Dragon Age Weapon Damage Mechanics Discussed

BioWare designer Georg Zoeller stopped by the official Dragon Age forums to address a question about how the game will handle different types of weapons.
Q: A weapon is a weapon right? Stabbing at the right place a dagger is as dangerous as a sword. Hitting someone on the head with a mace is just as good as hitting someone with a claymore.

A: Not in dragon age.

You see, there's a bunch of stats that govern how weapons interact with enemies, including one currently called 'Armor Penetration'.

Some weapons have high damage potential (such as a longsword), but their ability to punch through the damage absorption that some of the heavier armor provides is, at best, limited.

Other weapons, such as the mace, offer only moderate damage potential (but less variance through individual hits), but they are great for dealing damage to those those fully amoured tin cans as they have much better AP...

That's a quite simplified look at damage mechanics, but it gives you an idea where we are headed...

I've been waiting for a system like this, if only for a reason to use bludgeoning weapons on anything other than skeletons.