Shattered Kingdoms

I very much like this idea. It sure would make warlocks a lot more powerful too.

On the other hand, I don't agree with skirmish as a skill. It's a fire-and-forget button, and I don't think those should exist at all.

Even the most powerful of ranged spells will do little damage to a prepared opponent while a merc using ranged combat makes a scout using ranged combat look like an amateur. Making spellcasters be able to skirmish will make no difference. One magic missile does not do the same damage as 4-10 arrows/bolts.

Not to mention the lag time on casting is so vastly disproportionate to firing arrows.

How about that "prepared reflect" spell?

You prepare a spell and hold it, and the first thing that hits you the spell goes off without concentration and into any room.

So you prepare magmar and someone hits you with an ambush, they get magmared... then of course you have to concentrate to fire back more.

If you made it have a concentration cost. I actually like it. Implement it!

You're missing the point regarding mercs being more powerful at ranged combat than scouts. Also, this totally negates the surprise aspect of scouts.

Anything you do to weaken ranged combat has to be countered with a buff to scouts, imo.

Instead of wimping ranged combat, just wimp skirmish. Make it only available to a few classes instead of as many that have it now. Scout and Rogue only or so. The actual combat itself isn't too bad.

Instead of wimping it, let's give skirmish a 10% chance to delete any pfile it targets.

I just remembered another draw back to ranged combat in a fight I had today with a scout.

The wind.

Ranged weapons are amazingly inaccurate with a high wind.

So we get a merc with a crossbow that pisses folks off and we decide to pound ranged combat? How does that make sense. If the issue is mercs with crossbows are to powerful either take crossbow away from mercs or take it out of the skills that can be specialized. Why slam skirmish or ranged combat? I dont see either as too powerful. Maybe I am missing something here.