Why Does This Mod Exist?

As a player, I'm really into exploring all possibilities I can in a single game, finding and using every item, talking to every character and so on.
With DAO I really wanted to delve a bit into having my Wardens having specific weapon and armor sets that they would use them throughout the game and I'd never would really have to bother too much about being underpowered or overpowered with a certain item. However, it is obvious that certain items fare much, much better than others in this game and that at some point we are forced to make decisions that might go against what our roleplaying selves want to.
This mod is my attempt at making sure that you can, indeed, use those ugly maces, or make your dwarven hero use an axe as big as they come.

Do take note that this was made for personal use and as such, my tastes might be a bit too much or even too little for you. Either way, I'm sharing it in hopes that someone will find it cool and useful in some way.


What This Mod Does? [Short Explanation]

I've tweaked the base stats for weapons and armors in order to make them a bit more appealing, not only from the initial tiers, but also in later tiers.
Take the one-handed weapons for example:
The Longsword is arguably one of the best of its class, perhaps only being outclassed by a well-used pair of Daggers.
I've tried to guarantee that both the Mace and War Axe can also be used by the player, not as a temporary weapon, but as a staple that fits their characters.

Now, there are three variations that I've made, predicting that some could use the extra punch, the extra crunch and maybe a faster swing.
The first is the most basic one, changing the damage/armor of the equipment, alongside a few extras, like range for Bows and the armor penetration.
The second one takes what the previous one has and add a whopping 10 times increase in weapon's critical rates on top of it.
The third one, being the original idea of this mod, borrows what the other two have changed and tweaks the basic attack speeds of all weapons.
Additionally, I've also made changes to the tier progression of materials in order to make it a bit more rewarding while keeping the different kinds on a similar curve, resulting in a combination of buffs and nerfs that I believe that are fair enough.

Compatibility:
Anything that doesn't directly mess up with these two files should work with little problem:

itemstats.gda (main focus of the mod)
materialrules.gda (responsible for the changes in tier progression)

There is, though, an immediate conflict that I noticed when I made the mod for myself:

A particular Tweak in Dain's Fixpack related to Shield Talents proposes a fix that adds a few properties to the shields, making them important in damage calculations. As much as I like the tweak as it is, it specifically changes the shield data in the "itemstats.gda" file, which will either be read before the changes in my mod or after them. In order to keep it constant, I've also provided an extra file for compatibility that can be used to overwrite the one used in the fixpack. It has the exact same structure; the only changes are the values specific values which would conflict with my mod.

The Changes:
For those interested in the details, here they are.

The new material rules make every stat increase by 25% (for each Tier, starting at 2) for all stats affected by them, except for:

• Fatigue, which grows at a 5% rate, capped at 30% increase at Tier 7;
• Optimal Range (for ranged weapons, naturally), which grows at a 5% rate, capped at 30% increase at Tier 7;
• [The increase in] Stat Requirements, which retain their base game values;
• Spellpower, which retain their base game values.
  

The extra changes (i.e. options 2 and 3) are the following:
For Option 2:
Critical Hit Rates are multiplied by 10, resulting in more frequent critical hits (especially notable with two-handed weapons). The highest probability being 30%. It should be noted that the tier progression will eventually bring the top values to 75%.

For Option 3:
Basic Attack speeds are raised to be around 50% faster. I've played for about 10 hours with it and I believe it works well enough, not too fast, not so slow. For instance, the awfully slow crossbows still fare worse than the two bow types, they're just a tad faster.
Also, I should note that I've created this mod while playing at nightmare difficulty and a swarm of enemies can now easily kill you if you're not careful enough or your equipment makes a poor match with them (like those cursed genlocks during the Dwarven Noble origin, for example).

Changes in Weapons:
One-Handed Weapons:

• Base Damage increased to 10 for Longswords, Maces and War Axes. Base damage for the Dagger is now 5*.
• The Damage Ranges remain unchanged.
• Armor Penetration is now 5 for all of them.
• The Attribute Modifier for the Dagger was lowered to 75%, while it still benefits from both Strength and Dexterity modifiers.
  

Note: The Dagger has the highest critical hit ratio of all weapons, tied with the Battle Axe at 3% (or 30% with my mod), eventually reaching an obscene 7.5% (75%), which would make it kind of overpowered at the late game, overshadowing the other weapons in its group.

Two-Handed Weapons:

• Base Damage changed to 10 for Greatswords, Mauls and Battleaxes.
• Damage Range for Greatswords and Battleaxes slightly increased to 1.5
• Armor Penetration for Greatswords and Battleaxes raised to 5, with Mauls raised to 10.
• Their Attribute Modifiers remain unchanged.
  

Note:
These weapons benefit the most from having increased critical hit ratios and speed, making the Battleaxes dish out particularly deadly neutral damage.

Bows and Crossbow:

• Base Damage for the Shortbows and Longbows are now 5, while the Crossbow was increased to 10.
• The Damage Range for the Longbow was increased to 1.75 and the DR for the Crossbow was reduced to 1. Shortbow remains at 1.5.
• Armor Penetration for the Shortbows and Longbows is now 5, while the Crossbow was increased to 10.
• Their Attribute Modifiers remain unchanged.
• The Effective Ranges for the weapons are now 25 (Shortbow) and 50 (Longbow and Crossbow)
• The Base Aim Delay was reduced to 0.1 for all of them.
  

Note:
The Shortbow is still the fastest out of all of them, so I've avoided making many changes to it out of fear of those pesky enemy archers easily overwhelming the player.
The Crossbow make for a strange "glass cannon", dishing quite a bit of damage (eventually reaching 25 base damage per hit) while still being painfully slow.I believe that the Longbow is balanced enough as of now, though changes could be made with proper feedback.

===================================================== Special ==========================================================
Shields:

• Base Damage & Defense (Armor):
  

Bucklers → 1
Targes → 3
Kite Shields → 5
Heavy Shields → 7

• Damage Ranges are 1.5 as presented in Dain's mod.
• Their Missile Deflection is about 75% of their Defense Score (Rounded)
• Their Fatigue is now 50% of their Defense Score, except for Bucklers, which remain at 0%
• Armor Penetration is proportional to their Base Damage.
  

===================================================== Special ==========================================================

Changes in Armors:
Light Armor:
Gloves → 1 Armor & Fatigue
Armor → 3 Armor & Fatigue
Boots → 0.5 Armor & Fatigue
Helmet → 0.75 Armor & Fatigue

Medium Armor:
Gloves → 1.25 Armor & Fatigue
Armor → 5 Armor & Fatigue
Boots → 1.5 Armor & Fatigue
Helmet → 1.5 Armor & Fatigue

Heavy Armor:
Gloves → 1.75 Armor & Fatigue 
Armor → 7 Armor & 10 Fatigue
Boots → 2.25 Armor & Fatigue
Helmet → 2.25 Armor & Fatigue

Massive Armor:
Gloves → 3 Armor & Fatigue
Armor → 10 Armor & Fatigue*
Boots → 3 Armor & Fatigue
Helmet → 3 Armor & Fatigue

Special Note:
The Game files differentiates between Massive Armors with and without boots, so those without also receive 10 points of fatigue to make sure they're not on par with heavy armors that do have boots.

Note:
My initial intention was making Massive Armors have 20 points in fatigue, but those 9 received from the rest of the equipment combined would make them too costly to be used early (Take the Warden Commander Armor from Soldier's Peak, for example)


Further Notes:
I highly recommend using my mod alongside Dain's Fixpack, as it fixes a lot of bugs that pester the combat mechanics and has a few optional Tweaks like the Shield Talent one and an Extra one that makes Bow Talents have no aim time.
I have no plans of making my changes compatible with mods that overhaul the combat mechanics in any way, since I lack both the time and knowledge to make it.
I am, however, completely willing to make changes that are suggested by the community. As I stated before, this mod reflects my personal tastes and as such is prone to being considered unfair by some users. The changes will aim to make them as close to the public's taste as possible.