I've been working on a game design for quite I while, including 3 or so prototypes. I've decided to go back to the actual design and remove things that are getting in the way.

The main premise behind my game is that you are a spellcaster that compiles their own spells in order to solve puzzles, combined with a roguelike adventuring.

The spells in the game are much like equations or programs, and are thus quite predictable.

I've decided that I need at least some kind of simple combat system. I want this combat system to not have any randomization involved in order to fit with the feel of the game. I've settled on a simple damage vs resistance system. Spells can alter these attributes.

I've thought of having weapons such as daggers, swords, and axes. They have an amount of damage they deal, how fast they are, and what magical spells they are enchanted with. If I decide to have weapons in the game I have the following problem. Other than the damage and speed of a weapon, what can I use to distingush one weapon from another without dramatically increasing the complexity of my system?

I've decided against having separate physical damage types such as piercing vs bashing and such. For a while I was experimenting with extra attributes like accuracy modifiers and such, but this made it no longer easy to calculate damage.

Any ideas?

Is range a meaningful attribute for weapons in your game?

Another option is having weapons provide some defensive advantage (to approximate their utility in blocking and parrying), which could be applied to your resistance stat rather than adding a chance-to-hit system.

Durability is another option (although I am not usually a fan of these mechanics, it might add to your game if scavenging and survival are key themes, for example).

Does your combat system allow for only one type of weapon attack? If not then which attacks are available to each weapon creates a profile of uses determining its appropriateness for different play styles.

Some weapons also require both hands, while others only require one, in which case the player could also use a shield, giving a major trade off between damage and the players defence.

Having both 1 handed and 2 handed weapons is something that I do like. Having the option to have 1 larger weapon, or a smaller weapon with a shield, or maybe even 2 small weapons is quite meaningful, and it doesn't change my combat system much.

A weapons reach or range is also a nice thing to have. I'm not so sure how I could implement it well though.

I've thought of having multiple attack options, with different weapons being better at different types of attacks. However this seems like the kind of thing that might over complicate my combat system if not done well.

I'm not planning on having durability in this particular game, and even if I were it seems more like a mechanic to distinguish between two weapons of the same type.

These are some good ideas, thanks.

You don't want to go with the piercing/slashing/blunt type of distinction, you say. IF you take that away, and don't include melee range meaningfully, then weapon "types" are little more than window dressing, since they'll all just have "attack" as their effect.

One of the things I really like to see is weapons as scepters, almost ceremonial or totemic in their design and function. I once amused myself by putting together a system that mixed superpowers, personality traits and magical proclivities into a matrix that I linked to a fictional zodiac, so there were eight months, and each one had a race (or hybrid race), an animal, a color, a god, a region of the world map and a weapon. One was assiciated with scimitars, another with spears, a third with axes, etc.

If you work your system in that way, then the weapon class would correlate to the sort of mage that uses it. If you're going to cast a lot of water magic, you'll benefit from casting it on a katana rather than a halberd. If you're into earth magic, a mace is the correct vehicle for your enchantments, whereas a kusari, identified with air magics, would reject the spells you try to place on it.

That's just a random example, of course, but you could work the flavor of each magical school into it as deeply as you want. Healing mages might use a staff to amplify their diagnostic scrying or battlemages might cast furious doom spells on a broadsword, and then just kill people with the sword outright.

There is a difference between having armour (or whatever) reduce an attack by a specified percentage, or by a specified amount.

For example:
If you had one type of armour (armour 1) that reduced an attack by 20% each hit and a second type of armour (armour 2) that reduced an attack by 20 points from each hit and you were hit by either 10 attacks that did a total of 1000 points of damge or by a single attack that did 1000 points of damage, which armour would be better in each case:

Firstly lest look at the 10 hit attack:
Each hit does 100 points of damage
Armour 1 = 10 * (100 - (100 * 0.2)) = 800
Armour 2 = 10 * (100 - 20) = 800

Ok, so no real difference there. But, lets look at the second attack of a single hit at 1000 points of damage
Armour 1 = 1 * (1000 - (1000 * 0.2)) = 800
Armour 2 = 1 * (1000 - 20) = 980

Wow, big difference there!

What does this mean? If you have two type of armour (percentage and value based reductions) and your weapons have variation in their nuimber of attacks and damage dealt then you can create distinction between the various melee weapon types.

By making value based reduction armour (the type 2 armour) more effective than the same priced percentage based reduction armour (the type 1 armour) and all the weapons doing the same total damge over time, you can create a distinction between the wepaons based on what armour is being worn by the enemy.

So a fast wepaon would be less effective against type 2 armour than type 1 armour, but a slow weapon would be more effective against type 2 armour than type 1 armour.

A system you could use for Melee (sword, axes, shields, etc)/ranged (bows, crossbows, etc)/reached (pole arms, pikes, spears, etc) weapons is this:
Ranged beats reach
Reach beats melee
Melee beats ranged

This can be achieved by allowing Reach weapons to push back enemies in melee before the melee weapons can hit. Reach weapons prevent the player from moving fast. And, A player can't more wuickly and shoot accuratly with ranged weapons.

This also allows player skill to come into it too. If the melee can outflank the reach weapon then the reach weapon can't push the melee weapon wielder back. If the Ranged player can get to a difficult to reach spot they can sniper the other players and if the reach weapon can get into a very defensive location (tunnel, or with a lot of other reach weapon wielders) then they can form a very effective defense.

With these two simple changes (the armour types vs rate of attack + damage per hit, and reach weapon pushback + ranged weapon aim penalty to shoot while moving) creates a very deep system with many tactical and strategic complexities wihtout needing much in the way of developer effort.