Combat skills are associated with one of two statistics: strength or dexterity. As with the other skills, the higher the associated stat plus the higher the level of skill, the better you are at your particular combat.
Combat skills make the most use of stats and skill levels, as they virtually always are used against another NPC or PC, which means your relative levels and stats will likely be compared. They are also the most specific: one weapon will involve a very different style than the other.
Unlike other skills, combat skills are 'generic' skill levels; you do not gain special abilities for a higher level of skill save what is described here:
Novice: Your character can hit a medium-sized target about half the time.
Proficient: Your character can hit a medium-sized, moving target about half the time.
Advanced: Your character can hit a medium sized, moving target about 3/4 of the time.
Expert: Your character puts his weapon exactly where he or she wants it, and hits moving targets 9/10ths of the time depending on the target's skill at defending or lack thereof.
A character with a weapon skill that is capable of parrying (such as a sword or martial arts, but not a bow or dart) may attempt to disarm his opponent. Disarming will not work unless the character is one higher level in his fighting skill than his opponent is.
AXE: (Strength)
The axe comes in many forms: double-headed, battle, throwing, or regular wood axe. If used as a weapon, it's primary goal is to chop and split things, and while it can be weilded with great skill, it is never a graceful weapon. Even the throwing axe uses Strength as its associated stat.
BRAWLING: (Strength)
Brawling is (mostly) unarmed combat, using punches, grapples, kicks, knees, and headbutts to knock your opponent out. Rarely is the object of brawling lethal. Brawlers sometimes make use of more deadly weapons such as brass knuckles or broken bottles, but this is rarely considered a 'good fight' and is generally taking things from a competition to something significantly deadlier.
Brawling differs from Martial Arts in that Martial Arts uses Dexterity and lets the opponent damage himself.
BOW: (Dexterity)
There are several versions of the bow; short, medium, or longbow, each of which can be reflex, laminated, simple, or composite. A short bow has little range and power but is easy to use. A medium bow is about 3/4 as long as a man when unstrung and is more powerful with more range. A longbow requires more strength to pull but subsequently has more range and damage.
A reflex bow is one where the limbs of the bow curve away from the body as you hold it. Drawing the bow pulls the limbs back and increases the pull and damage. A laminated bow is laminated in some kind of glue or other covering to protect it and strengthen it. A simple bow is made of wood or horn and is the easiest kind of bow to make or draw. A composite bow is made of layers of horn, wood, laminate, and possibly other materials that creates an incredibly strong and flexible bow.
All bows shoot arrows. An arrow may have a simple wooden, filed point; a fixed stone point, or a fixed metal point. Sometimes specialty arrows are made such as whistler arrows to serve as a signal when scouting for an army, or flame arrows when setting things afire. Damage is mostly through the strength of the bow or good aim (or lack thereof) of the shooter.
CROSSBOW: (Strength)
Like the bow, there are several versions of the crossbow: hand, light, and heavy. All crossbows are a small, incredibly strong bow mounted crosswise across a heavy stock. The crossbowman sights along the bolt towards the target and releases a trigger to let the bolt fly. Crossbows often deal more damage than bows, since they are inherently stronger. They take much longer to load and draw, however, and may even require a small winch to draw the string back.
A hand crossbow is one that can usually be fairly easily concealed. It has relatively short range and small damage and is primarily an assassin's weapon. A light crossbow is one that is relatively easy to load and sight along and packs about as much damage as a reflex composite medium bow. A heavy crossbow takes a long time to draw and usually requires a winch but has very long range and does a great deal of damage when it hits.
Crossbows are strength weapons because of the strength required to keep them from bucking when the bolt is fired. A crossbow fires bolts which are also known as quarrels; they are shorter than arrows usually but can, like arrows, sport wooden points, stone points, or metal points, and can be poisoned or flamed just like regular arrows.
CLUB / MACE / HAMMER: (Strength)
The club, mace, and hammer are all a family of similar weapons, designed simply to bash the opponent where it hurts the most. Clubs are simple and often made of wood, sometimes banded in metal with nails sticking out. Maces are wooden poles with a bulbous metal head on the end, often spiked, flanged or ridged. Hammers are also metal heads sported on wooden handles, but have two ends on that head; one is to bash, and the other is a spike to puncture.
These weapons often have longer handles to make better use of the weilder's swing.
KNIVES: (Dexterity)
Knives are short blades, usually a hand or a hand and a half long. Some kinds of knives are shorter and specially weighted for throwing. Knives rarely have much of a hilt, especially throwing knives, but the handle has a dip where the first finger rests so that the hand will not slide up the blade during combat.
Knives can be double-edged, single-edged, toothed, or a combination thereof. A special kind of knife called a swordbreaker has notches designed to catch an opponent's blade and break it with a sharp twist of the wrist.
MARTIAL ARTS: (Dexterity)
In Telgard, there is only one generic kind of martial arts, which the player may express in different styles if they wish (concentrating on throws instead of strikes for instance.) Martial arts is NOT a superior form of fighting, it is merely a different way, and so has no inherent benefits or disadvantages compared to other forms of fighting.
Martial arts is also unarmed combat. If you have a weapon skill, you may practice using your martial arts with a weapon, but while your weapon skill will go up at regular speed, your martial arts skill will go up at half speed.
Martial arts is a dexterity-based skill (unlike brawling) and concentrates on letting the opponent damage themselves with their own strength. This can be accomplished with locks, holds, chokes, throws, or well-placed strikes. Martial arts in and of itself will not let a character do flips, fantastic leaps, or other cinematic-style moves; such movement can be accomplished by taking the skill Performance (Tumbling).
STAVES: (Strength)
The staff can be a deadly weapon if weilded properly. It is a length of wood, often from shoulder-height to head-height, and frequently shod on both ends with metal. Thinner, less heavy versions are made more for speed than for damage.
Fighting with the staff involves both hands and striking with either end of the staff in sequence. The staff also can be used to block an incoming attack, though a direct strike with a heavy blade or polearm will damage or break the quarterstaff in two, making the weapon useless.
LIGHT SWORD: (Dexterity)
The light sword comes in many forms; épée, scimitar, rapier, short sword, etc. Almost all these swords have only one sharp edge and a point. Use of this weapon involves swift strikes and gradually wearing the opponent down. These weapons are generally used for thrusting, as they are often not heavy enough for killing blows through slicing. However, the slices are used to wear the opponent down and inflict pain, while the fencer waits for the appropriate time to thrust his sword through the heart.
Light swords are also the ones commonly used in non-lethal duels, and in such a case, the duel is one by the person who draws first blood.
LONG SWORD: (Strength)
Like the light sword, the long sword also comes in many forms. All can be weilded with one hand, and almost all have two sharp edges. The longer the blade, the duller the edges; a sharp, heavy blade can often be broken by a direct strike as the opponent's blade digs into the sharp edge.
Fighting with a longsword often involves a shield. The swordsman attempts to hack bits and pieces of his opponent off, relying on the heaviness of his blade and the strength of his arm to push through armour. Obviously, very heavy armours can frustrate the swordsman, but he is not limited to overhand strikes; he may also thrust his weapon at vulnerable points such as joints of armour.
TWO-HANDED SWORD: (Strength)
This massive sword is most commonly the claymore, the huge six-foot ceremonial blade that deals frightening amounts of damage and can often shear straight through armour. Smaller swords are also known; all two-handed swords are sheathed at the back and require both hands to weild properly; thus the two-handed sword often serves as both attack and defense.
Like the heavier longswords, a two-handed sword is rarely very sharp. Sharp blades catch on other blades, on armour, and on bone, and this will permanently damage the blade, possibly break it, or at the very least get it stuck. The heaviness of the blade is used to shear through armour and bone instead of the sharpness of the blade, and with swords as huge as these, it is no great difficulty.
DART: (Dexterity)
A dart is either thrown or launched from a blowgun. Either way, its innate damage is small unless one happens to strike an eye or other equally deadly location. Instead, darts are the carriers of poisons and potions, even magical ones if the weilder has such available. A dart can be dipped in poison that kills, that puts to sleep, or conversely that can energize and enfuriate the target.
A blowgun is a long hollow tube. The dart is pushed into one end so that the fluffy back end is pointed towards the mouth; the weilder blows into the tube and the dart is expelled at great force. The blowgun is the most damaging of the two ways to throw darts and has the greatest range.
A hand dart is generally thrown with a flick of the wrist or even a flick of finger and thumb. It has a short range but has enough strength to scratch even tough calloused skin--and a scratch is all that is needed to deliver the poison found on the dart.
POLEARMS: (Strength)
Polearms are long wooden-shafted weapons often fixed with a blade or head at the top of the shaft. Lances, spears, halberds, and tridents may all be considered polearms.
The purpose of a polearm is to impale your opponent--occasionally to hack at them as well as though with an axe. They are most effective against charges; such a weapon can be set against the ground or a wall to impale the charger straight through. A character with a polearm almost always has reach against other opponents, but the weapon is often slow.
Lighter versions of polearms such as some spears and some tridents may be thrown; strength is still the determining stat in this case.
SLING: (Dexterity)
The sling is a very common weapon among peasants and hunters. It consists of a long leather strap with a pouch affixed. A rounded stone (called a shot) is put into the pouch, and the strap is grasped by both ends and swung around the head or in a circle to the side. When sufficient speed has been achieved, the slinger releases one end of the strap and the shot goes flying.
A sling has a range somewhere between a blowgun dart and a shortbow. It can be a deadly weapon if it strikes a vulnerable area such as an eye, skull, or temple...an ear or temple-shot can kill easily, where a strike on the head can be deadly but more frequently simply knocks the target unconscious.
