast array of powerfull offensive/defensive magics.
Not really, multiclassed to that extent they wouldn't have the ability to cast high lvl spells, and their casting DC would suck.
- Has the native ability to fight very effectively both offensively and defensively in melee.
Not 'very effectively'. The monk's flurry of blows would be low powered, and later monk abilities would be missing.
- Can Heal themselves whenever they want, AND Buff thier native capabilties as well.
True, but the heals would be weak, as would the buffs.
- Can set themselves up to deal large amounts of damage when they want.
By multiclassing they miss out on the majority of their sneak attack damage, they wouldn't be getting huge hits.
- Can turn themselves invisable rendering perfect stealth, strike thier opponent from surprise with the highest native probability to hit thier target in the game plus whatever they've gotten from self buffs (cleric) on top of that at triple damage (thief) when they hit with adiitional damage from a boosted strength (wizard) when they hit. Oh and on top of that maybe they set thier opponent on fire because thier hands have a burst flame attack when touching an opponent in melee (wizard).
The respective stealth level would suck, making their stealth easier to break/notice. The surprise strike would 'not' be the highest native probability to hit in the game, as their thief lvl would blow. Full thieves would obliterate any numbers this one could come up with. I don't know where triple damage is coming from, their sneak attack die would be very low compared to true thieves. Boosted strength from a wizard is something everyone can have, just takes a potion/scroll, and that's assuming their wizarding abilities are even strong enough to cast the spell, which would be doubtful for anything that would be considered a 'game changer'.
I understand the point you were trying to make, I just think it was completely unrealistic.
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Kard, you forget the lack of level cap. They are concerned because they will maxed out in all those "classes" which is why they think this will be a problem.
I don't think it's a problem because they will be balancing the power so that high level won't stomp low levels with impunity, which means they need to balance the underlying power issues of abilities before even considering the fluff split.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think we really need to worry about actualy dropping the item on the ground. EFFECTIVELY putting the weapon back into your inventory serves the same function. Especialy in PFO where inventory gets destroyed upon looting.
I'd think that "dropped" weapons could be flagged as such in inventory, for two reasons: (1) if the player chooses to flee the battle, dropped items would be lost, and (2) say a player wants to use bow, then sword, then bow - the first switch from bow to sword is quick, but the bow is dropped. The second switch would be slower because the dropped bow needs to be recovered.
Weapons could have varying "ready" times instead; that might have the same effect. Switching to a crossbow or bow might take a lot more time than switching to a dagger; it might be quicker to ready common throwing weapons like javelins or axes than to switch to a shield and sword.
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I wouldn't worry about dropping items even into inventory, particularly if you go with only two weapon sets and the varying ready times which is an idea that I really like.
Having played LARPs I know how difficult it is to carry a lot of weapons, but I also know that I can have a few weapons that I can switch out easily depending on size and shape, a bow is easy to sling on your back while drawing a sword even when dodging an opponant, a glaive OTH needs to be held or dropped, though you can hold it in one hand while using a sword in the other, in fact I would actually be holding a sword while using the glaive so I could swing if someone locked the glaive which is the most common way to close distance with a polearm (would normally use the haft but that was an illegal striking surface)
I, being an archer or polearm most often, developed several handholds for holding two weapons in one hand though only one was usually usable at time (with notable exceptions) so dropping items seems excessive except maybe polearms.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think we really need to worry about actualy dropping the item on the ground. EFFECTIVELY putting the weapon back into your inventory serves the same function. Especialy in PFO where inventory gets destroyed upon looting.I'd think that "dropped" weapons could be flagged as such in inventory, for two reasons: (1) if the player chooses to flee the battle, dropped items would be lost, and (2) say a player wants to use bow, then sword, then bow - the first switch from bow to sword is quick, but the bow is dropped. The second switch would be slower because the dropped bow needs to be recovered.
Weapons could have varying "ready" times instead; that might have the same effect. Switching to a crossbow or bow might take a lot more time than switching to a dagger; it might be quicker to ready common throwing weapons like javelins or axes than to switch to a shield and sword.
I like the idea of variable "ready times" for switch-over/preparation of different weapons. I still think losing a weapon on a chance could be good as a player then could be asking another friendly player to lend them their off-hand/stashed weapon: "Give me your bow!" :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't worry about dropping items even into inventory, particularly if you go with only two weapon sets and the varying ready times which is an idea that I really like.
Having played LARPs I know how difficult it is to carry a lot of weapons, but I also know that I can have a few weapons that I can switch out easily depending on size and shape, a bow is easy to sling on your back while drawing a sword even when dodging an opponant, a glaive OTH needs to be held or dropped, though you can hold it in one hand while using a sword in the other, in fact I would actually be holding a sword while using the glaive so I could swing if someone locked the glaive which is the most common way to close distance with a polearm (would normally use the haft but that was an illegal striking surface)
I, being an archer or polearm most often, developed several handholds for holding two weapons in one hand though only one was usually usable at time (with notable exceptions) so dropping items seems excessive except maybe polearms.
That makes a lot of sense and I'm suspecting that what was mentioned about players not having magic pockets might happen here: You should only be able to carry sword/shield + 2nd option eg bow and possibly a dagger? Eg GrumpyMel's description of Roman Soldier: Shield, Pillus, Gladus. (Brings back good memories of learning that in history).
Sounds like players out and about, will carry what they intend to use. which makes a lot of sense given the above LARP experience. +1.