Posted by McDonald on 01/30
Ok, first off this post is an extension of some of the discussion
we had at the last q&a. Sure imms may not be working on these
things, but we discuss just for discussions sake, and maybe to
influence things in the future.
Someone made the comment that maybe backstab shouldn't work
unless your sneaking. This is an interesting idea in itself,
but the idea I had was slightly different.
Backstab is the only initiating attack in the game.
Yes, you can start a fight with a headbutt or a bash, but you
can also do it midfight. Having a skill only initiate combat
and also it have a flag so you can't do it over and over
allows you to make it more powerful.
Lets think about what backstab can do. First a lot of damage.
None of the other skills do this.
Secondly, it also has the chance to stun, same as some other
skills.
Lastly, if it does stun, a second thing occurs. You can flee
and backstab again. No other skill gives this ability. This
can be very devastating. Well to clarify a wfw stun or any
other stun could be used to set up a backstab too, but only
dex fighters can take advantage of this.
Now Ea said this was actually a perc attack, which may be
so, but only dex fighters can do it, so im not sure how
relevant that is to the game.
This skill seems like it might be overpowered. Just the fact
that con and str don't have initiating attacks limits them
somewhat. The other skill that does damage that is good
on stunned is also dex, kick.
I think it would go a long way to balance things if con and
dex were given initiating attacks.
Surely a str fighter could put someone in a headlock and give
them a little tweak. Or a con fighter could smash someone over
the head. Both of these could do big damage, and have a chance
for stun. Actually the con fighter skill would be closer to the
mark because it could be made so that you need to be using
a con weapon. Sure something could be thought of for str too.
Anyway this is just to encourage discussion because board is
quiet, and because it generating a bit of discussion in Q&A.
peace
From: Cerberus
Friday, January 26 2001, 07:51PM
-Cackle-
Idea is good, but I think all initiating attacks should require
sneak, hide or invis to stun or para.
From: Skar
Friday, January 26 2001, 07:59PM
First, I don't really agree that str and con need backstab equivalents.
(Well, maybe con... heh.) Second, you wouldn't have to require invisi-
bility or sneaking for such an attack.
Just for sake of argument, an initiating attack for a strength fighter
could be a charge skill that you initiated from one room away from
your target -- you'd charge in and give them a big bash with similar
bash lag on the victim but lots more bash damage. Maybe a decreased
chance of dodging or making the charger auto-rage. Going along with
McDonald's suggestion, you could only charge once in a fight. (In
practice, however, this isn't true -- people wait out the tick limit.)
See? A plausible strength skill that could be tweaked to be as
devastating as backstab, give it a tick limit and you have an initiating
attack that doesn't require sneaking or invisibility.
From: Skar
Friday, January 26 2001, 08:05PM
Not that I think strength fighters need such a skill. Just a thought
exercise. :)
From: Cerberus
Friday, January 26 2001, 09:32PM
-nod Scar-
A good idea too. Maybe it should just be dependant on the skill then.
From: Chaykin
Saturday, January 27 2001, 04:37AM
There's a difference between my backstab idea and your ideas though
McDonald: the change to backstab wouldn't be too hard to do. Your
idea means adding new skills into the game, and the imms have said
several times, recently I might add, that they are not going to do
this until trees go in. They even said it at the Q&A you mentioned.
So why don't we try to focus on solutions that are actually
possible?
Chay blah blah blah
From: McDonald
Saturday, January 27 2001, 11:50AM
I said already I don't care what they are doing. this is just
for discussion. Adding 2 skills would not HAVE to wait to skill
trees, because they would be on the bottom of the tree. Just
like backstab is, but whatever who cares.
If you want to promote your idea or soemthing start a thread
about it. Hard to believe after the way I worded that people
still post negative crap.
Sneak and hide are too limited on this mud. Detect hidden
should not see sneak in my opinion. If you mean if someone
is sneaking they can backstab that might be semi O.K., but if
someone with detect hidden can't be backstabbed I think it
would be sorta bad. Some muds make detect hidden only see
people hidding with a spell. I like it that way much better.
In that system if you use hide spell you can hit enter, rest,
meditate without breaking hide, but with hide skill if you
hit enter at all you break hide.
So really I'm not sure if your idea would make things better
or not.
Another idea is to have the hardcoded awareness flag which
lasts for a tick or 2, be gradual. Ie right after your
backstabbed the awareness is at 100 percent and you can't
be backstabbed, then the percentage would drop each tick
dependant upon certain stats. Does perc make the most sense?
I don't think we need to turn detect hidden into another
awareness flag basically. Too often spells just do too much.
Sorta like detect illusions. Maybe you should have to dispel
magic any illusion even if you know its an illusion.
From: Darkheart
Sunday, January 28 2001, 01:55AM
If it is indeed a perc skill, it should be changed so that the
damage does not depend on the weight of the weapon wielded, renamed
slightly as "surprise attack" and make it available regardless of
weapon used.
Even so i doubt there'd be much change in the emphasis of dex in sniper
type chars due to those two stats going hand-in-hand (another thing
about dex, it's got far more application possibilities imho than other sta
stats), but hey, thought indeed.
Dh
From: Rictor
Tuesday, January 30 2001, 12:25AM
Backstab is a perc skill? My god thats funny, yeah, backstab a perc
skill. So, say I want to make a 100 con 100 perc charecter, I should
be able to backstab with my weapon because its a perc skill right? I
would say unfortunatly, I can't because you need a DEX based weapon
to backstab, thus making it a DEX dependant skill, if not completely
a dex based skill. Yeah, I don't know what the heck all the rest
of you are saying, perc based.
-Rictor
From: Arn
Tuesday, January 30 2001, 03:49AM
Just because you need to use a certain type of weapon for the skill,
doesn't mean that the skill isn't a perc skill. I seem to recall
some strength guy with high perc roaming around and backstabbing
things not long ago then drawing his strength weapon.
From: Testboy
Tuesday, January 30 2001, 06:25AM
You can't land backstabs without dex.
From: McDonald
Tuesday, January 30 2001, 01:18PM
Just think, make these skills and you could have a str perc low
dex char. Str and con could use an attack based on fightstat,
with weapon weight and quality factored in. Would make things
more fun wouldn't it. Making it high perc dependant and prime stat,
would make dex less needed. That sounds like fun. Give Str charge,
and con stun skill. Has chance of knockout on critical hit, but
primarily lots of damage. Hitting someone over the back of the head
with club, Make it not work on aware people. That would be fun I
think.
| 