Shattered Kingdoms

I'd post this in the siege weapon thread, but honestly the title bothers me since it's not really siege weapons by themselves that annoy me.

Here is my issue, if mercenaries want to use ranged weapons fine. They are more tactical than Barbarians. I really don't care. My issue is their ranged damage rivaling and topping scouts.

Why is this an issue?

You never really had multiple scouts at one time mostly because ranged combat, while good, was slightly inferior to sword + face damage wise, but on the flip side was alot "safer" than being front row. That's really no longer the case, and with no real negative to ranged damage to being a mercenary you're trading some utility for a hefty sum more HP. I'll leave enhanced front row capabilities out for now, although you could make a point there as well.

What am I suggesting? A general wimping of ranged combat. Why? Not because it's too good, but because of the inherent fire and forget nature of it currently. No one wants to have to fire off every single arrow, however there also isn't much to typing skirmish adjective.

How to solve this situation.

I don't really care, one solution that ran through my mind was simply making a new slot for a ranged weapon, and limiting the number of attacks per round with it while wielding a weapon in the mainhands, as well as adding a decent timer to wielding a main hand after firing a ranged weapon more than that limit.

You want to focus on shooting a bow/crossbow/cannon, fine. However, you're not going to be instantly switching from firing five shots or whatever to wielding a two-hander/sword+board. You want to fire off a shot or two from the second rank while using a polearm, as long as you're not being directly attacked back? Sounds great. Hell, I'd even say you can get your attacks with the mainhand weapon too. Skirmish allowing you to split your ranged/melee attacks, and both going to the same target without.

Also as a quick aside, scouts would be about to switch from ranged to melee at their leisure with no such timer. This would also make a decent dent in making the scouts the better "wilderness fighter".

Just some ideas to throw out there, cut to shreds as you please.

Yes, please.

It's never really been a problem before, with lone bow-users being the only real users of ranged combat.

Now, however, we have groups of four PCs all with ranged weapons which practically decimate one PC per round regardless of formation.

One of the things I've always enjoyed and admired most about SK is the formation system, which this is effectively rendering useless.

Other muds use 'melee/spell' range to balance this. IE: If one target is targeted by more than 3 players or things, then it can't be hit by anymore despite the fact it is being targeted. Or if three people are typing c 'finger of death' target, a forth casting on target would render the first caster 'crowded' in magic and his spell fizzling instantly.

The same could then be applied for range. *shrugs*

I'm so sorry I made the -leetest possible- ranged combo.

Wait, Hammer would have been better..

Either way, the reason this is being bitched about is that I lead the way.

The code has been set for this for atleast a year.

But stop bitching.

Ranged combat is not the best way to go, unless your a scout or a merc.

Mercs -DEDICATE- one entire spec to it and thus should be better than scouts.

Scouts should be more accurate in my opinion.

Besides that...four bow users taking out one person in a round?

Lets, think about that. Four ANYTHING will take out someone in a round.

A lone rogue that backstabs someone and recites a harm scroll till.

It only depends on if they know what they are doing.

My arguement is that -we do know that we are doing-.

Every tactic can work as effectivly, and every tactic including this, can be guarded against.

I whole heartedly agree to Achernars proposal of the Cover command.

That is all.
I

I've asked a few people to test out whether ranged combat drains any PE. According to their observation, it does not. Now this does not seem logical to me. If you're going to tweak ranged combat, make it so that a significant amount of PE is drained per round. I can guarantee from first-hand experience, that shooting a bow is extremely draining.

I'm still not entirely sure how much the PE drain should be, but I reckon it might be a good idea to make it equal or slightly less than the bonus the 'refresh' spell gives.

Lolth.Do you think that archery should take an equal amount of PE for normal combat rounds?

Loading and firing ranged weapon = to striking and parrying and dodging and shield blocking?

Is firing a bow as tiresome as wrestling an opponant?

If it was in my hand, I'd add a PE penalty for normal combat rounds too. An IMM I talked to about this correctly pointed out that there should be some sort of weapon size/weapon weight/weapon material versus wielder size/wielder strength check. I'm inclined to agree. It'd also give people a reason to train 'move' in order to have a higher PE pool. At the moment, that attribute is useless. Granted, the PE cap for PE trains ought to be upped, or at least made so that each train adds a significant amount to the PE pool. Maximum PE trains atm are at what..3? Yeah, ridiculous. I'm more in favor of option #2 personally, because melee classes need all the HPs they can get, and I don't think people would want to waste HP points in PE.



No, not necessarily. I never wrestled anyone to be able to give you an honest reponse, but I do shoot bows. The whole procedure of loading a bow, keeping your arms at the correct angle etc., is honestly exhausting. The problem here is that if we'd be realistic about everything in the game, we'd obviously have to get just about everything wimped. My suggestion was a balancing one. People have to worry about enough issues in actual melee. Atm, a knowledgable ranged opponent has a clear advantage with a relatively low risk involved. That is what needs changing. Besides, in my eyes it also grants players the opportunity to develop more complex strategies than just typing in 'skirmish xx'.

Okay, I'll admit I didn't really read any of your post. I skimmed it. Why? It's you. It's Qwerty, and reading your posts when nothing is grouped in the slightest hurts my brain.

My rebuttal is as follows.

Yes. Four of anything on one person usually spells death, however please tell me what the counter is other than more ranged combat? That's the problem. Casters? Their HP is so low any hard cast spell isn't going to go off before A: Their concentration is disrupted or B: They are dead. So no spells are hitting those in second row and back. This same thing applies to priests as well, healing themselves and such.

What else is their? Smart ranged combat users are going to be at LEAST second row, which means you're going to require at least a reach weapon, however since the initial weapon changes weapons with reach are almost universally inferior. Throwing that out, it still requires their use, and it's completely negated by being in the third rank.

What does that leave really? Scrolls? Wands? Staves?. There is a limit on the art involved with these for a good reason, that also goes a long way to making it easy for a half-assed enchanted suit to stop these. Then again, the only ones that are going to have a high enough spell level to be worth anything have to found in the game and can't easily or reliably be made by the casters themselves.

So what's the counter again?

At the present moment, countering ranged combat can only reliably be done by ranged combat. That's not only extremely limiting to the combat in the game, but pretty damned silly as well.

So what's the counter again?

To run? I am not sure why everyone is btiching about this. It is not like ranged combat holds you in the Room that you are getting shot. Run away and live to fight another day.

let arrows be dodged/shield blocked, etc, and let spells like armor affect them. Simple enough.