Can you please, please make it possible to parry ranged attacks?

This would be really great even if it was at a slight penalty akin to regular small shield protection (and thus a pretty hefty penalty to the use of large shields by a good guild like a paladin). Maybe barbs and paladins could have this penalty lessened even more.

It's just sad that, conceptually, a character can't roll without a shield without seriously gimping their defenses. It would be different if there was a great reason for keeping parry out of the ranged game, but I can't think of one. Yeah, it's not super realistic that adventurers can parry arrows and spells, but it's a game, and it's not particularly realistic the way most of them use shields either.

parry ranged and parry with a ranged too - penalties of course

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An agonizing pain fills you as you feel your tongue turn to powder in your mouth! Through a haze of uncertainty and loss, you realize that something you just said was very wrong.

Yes, we have plans to address this. I don't know when I'll be able to do it just yet.

The idea is:

Allow you to bonus X skill with Y skill, if Z skill isn't present or allowed to defend against a particular attack, and X skill is all you have to rely upon

The bonus will be capped at % of your Z skill

Defending skill will determine what level of bonus is available

This prevents Z skill from becoming a BAD THING to have in one of your skillsets

Having more of Z skill is always useful

As an example - players with 1000 evasion, 1000 parry and 0 shield will still be heavily encouraged to get more shield skill. After all, shield as a skill must continue to be useful and be a boon to have.

Defense-ignoring attacks of all kinds will be less painful and more balanced. Players will not be required to keep a shield out at all times, but doing so will give a substantial defensive bonus over relying on the cross-skill bonus.

My hope is this compromise can get us to a happy place to continue new development from.

If you want to use a stick bow without a shield at melee, it won't be as painful. Your evasion will get a bonus from your parry/shield skills that aren't actively being used. But you will do better if you hold a shield. You will do better if your parry/shield skills are well trained. You shouldn't get completely creamed when something gets to melee on you, tingles your weapon, or uses a defense-ignoring attack.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>>I would ditch shield so fast, i hate shield with every part of my being, i want to buy up every shield in elanthia and burn them all in a giant bonfire.

There definately needs to be a fine balance here, because the absence of shield also reduces hinderance. So the % would have to be low enough to be worse than the shield's hinderance penalty.

Codiax.
Forged Weapons:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Codiax#Codiax-Forged-Weapons

This sounds like a neat way of implementing the idea, but I would also ask that the formula is a realistic parallel to parry working against ranged, at a minor penalty to the defensive score you can pull off with a shield. If parry completely sucks vs ranged because the penalty is too high, it won't accomplish the goal of adding flexibility to player choices--we will all still have to use shields.

I don't think there should be any major concern that shield is going to be useless. As long as it's better than parry vs ranged to any degree, people will use it.

>>I don't think there should be any major concern that shield is going to be useless. As long as it's better than parry vs ranged to any degree, people will use it.

Experience has proven that to be incorrect. It was always better to use Shield + Evasion, but most players opted to just learn more evasion in 2.0, rather than be hassled with carrying a shield around.


>>If parry completely sucks vs ranged because the penalty is too high, it won't accomplish the goal of adding flexibility to player choices--we will all still have to use shields.

If you have a lot of shield skill then your parry will make an acceptable substitute with a small penalty. If you have absolutely no shield skill, you shouldn't expect your parry ranks to completely make up the gap. However, you won't be contesting attacks with just 1 defense. That is the problem now and is why it is suicide to use a bow without also using a shield.


The problem is really skillsets. Take my WM for example. 500 parry, 300 evasion, 300 shield. It makes no sense to EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!! train shield if parry can substitute for shield at even a 70% efficiency.


Option 1 is we allow your parry ranks to substitute for shield, up to 60% to 95% of your shield score depending on DEFENDING skill and some RND. (Bonus of 180 to 285 ranks)


Option 2 is we allow substituting from 50% shield skill ranks to 70% of parry skill ranks depending on DEFENDING skill and some RND. (Bonus of 150 to 350 ranks)


One is more consistent, but depends very heavily on your actually having working knowledge of a shield.

One has a wider variance, but will be more useful for people who have neglected shield - without making shield useless. Shield will always be more reliable and earning more shield skill will reduce the variance.


Maybe we compute both and take the average?


This is the math problem we've spent too many damn hours trying to figure out. Either we break the game balance even more, or we fail to make anyone happy despite investing too much time developing this thing.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

<<If you have a lot of shield skill then your parry will make an acceptable substitute with a small penalty. If you have absolutely no shield skill, you shouldn't expect your parry ranks to completely make up the gap.>>

This sounds perfect Kodius, and I understand how your formula gets at that where a straight "parry works against ranged" wouldn't. Thanks. For what it's worth, I think option 1 makes the most the sense. I have no problem with the extra work that goes into training shield to get the benefit of parrying ranged; I just like the flexibility of not absolutely having to use a shield to be competitively defensive vs ranged. Option 2 sounds like the penalty could be too harsh, but I suppose that depends entirely on how Defending factors in. I also could be misunderstanding the bonus parenthesis you put in. Is that regarding the RND?

I don't think you break game balance by adding this kind of defense, you just make it easier to balance the DFA-type abilities. For instance, if I shoot at someone stanced to parry, maybe they go through the formula given and get parry applied up to 70% of their shield skill on that roll. But, if I can Burn at them (or replace with eliminate, soul attrition, LB, etc), there's an additional limited on that "second roll" capping their second defense bonus at 50% or something. That gives DFA some teeth, without totally bypassing the skill, and still allows the basic "parry vs ranged" formula to be a generally viable option against regular ranged attacks.

>>I don't think there should be any major concern that shield is going to be useless. As long as it's better than parry vs ranged to any degree, people will use it.

I am having fun picturing a super agile feler snagging arrows from thin air. Fancy and impressive but improbable as opposed to hidding behind a hunk of wood/steel/bone aka shield.

I'd like the above idea IF it had applications on ranged vs pole vs meel.

I can see someoen at range being at a significant disadvantage against a missile weapon without a shield. However as they got closer the advantage of the missle user evaporates. I mean how likely are you to be shot by a bow point blank in the face or a sling or even a crossbow. So something like this:

Missile range < advantage ranged attacker vs opponent without shield (penalty for no shield moderate)
Pole range - slight advantage ranged attacker vs opponent without shield (penalty for no shield light)
Meele range = even steven. Being in close quarters ranged attackers should NOT haven an advantage against opponents.

Shield is what it is; best form of defence against ranged attacks and while folks HATE it especialy the stelthy types whose shield likely laggs 100s of ranks behind their evasion/parry (long old term players). Small shelds dont have a ton of hinderance conbine that with light armors and enough ranks hinderance is negligable. So purely on "OMG i'd lose the hinderance" argument I'd say its not a very valid argument.

>>Odd, I would have thought it would be the opposite way.

Arrows go very fast, bolts faster, sling ammo somewhere in between.

Think a gun and a bullet realy seeing it comming how fast can you duck? on the other hand if that gun is in your face do you think you have a chance at taking out the gunman especialy if he has to use an old fashioned revolver where he has to draw, cock, aim, fire. Takes a while.

Under 20 feet a guy with a knife has the advantage over a guy with a gun. Big study done on this. under 10 feet guy with a knife will almoust always kill the guy with a gun.

What about the velocity of lightning bolt? How about a virtually-instantaneous laser beam of moon/sun light from the sky? 100 lb throwing hammer?

I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that we let the parry-substitute-ranged-defense mechanism proceed however Kodius can make it work, regardless of how we interpret parry vs ranged possibilities in the real world.

The key thing you're missing is that the 21 foot rule assumes an already armed assailant and a defender that has not recognized and identified the imminent threat.

>In the time it takes the average officer to recognize a threat, draw his sidearm and fire 2 rounds at center mass, an average subject charging at the officer with a knife or other cutting or stabbing weapon can cover a distance of 21 feet.

It would be safe to say that a defender at melee range, while not able to react to a projectile in flight, would be actively using his/her melee weapon to keep the attacker from being able to take aim. Less a "you deflect the arrow with your pointy-thing", and more "at the last moment, you knock the bow aside with your pointy thing, causing the arrow to miss."


I would say let parry work with near full effectiveness at melee range, be least effective at pole range (can't actively use weapon to foul their aim, low time to react), and in the middle at missile range (highest time to react). Mythbusters did a bit about someone catching an arrow, and the range involved was around 25 feet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjURNYXoNdM